by Karan Bajaj
The dope seemed to be a real downer today. It was making me think of all sorts of things that I didn’t want to think about. Was my sometime success at school in the US based only on the fact that real competition was elsewhere? Why was I here? Why was I anywhere, for that matter? And finally, the mother of all questions—what exactly was the nature of existence and why were there always more questions than answers?
I realized I had asked the last question aloud. Sarkar dragged on his joint and drawled, ‘Samrat boy, your problem is that you think too much. Just accept that there are no answers anywhere, man; it’s the nature of existence. Hmmm… do you want to know my take on that?’
I didn’t really, but there would be no stopping him now, I knew. Sarkar sounded just like Peter did when he was stoned. Peter would walk into my room, baked as a cake, and lecture me for hours on religion and philosophy and remember just about nothing the next day. There is no difference between people when you get into the real heart of things, I thought. American, Indian, everyone was essentially the same when it really came down to it. But life is so much about the superficialities that differences always appear starker than the similarities. Gosh, I thought, that stuff we’re smoking must be strong. I sounded like one of those ‘The World is a Family’ tree-hugging, planet-saving bastards.
‘Where are you lost, man?’ Sarkar asked. He was itching to hear himself talk. ‘I was talking about the nature of existence. Well, think of the smooth, even circumference of… of say, this book.’ He picked up our marketing textbook, which looked brand new, probably because he had never bothered to open it. ‘Now, imagine the surfaces of hundreds, millions, billions of such books stacked together. What do you get? A never-ending plane that just goes on and on, no beginning, no end, just flowing, it just is. That is what existence is. Me, you, everyone—we are mere specks on the surface who just come and go, the plane exists as it always did. Captain Ahab realized it too late; the sea rolls on as it has for a thousand years.’
Infinite planes and Captain Ahab—I felt even more confused than before. Which of my questions was he answering? He just liked the sound of his own voice, I concluded. Vinod seemed to agree.
‘Didn’t I tell you to stop talking nonsense when you came back?’ he said. He screwed up his nose and flapped his hand in front of his nose. ‘I survived the war, now I’m going to die of second-hand smoke. What’s up with you, smoking like a Himalayan hippie? Aren’t there more tasteful ways to kill yourself?’
‘None as satisfying. The whole cycle is fundamentally wretched; the unknown vacuum inside us can never be filled,’ said Sarkar. ‘Doom is inevitable, so I embrace it. I enjoy this… this slow, deliberate destruction. Kind of like a moth slowly flirting with the flame instead of being surprised when it’s thrust in by an unknown force. It gives some meaning to life.’
‘Maybe you should smoke less,’ said Vinod. ‘Life will appear less hazy then.’
Sarkar extended the joint to him. ‘Try it sometime. Everyone needs to puff the magic dragon once. It gives a whole new dimension to things.’
‘Sure thing,’ said Vinod sweetly. ‘This is next on my list, after trying the herbal supplement which promises me an extra five inches, giving my internet banking password to the Nigerian who wants to transfer $50 million into my bank account and applying the cream that’s going to “give my bomb a longer timer”.’
‘Oh damn.’ I got up with a start. ‘I have to meet someone for a coffee date. Hell, I think I’m late already.’ I’d been reminded of the date by the ‘extra five inches’ and the ‘male-enhancing cream’ comments, which made me feel vaguely ashamed.
‘Who?’ said Sarkar and Vinod together.
‘A girl,’ I said. ‘I gotta rush now.’
‘Are you gonna let us know or should we follow you?’ Sarkar said.
‘Don’t follow me. She is a happy camper, I don’t want to depress her,’ I said.
‘Very funny. It’s Nandini, isn’t it?’ said Sarkar. ‘She is my classmate from IIT. I know what kind of guys she likes.’
‘I am neither confirming nor denying your hypothesis,’ I said, mimicking the statistics professor.
Vinod whistled. ‘She’s cute—and tall, too. I should take some tips from you.’
