Back to Loyola School
I was very happy to see my school again. Happier, because I will be studying there again.
We are into the 11th std.Thikurishi sir is waiting for us in the classroom.
Students enter the class with folded umbrellas from which water is dripping.
Its the monsoon time in Kerala.
As each guy enters the class, Binu Ninan who is sitting in the front row greets them
in his own way.
I am seated there in 3rd row with a seat next to me lying vacant.
I am expecting Shyam Mohan who had shared the 2-seater with me when we had been here b4
7 years. Its a long time...7 long years...
Before Shyam comes Sanjay enters and sits next to me; but I don’t object.
Then Shyam comes in. He isn’t excited. He gazes all around; might be searching for me.
But on seeing that the seat next to me isn’t vacant he sits elsewhere and tries to make himself comfortable, but doesn’t quite succeed. There is some thought in him that's lamenting him.
Next comes Bebin Abraham. I just wonder why he is here.
He was in London getting trained for flying the Hawk. How come he's here?
I wanted to talk to him. I am excited as I had talked to him over phone in London but hadn’t met him.
Jeevan J Arackal is coming and Abhilash T K is getting ready to bash him up.
Jeevan has worked in some NGO's; it’s going to be nice to be with him for the next 2 years. That was what flashed across my mind as I saw him.
The classroom is almost filled and the students are all talking amongst themselves what they had done in the past 7 years. Oh god they might have some good big stories
as many of them had already completed their management, some others had spent some time abroad. It’s going to take the next 2 years to listen to all those stories.
I am expecting Kushti who was with me in Mumbai. We had a good time in Mumbai.
He's not there. Well he might be busy in his home; in fact in his bathroom with a signboard outside saying "Man at work"...
Suddenly a girl enters the classroom.
She's fair and beautiful. But the first thing about her, which caught my eye, was her nose ring. I realized that Loyola was now a co-ed school.
Everybody was looking at her.
Suddenly Joseph Mathew who seemed to know her b4 suddenly turned to me and said
"She's a Brahmin; she's yours...."
T k who is sitting behind me cries..."No I want her"..
Shyam Mohan who has had his days of romance in college and office is still hungry
as a lover. He shouts" Come on man TK u r married...How can u say that"...
The bell rings. It isnt the school bell; It is alarm bell.
I wake up to realize that I am late for office.
Science says that a dream lasts for 1/nth of sec...
but i guess it was much more than that..
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Friday, February 10, 2006
Question of Choice
The sun was setting in the distance giving the entire horizon a pinkish look; a sight, which I am sure, no one will be able to stop themselves from looking at. For the first time, I looked at the distant horizon. It was vague, bleak and dark; just like our future, I imagined. For the past 2 years we have traveling the same route. I had always enjoyed watching the tiny ripples in the shallow waters of the creek and the white-feathered birds, which fly across them in a group. I had never dared to look beyond these, rather this was the first time I started thinking of our lives ahead. And it appeared to me, vague.
For the past couple of days, ever since the results of CAT came and calls from different colleges started coming, a feeling of disillusionment had begun to set in the once fun filled Helen Villa. The level of disillusionment was ostensibly high in one of my friends, who made his way to the top of charts of the CAT results, yet managed to get only one call. This disillusionment was quite palpable as it reflected in every action and word of his. May be I was seeing someone turning rebellious for the first time, who was completely frustrated with the whole system and tired of the whole rhetoric of why we need an MBA.
Are we getting into a groove from which extrication is not possible? I have reasons to think for and against it. With each year, inarguably we are getting into a position as we climb up the corporate ladder, where we can’t dodge our responsibilities like we had done a year back. The time we can get to spare to prepare for an exam of the magnitude of CAT also gets less.
Once the CAT season ends, we are back in the office gazing at the 14” monitor without even the slightest of inclination to work. And then comes the lucrative onsite opportunity which is nothing but corrupt. It corrupts the aspiring minds of individuals giving them dollars, cars in addition to apartments on the 34th floor from where you get an absolutely fantastic view of the downtown below, and from where you are really reluctant to touch the books which once you had kept close to your heart while sleeping. Rather you stop thinking of your ideals, your dreams that get buried in these worldly pleasures which you can’t even dream of abandoning.
