Why MBA?

Type a 'why' on Google and the first suggestion that it throws up is 'Why MBA'. If you've landed here through Google search, I pity you. Please do not be under any illusions of enlightenment. Leave.

People all across the country, even Sri-sri-ek-hazaar-aath Arindam Chaudhuri, have torn their hair apart only to find themselves more confused every time. Some versions of Ramayana narrate the sleepless nights Rama spent in the endless pursuit. Even some great saints have been known to observe extreme penance to find the Ultimate Answer.

I still puke at the sight of brown newspapers. I still can't figure out the head or tail of an annual report. I still think that market research and statistics are buckets of shit. I still don't know how a stock market works.

But it's not been for nothing:

• I can define 'core competency' without falling down laughing
• I reply to 'What's Up' using a SWOT Analysis
• Requests for financial aids to parents are referred to as IPOs
• I ask my four-year old niece what the 'mission statement' in her life is
• I advise friends to lend some semblance of 'sustainability' to their relationships
• I talk to my girl about our future in terms of all the 'value' we can 'co-create'
• There are never less than six tabs on my browser
• 'Ctrl' is the most pressed button on my keyboard
• 'Reply to all' is my default action on reading a mail
• I make daily diary entries in MS Power Point

But the biggest 'value-add' to my life till now has been the mastery over GASing. For the uninitiated, GAS expands to Global Action Strategy. It refers to the art of blabbering/typing absolutely fucked up bullshit to a captive audience.

It usually starts with an epiphany - "Damn. I do not know jack about this" - usually followed by a quick reference to The Handbook Of Versatile MBA Jargon starring the likes of 'value', 'sustainability', 'strategy', 'organisational', 'leadership', 'hierarchy' and 'culture'. And then starts the quest for the Holy Grail: Frameworks!

Frameworks have been the most crucial inventions to mankind since sliced bread, wheels and condoms. For starters, these are lethally effective weapons of gas construction sired by jobless academicians and money-laundering consultants available to the rest of the world in hour of need/greed. The best of lot, my personal favourite is called a "Two-By-Two Matrix". TBTM is a motherfuckin' gem that swears to generalize even the most specific phenomena on earth. No person, animal or thing has ever been able to escape it's venom.

So, why MBA? The closest-to-acceptable answers are fat pay cheques and networking. If grades are any indicator of the cheque's flab, mine is bound to be severely malnutritioned. And networking, tch. My scorecard on this front shows all red. 553 days into the hallowed portals, I'm still as clueless as Manmohan Singh!

Here's FedEx take on the evil.