Sarkar was grinning from ear to ear. ‘Why are you smiling, you bastard?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘What?’ said Vinod.
He drew an imaginary circle in the air. ‘This is a circle,’ he said. He drew a line in between. ‘This is the diameter.’
I looked at him quizzically.
‘You’re at opposite ends of the diameter; she’s gonna break your balls,’ he said soothingly.
‘Opposites attract,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘Let’s see about that. We’ll be waiting here when you get back.’
‘Don’t count on it. I might not be back tonight,’ I said as I walked out of the room.
I hurried to the cafeteria, our meeting place, my head a bit cloudy from the grass. I stepped into the bathroom outside the cafeteria and washed my face. I looked terrible. Grimy, puffy, red-eyed, stale-smelling breath—I wondered what she saw in me. Technically, she hadn’t asked me out, but she had dropped as many hints as possible. Or at least used the Business School version of pick-up lines. (‘I studied in Philadelphia in the eighth grade,’ she had said, ‘I would love to hear your perspective on the differences in the education system between the US and India over coffee some day.’) Very sexy.
Nandini was waiting in the cafeteria.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ I said. ‘I lost track of time.’
She was tall. She must have been at least 5’10”, barely a few inches shorter than I was, pleasantly slim, medium-length light brown hair and a determined though kindly look on her face. Smiling, she extended her hand.
‘No worries at all.’ She smiled awkwardly, brushing her hair back with her free hand.
Now it struck me why she had seemed vaguely familiar. She reminded me of Dominique from Fountainhead, the wet dream of all the misfits in the world.
‘It’s a miracle you came at all, given that you hang out with Shine Sarkar.’ She smiled.
I laughed. ‘You know him well?’
‘We were classmates at IIT,’ she said. ‘Technically, that is. He would rarely grace us with his presence in class, though. But he was famous, notorious, rather.’
‘I can imagine,’ I said.
‘What about you? Were you a good student at school?’ she said.
‘Just about average,’ I said.
‘Come on, don’t be modest,’ she said. ‘Someone said you were a valedictorian at Yale.’
Rumours like these made me appear even more foolish than I was. I wasn’t just letting myself down, I was letting the entire American education system down. I felt proud of this momentous accomplishment.
‘Are you enjoying school?’ I said, changing the subject.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, her face lighting up. ‘Business school is so much more interesting than engineering. I find everything fascinating. Economics, marketing, finance, organizational behaviour, it’s all new to me. But you must have had a lot of exposure to all this in banking, right?’
Uh-huh, another touchy subject.
‘A little bit,’ I said. ‘Are you planning to go into banking after this?’
‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Management consulting.’
Another 100-hour-a-week job that rivalled banking in its soullessness. ‘Why?’ I asked.
‘My goal is to be a CEO of a Fortune 100 corporation. Management consulting helps you get there fastest. After five years of consulting at Mckinsey, I want to move into an internal strategy role at a large firm. Two or three years of that, and I will be given operating responsibility, the fast-track path to becoming the CEO,’ she said.
‘Okay,’ I said. I was beginning to float as the marijuana began to hit me again. I tried to get a grip on myself.
‘What about you?’ she
asked. Her voice seemed to come from far away.
‘What about me?’ I said.
‘Are you going to join a bank after school?’ she said.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘There are so many different subjects in B-school. It takes some time to figure out your real passion,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said. With the way I was going, I thought, I’d be lucky to find a passion on my death bed.
‘What about your long-term plans?’ she said.
‘Long-term plans?’ I repeated dumbly.
‘I mean, would you rather be a CEO of a large corporation or run your own business?’ she said.
There was never going to be a second date, I knew. The only people I attracted or get attracted to were misfits and oddballs, and she was neither. I gave up trying to concentrate and let the weed kick in.
‘Neither,’ I said.
A few more ‘no’, ‘neither’ and ‘I don’t know’ about my future plans followed.
She frowned and said something. By now, I was too toasted to understand what she said, but I liked the way her scowl reached her eyes. She had a frantic, rushed air about her, as if there were a million places she wanted to be in simultaneously. She spoke again.
