(In)Finite Dilemmas

(In)Finite Dilemmas…

Call them dilemmas, call them anxieties or coin your own term. The last few months have put me into deep thinking mode, every thought that pinches my mind every step I take, makes me think - the same thing. What will I be doing 5 years from now, 10 years from now and 20 years from now. And more importantly what I ACTUALLY want to do with my life. The Runaway Bride OST sung by U2 goes – “But I still haven’t find, what I’m looking for”. My predicament is, and that indeed is the big question - What do I really want?

All these years, I was supposed to be an IIT-ian Engineer, but as I found out, I wanted to be an IIT-ian first but had no option but be an Engineer (c’mon don’t tell me that they offer pure sciences and that they are worth doing) When I now look back at my coursework for IITJEE preparations, I laugh at myself, sometimes aloud. Was I studying fluid dynamics? Was I reading how nucleic acids and proteins interact? Was that exciting me by any sense of the term? Was I happy doing that? Would I have liked that as a career? I have very strong doubts. Throughout my life however I have been stronger (both in terms of aptitude and attitude) at Mathematics, English and Social Sciences (till class X). So come to think of it this way, Economics was much better for me as a career option, and now this is what I am doing. So screwing up IITJEE was might actually have been a blessing in disguise. Bloodlines alone don’t and shouldn’t dictate anyone’s future (Dad’s an IITian and hence that naturally meant I HAD to be one, no other option granted)

This whole year I’ve spent my time doing what I liked (wholly and fully). I’ve tried my hand at quizzing (good beginning, but a long treacherous road ahead), dramatics (sound tracks, but no real acting, I hope to continue) and devoted almost all the time organizing events for – Placement Cell, Debating Society, Commerce Society, Mathematics and Computers Society et al. I swear by God, that each and every non-academic thing that I did this year was AMAZING, and I must admit, three years of extensive IIT Prep killed many of my so-called-creative-talents, and some of them (thankfully) have suddenly found a new lease of life, like writing, and reading magazines, journals, books and blogs. My violin got me a Mr. Talented tag during the Freshers for the record, and positive events around me have kept me both busy and happy.

Now of course, there’s a problem of another kind. I just haven’t studied for the entire year – a couple of weeks during Home Examinations notwithstanding. Now suddenly I wake up, it is a couple of weeks into March and the exams begin early April. A hydra-headed monster called Final Examination suddenly stares down upon me in the most bloodthirsty manner, and I don’t have any weapons to fight it. I stand completely unarmed. But then, is assuming the Final Exams a hydra-headed monster an overestimation? Is it really worth all the hype? Does anyone care how much you’ve scored in the first year of your graduation? Does anyone say – “Mr. X pursued his under-graduation from SRCC and he scored a 72.4% in his first year!”? Well, not that I’ve heard of. So the question is, “In the long run do the first year scores really matter”? And my answer is definitely NO! Should you pass and try scoring a ‘decently’? Yes, but decently shouldn’t mean obscenely. What’s the point sacrificing the much-touted-for ‘college-life’ for a few extra percents in your final exams? How many people have I not seen crib as they “Didn’t make most of their college life” as they “Only Studied!” and that the “Time has all gone” What’s important is living life to the fullest, making the most of what comes our way. College life is the stage when boys turn to men, when leaders emerge out of ordinary folks, when your creative talents are put to the limits, when you compete with the very best in the country in sports, debating, drama etc, when the idealism of youth is actually put to practice, where dreams are dreamt and act as springboards for future. If all this is to be put on hold, just because someone wants slog his way up to the topper’s charts, at the expense of all this, may God give him some sense!

I’m not saying – “Don’t give a damn and fail!” Absolutely not! But the message should be taken in the right spirit. This is the age to dream, and ask yourself what you want. This is the age to know what your passions are, so that you can later turn it into your profession. Wouldn’t turning your passion into your profession be an absolute delight? Every successful person you meet or hear of had it all planned in his or her early years. Jamsetji Tata always had an entrepreneurial zeal in him, Shahrukh Khan always wanted to be a movie star, Sachin Tendulkar always wanted to play for India, Ronaldinho always wanted to win the World Cup. The word to note is ‘always’. Think of something that you ‘always’ wanted to do or would want to do it for a career. Think of how you want to be remembered when you leave the world. And your answers will emerge. Remember, it is just that much necessary to study so as to enable you entry to the biggest and best institutions in the world, where you would meet the brightest people and know how they plan, what they think and how they act. If that requires effort, put that in. For example: Studying for your GMAT for the much-coveted HBS seat would matter in the long run; studying for IITJEE for the entry into the IITs would matter in the long run so on and so forth… The only thing to probe is what you want to do and how you see yourself achieving that goal of yours.

Taking a very personal example: Do I like Economics? Absolutely, without a shred of doubt. Do I see myself as a Member of the Planning Commission 35 years later, spending my life researching about an obscure topic and earning a pittance? Impossible, NEVER! Do I want to see myself as a person with amazing leadership capacity, excellent organizational ability, good awareness of the world around, great communication and interpersonal skills wanting to pursue an MBA from an Ivy League University with a good base in Economics? Oh hell yeah. So would my first year percentage during under-graduation matter? (Provided I don’t screw it up very badly that is) Not at all! But will all the non-academic yet exceedingly important skills naturally come to me if I just kept slogging for five extra percents? I don’t think so!

So there you are and there I am! Yes, I need to study; yes I need to score ‘decently’ (the word again!) But should that be at the expense of something I care, at the expense of something I cherish? I don’t think so!

Anyway, is the DU Economics degree exceptionally good by any standard? Any? No. It is an average course. There are a lot of things that we should know of, that are covered, but yes, just covered. And then there are a plethora of things that are just not touched upon. Nothing that makes you think, and this is what lacks. Is there any incentive for a student to study the MIT Courseware to know what he’s missing? Or to read The Economist or the WSJ to keep himself abreast with what’s actually going on in the world, and how the economics we study is actually working there in the real world? No. This violates even the first principle of economics that we studied – “Human beings respond to incentives” Sometimes a student who writes that tad bit extra is penalized. The reason? “That wasn’t mentioned in the book. You first write what’s given in the book. Then write other things.” But what if his example is better? Sorry, you can’t write that… this is DU. What if your paper is corrected by some teacher in the Ramlal Anand college, who hasn’t even heard of the Wall Street? So, come to think of it, even reading economics might not help. You just have to read the prescribed books and give those very examples when asked. No other information is warranted. Is it how we want tomorrow’s Indians to be? Well, I’m not asking any more questions.

But then, am I enjoying whatever I’m being taught here? The ‘important’ subjects (and I include English among them)…YES! So should I be studying a bit more than I presently am? Yes, considering that I don’t have any other ‘constructive’ thing to do, and that a few extra percents wouldn’t obviously hurt me in anyway, and can only help me, maybe I should actually give studying a try. So was all this exercise futile? No, no… It made me think. The infinite dilemmas certainly seem finite now.

I just figured out, as I went along writing this down and as I rambled along, I guess I found a few answers hidden somewhere beneath these lines. I atleast am able to fix a few pieces up the jigsaw puzzle of my life. Now, I see hope and I see light. The cerebral masturbation might just have helped!

PS: Though I meandered around points and ideas, and vagabondize the entire piece, it categorically put a lot of things in perspective. I am no one to advice other people, after all what credentials do I have? However, I felt that, there might be others facing a similar predicament, and might be groping for excuses. Here were mine, but I somehow reached a few answers (inadvertently albeit)