Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Year thats gone by !!

Over years I have seen time fly by silently causing few additions in our life, a few subtractions here and there. It’s a little bizarre how things that mattered to you, people who you were close to some years back are complete nonentities. Well as a matter of fact I don’t know about 99.99% of the total people whom I have known or interacted with. Its only the rest 0.01% with whom I am in touch.

This year has brought about a massive change in my life. This year is undoubtedly defined my life per se. I have finally gotten out of my college years and into the big bad world of work life. When I had joined Lucknow, I had no inkling of what was in for me. I did not know what management was, and even failed to answer the very basic question asked in all B-school interviews, WHY MBA?

But 2 years in IIM L was one thing that relished fully for the first time. During hours of retrospection I always wondered how much more could I have enjoyed, gained and accumulated in my years in school in DPS Mathura Road and subsequently in DCE. I carried a slight guilt of not making the best of the opportunities presented to me. I mean not just academically but also socially I never did enough to grow as a person. But two years of Lucknow were hectic yet very enriching. Interacting with some of the best brains, partying with some of the party crazy people, competing with some of the very best, vacationing in Europe for like 6 months and finally managing to bag one my personal favorite job while rejecting my second favorite is something to relish.

So while I began the year partying in the lawns of H4-5, wherein I still remember wearing my leather jacket and long locks, I ended the year with cropped hair in a nice attire in an overcrowded club with rowdy crowd in Colaba, Mumbai!
Things change with time, and I am not the ones who get nostalgic and try to fight change, but this is one thing that I was/am not ready for.

So I started off 2007 with booze in the Insti party followed by 3 months of back braking efforts in trying to make a CV and finally preparing for interviews. I still remember the CV versions. These version numbers easily ran into hundreds. Also variants for consulting, finance, marketing and some even HR! The days were spent trying to meet deadlines for submissions while the night were for group study consisting of Aman, Shefali and me trying to prepare interviews!

Finally the D days arrived and fortunately nearly all of us got multiple offers and got to choose the offer which we really wanted. Placement euphoria was followed by the trip to the Himalayas and finally back for the convocation. I still remember my last couple of nights wherein I went with friends to all the places on campus that mattered. Climbed up the tower in the football field to have birds view of the campus. Walked though the ops tent, the controls tent and looked at the littered cigarette butts. Last minute downloads from DC++ to last a lifetime. Meeting hundreds of people, some probably for the last time!
It was like life will never be the same. And probably it is not the same!

Then time at home. It was the longest vacation in a long time and was spent with both hopeless laziness and exuberant expectations from the future job. The two months at home became a little too much and finally when the call came from DB Mumbai, I had already packed my bags and was off to Mumbai.

Life, or rather work life in Mumbai for last one year has been eventful. So lets leave that for the next blog!!

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