The mystery of the unknown B-school

There are times in life when u feel bad, there are times when u feel worse and then there are times when you feel like killing the next person you see on the street. The third situation is one in which I find myself often, especially when I have to explain to random people that I am doing my MBA from a college the name of which is XLRI. Well most of the corporates and the MBA aspirants know of the fact that it is one of the top 5 b-schools in India. But its not these people I am talking about here, it’s the aam junta which is the bone of contention (well theres no bone literally its just a phrase if u are still wondering). These are the people whom I meet on a regular basis, like the neighbourhood aunty whose only source of entertainment is kittie parties and the enigmatic K-serials (no offence to such people I love ekta kapoor and ive always had a secret desire of visiting one of these kitty parties, just that I don’t look like a woman from anywhich way). So to say I was shocked when Kokila aunty who stays on the 11th floor burst into peals of sarcastic laughter when she heard of Jamshedpur would be an understatement, what she also managed in the process is to psyche out my mom completely.

Jab mummy ko doubts aane lage mere xlri jaane pe toh papa kaha se peeche reh sakte thee. So there was this friend of my dad who was kind enough to give my dad the expert opinion that maybe your son is not good enough to do an mba from Mumbai that’s why hes going to Jamshedpur university, and I was like “Hello im not going to any Jamshedpur university I am going to xlri”…. But dad was skeptical for days, convincing him was like bhains ke saamne been bajana, he finally relented…though I still doubt how highly my dad thinks of my mba.

The last category of people are the ones who think that I am working in some tata company in Jamshedpur (I know its ridiculous but in a country where ganpati idols “drink milk” and people watch it on national tv with folded hands anything is possible). These are the people whom I have stopped explaining out of frustration, but the comedy doesn’t end here, when I came back for my summer internship with some phoren bank for only 2 months they were shocked to say the least, giving me looks like “what the hell are you doing finally and kid its time you took control of your life rather than constantly shifting here and there!!!”.

So in a land that is obsessed with the IITs and the IIMs if you are doing MBA from xlri or from some tilak maharaj school of business I guess you will be given the same sympathetic reactions from people around, the sympathy only increases if u r fortunate enough to go to some fancy place like Jamshedpur. So now whenever someone is kind enough to ask me about my college, my strategy is to blurt out the letters X L R I within a second and walk past him, if he knows about the college I suppose he will call me back, if he doesn’t then I don’t give a damn. To be frank I do give more than a damn but don’t wanna put in so much effort in explaining him, though I might rethink if the person is a girl and one who needs to know that after 2 years i would have money enough to take a brand new car and my own apartment in south Bombay, that might make a walking talking disaster like me somewhat attractive to the her wont it???

While ending this post I would like to thank all my admirers who sent in their notes of appreciation after reading my first post, just a small request if you could reduce on the amount of expletives (u know my mom sometimes read my mails and I don’t want her to know how much her son is loved by the people). Otherwise you guys rock and those guys who asked me what was my 1 good thing for the day as I had mentioned in the last post, well I finally cut my toe nails, which by now had become weapons of mass destruction looking at their size, so you see I am doing my bit for the cause of humanity!!!