To be or not to be

Am I just using well-known phrases to title my posts, while I follow them up with completely unrelated content? Maybe. Let's see how this one goes.

Scene 1. 3 weeks into B-school and I am slowly picking up on the hype of global I-banking and consulting firms. I know I am good, and I want to get a good job with a startling pay package, but at a more fundamental level, I feels it's more important to involve myself in projects that matter; not simply those that buy the body and mind, but those that steal the soul. The search continues.

Scene 2. I was heading home last Friday evening. It's a 4 hour train journey. I couldn't purchase a reservation so I ended up going in the IInd class general compartment. Those were 4 long hours. 2 spent next to the toilets crouched on the compartment floor, with just enough space to fit my butt and feet. The next 2 hours saw the crowd swell into twice the number at the only stop the train made before I reached home. Thereafter, a teenage boy sat on the sink wall, another fit himself under the sink. An old man was so tired of being pushed around, he braved the stench and heat in the latrine and sought comfort there. I stood the whole while. The populace was essentially daily wage labor, making the 30 hour journey to seek odd hard jobs in more promising parts of the country, relocating for the greater part of the year to support their family at home. All men with able bodies. Men with similar appearance: dark skin, eyes without expression, wearing worn clothes and a pair of slippers, travelling emptyhanded, leaning on perfect strangers, a few drunk, a few sober, sitting/standing quietly, absolutely tolerant, even accomodating, in these apparently extenuating conditions.

Scene 3: Next day at home, I am going over my old school certificates with my father. It brought back a rush of memories. Somehow, the images were tinted with a happy shade, too good to be true, but the series of thought conveniently ignored everything I would've otherwise wanted to avoid experiencing. My parents, siblings, teachers and friends formed the small cozy world I operated in. The toys were cheaper, the stakes were less and the aspirations rather trivial then, but the creativity, passion and enthusiasm made up for it. Will I ever relive those deep and pure emotions again, or is it all downhill from here?

I will resist the urge to add another perfectly disconnected scene to the chaos above, and terminate your reading agony here by summing this up. Ah, life, meaningless in its entirety, the question then is "to be" or "not to be"?

What did you think? I was going to give you a Hollywood finale or something? Pay up if you want a better ending ;)