...and so he is off to B-school

My latest favorite movie is 3 Idiots. It's got Amir Khan in it, Madhavan and Sharman Joshi were wonderful, Chatur 'Silencer' Ramalingam was super hilarious and the story on the whole was very relatable, all of which totally negate the fact that it also has Kareena Kapoor in it. So that's good. 'All izz well' in 3I speak. So why am I talking about 3 Idiots now, a few months after it has trail blazed itself into Bollywood history books?

Because, like I said, the movie was relatable. As in, I could relate to it. Take this for example.

I was out of town on work a couple of weeks back when one of my friends (I happen to have those you know) left me a scrap on Orkut (yes I am one of the two people in the world who hasn't jumped on to the Facebook bandwagon. The other one is the man in my mirror) saying he has something important to tell me and that he will call me when I am back. I started thinking about what the important thing could be and decided that he was going to get hitched. After all, I knew his mom had been insisting for some time now that he should "Marry a nice girl and settle down" (as opposed to being single and being able to sow his wild oats around. Hmmm!!). With that decided in my head, I put it on the back burner as I had more pressing things to take care of.

Two weeks go by and I am back home and I get a call from this guy. "Dude, I have quit V***** and am moving to H*****". Wow! That’s not the marriage news I was expecting. This was a job change news he was giving me. And thinking about it, I thought this was in-evitable because he had been complaining about his current job for a few years now. No pay rise, no promotion, office politics, the lot. Made sense that he had finally worked up the courage to let go of the devil he knew for the god he didn't. So I asked him, "Where in H*****? Which company?" And he says, "Dude that is a hint I just gave you. I have turned in my papers in V***** and am moving to H*****. So guess where I am going." And it hit me then. He wasn't going to any other company. A move to H***** could only mean one thing, at least between the two of us. He had finally made it to the B-school.

It's been a few years since we both met during B-school preparation courses. We hit it off immediately and from that time have been constantly in touch, keeping each other updated about our futile attempts at getting into an elite B-school in the country. Along the way, my efforts petered off, I started concentrating more on my job, I got married and today my B-school dream is all but forgotten. At the same time, he had given up, made peace with his work and work environment, went abroad on an assignment, tried to get into a school there (and failed) and finally settled down for a career sans a business degree. Or so I thought until the call yesterday. He hadn't given up and now he is going to one of the best schools in the country. Wow!! Congratulations man.

So what does the movie have anything to do with this? There is this one scene where their first exam results are out and two of the guys (Madhavan and Sharman) anxiously scan the results only to find that they have just about made it, at the bottom of the list. But they don't see their friend’s name (Amir) there and turn back, sad that he has not even made the cut although they have made it. Then they come to know from someone else that their friend has topped the exam while they both have just managed to scrape through! Their faces fall even lower and the voice over says, "It is a common enough feeling. We feel bad when our friends don't do well. But we feel worse when we know that they have done much better than us."

Dude, there is this corner of my head where I am feeling real bad that you made it and I didn’t (I think it’s the J word) but pay no heed to that (I won’t either). You did it and that's what matters. All the very best to you and let me know how it goes.