Walking Away

These two word 'Walking Away' are used as a negative. People are actually described as someone who 'Walks away'.
'Walking Away' is considered to be some sort of a taboo. I personally think its one of the best things to do if you really care about the other people.

Imagine this: The person who love you the most and you arguing your lungs out. Anger in your eyes and just before it spills out in world, you 'walk' away. Sensible thing to do? yes. Why would you want to hurt the person you like with words that might sting later. 'Walking Away' will save a relationship.
I am not sure how this works in the corporate world. We are trained never to 'Walk Away'. But what if you now you are right and you do not want to compromise. Is it right to sit and argue or nod your head and later back out, than just showing what you stand for?

I have unfortunately been involved in so many where I just wished I had the guts to 'Walk Away'. But i guess its kind of hardwired into us. To walk Away is sacrilegious, to 'Walk away' is unacceptable.

I think to 'Walk Away' is fine as long as you come down the same path again.

Reminiscent- Chapter 1

Somedays I feel alone. Not even being the midst of friends could get rid of that pang in your heart. I look out of the window; it is raining and lighting colors the sky. I can just but remember some good old times and wish those would play in an endless loop. The thunder jolts me back to reality. I am standing in a room and I look around me. Its the reminiscent of the life I live. Its a mess. A bloddy mess.

Its ironic, amidst hundreds of people I have only my shadow as the companion.
There have been many days like these before. This is not the first.

I have neither lost hope nor the will to enjoy my life. But a day comes in everyone's life when they stand in front of a mirror and refuse to make any eye contact with that face they see. Thats the day of reckoning. The day where you and I make a conscious choice to face our greatest fears. When you can look that face straight in the eye, that is the day when you would vanquish doubt in your heart and soul alike. For me, though, there is no salvation. I look in the mirror, I just see a hollow man. A man without anything behind him or with him.

In a movie he would make a great underdog, but in reality he is just what he is. And I just stand looking at this hollow man. He has no 'gifts', he has no abilities. Why does this aberration then exist? Why was life not snubbed out of it before he became conscious of himself? Questions run amok in my mind. I have started to hate this person now. Everyday, every single day I have to see this face. I wish I could change this face. It makes me want to throw up.

But I have lived in the past. I wil live by today. This face is not that bad or ugly that people would shoot me on the street. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Well i wonder how can anyone see beauty in this. I finish my chores and I walk out of the pigeon hole thats called a house. I am not the meanest or the most intelligent person on the block. I am just another person.

All my life, everyone one has told me you must be special at something.And my whole life I have wandered and squandered everything and everywhere to find that special thing, My father always told me one thing. Look for the goodness in others, only then you will find goodness in yourself. If he could he hear me now, I just want to tell him, I have Dad. I tried. The moment you look at other's goodness, they assume the higher ground. I cant stand that. I wont stand that. I have walked away from that mindset. I know you would want me to persist, but whats the point. In a world where everyone wants to outdo another, can there ever be true friends? In a world, where your life is measured in currency, is there a point? Thunder strikes again. Today I have finally realized what I have to do.

It starts to rain. Good. What i have in mind would be done easier in the rain. I walk towards the dark street. Only I know, at the end there would be no rainbow tonight, tomorrow or ever. There would be no light. Finally it will end tonight. Maybe I dont need to see that hollow face ever again.

She

Years ago when I was a teenager, I fell in love. Or so i thought. And then a year after that, I again fell in love. And the year next. Being the coconut I am, i realized i am not falling in love, but I am falling out of it. It was quite sometime before I fell for a girl again and fell out of it. Again. And then she waltzed in my life.
Sometimes you just dont realize how important a person is. From a mere mortal view, she had no special padding around her. But if you could that one level up and see; she was like a pure ray of light or rather the essence of it. I was not doing too bad without her, but i was not doing too good either. Unlike others, she never changed me. She just made me better at what i do.
Today, after taking so many decisions with her, I knew I had to write something. It has been there at the back of my mind from a long time, but i could never frame it or structure it to come into words. Today it has.
Working in the software service sector, one can get taxed a bit ( and I am being diplomatic here!) and one could feel an void. Sort of emptiness in the crowd. Where you see lots but yet cannot 'be' with anyone. After being through so many failed relationships, I grew cold. Nothing could touch or move it anymore.
As law of physics explain the movement from high pressure to low pressure, she came like a soothing wind. And no more were my emotions dry.
It been close to a year now, and there is nothing better that describes our relationship other than the word commitment. In the last one year, our relationship grew like India post economic liberalization ( forgive the analogy ). We went too fast and in retrospect I would not have wanted it any other way. We faced so many issues in such a short span of time that I have now come to rely on her without me even knowing about it.
When I can go for a year long break from here, it requires a huge commitment from her. I was skeptical bout it but she never was. Places where I doubted myself she was confident. It was as if she was the captain of my life ship. I had never thought people like this existed anymore but someone really likes me to prove me wrong.
She is the by far one of those rare few who without asking has given a new meaning to my life.
She, at this moment, is far away. But she knows I will come for her. In a year.

