Tyranny of Normality
Dear loved one's back home,
The winter has started setting in Hong Kong. For a person who has lived all his life in Saharan dessert climates, this is quiet a climatic shock. There are some merits of such cold climates too.... well I am not going to dwell in to that sorry. My readers are already quiet imaginative! I had an opportunity to play Lagaan like cricket last week. All Indians and Pakistanis on one side and Brits (and 2 Australians) on the other side. The pretty English madam's were the audience. A clap and a cry of good shot once in a while. As I have already commented earlier, the third world citizens were in the local attire absolutely unfit for cricket. The Brits were all in whites and sports shoes. You could have very well mistaken it for a Lagaan studio set but except one glitch.... ahem ahem well we lost and they won!!! Now Aamir Khan wouldn't have been pleased with it. For the first time in life I was in a full cricket gear(Including the helmet and the snug guard!) and was the second top scorer for the team!!
HKU MBA - Tyranny of Normality
The heated battle in my team is in full steam. Things came to a boil last week, before I suggested that working together is impossible, now we have distributed our assignments. we do it at the comfort of our home and send it to the Prof. on behalf of the team. Now I know why the United Nations is such a big disaster. I am surviving some boring classes on Accounting and Finance. I am looking forward to the new set of the classes that starts next month. There is a visiting Prof. from BCG who will be teaching us strategy. A real time entrepreneur will be teaching Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Again this is the first time in life that I am actually looking forward to studying and attending classes.
All my life I was just chasing everybody else to maths or a physics class, Medical or an IIT entrance test being oblivious of the fact that I am never going to win by the rules of this game. Such is the tyranny of normality that you just do what is the normal thing to do. Such is the psyche of our society that our scale of the performance is calibrated to the score you get in Maths or Physics!! I am complaining because I have always been caught on the wrong side of this scale, The problem is further precipitated when your siblings and peers are on the other end (read the right end) of the scale.This fallacy that academic or logical intelligence is the only yardstick for personnel measurement has become outdated in most societies(I am complaining again because I lost this damn race!). Whereas in India it is hysterically ingrained. Why else do you think Institutions like IIT and IIM hold such dominance and sway over the Indian mainstream. I know of several of my friends who would go to coaching institutions for IIT, while deep in themselves they would know they were never cut out for this. What else could they have done. I knew of some parents who would carry the mark sheets of their children in the hand bags. My grand mother would always wish us to "get 100/100 in Maths" (Nice try!). Grand father would say " Study well and get into IIT or MBBS" (Wishful thinking). This constant carpet bombing of our psyche makes us think that everything else in this world is not worth pursuing, because it is the IIT's and IIM's that world is going into(or atleast aspiring to). Wouldn't you call this the tyranny of normality!!
The new Demi gods
After a point in time I was quite resigned to this rat race. I deified the people who played by the rules? I remember a passing reference by my mother to my father " Our son would'nt even be allowed in to the canteens of the IIT". That was in Jest but it reflected the place IIT's and offlate IIM's have in our society. Even student jokes would revolved around IIT's When somebody makes a wise crack one would typically say... " Do you think you are an IITian". When my sister got into IIT, I think I was more proud than she ever was. The whole of my college knew that I had a sis, who was studying in IIT (My mother was wrong, I was allowed into the IIT canteens!). All of us sucked up to any news in the media of the new IIM Salary record. CAT exams were covered more extensively than the god damned general elections. It is this over hyped mania that prodded me to getting an affiliation to big schools. When I did a 1 year program from IIM, I thought I arrived in life. When I heard about this London business school deal, I almost died from excitement. I am a victim of this mania. I am doing an MBA because everybody else was doing it. It seemed the only recipe to sucess.( I am enjoying this process is how ever another matter)
I now refuse to be herded into such mania. The IIM Profs I heard during my stint were a cure for insomnia. I had an IIM, IIT boss in GE who had neither the knack of handing clients nor the brevity of conveying thoughts to his team. However my sister is an exception than rule!
Prof Ali said "Intelligence is a multidimensional construct and logical intelligence is just one of them" (I promise this will be a last ref to Prof. Ali). I know there are some prospective parents reading my ramblings. I hope you take cognizance of this fact that acing Maths and Science is not end in itself but just one means to the end. I like to believe there are other ways too! I rest my case here !!
Having said this, I have to tell the kids, the only way to make your parents proud is to get into IIT or a 100/100 in Maths!! So kids IIT is calling, where are you ?
