The transition

Employee 089478 of Aditya Birla Group is now Student  Roll No 6614008 of IIMA-PGPX for the batch 2014-15. Its 2 weeks now and the reality seems to be sinking in that for the new 11 months, you are 'berozgaar' and 'back to school' . The hallowed red bricks of this campus have been a venerable lot. Year after year, they've been an aspiration for thousands of graduates of this country. So were they for me. And through a quick turn of events, you land here. For aspiration to the sense of 'deja vu'. Quite a transition.

This place truly has a 'soul' as one of the professors put it aptly. Quite amazing. Everyone in the system is so proud of the work he/she is doing and unwilling to compromise even an 'iota' with excellence . No wonder they have interesting stats to boast of. Its said that one-third or probably more of the CEOs in India have had their introduction to professional management at IIMA. The method of imparting education takes your thinking faculties to an altogether different orbit. Be it open book exams or case studies pedagogy. While the former makes the traditional system of 'learning by rote' appear such a ridiculous waste, the cases (Harvard/Standford/IIMA) force you to think so much, first at the personal level, then brainstorming in the syndi meets and finally the class where solutions that emerged was completely out of sync with your initial experience. I must be thoroughly convinced about what I think, must have the capacity to defend that viewpoint and then the finally the flexibility to change if proven. Quite a transition.

The interaction with the 84 other PGPXers  is again quite an experience. When you walk in this campus, you are like this 'big guy' in your individual domain and when you talk to people around coming from such diverse cohorts, you feel quite a tiny spec in this universe of excellence. The initial few days teach you to try to be comfortable in your own skin. "I am good and you are also good". You know its futile to compare yourself and get sucked into this vortex of inferiority complex- "I am not good but you are good" mode. And with the quality of people around, even James Bond cannot dare utter "I am good but you are not good". Quite a transition.

Sleep suddenly has become a scarce resource - a luxury. You have your rendezvous with night outs at syndi rooms. Suddenly with two cases-one each of ACCV and DOMD and a FAM quiz, your mental faculties are zapped and you wish to sleep but the conscious as well as sub-conscious mind refuses to allow you to have that pleasure.  You remember those golden days of 8 hours sleep and realize that you've undergone another transition

And finally you realize that you must learn to value the gifts that have been bestowed on you and which you didn't value as much as you could have. The moment the Indigo flight to Ahmedabad is announced for departure, you shudder at the realization having dawned in that finally you are going away from home, sweet home. That the warmth of people around (whom you even took for granted) would get reduced to 5 minutes phone/skype calls and you would be savoring those moments for the entire day.  Because when you lose them ( at least for now) , your heart wrenches. It yearns for the Mom by the side who used to keep pestering you to eat another chapati and you would simply say that I am getting late and walk off.It yearns for the mirth in' the eyes of that young daughter who now points to the "computer screen" when asked "Where is Papa. And you learn to live with this temporary pain (albeit partly offset by the warmth of people around). Quite a transition.