Anti Tick Tock

We are sentenced from birth by a great social plan. Tick. Of primary cramming in anticipation of secondary. Tock. Of pre-Board hysteria preceding the Boards. Tick. Evening tutoring following morning. Tock. Defiance, tick, following despair. Tock.

All in the hallowed name of learning.

And God preserve you if you want to dig your heels in and scream somethings wrong here, why am I doing this?

Ask Indias great bourgeoisie how are your children doing, how are your children growing?

Dont disturb the social placebo. Things are going tick-tock.

Given this scenario, being an anti tick tockist is by no means an easy position. As inheritors of the anti tick tock legacy, born and bred to do what is tick and what is tock it is difficult to question accepted notions of necessity.

 

The first rule of irreversible law learnt in school is that Teacher is a teacher with a capital T, and can never again stoop so low as to learn. If you want to suggest hes guide not Gospel, youre dead.

The second cardinal is to fit in. Do as others do at any cost. If your I does not fit their we youre barking up the wrong tree.

The third indispensable is to cram. Mug the genus, the species. Mug the tonnage, the acreage, the year, the dollar, the rupee. Memory is the litmus test. If Reason rises to say your fifteen years of schooling is a lie, kick it to the rear.

The tick tock trap toughens if you want to be a certified MBA. Whether its the CAT or the GMAT, you have to sell your soul and your sleep, for a successful life in the stocks.

To bell the CAT (or the GMAT) you must be able to tell whether if Mr Xs grandfather was married to Mrs B and had a brood of three, and Master Y had a sty and others all lie, is Mrs R their aunt, or is it Mrs G? And then its not just savvy you need here, but speed.

When youve cracked that cookie, youre one step into the big league the GOMBAs (grossly overpaid MBAs) striving in stripes after cellulars, tick, CDs, tock. The Lexus, tick. the Good Life, tock. Club crowd, tick. Cool cruise, tock.

And all the while the stark reality runs from you. Beneath the GOMBA is a GUMBA (grossly underpaid MBA). Over worked nights merging into MNC days, tick. Money meant for mirth gathering moss, tock. Family and friends forfeited, tick. Hobbies harnessed, tock. Despair, tock, following dreams, tick.

All in the hallowed name of earning.

And God preserve you if you dig in your heels and scream somethings wrong here, why am I doing this?

Ask the rich MBAs of India how is your health doing, how is your personal morale faring?

Dont disturb the social placebo. Things are going tick tock.

So out of habit and barely perceived coercion you move with the crowd, suppressing doubt until you realise that while ostensibly doing well and going places, what is uniquely you is seeping out of existence. And if you give expression to the niggling sense of wrong in your life and break the prescribed moulds of right you have attained anti tick tockism.

Its not the answer, maybe, but finally, it is the space to question.