The Dilemma

Another ordinary day at IIM K…but one thing made it rather unusual…

The 9:15 a.m. lecture- Business Ethics. As we ran to class, panting, we realized that the door was already locked and that we were marked absent for the day! Everybody complained-‘It’s just 9:13!’, ‘The clock inside the classroom is 3 minutes fast!’ But nobody moved, nobody went back to their hostels. Everybody waited in anticipation for the door to open. Hoping to still get the attendance, we silently took our seats as the professor later allowed us in. Business Ethics is not a subject that I am too fond off. And when you sit on the first bench, it’s definitely a daunting task to ward off your sleep. As I stared at my watch to calculate the time still left before we would have to plead for attendance and rehearsing as to what I would say to persuade the professor to grant me attendance I suddenly realized- Same day…Same time….a year ago I was anxiously waiting outside my CAT 2012 centre. And I went into a nostalgic reverie…how hard I had worked, how eager I was to get into an IIM, how upset I was when I had finished my Quants section with low attempts, how relieved I was when it all finally ended…

It brought back many memories- the joy of getting an interview call, the rigorous efforts that had followed, the mock PI, the absolutely abstract WAT topics(one of them being-‘To be or not to be’) on which we were expected to write 500 words!

And then I began to wonder how I had developed as a writer- from writing experiences of my visits to zoos, museums, planetariums, to writing on serious issues like the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. From writing on clichéd topics in school to writing my views on ‘We are all prisoners: some in cells with windows and some without’ (I would not have written this but for the IIM K WAT practice). From writing for my school magazine, to writing for blogs - the writer in me had definitely come a long way. 

Since I have now made it a point to write regularly, what should I write on today? That is the question- and the most difficult one indeed. Whether to write or not to write? If to write when to write? What to write? How long to write? Would this article be as good as or even better than my previous article? Should I write in the same style as I always do or should I try a different genre? People often ask me to start my own blog. They are surprised when I tell them that I am not ready yet. What is it to be ready about?-they feel. Just write anything and upload it. But that is not what writing a blog is about. Writing a blog, I believe is one of the most creative and the most challenging tasks ever- not because you need to think of different themes to write on. But because when you write a blog, you are competing with yourself. Every article of yours is being compared to another one of your own in the archives. Readers need to experience your writing. They develop a character sketch of you through your writing.

So what theme should I write on? When I can’t think of a topic to write on, I take the next recourse- ask people. Ask my family, friends to give me a topic which I can develop. But this I realized, never works. Your article reflects your feelings, your emotions. How can somebody else tell you what to write? So, I continue thinking- Should I write on my emotions just before, during and after CAT’12? This seems interesting at the onset. But as I begin to develop it, I realize something’s not working. What?- I don’t know. All I know is that it’s not going to be better than my previous article. Should I write on some political issue? No way! Politics has never been my cup of tea and if I attempt it, I will end up with another  Cntrl+C, Cntrl+V. Should I write on my experiences in Term 2 at IIM K? Well if I did that, I would be stereotyped as a writer who just keeps writing on her experiences at IIM K- 1^st month experience, Term 1 experience and now Term 2?

I finally decided that I will write on my dilemma on ‘What to write’-something that I have often experienced. Something that has prevented me from starting my own blog. Yet something that I have never written before. And thus I started developing this article…

When I looked around a few minutes later, everybody was busy closing their books, running out to grab a cup of coffee, and a few of them asking the professor to pardon them for coming late. As I had expected, he did not revert his decision. As disappointed faces went back to their seats, I gave a little smirk- How could Post Graduate students be so childish? Anyway, what difference does it make to me? I know what I am going to write on for this blog- that’s all that mattered to me!