But eventually whom are we supposed to blame? Is it the system, which doesn’t give you enough opportunities to do what you want, rather help identify what you want? Or is this the way it works? You land up somewhere doing something which you don’t know and which you didn’t know when you were doing that either and then you realize that you are unfit for this and start thinking about greener pastures without knowing the plausible fate of what could happen once you land there. No, I wouldn’t blame the confused souls but they are many amongst us who know what they really want but don’t do anything to achieve it.
Because, to achieve it requires hard work and it involves taking certain risks which I am sure they are not going to take especially if they are leading a trouble free life in which they do nothing but some work, sitting in those revolving chairs of the corporate, which even they don’t respect, have lunch from a nearby kiosk with some teammates who add spice to the already spicy food with their lies and comments on how other people in the company walk, sit and… and end their day having vada stuffed inside the bun of the MacWorld along with a tinge of love from their beloved(those who have them..:)).
I don’t hope to awaken those souls who have gone into a slumber but the fact is that nothing is going to happen unless and until you decide that something should happen.
The sun was setting in the distance giving the entire horizon a pinkish look; a sight, which I am sure, no one will be able to stop themselves from looking at. For the first time, I looked at the distant horizon. It was vague, bleak and dark; just like our future, I imagined. For the past 2 years we have traveling the same route. I had always enjoyed watching the tiny ripples in the shallow waters of the creek and the white-feathered birds, which fly across them in a group. I had never dared to look beyond these, rather this was the first time I started thinking of our lives ahead. And it appeared to me, vague.
For the past couple of days, ever since the results of CAT came and calls from different colleges started coming, a feeling of disillusionment had begun to set in the once fun filled Helen Villa. The level of disillusionment was ostensibly high in one of my friends, who made his way to the top of charts of the CAT results, yet managed to get only one call. This disillusionment was quite palpable as it reflected in every action and word of his. May be I was seeing someone turning rebellious for the first time, who was completely frustrated with the whole system and tired of the whole rhetoric of why we need an MBA.
Are we getting into a groove from which extrication is not possible? I have reasons to think for and against it. With each year, inarguably we are getting into a position as we climb up the corporate ladder, where we can’t dodge our responsibilities like we had done a year back. The time we can get to spare to prepare for an exam of the magnitude of CAT also gets less.
Once the CAT season ends, we are back in the office gazing at the 14” monitor without even the slightest of inclination to work. And then comes the lucrative onsite opportunity which is nothing but corrupt. It corrupts the aspiring minds of individuals giving them dollars, cars in addition to apartments on the 34th floor from where you get an absolutely fantastic view of the downtown below, and from where you are really reluctant to touch the books which once you had kept close to your heart while sleeping. Rather you stop thinking of your ideals, your dreams that get buried in these worldly pleasures which you can’t even dream of abandoning.
But eventually whom are we supposed to blame? Is it the system, which doesn’t give you enough opportunities to do what you want, rather help identify what you want? Or is this the way it works? You land up somewhere doing something which you don’t know and which you didn’t know when you were doing that either and then you realize that you are unfit for this and start thinking about greener pastures without knowing the plausible fate of what could happen once you land there. No, I wouldn’t blame the confused souls but they are many amongst us who know what they really want but don’t do anything to achieve it.
Because, to achieve it requires hard work and it involves taking certain risks which I am sure they are not going to take especially if they are leading a trouble free life in which they do nothing but some work, sitting in those revolving chairs of the corporate, which even they don’t respect, have lunch from a nearby kiosk with some teammates who add spice to the already spicy food with their lies and comments on how other people in the company walk, sit and… and end their day having vada stuffed inside the bun of the MacWorld along with a tinge of love from their beloved(those who have them..:)).
I don’t hope to awaken those souls who have gone into a slumber but the fact is that nothing is going to happen unless and until you decide that something should happen.
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