The Mumbai Diaries

Slot 0 summers, slot 0 summers – over!

The result – no PPO, i.e. by the unofficial standards – failed.

It’s a different question whether that no PPO was a product of my poor performance in the internship, or was it just the company that is in no mood to hire right now. It really doesn’t matter at the end of the day, because when some of my friends, some of my batch mates would be taking life by its horns with a PPO in their hand, I would have to sit in my room, studying, preparing for the finals, building CV points!

As I approach the end of my internship, life starts to look like a journey without a destination. The first few months of my IIM life was all about securing a good summer internship. The next few months went by looking forward to the coveted slot 0 internship that I bagged. During my internship, my first few weeks were spent looking forward to, apart from the internship itself, my return to Joka, to its carefree life. Now the internship is about to last just two weeks more. The return date to Joka has started looking more real. The internship chapter of my life is about to draw its conclusion.

I always knew this company does not give a PPO. I knew that right from the time I got selected. But that never struck me as a reality. Now, it seems to be looking into my eyes. The depressed market, the traditional absence of high paying finance companies from the final placements, my not-so-great CGPA (unlikely to become the so-great CGPA by the time of placements) make this feeling even worse. Would I land up with a good job? Would it pay me well? Would it me in a company and area of my interest? I don’t know, and I am really not optimistic about it.

It’s not just the job, it’s my entire life. What is your aim in life? I don’t know, I have never thought about it. In the rush of competitive exams and never ending milestones, I have never planned my life beyond a year. Now that I hardly have any more competitive exams to take, and with only a few milestones ahead, this thought has started bothering me again. What should I do with my life? Should I just take a job, and then hop to a better one, then to an even better one and so on? What is my dream job? What is my priority sector? (Not because it is “hot” and “glamorous”, but because I like it). What is my long term goal in life? Is it job? Or is it something else like academia or entrepreneurship?

I don’t know what has happened to me. I don’t know why I am thinking about all these things all of a sudden. May be because of the realization that I have already avoided these questions as much as I could, may be because now these questions demand an answer. I wish I could at least have a clue how to solve these riddles. But I have none. For the first time in my life, I find myself helpless. For the first time in my life, I have got nothing. I am broke!