‘What?’ I said, trying to look away from her eyebrows. She looked at me impatiently.
‘I said, what do you want to be?’
I was silent for a moment. ‘A writer,’ I said. This was the first time the thought had entered my mind, but I quite liked it. ‘Or maybe a film-maker.’ Which sounded even cooler.
She frowned again. ‘Shouldn’t you be in film school or a creative arts school or something then?’
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘This conversation has been really helpful. I’m going to seriously think things through now.’
I could feel the laughter rise within me. I was about as serious about joining film school as I was about being in business school in India—which wasn’t saying much.
She looked at me as if she didn’t trust me.
‘So, what are your hobbies?’ she said.
‘I like reading,’ I said. Which was true. ‘Business books, management literature, etc.’ I was being mean, I knew. And didn’t want to be. It was an irrational act of rebellion against a world where everyone seemed to know exactly where they were going. Except for me and my buddies, that is.
I missed them, all of a sudden.
‘It was a pleasure to meet you. Good luck with the course,’ I said.
She left after saying a terse goodbye. I started to feel bad for behaving like an asshole, but immediately forgave myself. She’ll be a CEO one day, I told myself, while you’ll still be a mid-level manager pushing paper in some godforsaken organization and cracking bad jokes to yourself.
I glided to Sarkar’s room.
‘… nonsense, you’re just a privileged SOB,’ Vinod was saying to Sarkar as I entered the room. He turned around.
‘Ah hah! Welcome back,’ said Vinod. ‘Aren’t you back a little early? I am glad you came, though. The Buddha here was talking about suffering being the nature of the human spirit and how happiness lies in its acceptance. I’m tearing up at the nobility of this great soul and how much he is suffering. Just look at him.’
Sarkar was sitting as I had left him—head leaning against the music system, one hand on his temple, a joint in the other hand. He smiled lazily.
‘So did she approve your five-year plan and your ten-year plan? Are you preparing a report on your vision, mission and goals for your next date?’ he said.
‘Bastard,’ I said. ‘You should’ve warned me beforehand.’
‘You said opposites attract,’ he said. ‘And I wanted to give true love a chance.’
Vinod guffawed. ‘If God made you Cupid, I would swear off love.’
I leaned against the wall. From the quiz in the morning to the hunt for weed to the stoned date with Nandini, it had been an exhausting day. The sound of the guitar reverberated against the walls and the drums seemed to thunder away at the bottom of the room. An irregularity on the adjoining bright whitewashed wall distracted me. I peered harder: a nail. Probably the last occupant of the room had used it to put up a poster or a photograph. Sarkar’s walls were bare. No photographs, no posters, no memories. It occurred to me that he never talked about his family or childhood. I continued to stare at the nail, wondering disconnectedly why a blatant extrovert like Sarkar was so quiet about his personal life. But I was too much at peace to ask him.
Sarkar and Vinod seemed to have fallen silent as well. Perhaps that was all there was to it, I thought: a joint, good music, friends with whom you could be as comfortable in silence as in conversation, a desire to be in no other moment but the one you were in. It wasn’t all that complicated. Maybe this was my long-term plan.
Vinod and I finally made our way out of Sarkar’s room at dawn. Sarkar whined as usual at seeing the party break up.
‘Stay a while, guys. Let’s have breakfast before we go to sleep,’ he said. ‘Seriously, what do we have to worry about? Soon we’ll have large multinational corporations throwing big fat bones at us so that we become their loyal dogs for life. Really, whether we have ten-year plans like Nandini or not, it isn’t as if getting a job is a matter of life or death for us.’
6
Getting a Job Is a Matter of Life or Death
Soon, I settled into a life of unhappy mediocrity. The results of the statistics quiz came back. I had scored a nine out of fifteen, falling somewhere in the centre of the batch. It was true after all, what they said about the stats quiz: it became an indicator of my future performance at the institute. Multiple quizzes across a range of subjects cemented my position as a consistent mediocre performer with little deviation on the plus or minus side.