Arriving at Great Lakes

So finally the D-Day arrived. The train was at 6:00 am and i got up at 3:30 to recheck i had kept everything. Right from the charger of my cell phone to my clothes. I was hyper excited as well as hyper scared, because Murphy's Law has a habit of striking at such moments. After calming my self down, I walked with my huge two luggages and off towards the railway station with my parents. I half expected the train, Shatabdi, to be somewhere on a god forsaken platform number and it was on 7. Carrying atleast 40 kilos i finally tugged all my luggage in, met a few of a coincidental friends travelling to Chennai for other purposes and before I knew it the journey began.

I guess I slept through most part of it and the parts that I did not, I was on the phone with my friends. The train was supposed to reach at around 11.00 and it reached at 11.00 by the minute. Got ripped off at the railway station by the cab driver who threatened me(Me of all people!) and finally after some real reckless driving I made it to Green Meadows. And the board said 'Welcome to Spartans'. The feeling of getting back to college had not sunk in by then and to me it felt as if I am on a all paid vacation. Since my reporting time was 2-3 i started asking around for the process and meeting a whole new bunch of people.

The group who were supposed to report at around 11 am finished tagging their luggage and were off towards great lakes before I met a couple of other guys. Met an ex office friend, and then met some more new friends and before i knew it, we were around thirty strangers talking about ISB versus Great Lakes , what food we can expect, the humidity in chennai. The tagging of the luggage was simple though I could not fathom the process of removing the sticker. After serving onion pakodas and kappi and tea, we were off to great lakes packed in a bus.

Sitting in the first row, i could clearly see the reason why the ECR was designed to cut down population. To overtake is a do or die mission. I guess our bus nearly tried to knock over many people but luckily it never quite managed to do that. After forty minutes we saw a barrier bearing the Great Lakes logo, though not yet a part of the college, felt somewhat happy to see it. And then after an hour we were there. The board and entrance of Great Lakes Institute of Management welcomed us into its fold. And like true believers we walked our first baby steps into the campus.

A New Life.. A new rising sun.. and a broader horizon

Probably this is going to be what I always wanted to do in my life. Learn the management theorems from the Gurus themselves. And maybe thats why fate conspired me to think of Great Lakes as a choice.

Once I started following the college through pagalguy and talked to a few seniors, i knew his was the place I wanted to be in. I attended a session called 'Meet the Dean' and wow. I was bedazzled to say the least. As soon as the college opened its admission process, I applied for it. The process was very simple. Write your details and fill in about five essays, ask your recommender(two of them) to write something good about you and finally write your job profile. All this while making sure that you are genuine and also making sure people understand that MBA is your logical next step. Easy right? Not so easy mate, as this turned to be the place where my brain worked overtime and some people even said that they could see steam coming out (of my ears).

Submitting the application I could sense my heartbeat go like the autorickshaw meter's fare in Bangalore. It was a moment which i can replay even right now in front of my eyes. My recommender(s) also finished their part and all I could do was hope and wait. Even then I checked the site, PG every single day.

Results, like the one's they announce on T.V shows ' coming up in a minute after the break', were delayed by some days. Excruciating wait was followed by exuberance. I was short listed for the GD-PI call. The fact that this was my only call and my only shot at MBA was not even on my mind till my GD-PI day. I clearly remember the day at a hotel in Bangalore. Dressed in black formals , I managed to misplace my sunglasses. But the whole session was good and the interview panel and seniors made me feel very comfortable. The GD was on an easy topic which made it tougher to get good points but remembering the day I think i just voiced my opinions for around 3 minutes and i made around 3-4 new points. I guess those points were good.

The interview panel, who was supposed to take my interview, were delayed in traffic. (Cant blame anyone, its Bangalore!) Interview lasted around 15 minutes and the made sure they understood why I wanted to choose Great Lakes and why an MBA.

Well, after the interview day, the final results took like an eternity to come out. This time around excruciating pain was followed by a sigh of relief. I had made it. Calls and messages from everyone and yet I felt alone in my celebrations, until two people set up a Facebook group. That was the birth of Spartans.

Today after getting relieved from my company, getting my suitcases packed, checking and rechecking my document, I stand on the threshold of a new bend in the river of my life. I am a Spartan. And I am proud of it.