Adios SOM

Staring at that point of oblivion of sprawling lake in front, one realizes that there comes a time, when you have to look back and smile for all that one has earned and lost. A few friends. A few enemies. A few setbacks. A few victories. A few quarrels. A few revolutions. Like food that’s served, if life was available on a platter, there would be no excitement at all. Let me tell you a story; it could be your story too.

Vito was nobody in the world. He didn’t know what to do with his life; yet he was a guy with dreams. He wasn’t a moron, but an oxymoron. Vito somehow got into SJMSOM. People who knew SJMSOM, called it SOM, and people who got to know of SJMSOM through Vito, called it SJSOM. It was July and it was raining CATs and JMETs in Mumbai. Vito got down at the Thane station. Montana Tony had already reached the hostel and updated on the SOM facebook page about the kick-ass hostel rooms to look forward to. Vito failed to read between the lines. The hostel turned out to be a kicked ass one. He met scores of people – seniors, batchmates, professors, fellow IITians, etc; people of different kinds – artists, management gurus, technical honchos, CxOs. All those were people whom he wanted to be, but never could be.

What followed was a unique experience that Vito would term as “rational attributes of an emotional self”. A lot of those MBA threats that one received from that random B-school friend had come true. Sleep was rare. To meet the EOD deadline, Vito skipped dinner on his birthday. Stubble became a Utopian concept and everyone were scared of those 8 people from SOM ’12. They formally called themselves - Corporate Relations Cell, but looked like Ramadhir Singh’s mob from GOW. Like the climax of GOW2, the Faizal Khan inside every individual wanted to spray thwarting bullets on them, but decided against when better sense prevailed. Dikshas, Continuums, Avenues, Club sessions, assignments, project ppts, announced quizzes, surprise quizzes, midterm exams, term exams, case studies, attendance shortages, labs, self-awareness, depression, frustration, summers preparations, career…the limit of the list tends to infinity. Vito’s first two terms were a reflection of the adage – “Back is on fire / you are in a quagmire”.

December came as a breather. It was time for Mood Indigo, which meant it was time for girls, girls and girls. But, doing an MBA made one ineligible to hit on any girl. To make that worse, Vito was doing his MBA from an IIT. His only solace was the city. Mumbai was better known as Bombay for those who fell in love with the city. Vito enjoyed every inch of the city’s measure with his small group of friends. Second semester began to end with double the amount of workload. But by then Vito had got used to it and didn’t have a clue of what whizzed by him. Through his Summer Internship, he had to travel 60 km every day. Very soon, without a thought of realization, Vito fell for the city and slowly transformed into a Bombaywalla. He appreciated the opportunities Bombay offered but couldn’t decipher her hurry. Shortly after his internship, he started sculpting the three pillars of his life. It read - “Readership, Relaxation and Friendship“, contrary to his school’s pillars of “Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship”. Something he finally learnt by the end of year one.

MBA year two started with a bang, giving way for the new. MIT was in the campus, there were new sets of people to interact with (read juniors), new professors from the industry and academia, new projects (a few fake ones too), swimming classes. Most importantly, it was time for long hair and a time when none would question the beard. Dikshas, Continuums, Avenues continued but they became a congregation of interaction between batches unlike what they used to be in the first year. Travelling to new places inside and outside the country, the year continued with lots of fun and frolic.

Vito, a strong socialist who hated communist ideas was transformed into a capitalist. He joined the MBA programme as a creative person, but ended up ceding to the 2-by-2 matrix of management thinking. He wished those metamorphic changes had never occurred. Eventually, insanity prevailed. Not everyone around him got what they deserved or wanted and finally it was Capitalism that prevailed. He hoped that better things were in store for SOM. Finally, Vito graduated from SOM as a satisfied person. He had got all he wanted, probably because he was at the right place, doing the right thing at the right time. Or probably because he believed that the harder he worked, the luckier he got. Either ways his good life’s clock ticked. Deep within himself he knew that he wouldn’t have learnt so many lessons about life if it wasn’t for SOM or IIT Bombay or the people around him, both friends and irrationals.

Adios Amigo!