Trust the timing

To 23-year old Aish, 

Hi, how are you? I see you have made your way to the cheapest food you could find at Orchard, at the underground Food Republic. It is simple Japanese fare, the teriyaki flavours a bit too strong for your taste. The first year at Ahmedabad, with access to delicious vegetarian food has spoilt you. Can you believe it still? You are studying in the top B-school in the country, a dream since 2014. And now here, on an internship with an investment bank in Singapore. Remember back in 2016, on the vacation with the fam, you had walked around Marina Bay looking up at the tall skyscrapers of CBD, wondering how it would be to work in a place like this. You were just 17, just done with your board exams. I have good news and bad news for 17-year old you. Good news is, you will work in the same financial district. The bad news, that vacation is the last real break you got. 

But you are used to that now, at 23, right? Years of college, then getting one of the best-paying placements and thus the earliest joining date at your first job. Two years of working there, learning so much on how to behave in “corporate”, while doing a lot of growing up yourself. In between the COVID-19 pandemic and the long hours, you decide to take a leap of faith and put in your notice period. Very very luckily for you, you get your IIMA call one week before your job ends. And class starts in three weeks - oops, no time to spare. The first term of IIMA is a rite of passage that former RBI governors are known to quote. You have made it through, with a lot of stubborn ambition to get top grades. Which you did, especially in economics and organisational behaviour. Oh, but in the quant subjects? Your competitiveness is no match to the IIT-ian majority. You are still upset about the D-grade, I know. Trust me, you will still include that in the first five conversations you have with anyone you meet. Yeah, you haven’t improved there. 

You chose the cheapest food because you wanted to make the most of your internship stipend. The stay the company has provided gives you free breakfast, and you have cleverly gotten a portion of it packed to become your lunch as well. While your co-interns shop, party, go to Universal Studios and visit nearby Indonesian islands (very naturally), you count every dollar and spend your weekends with your cousin. She is still your main source of emotional support in Singapore, so that was a good move. I guess you always did take a lot of pride in being financially independent, and at that point, you had not developed a taste for shopping. As for traveling, you will learn how to tolerate it better in the future. 

You are getting to the midpoint of the internship now, and you are worried if you will convert full-time. God knows you don’t have the patience in you to do a case interview. Why ask 10 questions when you know the answer with 2? Full-time placements into a finance role are also extremely rare. You have a whole year as Decibel coordinator ahead too, who will prepare for finals then? Also, didn’t we decide we will work only in India? You are now spiralling, are we being too capitalistic, pursuing the opportunity that gives us the best financial and career benefits while sacrificing things like contributing to country and proximity to family? Oh but wait, Kochi and Singapore are only slightly farther than Kochi and any other major city in India. This dilemma will only get deeper next year, when you develop a stronger inclination to public policy. Although pragmatic minds around you will guide you back to Singapore. 

Well,we are about four years ahead today. You got the job, you moved and although it took time to settle, to find your footing at the job, to build your little world and routines around you, you pretty much did all of it - by yourself. At the same time, you have a whole new bunch of friends and even family members now. You graduated and featured in the local newspaper! You walked across the Brooklyn bridge, did puppy yoga in Bali and know your way around Hong Kong. Okay, you stumbled and got hurt a few times. But you also got promoted, got really fit at one point (which is now a work in progress) and you still sing Hindustani Classical. You spend your weekdays in a job you truly enjoy, and your free time doing yoga, pilates, swimming or writing blogs. All your fears and worries seem uncalled for, but you didn’t know that did you? I went to the same Japanese stall at the underground Food Republic near Orchard today. The servers have changed, but the flavours still overwhelm me.