My B-School (like every other) had planned and arranged for the convocation of MBA Batch 18-20, and it was supposed to happen on the 17th of April. But the on-going pandemic had ruined the dreams to meet our friends for one last time and receive that hard-earned degree in presence of our parents! So, on that very day, I decided to put the would-have-been experience into words and shared it online with my batchmates on my newly launched magazine The Keen Gene. After it gained 1400 reads, I thought, why not share this emotional reverie with 200,000+ students across 5000 B-schools in India, so that they too don't miss what the batch of NMIMS 2020 felt on the 17th of April!
Here it goes:
Dear Batch of SBM 2018-2020,
Today, we would all have met together one more time, and probably this would have been our final one-last-time. Today, we would have donned the black capes and hats, and clicked atleast a thousand photographs that would have been cherished forever. Today, after two years of rigorous sweat and toil, after facing a hundred failures but gaining nothing less than a million opportunities to smile and succeed, after 100 tests and 250 case studies, we would have been officially declared as M-B-A.
It would have been a beautiful, a very hopeful day. Of course, some of you would not have made it to convocation, as you would have already been writing a new life chapter in that new workplace of yours. But most of you would have made it possible. Flying to the city of dreams with your parents, so that their dream of seeing their child graduate comes true. Can you not already visualize it? Your mother, who would have checked herself at least 20 times in front of the mirror, adjusting her new saree so that she looks her impressive best. And your father, he must have acted indifferent, but in his heart, oh he must be feeling immensely proud. Some of you would have tagged your siblings along with you, or the lucky ones would have brought their spouses. Can you not imagine the ‘Aww, now I know why people say you studied in a mall!’ expression of theirs?
I can see it all so clearly. I can see myself walk up the stairway to NMIMS building, the forest of artificial trees revealing itself through the glass doors. I always wondered, how could they look so fresh even when they were not real? But today, I wouldn’t have complained about them. Today, I wouldn’t have had any complaints with anything or anyone. I would have held my mom’s hand and showed her around. I can imagine her head lift and turn around, adoring the symmetry of the interiors, the garden, the ceiling, and the infamous capsule lifts! I would have instantly winked and replied after seeing that expression on her face ‘I’ll take you in that lift, the view is mesmerizing as you ascend down!’ I’d have showed my dad around too, and taken him to the Wall of Fame, and he would have inadvertently said, ‘I would love to see your photo here someday. But you have to work really hard for it you know, to get here.’ And he’d pause a bit, and say ‘I know you will, you’ll do amazing. You’ve already made us so proud’. And then I’d give him a big hug. Lastly, my sister, I would have sneaked her in somehow, and we would have ordered the famous panini and I would have narrated her a bunch of stories from my good-ol' Panini days!
I can see us all even more clearly. I can feel those tight, slight, and some awkward hugs we would have given each other. I can see us all, dressed and groomed at our best, giving fresh laughs to old jokes, still teasing our friends with funny matches we had made for them. Some of us would have said awkward hellos to our once-best-friends, some of us would have let out the first confident hi to that batchmate crush we always wanted to talk to. But today, it would have been a day all about smiles. Today we would have been more careful about not saying cuss words before our parents, but as soon as we’d hug, we would have whispered them back into each other’s ears, kyuki dost ko aur kaise bula sakte hai? There would be group hugs, squad poses, “group 1-10” photos, committee and club moments, division photos, first and last time awkward photos, and ‘Arey, tere saath photo khichi hi nai yaar!’ photos.
Yes, the only emotion today would have been of joy, but there would also be a source of tension. The tension between the parents of couples. Yes! 2-states convocation scenes would have been recreated multiple times, and mostly it would have fared successfully because the kids would have prepped their parents for this big day for a month. After all, those couples were not aiming to get just a degree today, right?
Today would have been the most joyous day for us on our campus. I can imagine it all! I can see you, getting up from your seat in the Mukesh Patel Auditorium, skipping a heartbeat as you hear the convocation host announce your name. You walk fast, leap, almost run towards the stage. Suddenly you feel the spotlight on you, all that cheer, hoots and claps thundering just for you. With every step you walk forward, you see the journey that led you to this exact point. It runs like a movie before your eyes, and all of it comes together, too fast - the very first day in this auditorium, you were making new friends and introducing yourself to literally every person you met, you remember yourself promising about abiding to the holy KASH, but then you hear the funny NMIMS anthem. You see your journey of the initial few months, a loop of rejections and acceptances, and 4hr sleep cycles. The movie then fast forwards to placement week and a weird combination of happiness and tears, both had become a part of your life by them. And ah, those internship months, they worked like some magic dust on your personality, but it was only after hardships that you could gain that new confident avatar. Suddenly you snap out of this movie and look around, you see so many familiar faces and feel happy about the most prestigious thing this institute gave you, not placement, not just education, but so many gorgeous friends and a set of family who’ll be there for you till the end of your life. But your movie gulps you in again, flashes from interviews of companies and committees, lecture halls, the canteen talks, Anand vada pav stall, dinner dates, study nights, competition stages, pre-event all-nighters, pub nights, gyaan sessions, house parties, Juhu beach just keep on reeling like an endless slideshow. And as you climb the steps of the stage, you arrive at the climax of your movie, where you feel like the hero/ine who is only feeling grateful towards these two years, for transforming you into this young, confident, charismatic and professionally cut person who has seen 10 years’ worth of experience in just 2.
As soon as you touch the certificate, you snap out of the flashback movie, and right into this new reality. Dean Sir is handing the certificate to you, with Veena ma’am just right next to him. You thank them, you literally can’t stop smiling and your heart feels like it will explode right now! It’s time for the mandatory photograph and you’re already ready with your best smile, but you did not expect that little teardrop form and roll out of your eye, and you don’t disturb it. You are just trying to capture every dimension of this precious moment in your memory forever.
Ah…! You go back to your seat only to see that your mother has produced many more streamed teardrops than you. That's when you know that you’ve given your parents the best give ever!
After the certificates would have been distributed, all of us students in the auditorium would have lifted the graduation caps, and thrown it high in the air, acknowledging everything we felt here, throwing away our worries, apprehensions, and any setback we faced here. And we would see and then chase the hats as they fall back towards the ground and collect them, while in reality, our hearts were just collecting all the good, bright and happy memories from here. And then we would have looked right in the eyes and nodded at each other, as our smiles would have communicated only one emotion - ‘Yes, yes WE MADE IT!
Your NMate,
Maitri Joshi