Thursday, July 16, 2009

The end of the beginnning

I seem to like this title as I wrote a previous article with the same heading. However, this time it is about a different topic. Well, so-to-say my student life has ended. Can I call it the end of the first phase in my life? Probably yes, 23 years are done and dusted and so is my education with a couple of degrees.

How do I look back at these years? With nostalgia? Relief? Happiness? Sadness? Probably neither! Just a trace of melancholy as I look back upon those happy years as they passed by. Happy because I was always happy as a student. Time to move on?

Unless I suddenly decide to do a PhD which seems unlikely, I am going to stay in the corporate sector for some years to come. People who have been there tell me all sorts of things. Some of them are already fatigued and bored within two years, others are happy with the pay check but there isn't a zip in their tone when they talk, some others crib about the work they get and so on and so forth. Everyone is happy (however you may define happiness) but none of them are enthusiastic about what they are doing. I try and remember the enthusiasm and expectations in their eyes when they went out into the industry a couple of years ago, while I went to IISc. Two years down the line their tone surprises me a bit. Will I suffer from the same fatigue an year down the line?

Another thing which I have heard is that the industry sucks all your innocence out. You need to learn to be diplomatic, to lie, to be able to wheedle favours out of your superiors and all such stuff.You can't be frank and honest or rude if you want to. Well, I never did such things and have more often than not said what I wished to. I still intend to try and retain that. How will it all pan out?

Lots of such questions and the answers are yet to come. Time will hopefully answer these questions.