Life@IIMB Part-V

A five-day farce!

Things are getting scarier. There was light at the end of the tunnel, or so I thought. Now there is this nagging feeling that it was only a mirage.

You know that creepy feeling that something somewhere is terribly wrong and you ought to know about it, fix it if possible… as it concerns you and the ones you care for… but you don’t know what to do and where to look…

Final Placements of seniors are on now while I write this blog… was there most of the time… and was witness to the drama that is being played out in the MDC lawns… The newspapers will be agog for news of splendid placements and would carry articles that would eulogize the institutes and the MBA program in general. And all the budding MBA-aspirants beyond the walls that surround us here would embark on a journey… a journey fuelled by fragile dreams and delicate aspirations… a vicious trajectory would start all over again.

The placement process at the MBA institutes is a painful one. One would marvel at the way the entire mela is organized and at the sheer scale of it. One would also marvel at how only a few gain out of the process and most are left stranded trying to figure out what could have possibly gone wrong. Having been through a similar process during my summer placements, I thought I would be able to help them out, understand what they are going through. But, I realized that I am still not strong enough… that the vagaries of the process were more than I could take. Looking at people in pain is not easy… and not if a similar pain resides somewhere in your heart too.

One thing which strikes you immediately at the end of the first day of the placement process is that none of the people who are still waiting to get placed deserve to be put through this agonizing process. They are some of the finest brains in India and they don’t need any certificate to prove that they are good. And if nothing else, just the fact that they have the strength to be through all of this is good enough evidence of their capabilities, for me at least. It is not easy to hide from the world the excruciating agony that burns inside. But they don’t need anyone’s sympathy because, if anything, that will only break them down… it is indifference that makes them stronger, helps them to go through it.

Almost like a spider that carefully builds a cob-web for its unsuspecting prey, the MBA institutes ride on the glory of the Day Zero placements. That ensures many things – glamour and exclusivity being two of them. There is no denying that there is no dearth of opportunities for a graduate from a reputed B-School, even for a Day One or a Day Two candidate, and in the end, it all boils down to the abilities that you have. But what is surprising is the way the downsides of the process are played down… and what is highlighted in media is only what would add fuel to the fire.

While a sweeping sense of deja-vu engulfed me the entire time that I was there, I could almost see a similar thing happening to me one year down the line and I kind of feel I don’t give a damn. It is good that I have accepted it now. But does that mean that it wouldn’t hurt when that happened, or that I would stop aiming for the best? Probably not… but then that’s life. Isn’t it?