90 minutes: Face to face with a modelling career

Before you start fantasizing me in those Armani outfits and wear that ridiculous look on your face as though the whole idea were preposterous, stop right there! I wasn’t referring to the idea of parading my ugly face with a couple of hairs peeping out of my unshaven chin to the umpteen flashbulbs clicking away at the ramp. Oh boy, I knew I wouldn’t fit there the moment I was born. I’m just talking about the junk that our pot bellied finance professor has been teaching us; or trying to, at any rate.

The subject is literally greek and latin, with beta, lemma, gamma etc occupying most of the discussion. Only the bespectacled boy in the front row gets anything that comes out of the prof’s mouth, or at least pretends to. Turn around and you’d get the impression that here is a bunch of 60 odd sincere students with grave faces working on excel sheets trying out the modeling examples. But what is really going on is hearts, solitaire and pinball. I myself have been caught nodding a little too intelligently, and the prof in his eagerness to showcase the most interested student to the class called upon me to supplement his point. I almost never have more than, "sir, i dint get the last point you made there" to blurt out. Well, if you thought that was sad, once this guy walks up to me in the last row under the impression that I was calling him. Now, how do i explain to him that i was just finding it difficult to balance my head while nodding off????

The PMIR students (the bschool’s special HR programme) wouldn’t know any of this. Why? They have already finished studying whatever is there to be done in HR in the first year itself. They are free to take other electives in the second year. Aren’t they? Yes, but the college wouldn’t allow them to choose finance or marketing electives. Arre stupid, the classes are already overflowing with BM students (the bschool’s general stream MBA, in short the class full of students who have no clue what they want). 99% of BM is doing specialization in finance-marketing… Look at the systems professors, busy swatting mosquitoes. They need some work, at least some half empty classes to go to. So open systems electives for PMIR students. Timepass for both the professors and the students. Ditto with strategy. As for operations, well that is so looked down upon that it doesn’t even fit in as ‘timepass for HR junta”.

The last five terms have graciously presented some of the highest value addition ever encountered in my student life (read subjects I fucked up in grades, but am trying to justify this way..). Take emotional intelligence, for example. The only good thing that ever happened to my life by reading Daniel Goleman’s book was longer sleeping hours. In case you are under the misconception that it was because of some zen-like tranquility that my mind experienced by keeping my emotions in control, let me assure that it certainly wasn’t the case. And if you are wondering why I ever bothered to read it in the first place, it is because our professor devoutly believed in the XXX philosophy even more than the bible he swore by: Thrice the number of lectures, three end terms, three projects….

I look for the silver lining in every cloud. But justifying my bschool stint will be sort of a challenge even for my fiercely optimistic demeanour. Bschool sucks. But I still love it!