Bakwas Bath

I have often viewed bloggers who would write exclusively about their college or work experience with immense contempt. They’ve infested platforms like Quora and Medium with their one-dimensional paper-thin analyses and rationales and yet built massive followings by preying on the aspirations of an ever-desperate populous. I had actively avoided doing the same throughout my undergrads on this blog. The trick I realized was not to let the college you were attending become your entire personality. It’s a little harder now than it was in my undergrads, partly because the entire curriculum is designed to take up every waking moment of your existence and partly because Jamshedpur is for the most part, ‘not very happening’. I am thus confined to my 40-odd-acre campus for the most part, and with grudging disdain, I must admit that I’m letting it consume my entire personality. That being said:  B-Schools are an absolute circus filled with every type of clown imaginable and that makes for ex...

A gentle warning before you proceed any further: I am writing this article as a manifesto, a call to arms of sorts. One for me to come back to and reflect on from time to time. If you feel dear reader, that you can draw anything of substance from it, I will be glad. If not, well the name of my blog speaks for itself and you should have little reason to be disappointed. An MBA is going to be one of the most demanding, transformative, and enriching experiences. Lines like these litter the pamphlets and brochures of Business School websites trying to sell a dream to bright-eyed graduates.  A promise to give you everything you ever desired, provided you get an admit off course. And slog for two years on a work cycle that will push your mental faculties and resilience like never before. And also pay them a King’s ransom.  But yes, all your dreams will come true. Dreams that were perhaps never your own to begin with but you were told they were important dreams to dream so you dreamt...

The chicken is a peculiar bird. It can't fly, swim or run very fast. It’s neither aggressive nor possesses a beak or talons sharp enough to defend itself. It just lays eggs and trudges along, waiting to be made into nuggets to be offered to guests at house parties and little children for their school lunches. And yet this enterprising little bird carries in its blood the long-forgotten genes of the mighty dinosaurs of eras past, and those silent filial bonds express themselves in one character-defining endeavor which has become the cornerstone of this species’ cultural identity: its desire to cross the road. Which raises the question which has haunted philosophers, biologists, and Reddit shitposters alike: Why did the chicken cross the road? What great primordial need yearend this humble little avian forward as it decided to make the strenuous journey across the river of asphalt, braving the constant barrage of high-speed automobiles and disgruntled pedestrians. What great prize la...

January 2020:  The CAT scorecard flashed on my screen. 96.x percentile was the final score. Not great, but certainly not bad. For a guy who gave the exam just to complete his bingo book of floundering through engineering (at least once try and raise funding for an idea doomed from its inception, flunk one placement interview so bad you go underground for at least a week and spend a semester flirting with the idea of dropping everything for Civil Services are few more honorable mentions). But it planted a seed in my mind that perhaps I should come again later, with better preparation and more conviction of thought. June 2021:  I join work straight out of graduation. And it’s fun. Nice team, cool colleagues, and a very relaxed work environment. No real stress or anxiety of any kind as I begin to learn the nuances of IT. But at the back of my mind, a niggling thought was ever present- What next? Like any self-respecting son of middle-aged Bengali parents, I knew I was expected to...