Reading signs at the cross roads

More than one half of the first term is over and it is time to take stock. What did I have when I came here...not much, I suppose. Unlike the freshers who are here straight out of college, I was one of those who have had the taste of blood and are in to perhaps sharpen their jaws. After two years in Infosys, it could never have been the same thing. I do not know if this is to my advantage or works against the purpose with which people go to B-schools. I don't subscribe to the school of thought that considers inexperience as an advantage or on the other extreme, youth as an indispensable factor in perspective moulding. I believe that there are pros and cons of both and as such, I will win some and lose some.

Right from day one, I had realised that there are people here who are achievers and there are those who think that they are achievers. The real achievers are hardly ever seen in the limelight (not to say that those who are in the limelight do not have what it takes). Almost all those who have done some wonderful work in the past are either too busy with their future to give thought to the present or it may be that the others are too involved in themselves to give these achievers any thought or credit. As against people who have had the courage and expertise to run their own businesses, who have interacted and worked with the best in the world, who have as great an academic and co-curricular record as any one could possibly dream of, I have come here with what can be called a clean slate.

This slate, when written on, should not just be an academic report card. There is so much more to learn from this place and the people. The big question is : Can I do it? The even bigger question is : Will I be allowed to do it? The answer to the first question, as can be seen, is very much dependent on that to the second question. An affirmative answer to the second question means that not only should I be able to establish some rapport with people who might not actually encourage it, but also that I get sufficient learning from the courses at IIMK to at least come to a level where I can also contribute, in some measure, to the discussion with these achievers. The academia in India has often been blamed for not providing just this.

Whether IIMK features in the rule or the exception is something that I will take up in some later post where I want to discuss all the courses taught here and their significance to me and my purpose, both in terms of the effectiveness of the course content as well as the relative efficiency (relative to me, that is) of the faculty who have been associated with the courses.

I am still trying to look at a way to find the first part of the answer. I believe that I can do justice to my efforts to that end only when I have probably interacted some more with my batch mates and separated the chaff from the grain. I am not sure if I am even capable of doing this (am I a good judge of people???) but one thing is certain...I am definitely going to try and perceive the way an individual executes his idiosyncratic beliefs, especially in the hills of IIMK.

Probably a blow by blow account of my perceptions on each of my batch mates' perspectives, expressed through entries of the blog, is one way of going about it. Whether I will take it up depends on a lot of things, even the very least of which is their feeling about being the guinea pigs for my experiment. As of now, I do not even know them all...some of them, not even by name. Perhaps it can be gradual...start recording my takes on them (through the blog or otherwise) one by one. I am sure that with 134 people in the batch, I will be able to know each one before I write about him, even if I take only one day to write about one person.

There have been quite a few comments on this space on the net that I have made my blog, especially after I wrote the now-dead post on the student body elections. There have been people who say (and feel???) that I write well and there have been people who find the blog 'entertaining'. Some call it Baba TV (Baba is the nick that I have been blessed with, here at IIMK) with politics, movies, novels and other such masala in it while there are others who identify on a more psychographic level with what I write.

Surabhi wants to know what she needs to do to get her name into my blog (hey, Surabhi, you got it, I want a treat :-))...Aditya wants me to write something interesting before midnight and warns me that it better be good...Yash says that I need to write soon as things have been dead in IIMK for too long...Akshat wants me to write about things that are not right in the campus...Swapna wants her dose of entertainment that will help her pass the time...

What do I want to do? I just want to write...whatever comes to my mind...my thoughts and feelings...but all aimed at a particular objective...to learn...to adapt and adopt...to evolve...

AIMS, the Annual IT Management Seminar of IIMK, starts tomorrow. With the bigwigs of the Indian IT Corporate world making an appearance, the sessions promise to be interesting. Having been with Infosys for two years, I might even be able to relate to a seminar for a change. Let's see...