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B-schooled Episode # 3
Time Machine
Let me begin with an unheard of, life-changing quote: “Time and tide wait
for no one.” Now that I have got everyone’s undivided attention, let me
elucidate. The reason why “time” is important is that time is the main
ingredient of the one thing that sets apart highly evolved carbon life forms
– memories. Think about it. If the notion of time didn’t exist, memories
would be unheard of.
Anyhow, let’s get back to our good old friend, Joey. The one thing that was
never in short supply in Joey’s metabolism was confidence. Irrespective of
how ill prepared he was for any occasion, “killed it” and “nailed it” were
common quotidian verbal spears hurled from Joey’s larynx. Flabbergasted by
Joey’s answers at a job interview, the interviewer said, “You seem to give
the most discernibly wrong answers with a staunch, confident face.” To which
Joey replied, and I paraphrase, “Confidence, my friend, is all I have got.”
Such was his unbridled confidence, unsubstantiated confidence perhaps, but
confidence nonetheless! This confidence, backed by his very own indigenous
aloofness, had him believe that he would be never short on time in his B-
school escapade.
Fate and irony collude and prey on the Joeys of this world ... and this time
was no different.
Right from his fledgling days at his new school, he could see his confidence
as well as his time constrained by the rigours of the new life he had
chosen. The only interaction Joey had with his flatmate through the entire
first week was the latter banging on the bathroom door shouting, “Get the
@#$% out” followed by “@#$% and @#@$!” Joey didn’t even have time to get to
know his flatmates. Once lectures and homework started to take their toll on
his once skyscraper high confidence, Joey did what the rest of the world was
doing – make timetables (by now, his campus and its people were his world)
He spent 20% of his time making timetables, “breaking” them and then
“picassoing” them again. Thirty percent of his time was spent wondering how
in the name of the MBA God did they get so freaking good at playing with
time.
He even tried shadowing those who “wielded” time so well. Needless to say,
it was a lost cause.
In a place where deadlines expired “yesterday” and the number of hours in a
day were “25”, there wasn’t much he could do but be servile to time. But,
what’s a story without a happy ending, eh? Not a great one I say.
As they say, “don’t judge a picture by its thumbnail.” You need to put in
the effort to critique every pixel before you make up your mind. The
reprobate picture painted by Joey did have a shimmer of light after all.
When the world takes something away from you, it gives you something in
return; and, in retrospect, the unfairness seems worthwhile. As someone
rightly said, “This place doesn’t give you time, but it does give you
friends. And that’s kind of the same thing.” Joey soon realised that even
though it takes time to architect memories, it takes another pertinent
ingredient to make the memories worth remembering – friends. And, even with
all the “time boundness” lurking around, Joey did salvage some time to make
friends. The tradeoffs (another “law of the land” cliché) might have been a
bit discomforting for him, but there was still hope, and more importantly,
there were smiles to ease him through it.
Rakesh Malayattil
Class of 2015