No sooner than one week before I left India, Rang-De-Basanti was released in theaters all across the globe including Singapore. The second day I was in Singapore, I saw the movie for the first time with our Economist blogger friend Vatsan, who was watching the movie for the third time. On special consideration I decided to sponsor the tickets for Mr.Economist, and on exchange he promised me that he would sponsor the snack, not realizing that I would eat more popcorn than food.

Rang-de-Basanti as all of you know was so prolific that it inspired even a lame Indian to become patriotic in every sense. Little to my surprise or other's, I was one among the billion to be inspired. Thats when it all begun - my journey of opportunity cost!

Soon after arriving here, as a part of any business school course structure we were taught the concepts of opportunity cost. So one day my friends decided to make an opportunity cost analysis of our MBA education. Us being not so high in the organisational hierarchy, there was no surprise in estimating that we would be gaining more than loosing anything (including virginity!).

The reason I state it is because, no latter than two months of my departure, India emerged/was portrayed by the world economists/businessmen as one the world's fastest developing economy. There is no doubt about their showcase, but it is about Bharath's loss in the rising India.

I am still not sure how much I would have lost in tangible terms (for that matter even in intangible terms), but as the Newtons law of man's thinking claims, everyone tends to think about things that they "would have" attained and not things they "have" attained. As we replace the present tense by the past, there seems to be a sense of injustice in the whole proportion, since anyone could have achieved what he has and not what he might have.

Talking about Opportunity cost, the only thing I seem to have really lost out on is my mum's food and bhel puri's, apart from the cricket matches which I had anyways stopped playing. But optimistically, there are so many things that I have done which I wouldn't have if remained in India.

But still, you begin to wonder what would have happened to me if I would have stayed back?

My imagination says, that I would have started doing my PG degree from my own college and would have given another attempt at cricket. Or I would have definitely shifted states to try my luck with any other state. At the maximum, I would have started doing either CA or CFP, since these were options I was seriously considering along with a MBA.

Still one thing I would have never done is to try to cook on my own for 14 months!!!

When you are half way through any program, you begin to feel that you have achieved the requisite knowledge to start working. Since you begin the program with a given set of expectations and when you are half way you begin to realize what you have achieved & what to expect for the next half.

May be this is a strange illusion, but every one doing a two year MBA begins to feel the same. The Marginal-Propensity-to-stay-motivated-in-3rd-semester is always diminishing for some reason or the other. So thats when you begin to start weighing your old options back and re-assess what your decision.

Nevertheless, I keep saying this to myself "Tough times never last, but Paruppu-Podi* does!".


Filtered by sambhar.....

*Paruppu-Podi is a South-Indian specialty food item which most Tamilians love. It is easy to store since it last for a while, and on top of that it is one of the simplest & quickest solutions for a meal especially when you are starving like hell and don't know to cook!!!

Labels: Cooking, India, Life