Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Want to become a stand-up comic in India? Study engineering first. That is the path.

If you meet an author, a poet, a screenwriter, especially from India, and crawl back far enough through our résumés, you will inevitably find a degree in management, marketing, or communications.

Mine’s the same. What made me choose such a path?

Throughout my early years of schooling at Maneckji Cooper in Juhu, I had loved English class.

My hand was always shooting into the air with answers. I have never done cocaine, but I imagine the rush must pale in comparison to what I’d feel when Pushpa Ma’am asked things like, “Does anyone in class know the meaning of belligerent?”

I hadn’t thought it possible but when I moved to Dhirubhai Ambani International School, with its IGCSE and IB curricula, I enjoyed English even more.

It was my first time reading modern theatre or lit-fic: Waiting for Godot; Chronicle of a Death Foretold; The Thief and the Dogs. And the poetry! “Mid-Term Break.” “Pike.” “To His Coy Mistress.”

So, of course, when it came time for me to decide what to study at university, I chose:

Lol.

You see, at seventeen, I was gripped in the cultish fever of getting into the “Ivy Leagues” or “Oxbridge,” the same fever that infects most teenagers at international schools.

But I had tanked my Oxford interview (embarrassing story for another time), and was so vastly relieved at being accepted into the “next best” school on my list—the LSE—it didn’t even matter to me that I’d just committed to studying ‘Managerial Economics.’

For three goddamn years.

Why Managerial Economics, you ask plaintively? Why not Literature?

Well, for one, the LSE didn’t offer degrees in Literature at that time, from what I can remember.

But even if they had, my family—forgive their error, Lord—had started to believe I’d be a good fit for a cushy corporate job.

None of them had ever held such a job so, of course, they championed it even more avidly.

My own imaginings of ‘corporate life’ came from T.V., that most potent of all career counsellors.

Ooh, my pencil skirts for office would be so sexy, and my stilettos would click-clack over polished marble; I’d earn tons of money, and have the corner suite and eat bits of cheese at posh conferences. Once in a while, I’d even do some managing or marketing.

But most of all, I made this head-scratching choice because I didn’t value highly enough what was fun for me. What came easy to me. I took it for granted.

My True Love had been right in front of me all these years, and when he finally leaned in for a kiss, I friend-zoned the poor fella.

“Literature? Yeah, I mean, he’s sweet and all . . . no, he’s nice . . . yeah, we have fun . . . but, like, he doesn’t make any money, does he?”

Management, Finance, Engineering, Consultancy, Law: how often these are the Shores of the Undecided.

We wash up on them, not clear-sighted enough or brave enough or rich enough (okay, that last one is justified) to swim against the tide to the thing we know we enjoy more.

I was certainly not clear-sighted.

And that is how I ended up at the London School of Economics.

Until next time,

Sukriti.

SPICE Traders: Did you always know your True Love, and did you friend-zone it? Or did you embrace it from the beginning?