Great Expectations!

So I keep running away… I run and I run, and yet I can never run far away, far enough from myself, my expectations, my fears, my anxieties, my insecurities…

And 2nd year is supposed to be better: we get to choose our subjects, we study only what we want to, what we feel is relevant for realizing our long term career path, what we enjoy learning. Yeah, sounds so easy right? Or so bloody confusing and depressing! I mean look at me, an Economics topper, with work ex in a bank, summers in Deloitte, not too mention a CA dad- am I made for Finance or what? A no-brainer if you ask me. But ask me, damn it!! The thing is I had always wanted to do an MBA, for the first time, it was something I really wanted to do, and not something my parents wanted me to do or my friends were doing. Then, now that I am more than halfway through, honestly I think I have had zilch value addition, I don’t want a glamorous career in corporate finance or investment banking, and worst, even the money isn’t a good enough motivation. With each Finance lecture, each FSA case, and each balance sheet, I get even more disgusted, I cringe till I can’t stand the sight of it. So what is it I want to do? I DON’T KNOW! Or may be I do, but right now, it’s so vague and so obscure that I am too scared to even admit it to myself. So I ask my dad, I run away to Bombay, AGAIN! He rationalizes with me, he makes a balanced argument, he says I am an escapist, he says I am looking for the easy way out, he says I have just opened the door for opportunity and it’s stupid to give up on it without even walking in through the door, he says that it’s a challenge, and the only way to taste success is to overcome the challenge instead of running away from it. And then I feel like a coward, but I defend myself that I am not running away, that I am ready to throw away a safe career, the money, the glamour, all because I am passionate about something- it requires courage! But he is a seasoned parent, he always has counter arguments- like I will regret it later if I give up right now, that it may sound extremely idealistic to sacrifice everything for a passion, but he knows how frustrating it is to have potential and yet be poor, that even writing isn’t as easy as it sounds, that it requires loads of experience, traveling, interactions to write one decent novel, that I can always do it whenever I want… and that was that. I wasn’t convinced, I wasn’t happy, but I was fair enough to concede that he had a point.

And so I am back, back to the campus, to my claustrophobic life, to my close group of my friends, so my safe social circle… But Bombay has a therapeutic effect on me: it represents everything that I don’t have in life and I crave for- freedom, dreams, and a glorious past and the romantic notion of a bright future. It’s back to the good old days: U, me and the sea!