A bird in the hand

It took a litre of water after Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani to regain senses. However, I'm going to refrain from sharing my ordeal of sitting through the entirety of the disastrous attempt at slapstick comedy. If not for the one thing that kept me engaged through the god-forsaken tribulation, I might have as well walked out of the theatre the moment we walked in.

And at last, thankfully for me, or not, it ended. It was time to head back home in the lavish Coimbatore bucket down.

The heavens have been generous to south India over the past few days. Add the proximity to the Nilgiris to the equation, and we arrive at the sum of a day-long splendid weather, chilly nights, foggy mountains in the distant horizon, and not the slightest trace of sunlight till as far as the eye can see. Of course, riding back home in this weather can be a bit of a malady.

In the middle of a down pour, a water-logged Avinashi Road, and a traffic signal; I drift back to about 20 months from now. Dejected from having screwed up the CAT, having lost all hopes of doing anything at all, with no idea what-so-ever of what lay in store for me, and a few tens of ideas ranging from running away from home to killing myself – just for the heck of it – I was still working with Scope International. Without the slightest clue of what it meant for me, I had somehow gotten the MAT application form filled up and had got a chance to attempt the MAT in February. Even then, burning the midnight oil watching movies and browsing the internet for random shit, loafing about the streets of Chennai and living life with seemingly no sense of direction was commonplace. To make it worse, there was always the confidence whoever I met, "You'll make it, man.. you'll make it big someday." How I used to wish I could teleport myself to someday, if it ever existed!

It was a week from the MAT when Mayur bhai and Ankit had decided on taking a sabbatical. Knowing pretty well that I hadn't moved a muscle in the right direction since having submitted the MAT application form and that nothing I did would help take me any closer to cracking the MAT, I faithfully looked on as they got their leave approved. The MAT came and went, and the results were out in nearly no time at all. We'd all done fairly well, Mayur bhai especially well. But he was the one who took the brave step of not pursuing full time higher education, and took up business instead. Silently, I appreciated his educated and informed decision. Now Ankit and I were left behind. And of us both, he was the more sincere one – far more committed than I ever was about making it to a decent-enough b-school.

Of the plethora of b-schools in the MAT booklet, we had to shortlist 5 b-schools to which our MAT scores would be sent by the AIMA itself. Ankit had gotten the assistance of Salim at IMS to shortlist his 5, I simply copied Ankit's 5. So here we were with our choice of 5 b-schools and we commenced the process of visiting each of these to decide on 'the one'. The list – not necessarily in order of priority – being Christ University, MS Ramaiah and IBMR at Bangalore, and PSGIM at Coimbatore. I don't remember what the 5^th option was. Finally, we landed up here at Coimbatore. And after a year and half, I can say with certainty that it was for the good. Not because PSG was the better of the institutes, nor because it paid any more being at PSG; but simply because these 18 months gave me so much that if I ever believed in a God, I'd be at his feet today thanking Him (or Her) for having given me all He (or She) did.

Standing there at the traffic signal in the pouring rain, I couldn't help wonder how different life could have been. What if I hadn't chosen PSG, what if I went to Bangalore? What if any of those who made these past few months so special had not chosen PSG, and chosen some other b-school, some other course? Would these days have been equally special? Perhaps not.

What if my name was not Surya Prakash, and if it was Dhruv? Would I have been sitting next to Deepti in class? Would I have not known Vaishnavi Krishnan, would she have not invited me for her wedding? BTW, I have to be at her wedding reception in about 18 hours from now. Poor thing's getting wedded off. If not for me being at PSG, would I have known Fazin with his camera and chubby feet? Would I have known Shruthe with her 'Aye, go ya!' Would I have known Bubby 'Teddy Bear' Bisani? Would I have known Guru 'Girlfriend' Moorthy, or Rishabh aka Vito Corleone aka Trigonometry aka Kaalia aka Supandi? Would I have known Rajeshworry 'Blueberry' 'Limca girl'? Would life have been equally munificent and would I have gotten the gift of a pigsy little piglet with the tiniest set of chubby little fingers ever? Would Naveen have still assisted me with doing my joke of a summer project at India Cements? Would I have ever called Nishath 'Bunny' and would I have known that 'Chalo!' can be such a catchphrase? I'm missing a lot of names, I'm sure. But that's not the point, anyway. Point is, would life have been the same?

College is nearing its fag end, and perhaps that's why the nostalgic poignancy. As much as I've hated the things I have hated about having being here, I'm going to miss all of this very bad. Some things more than the others; other things still, the most. And in this one tiny corner of me, every time I hear anything remotely similar to any of the names above or have a moment's grace to myself, I'm going to think of this block on Avinashi Road where I spent 2 years of my life and I'm going to ask myself this question; 'Why DO we have to move on?'

Maybe somewhere else, I would have had a totally different bunch of people around me and chances are I might have been equally thankful. I might never know. But this one time at a Sunday school that I once attended, a lovely lady beautifully illustrated to me that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Today I realise, I couldn't agree more.