Where Are We Going?

Where Are We Going?
Written on 15th August 2009

I am an MBA student
Today is Independence Day. I write these words in the wake of great confusion and deliberation.

I just came back from a flag hosting ceremony and an excellent speech by our deputy director Air commodore Krishna Shankar. Its 6:30 in the morning, where most of my batch mates are still at the campus chatting away. I wonder what they are talking about. Some in groups are contemplating on placements, some on coming classes, some on girls and other on festivals and events. No group I heard talking about THE NATION. Our director comes up to me and wishes me happy Independence Day. I feel as if somebody has come and chosen me to write this.

Life is truly a rat race now. We all keep running towards our first Honda, our first Platinum credit card, our insurmountable bank balance; what about the child sitting hungry on the street in want of food for last so many days? Was director Rajkumar Hirani, in MUNNABHAI, in want of pun depicting India as poor, when he used the dialogue “Hungry people, poor people”; IS INDIA REALLY THAT?

In the times like these, what does independence means to any of us is what I ponder upon. I realize almost all of us have lost the sanctity to salute the nation’s best. We all are engrossed in our crises and feel like, the companies not recruiting us are the bunch of few engrez we all are fighting against, and knowledge of all the top companies, their top line growths, their bottom line falls and their denominator management, that’s all that matters to us.

For many of us corporate (suited in Gucci’s and Allen Solly’s), it is one of the best days this time around, because it extended our weekend, by virtue of we will catch up maybe a flick at a multiplex or enjoy the bed.

I wonder in this haven’t we lost touch with our basics. People go to any lengths understanding the whole international market, their organization's structures, how they have achieved great feats to become such successful conglomerates. We see these company’s names feature in Forbes and their leaders like Richard Branson or Steve Jobs, admire them idealize them and try to emulate their leadership styles in even in our role plays in HR classes. Is this what an INDIAN CEO would be like?

Hands down I give the Best entrepreneur, Best Manager and Best Leader of the contemporary era to none other than Mr. M.K. Gandhi. His leadership traits can teach you a lesson which no book on self-sufficing autobiographies of those CEO’s can teach you.

Try to emulate those who found your root,
Thou can’t win the world just on the exploits of offshore
Thy competencies lie within in your own hood

It’s all about that manifestation. I don’t know in demography of 110 crore where around 60% are youth, how many would have turned up to keep a hand on their heart and let their voices be resounded upon the flag we should pride the most. That’s when I ask myself and to the youth in the corporate and MBA (my so called Target segment), how many times you have dreamt of a company at the top of list in Forbes. Belongingness you feel everyday to your MNC job and satisfaction you derive from it, is the manifestation external? Is it the astronomical amount in your bank account you aspire to have drives you to work every day?

What about the inner voice, the manifestation that could come from within?

There is always that patriotic little Indian lying in their waiting to bustle out. During those cricket matches, especially when playing against likes of Australia (the country which incidentally reminds me of Virgin, Telstra) we see ourselves jump, cheer and bellow for THE TEAM INDIA!!

Why isn't there an internal motivation and manifestation, when we go to our work?
Nation lacks entrepreneurs, it has infrastructural bottlenecks, low Public Private Participation, and ironically so, each and every MBA student (almost 40000 of whom pass out every year from this nation’s economy) have analyzed and arrived at these conclusions. So what are we doing about it?

It’s not a question I pose to the world of young corporate or Indian youth; it’s something that I ask myself!