My Bumpy ride to XLRI.

“You have some good ideas of strategy & planning in Healthcare”, said the faculty member. Now it was the turn of the hyper-charged, fresh-bred ALUMNUS. He was a bundle of androgens (contrary to adrenaline) desperate to prove to everyone that he too was a bull.
“Your story doesn’t hold well with our scheme of things”, he said.
“Story? what story? I’m not here to recite bed-time stories to you, ask your mom to do that”.
He: “You don’t seem to have a plan to do MBA; I mean, the sequence of events in your STORY do not fit in perfectly.”
Me (still thinking): “I thought that this would be about my confidence, the ability to make judgements & decisions & not about proving that I am here for MBA.”
He: “Do you drink or smoke?”
Me: ”No”.
He: “How are you going to gel with the young crowd on the campus?”
Me: “I am sure that the other 599 candidates would be better than me & it would be a good opportunity for me to learn from them.” But in my mind I am thanking my stars that I haven’t been asked for my HIV status (which is negative by the way) like they do at White mischief holidays & at Osho’s den.
I knew that my hopes of getting through had been cut-short by a hyper-charged nuvo-manager with little control on his hormones.
The one before this was even better in many ways: There was this senior faculty member who kept cutting me short whenever I initiated a sentence.” That’s a façade”, a friend told me. “So, am I supposed to continue to blurt whatever I started with or should I first give him a counter-argument or should I just keep shut like a school boy having been cut-short by his teacher? ” I don’t know the answer till date.
Here too there was an ALUMNUS who was a pain in the wrong place. “You’ll end up with surgery on day one doctor, it’s not easy”, he said. “Who’s afraid of surgery on day one or a task on day one, if you meant that”, I thought again. (By now you can see, how thoughtful I am). He would have known if he was on my operating table. After all, it is only a matter of which side of the table you’re on, isn’t it?
Number 3 has always been lucky for me.There are no airs about the place. No receptionist to receive you or test your English early in the morning. The faculty arrives well after I do. They smile & greet me on their way in. I am still thinking & waiting for the dreaded BULL, even though the experiences shared on the net told me that there are no alumni in this one.
“What is Capital account convertibility?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
I told them everything about the things that I knew & nothing about the things that I didn’t. I would be joining the Institute shortly, happy that I am among people that I am used to—senior & “drenched in knowledge” faculty members as in Medical colleges, who chose you for what you know & not on what you're not expected to at that stage.
I hope that at the end of it all they don’t have to justify their decision to select me, to the rest of the Institute.
Do we have BULLS amongst us?
Pallav.