A tale of two ties: A personal guide to Surving BSchool.

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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 them anyways.


Having spent a fortnight in one such ‘dream factory’ I have finally been offered a rare moment of clarity and introspection. A kind pause to an otherwise unrelenting schedule that has stolen my sleep, and much of my hard-earned inner peace and is making plans to come for my sanity next. 


I will not prattle on about how intimidating the achievements and abilities of my batchmates are, how rigorous the academic schedule is, or how cutthroat the competition can get. All of that is content washed, rinsed, and dried a thousand times over and makes for a boring read. So let me spare you( and future me) and talk about a matter far more pressing. One that I wasn’t prepared for and seems more daunting than any curriculum, overqualified batchmate, or sleepless night. 



Which tie to choose. A conundrum XAT DMs did not prepare me for.
The nature of the course often requires one to be dressed up in business formal (the exact definition of which has been drilled into my mind so many times over the past few weeks that I could probably parrot it in my sleep). And part of the ensemble is a necktie. 

And me, fool that I am, decided to add an additional layer of complexity by packing two. And so now I am left staring at my bedroom wall every day for about 15 minutes looking at 2 ties which were bought as part of an HnM combo offer, one maroon and the other blue with red polka dots deciding which one to wear and which one to leaving hanging(both figuratively and literally). It might seem like a silly thing to concern oneself with- just pick one at random, how does it even matter? And you would be right in most cases. But not here, not in BSchool. For here everything is weighed and measured, its innate value stripped down to its very core, and the magical complexity of a person’s life experiences reduced to mere metrics printed on a standard A4-sized white page. Signed, stamped, and watermarked. And so I stand staring at the two ties, thinking to myself the cost of a wrong decision, the lost opportunities, and the critical pitfalls it may lead me to. 

For about 15 minutes every day, I am frozen with fear, anxiety, and doubt. For 15 minutes every day, I am breathing but I am not alive.


A necktie has been the cornerstone of men’s fashion for centuries. It traces its origin to Croatian mercenaries serving the throne of France. It was popularised as a fashion statement amongst the Parisian elite in the 17th century when a 7-year-old Louis the XIV started wearing them in a schoolboy’s attempt to ape the soldiers he saw marching around his palace. The item of men’s clothing most associated with formality and etiquette was a little boy's costume as he played the soldier. 

I know this fact because my crippling anxiety of floundering at fashion took me down a rabbit hole that ended at this less-than-impressive conclusion. The reason I felt it deserved a mention was to highlight the absurdity of it all.


Essentially that’s was surviving MBA is. To have the clarity and conviction of thought to separate the relevant and useful from the unnecessary, superficial, and downright absurd. With a bustling campus and a million different ‘opportunities’ running in tandem, one must learn rather quickly what is worth pursuing and what best to let go of. This however is a task easier said than done. With so many external influences, fleeting opportunities, and wafer-thin margins, the cost of a single wrong choice can haunt you for years.


Now this is the part where a blogpost of substance would share with you some sort of framework, research-tested methodology, or streetwise wisdom to help you make those decisions. 

This is not that blog post I'm afraid. Rather treat it as a consoling friend who is here to tell you that sometimes missing opportunities is okay. What really get’s to you is why you missed them. Generally, if a wrong decision is due to external influence( read: peer pressure) the regret will weigh much heavier on thy heart.

Best to make your own mistakes…




Coming back to the conundrum of my ties, I received a text from a cute girl I met on campus:

-‘Wear the maroon tie. It goes better with your black suit. You look dashing in it.’


Well, I guess that decides it. Maybe sometimes it’s okay to let peer pressure decide for you. Especially if the whole process is absurd, to begin with.


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