I guess it would have been fine if, like Vinod, I was broadly contented with my lot, happy about exploring new areas of study and accepting that my colleagues were better suited to perform in this situation. Vinod had made six out of fifteen in the quiz and was firmly in the bottom quartile of the class, but it didn’t seem to bother him too much. Examinations, according to him, were a necessary evil en route to a broader awareness of the world via the B-school curriculum. He was fine to just be here. But that was Vinod, and this was me. I was so driven by a need to achieve and be respected for my achievements—whether they mattered to me or not—that I felt acutely depressed at being just another student trudging with my books to the classroom, a face in the sea of faces around me.
Every day, I struggled with the same questions. ‘Why am I here? What truth am I discovering, closeted in this campus twenty-four hours a day? Didn’t I see more of India in the US via the regular dose of Mom’s Bollywood movies and Indian magazines? Why am I sitting in India reading management books written by American authors? God, let me just graduate quickly and end this torture. Do I even need to graduate—why can’t I just leave now?’
To nobody’s surprise and everyone’s envy, Sarkar became one of two students to get a perfect score in the statistics quiz and he continued his astonishing run in almost every other subject except organizational behaviour. OB became Sarkar’s bête noire as he struggled with the pretentious essay-type questions. His strained relations with the subject deteriorated further when he submitted a two-line assignment that begged for reams and reams of paper. It was our end-term project: ‘Describe three incidents in your life that gave you a deeper insight into yourself and shaped your personal leadership values.’
The class went berserk inventing glorious incidents of profound enlightenment and many trees were felled in the heroic quest for getting a good grade in this pointless assignment. Sarkar wrote what everyone wanted to write: ‘My leadership values are constantly evolving. I’m unsure whether I should define them at this stage without taking on more serious leadership responsibilities.’
Period. No incidents, no explanations.
The professor was convinced he was being mocked, and Sarkar’s final grade in t
he course turned out to be a D. But then, like Vinod, he genuinely didn’t care.
Nonetheless, but for OB, Sarkar was unstoppable and ruled in every other subject including ‘softer courses’ such as marketing and managerial communication. Life isn’t meant to be fair, and our class arrived at that harsh realization when a pill-popping, chain-smoking, alcohol-abusing, marijuana addict effortlessly rose to the top of the class even as the rest of us spent night after sleepless night hanging on, just trying to survive.
In direct, almost poetic contrast, the other person to score perfect marks in the statistics quiz was my other neighbour, Chetan. He was blatantly, unapologetically chasing grades, and remained under constant duress as he saw Sarkar snapping at his heels for the Presidential Gold Medal awarded to the top ranker of the class. It was almost comical to see the tense, always-on-the-edge Chetan chasing the nonchalant Sarkar after every quiz to benchmark his scores. Chetan lived in a state of perpetual anxiety—the anxiety of falling behind someone in a quiz, of not getting the highest-paying job on campus, of losing the Presidential Gold Medal. For me, he symbolized the paradox of how one requires almost no ‘management’ skills to be the best manager at the best B-school in India. I could safely say that Chetan had no desire to ever ‘manage’ or ‘develop’ anyone else’s potential save his own. Even in that, he was so insecure about his abilities that he was phenomenally indecisive, agonizing to death over the smallest decisions. (‘I can’t decide whether the footnotes in each page should be font size eight or nine. Nine looks better but will the professor cut marks for using an odd-numbered font size?’ he said in one of our project group meetings.) However, his indecisiveness, poor communication skills and unabashed self-promotion did little to prevent him from becoming the lead runner for the Best Manager of the Batch medal.
Better Chetan than me, I thought one particularly frustrating day, as I struggled with a statistics problem due for electronic submission in less than ten minutes. I was in the computer lab at 1:50 a.m. and, as usual, I was countering sleep with multiple cups of strong tea and cigarettes, fighting the urge to rush to Sarkar for help once again.