aM.Be.A.

Master of Business Administration – The most overvalued, over hyped and glorified thing I have ever pursued in my life. A mere master’s degree has become so important part of my life that I eat, drink, sleep the same – no it’s not about academics – it’s about life itself. At one moment I feel “Oh! Why I landed up here?” and the very next moment is an Aha! moment.

Its now almost a year since I have been here in Mumbai doing my MBA. Sometimes these 11-12 months seem like few seconds because one never realizes how time flies here. You just keep fighting against deadlines. Deadlines for everything… Projects, Presentations, Assignments, Surprise tests, Mid terms, End terms, Placements, Alumni meets, Corporate projects, B-school competitions, Seminars, Extra curricular activities, Festivals…. Huh! I am out of breath but this list doesn’t end here… And even after all this you see lots of parties happening… birthdays, achievements or without any reason… Let’s go for booze!!!! Then there are late night movies, strolls on beaches, an ice cream around the corner, and coffee with few close friends…. Clash of egos, clash of personalities, clash of titans and all kinds of clashes... hence helluva sound…. Remaining awake whole night to complete the assignments or remaining awake whole night just to talk to your best friend coz you don’t find time in the daylight… Doing all this and much more but still one thing remains the same… You just keep running against time and never realize when your next birthday is around the corner…

And sometimes you tend to feel as if time is moving at the snail’s pace. It may be due to the concept of relative velocity. You run as fast as time, so time seems static. Am I talking metaphysics? The monotony of doing the same things again and again and again… similar presentations, sometimes even similar topics albeit with few modifications… just stops exciting you. Surprise tests stop surprising you anymore. Hypocrisy comes to fore. It’s only on your birthdays and achievements that you realize that you have many more friends than you counted on your finger tips the previous night. Few close friends become still fewer. Late night parties become sickening and boozing sessions see the same discussions getting repeated. The Steel Man from our class will always tell that how he worked like a coolie at his sister’s marriage. The fanatic from placecom will give you his old wisecracks. The CFA in making will tell me that why I am a CEO material and I will reply back by saying that I don’t have those big ambitions. The chikna Metro sexual always seems to be assessing what the hot girls in our class think about him and still tells that he doesn’t care about girls. I will be generally stuck up with same issues too. The Cool Maratha will keep advising me on my repetitive mistakes and thus this cycle of repetition goes on and on and on… It seems as if time has come to stand still.

Then at the end of the year you see the light at the end of the tunnel. You get a well-deserved break in the form of summers. So here I am working for 2 months in an organization. If I sum up the entire year, I would say I have earned 3-4 decent friends, and some knowledge. I made so many mistakes, which I will never repeat in life. So that’s a takeaway. I can understand hypocrites and losers better. You know this seems pretty interesting. I read the story of the fox and sour grapes when I was a child. It actually applies pretty well for an MBA. It’s as good as any organizational politics. People never appreciate the winners here. They just try to justify their failures and attribute your success to the most hilarious of factors. I have lost a little bit of purity of mind and of course a hell lot of sanity and inner peace. I have understood the ephemeral nature of success. What else? There’s a lot more to tell but words are difficult to come by.

So at the end of the year I am partial MBA and can proudly say “Main Bhi A” – I m also there. By the next year-end I will be “Main Bhi MBA”. I was trying to find various other connotations of MBA that suits the philosophy of me being an MBA. So here it is to conclude my ideas.

aM – it is present of the word BE. It signifies my existence. MBA indeed has become an important element of my existence today. It defines me in a different hue altogether.

Be – No! No! Not Behzad Patrawalla. It just signifies, Be there, Be present, Be real, Be ALIVE.

A – First letter of the Alphabet. What can this signify? This signifies highest category, the power of ONE.

Well this is getting too much for you and me. So let me close here…