The Economic Times

In 2004 June I left Graphite India Ltd’s job and came to Kolkata for my preparation for CAT and joined ERUDITE, an MBA Entrance Training Institute, that time was in Camac Street. During the first day of training session, the Institute Director, who happened to be an IIM-ite and Entrepreneur, came up with the advice (or threat?) of reading Economic Times daily to get through the miraculous world of an A+ graded B-School. Thanks to my BMIC (Bengali Medium Inferiority Complex), I used to believe in every word of a person who looks smart and can speak good English. So I believe in him and started reading …. Sorry …. Subscribing the most coveted “Business Newspaper” Economic Times.
After 6 months of struggle I had not managed to open the gate of any of those illusive target B-Schools, but, when I had stopped subscribing Economic Times, thanks to my Engineering Degree, I got a modest job within one month.
In 2008, I’ve again tried to go against the tide and left the job to pursue MBA. This time I have not made the mistake of subscribing “the” Economic Times, and my CAT Score was far better without any kind of preparation. (But this time also I couldn’t manage to get thru a good B-School, but that’s a different story).
After joining MBA, again, faculties came up with the idea of reading “Economic Times” to get a good job. Good job. The only thing, which can be dreamt off from a Business Institute. So I couldn’t resist myself from subscribing again that “Chronicle of Sins committed by Most Respected Indians like Ramalingam Raju et. al.”, in short “The Economic Times”.
One and half year has been passed, while 50% of students of my batch have been placed, but I have failed to get one. Last week, in a boozed state, searching for the reasons of my failure, sitting in my room, I looked at the heap of virgin Economic Times collected over a period of 18 months. At once, at 10:30 pm I dialed the number of my Newspaper Vendor Sanjit-babu and asked him repeatedly to stop the Economic Times from the next day.
Today I have sold all those collection of rubbish to a ‘Raddiwallah’ and got 2 valuable things. This is the first time in my life I have got some benefit out of subscribing “The Economic Times”.
First, that motor mouth ‘Raddiwallah’ gave me a compliment. He told me that though he is in this business for 20 years, he has not seen so many newspapers in ‘such clean and good condition’.(Quite natural, I haven’t opened 98% of those for even a single time). He told me, that, he thinks, though I am a bachelor, I can really take care of my own things.
Secondly, I got 150 Rupees by selling that garbage, and earned 5 day’s free Gold Flake.
And I can guarantee you; I will get a job within one month.
Adieu, The Economic Times.