When We Didn’t Sell Our Ferraris (Because We Didn’t Have Any)
Towards the tail-end of my college years at SBC, a strange virus began infecting the minds of my friends. It wasn't COVID or Chikungunya—but something much scarier: Career Anxiety.
Like a plot twist in a Christopher Nolan film, people suddenly began asking each other with solemn intensity, “What after college?” Up until then, our idea of the future was blurry at best—a fogged-up window in a KSRTC bus—but now, the fog was lifting, and the view was… terrifying.
Everyone had a plan. I didn’t.My plan was simple: write exams as sincerely as possible, and survive the results. It was a BA in English, so the obvious road ahead seemed to be an MA in English—basically the same tunnel, just slightly deeper. But my closest friends had other plans. Big ones. With capital letters.
One of the most credible plans floating around was: MBA. Now, SBC did offer an MBA programme, but those students felt like they belonged to another realm. Their department was in a separate building—sleek and glassy, probably air-conditioned, and suspiciously silent. The MBA faculty walked around like they were solving national economic crises between classes. And the students? They dressed like LinkedIn profiles come to life—bags slung with corporate elegance, brows furrowed with imaginary Excel sheets, and eyes that said, “GDP growth is my personal burden.”
Compared to them, we were a chaotic mess of poetry, film theories, coffee house debates, and staring competitions with the girls from Assumption and NSS college. We lived our best lives on a broken stonewall that separated the KSRTC bus stand from the legendary Indian Coffee House. That wall saw more philosophy than most classrooms.
One day, during one of our ritualistic wall-meets, I saw my friend break ranks and climb into a KSRTC bus early—very uncharacteristic of him. I knocked on his window.
“I don’t want to waste time sitting there gaping at girls,” he said solemnly. “I want to read this book so I can become successful in life.”
I blinked. “And what magical book is that? The Kamasutra?” I smirked.
He held up his weapon of choice like it was Excalibur: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari.
“This is my stepping stone to IIM,” he said, eyes gleaming like a Bollywood hero in a self-improvement montage.
At that moment, I realised that while I was still figuring out how to use the footnotes in our Oxford edition texts, my friend had begun his spiritual-corporate journey. He soon disappeared into the Underworld—our affectionate nickname for the reference section in the library. Located in the dimmest, most forgotten basement, it was a place where daylight went to die and serious students were reborn.
And he wasn’t alone. Others followed. The sudden future-panic was swallowing students left, right and centre. Some grew beards. Some stopped making eye contact. Some just vanished into test prep centres never to return.
As for me, I waited a few days, hoping inspiration would strike. It didn’t.Instead, I took a week off from college to chart out some sort of study plan for the exams that loomed over us like Thanos. When I returned, I found that my best friends had begun practicing Hindi. Yes—Hindi.Over lunch walks to Mali restaurant, they'd have intense conversations like:“Tum kya karoge MBA ke baad?”“Main toh global marketing mein jauga, bhai.”All I could contribute was a confused “Kya?”
That walk to Mali had turned into the linguistic training ground for future CAT toppers.
But SBC wasn’t just an institution. It was a world—a sitcom ensemble cast where every character mattered. Our first year was like a Marvel crossover—chaotic and competitive. Second year was a meme-factory—we knew each other’s punchlines, and every day was hilarious. Third year was split-screen: one half panicking about the future, the other half booking the college tour and trying to make the most of the last stretch.
Now, as SBC celebrates its centenary, we are scattered across the globe. Our group is a colourful LinkedIn feed—bankers in Kochi, teachers in Abu Dhabi, businessmen in Dubai, lawyers in Delhi, and someone who still thinks IIM is a media channel. We’ve grown, but that bond from SBC? Still alive. We argue, we troll, we differ—but come back on WhatsApp to share memes, forward festival wishes, and occasionally plan reunions that never happen.
P.S.I did end up reading The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari—a year later, during a train ride, because it was literally the only book I had. Not out of enlightenment, but because the only other option was staring at the guy across from me who kept singing Lalitha Sahasranamam under his breath.
Last week, we handed the same book to my son, hoping to distract him from YouTube Shorts. He tore it into pieces. Not figuratively. Literally. Page by page.So I guess he’s rejecting the Ferrari AND the monk.
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