Gurgaon, MBA and Profits (not particularly in that order)

MBA. Mighty MBA:

I am standing here before the counter waiting to deposit my plate at the window which I call 'the gateway'. I wonder if people know what sort of gateway it is. How deeply it reaches, and the distances it bridges. The queue before me lurches forward. Hunger bounded by time is causing people to bolt their food. Some of them are wiping their mouths on their sleeves as they leave for class. Some of them are eating, reading their books and attempting to talk and flirt. Simultaneously. Funnily enough I watch their smiles disappear as they near 'the gateway'. It's the laughter which first disappears. Then the smiles, then they rearrange their faces. "Don't!", it seems to say. "We are from far away". And then they deposit their plates at the 'gateway', faces blank and unstaring looking away to a future they can see only with their eyes. That includes money, a wife, kids, success but not the small diminutive Nepali boy standing on the other side of the window, looking to clear our plates. He looks at our books with hungry eyes, at the thought of walking hand in hand with his sweetheart through a campus. Of being free. Of learning. Of classrooms of ours and how they are so different from the small TV room down below the ground, where it's hot and how he can't sit there. He smiles so broadly at me, and I think to myself. There's got to be a better way.

Gurgaon. Heppy Gurgaon:

I am standing outside Gurgaon's centre pieces of attraction. Two malls that seem to fill the sky and our hearts with desires. Demand and consumption. One is an urge to be satisfied, the other is a disease. But then economics is as far away from etymology as can possibly be. Hilbert space. I stand outside, breathing in the fuming air. Ten in the night, but the dry night air could be as hot as burnt rubber. The moon full in the sky seems to be looking at me with a rather mournful eye. I look at the six rickshaw wallahs standing by the side of the road.
-MDI
-Beez rupiah saab (Twenty rupees)
-Areh? Hum toh pandrah hi denge (Our offer is for fifteen)
Five minutes later, I am sitting in the same rickshaw, as a frail young boy attempts to press the pedals, to propel us the distance to a college which is to him as far away as the moon. I can smell the vodka fumes from the friend next to me. Burly as I am, I look at the rickshaw puller. Thankfully there's always a chance. As I share the beer I purchase with the rickshaw driver, I can see his shoulder blades bunching as he takes a long draught of beer. As he pulls us with his feet to distant shores he may never reach I see him turn around to smile at me. I think to myself. There's got to be a better way.

Profits. Peppy Profits:

As I wake up I hear the voice speak again about "Profits". "Profits", is by itself something I can tolerate. I bristle at "Thought Leadership", and fume at "People policies". "Profits" is a milder cousin. "Profits" is the black sheep. "Profits" is something I can live with. Not what comes next. "Profit is everything".
- Excuse me prof. Everything?
- Surely that is the fundamental premise of operating a company.
- I nod my head and think about a far away place like Flint. And as I look at the windmills of my mind I think of a place closer to home. Gurgaon. And then I think to myself. There's got to be a better way.

There's got to be a better way.