Career Crazy

Career Crazy
15th May 2001

It’s that time of year again. Third Year Degree College exams are starting. Bringing with them the end of college life. It’s a new beginning for all of us. What does the future hold in store for us?

It’s amazing that the road ahead can have so many kinks and curves. It isn’t quite the straight and narrow path that Gautam Buddha spoke of. And my path is so crooked that it’d put Capone to shame.

When I was a little boy, I used to read Commando comics. I used to dream about joining the armed forces and performing heroic deeds on the field of battle. I was very determined to become a pilot – and then, one day when I was in the second or third standard, I was gifted with the bane of my existence. A pair of spectacles.

My dreams of flying having been shattered, I moped along for a few years. In the eighth standard, I took up Journalism in school as part of Friday Activities. Every week, a bunch of us used to sit around in a classroom, discussing the latest news, and honing our skills. It was then assumed by one and all that I’d become a journalist or writer of some sort. At the time, I had been writing poetry for five years. The poems all seemed excellent then. Looking back, I realise how immature they were. Three stanzas of four lines each, a rhyme scheme of ‘a a b b’. These poems talked about living under the sea, flying to Mars and John McEnroe.

It is my belief that, if published, these poems would oust the likes of Enid Blyton and J. K. Rowling as authors of best-selling books for children. But, me being me, I refused to publish because I adore Blyton and Rowling.

What might have influenced my decision was the fact that no publishing house of any repute and sense would touch these poems with the other end of a long barge pole.

It was always assumed that I’d study commerce. One day after my SSC exams, I was sitting in my tuition teacher’s house glancing through an Accounts textbook. I fell asleep. That momentous happening made me take up Science. My focus was then turned to Engineering. Dad told me to study Electronics at the HSC level. It’s a basis for IT, he said. Mom’s fancy was Aeronautical Engineering.

I quickly realised that Chemistry remained shrouded in mystery; Physics took a very brutal physical toll on my grey cells and Electronics shocked me. The only practical things I learnt from Electronics were that a soldering iron can get very hot and never to thrust one into a 230 Volt AC power supply. As one unfortunate classmate of mine found out, the results of such experimentation were quite explosive.

I decided that Engineering was best left to others. In a flash of inspiration – that was roundly denounced at the time – I decided to do a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. I assumed that I would take up a nice IT job – so I joined NIIT and planned to appear for the MCA exams.

Then one day I heard of the abbreviation ‘MBA’. Acting on the advice of well-meaning family friends, I enrolled for classes for various MBA entrance exams. I appeared for the CAT. I also appeared for the MCA test conducted by VJTI. In the midst of all this, I noticed an ad in the papers talking about Mass Communication. I gave that test as well.

Thereafter the story is clear. I cleared the admission procedures for SIMC with flying colours. I am now set to take up a career in Advertising after a few years.

Even that is uncertain. Mom and Dad still want me to do an MBA. However, after two years in Pune, I might emerge as a gourmet chef.

The moral of the story is something I keep hearing. Live for the moment, people tell me. That’s when I want to strangle them. When will they realise that I’m a practical Capricorn male? Who’s not happy unless he’s more or less charted out his course for the next five or ten years?

Actually the lesson to be learnt is that studying does not really pay. In the end, just do what you want to do.

So I’m going to be a taxi driver.