Just another...

When do you start learning? Thats a tough question to answer! Everyone starts learning perhaps the moment they are born, the first time some one touches you, you learn to cry! The first time you are fed, you start learning to eat! And probably the thirst for knowledge is immense, sometimes losing to and sometimes winning over thirst for materialistic pleasures!

Anyway, the formal learning starts when we lay our hands on books, go to school and are taught! This probably never stops, as in the quest to go somewhere, attend something and learn somemore. The motivation is probably not as clear a writing on the wall, but the odds tend to point towards monetary benefits. Initially, when there was not so big a craze for huge pay packets and up-market living, people learnt the nuances of their dad's business or some job they were interested and got down to work. Eventually, more and more job profiles burgeoned and people were introduced to wider spectrums of pay packets and options. Everyone left their hereditary inhibitions and dared to venture into unknown territories to sieze the opportunity and make their day. That, indeed, is a welcome change, but....

Let me now get to the flipside. I was admitted to school. Like any other school-going kid, I made a big mess of myself to go to school. I cried everyday expecting my mom would ask me to stay back. Instead, she promised me that the road is rosy ahead, that school would be great fun when I learnt basics(read KG) and entered the counter(read Class 1 to 10). I obliged her and went to school. Then, I slowly slogged through primary school and asked her, my dad and many more when my day would come, when I would be the master, the master of the game! Pat came the reply, High School! They told me high school would be fun. I thought so. Entered my tenth. People said after the higher secondary exam, life would be rosy! Subjects I chose, exams I chose, everything my choice. Agreed again!

HSC over. +1 and +2! It was more of public opinion than my choice. I had to opt for sciences, having no interest in medicine and lacking guts to try literature and arts, given the slim chances of established future and huge pay packets they cannot offer to everyone. I had to take refuge in Math, Physics and Chemistry which would take me to the great Indian stream of Engineering. But, what a hectic journey it was. I had tough time preparing for several entrance examinations, just with the dream that undergrad would be my life! No pressure, only choice.

Cut to undergrad, damn... Too much pressure, the highest I have ever been through. Cut-throat competetion and racing-with-time schedules. But then, my friends, the road was still promised to be rosy ahead. People said post-grad would be a cakewalk because students decided their streams in the undergrad and hence there wouldn't be much competetion and a rat race for masters. I agreed, had to indeed!

Today, when I prepare for an entrance test for a Masters programme, I realise that people haven't yet decided to give up the rat race. Imagine 1.5 lakh students battling it out for a post graduate course with 3k seats on offer. Probably, this happens only in India. Evrytime I was promised the easiest curve ahead, I have met a dangerous dead-end sorta turn! I don't know when this race will end and people can easily apply for what course interests them and get into it without much fuss! No exams, no scores, just interests!

Even I am in that bandwagon of just another undergrad from just another institute in India waiting to write just another aptitude test to earn just another degree, as a friend put it yesterday(The last sentence of the previous paragraph was also courtesy him)! We are all those just anothers... Probably, there will come a day when we will be real masters of our own game, called our career! This is just another wait.... Just another rambling of mine in just another post of mine in just another blog!

FYI: Me just another candidate trying to bell the