Ok, a few things I must admit from last week's experiences:
1. I'm not so good at listing down things to do and then sticking to them. From my last week's "to-do", I'm yet to start reiki, meditation, and I could network with only 1 person from my workplace. To add to my frustrations, I could follow a disciplined diet till this wednesday, but thinks fell apart in the last two days.
2. "Students of premier B schools taking to tasteless swearing" - this thread at PG was my favorite time killer last week. The point being raised was "students of premier B schools, the so called creme de la creme of India taking to tasteless swearing" and that too in a manner that would put every aspiring student to shame. A video was uploaded which pictured three blurred females (supposedly from IIMC) hooting itch words at XLRI. What followed next was a big big debate on what goes inside a B school and what needs to be done to put an end to swearing and other related stuff inside a B school. Things went slightly nasty when a vetern from IIMA went ahead and posted some stuff about their dorm culture and how they used to discuss fantasies about their batchmates before minutes to midnight. An immediate post from my side did stop him from posting any more, but must agree I became the victim of a long list of PG employees@Fort who accused me of hiding "what goes inside a b school'.
Shame, hypocrisy, cheapness.. the words still ring a bell or two in my ears, these were the words used against me :)
My arguments:
Let me take you all 2 years back in time, the first week when I entered my B school. I never thought an IIM would have a culture which includes describing fantasies and swearing itch words. I thought that was way too immature a thing to do at this level. These things can be expected in an engineering institution but in a B school with 70% of the batch having prior work-ex? Doesn't make sense!
During the initial days, I was asked (not forced!) to join the cultural brigade of swearing n all, but not coming from such a orientation, I didn't participate. Please note, I was never treated as an outcast for this, the students found it perfectly acceptable for people who didn't find such stuff comfortable to be not included.
I found out that some people in a B school enjoyed discussing such stuff as that was something that made them gel really well, such discussions acted as the perfect ice breakers/stress busters in an extremely competitive environment and ofcourse no one took any of it seriously. But that didn't stop me from wondering "isn't it still way too immature, an act well left to an engineering environment?"
Over the next 1.5 years, I saw a lot of people indulging in almost anything and everything: Be it an aftermath of a drunken party or the furious swearing demonstrated by students in an inter-block event. Everyday, I used to think: B schooling sucks! Why do people have to do such and such to achieve such and such? When will people ever become mature?
Sixth term is when most B schoolers use some of their time introspecting on what did they take away from the place ...Everyday, I used to think "what is it exactly that I took away from this B school?" "what is that will remain with me when I leave my school?"
And one fine day, the not so obvious suddenly became so obvious.
Let me explain it a li'l figuratively: All this time, I was being part of a "great movie": seeing this n that, going through mental levels of depressions, peer pressure, swearing and what all...
For a moment, I decided to take myself out of this "movie" and watch the movie just as an external observer... everything became crystal clear to me in seconds
To quote my thoughts "You will find things in a B school which you will never accept, things which you will die for. So many different types of people in a B school, people who indulge themselves in all sorts of activities: good and bad, raw and ripe. And you are forced to stay with such people, work with them, network with them, establish relationships with them. Isn't this going to continue the moment you step in the real-work environment? Ofcourse, it is going to! A B school is a perfect 'pilot arena' of what you expect in a hungry competitive world. And this entire 2 years was like an implicit drill which showed you everything that you'll be expecting sooner or later. It is this 2 years which gave you the perfect playing ground for learning as much as you could, in as many different environments as you can imagine!"
Summarising, if a B school has people who indulge in swearing/describing fantasies, so be it! you cannot stop such a custom, it is and always will continue to be done in good spirits...However you always have the power to choose what works for you and what doesn't, isn't it?
Concluding remark: if multiple attempts at
CAT makes you mentally stronger, seeing such stuff in B schools and learning to live in a difficult environment only makes you mentally more mature - now that's more than a mere takeaway!
Well, as you would have guessed, there were a lot of takers and a lot of "oh! keep your opinons to yourself, am sure we can have an anti-swearing movement to in B schools to discourage the same". For the people who did not subscribe to my views, here is what I've to say:
Let me take the case of my batch. My batch had 126 students from IITs and NITs from a total batch strength of 253. And as you would have guessed, the nation's brightest techies were also the brightest when it came to swearing :) , not that the rest of the batch were saints! but then no one was a match to these 126!
An anti-swearing campaign by any standards will give these 126 and a many more the impression that they are being "targetted" or "singled out" culturally and morally. The result, this would lead to factionalism inside a B school, something that no student wants to be a part of!
On the other hand, if we just try and start putting a blind's eye to such things, am sure the results would be far more effective.
As Gandhiji rightly said, "non-violence does lead to success".