The winter has started setting in Hong Kong. For a person who has lived all his life in Saharan dessert climates, this is quiet a climatic shock. There are some merits of such cold climates too.... well I am not going to dwell in to that sorry. My readers are already quiet imaginative! I had an opportunity to play Lagaan like cricket last week. All Indians and Pakistanis on one side and Brits (and 2 Australians) on the other side. The pretty English madam's were the audience. A clap and a cry of good shot once in a while. As I have already commented earlier, the third world citizens were in the local attire absolutely unfit for cricket. The Brits were all in whites and sports shoes. You could have very well mistaken it for a Lagaan studio set but except one glitch.... ahem ahem well we lost and they won!!! Now Aamir Khan wouldn't have been pleased with it. For the first time in life I was in a full cricket gear(Including the helmet and the snug guard!) and was the second top scorer for the team!!
HKU MBA - Tyranny of Normality
The heated battle in my team is in full steam. Things came to a boil last week, before I suggested that working together is impossible, now we have distributed our assignments. we do it at the comfort of our home and send it to the Prof. on behalf of the team. Now I know why the United Nations is such a big disaster. I am surviving some boring classes on Accounting and Finance. I am looking forward to the new set of the classes that starts next month. There is a visiting Prof. from BCG who will be teaching us strategy. A real time entrepreneur will be teaching Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Again this is the first time in life that I am actually looking forward to studying and attending classes.
All my life I was just chasing everybody else to maths or a physics class, Medical or an IIT entrance test being oblivious of the fact that I am never going to win by the rules of this game. Such is the tyranny of normality that you just do what is the normal thing to do. Such is the psyche of our society that our scale of the performance is calibrated to the score you get in Maths or Physics!! I am complaining because I have always been caught on the wrong side of this scale, The problem is further precipitated when your siblings and peers are on the other end (read the right end) of the scale.This fallacy that academic or logical intelligence is the only yardstick for personnel measurement has become outdated in most societies(I am complaining again because I lost this damn race!). Whereas in India it is hysterically ingrained. Why else do you think Institutions like IIT and IIM hold such dominance and sway over the Indian mainstream. I know of several of my friends who would go to coaching institutions for IIT, while deep in themselves they would know they were never cut out for this. What else could they have done. I knew of some parents who would carry the mark sheets of their children in the hand bags. My grand mother would always wish us to "get 100/100 in Maths" (Nice try!). Grand father would say " Study well and get into IIT or MBBS" (Wishful thinking). This constant carpet bombing of our psyche makes us think that everything else in this world is not worth pursuing, because it is the IIT's and IIM's that world is going into(or atleast aspiring to). Wouldn't you call this the tyranny of normality!!
The new Demi gods
After a point in time I was quite resigned to this rat race. I deified the people who played by the rules? I remember a passing reference by my mother to my father " Our son would'nt even be allowed in to the canteens of the IIT". That was in Jest but it reflected the place IIT's and offlate IIM's have in our society. Even student jokes would revolved around IIT's When somebody makes a wise crack one would typically say... " Do you think you are an IITian". When my sister got into IIT, I think I was more proud than she ever was. The whole of my college knew that I had a sis, who was studying in IIT (My mother was wrong, I was allowed into the IIT canteens!). All of us sucked up to any news in the media of the new IIM Salary record. CAT exams were covered more extensively than the god damned general elections. It is this over hyped mania that prodded me to getting an affiliation to big schools. When I did a 1 year program from IIM, I thought I arrived in life. When I heard about this London business school deal, I almost died from excitement. I am a victim of this mania. I am doing an MBA because everybody else was doing it. It seemed the only recipe to sucess.( I am enjoying this process is how ever another matter)
I now refuse to be herded into such mania. The IIM Profs I heard during my stint were a cure for insomnia. I had an IIM, IIT boss in GE who had neither the knack of handing clients nor the brevity of conveying thoughts to his team. However my sister is an exception than rule!
Prof Ali said "Intelligence is a multidimensional construct and logical intelligence is just one of them" (I promise this will be a last ref to Prof. Ali). I know there are some prospective parents reading my ramblings. I hope you take cognizance of this fact that acing Maths and Science is not end in itself but just one means to the end. I like to believe there are other ways too! I rest my case here !!
Having said this, I have to tell the kids, the only way to make your parents proud is to get into IIT or a 100/100 in Maths!! So kids IIT is calling, where are you ?
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