Saturday, March 21, 2009

What is an MBA?

"What is an MBA?", asked the black lady sitting in front of a Burger king outlet..

Location: Some rest area en route to Virginia.
Situation:
We were traveling from New Jersey to Virginia to have a fun vacation. We stopped at this rest area to have some food and water. It was 5 a.m. in the morning. I went up to Andrea (the lady sitting in front of Burger King) and kicked off a conversation. She asked me, "What do you do Shailee?". I said, "I am a student. I study in FDU. Am pursuing MBA." And it was then that she asked me, "What is an MBA?"
For a minute I was shocked. MBA is such a common term! I mean who does not know about MBA's? I was taking the world for granted in that moment.
Every day in our MBA classes we talk about issues like globalization, the dying American economy, politics, Obama's measures to combat recession and blah blah.. never once did it cross my mind that someone on the planet might not even know what MBA is..
All the huge talks about everyone doing something to tackle recession would then sound so trivial when more than half of the population on the planet doesn't even know what is going wrong.
People in countries like Africa, Pakistan or Bangladesh wouldn't even care for something like this. Because everyday is a struggle for people in these countries. Everyday they, probably, wake up with fear in their mind whether they will get water or not, or whether they will get bread to eat or not.
It sounds ridiculous when people here are worried about not being able to pay mortgage or shop in extravagant shops when more than half of the people on the planet don't even know what mortgage is or what DKNY, Gucci or Chanel is..
We cry now, because we have to face problems now. We can now, perhaps, empathize with more than half the population on the planet. We now know what it is to be an African caught in a famine or a Bangladeshi staying in a refugee camp. We, hopefully, now know...

1 comment:

Nehal Shah said...

Hey! was one of the best that I read on ur blog!! Frankly speaking, theres not a single argument in the post that lacks a premise..
Love u.. :)