Let me assume, I am back in 10th grade. I have a mother who is positively distressed about my academic achievements. My dad insists that the only way I will attain success, is by choosing the M.B.A road. My mother agrees because at some level she really wants me to be better than Puja, my mother’s grade obsessed friend’s daughter. My dad cannot understand why I want to go down the humanities road. It makes no sense to them that, I would choose a field with limited options for growth in terms of money.
Anyway, I go down that road and in 12th grade I feel stifled every time I open my physics textbook. I can’t admit I hate physics but I know that there are ‘expectations’ which if left unfulfilled would go down a very senti-si road not to mention the fact that being a girl, my choice of studying the humanities, will automatically lead to a very, ‘Iski shaadi karvani hai ab. Bahut ho gaya iska padhna. Waise bhi kuch khaas nahi padh rahi. Chalo, ghar ke kaam sekh le ladki, badi baat hai.’ train of thought. I don’t want to be married straight out of college and nor am I too keen on knowing the secret ingredients to the perfect ‘Aloo Mutter’ sabzi.
So, I partly take up the science or commerce stream because of making mommy and daddy happy and partly because I know, at some level that if I choose the other, I will still have to make mommy and daddy happy— aakhir ye bol nai sakti ke hamne mauka nai diya padhne ka! And so I struggle my way through two years of sheer misery not to mention give the much reputed C.A.T. I see myself through college with part time jobs in order to postpone marriage as much as I can. Then, like if that isn’t enough, I am asked to bell the C.A.T and make em proud. I know what belling the C.A.T would mean-more time!
So it boils down to studying more quant and more logical analysis. But the whole question does not circulate around the idea of me actually wanting to become an M.B.A but around the idea that this degree could get me places and thereby far away from mommy-daddy who otherwise will marry me off to some M.B.A since I could not fit the the bill.
So while my mother boasts on the phone to Puja’s mother, I sit quietly in my room and wonder why this degree is such a huge deal anyway. Yes, I may earn more and I may have a list of credits to my name but is that really what I want to do? And what’s the guarantee anyway? The degree is not a passport to free cash and we all know that.
This leads me to questioning the idea of the humanities stream being ‘timepass’ and in essence believed to be a ‘useless’ degree. I really wanted to study literature and wound up a mechanical robot programmed to head a specific way. My real dreams were suppressed and at the age of 35 I quit a high profile job to simply do what I really wanted to do—write.
Women must learn, not to become men but function on account of their individual choices. Becoming an M.B.A is great for people who really want to study management. And anyway the whole idea of C.A.T is not to test your memory skills but your aptitude for the field. Look around, and you will notice memory being tested not actual aptitude.
Musings on Time 