Music mattered more than Rs 1 crore job

New Delhi: This is a unique story of a budding corporate professional, for whom music means more than money. That is precisely what 25-year-old IIM-Bangalore graduate Manasi Prasad has done when she decided to turn down a Rs 1-crore job offer from a US investment bank to pursue a career in music.

As a student of IIM-Bangalore, Manasi did her summer internship programme with Goldman Sachs in New York. Last November, the investment bank got back to her with a lucrative job offer with a Rs 1 crore pay package.

But Manasi has other ideas in mind. So, she has turned the offer, preferring instead to wait for the summer placements, which begin next month. She says she is keen to take up a job in Bangalore so that she can straddle between her job and interests in Carnatic classical music and Bharatanatyam.

Manasi is currently training under vocalist R K Padmanabha's tutelage. Her mother Tara Prasad was her first guru in music. She says she has been into music since the age of four and she has already received many a recognition. Manasi already has 10 music albums to her credit, Meera Madhuri being a recent one. She has performed all over the country and also abroad, including in Singapore, USA and Europe.

In the long-term, Manasi is in fact planning to start an institution in classical music in Bangalore. "I want the institution to be like IIM-B and it should restore Carnatic music to its roots," she was quoted as saying.

And even the IIM degree that Manasi is pursuing is only to add a brand value to her music career. "After getting a BE degree in IT from BMS College, it took me one year to decide to get into IIM-B. I would be able to achieve a lot more than the other graduates from IIM-B as I will combine my analytical skills that I earned from IIM with my creative skills and build something unique," she told the newspaper.

IIM-B has been a wonderful experience for Manasi, yet, she went through her bit of struggle trying to balance between academics and music. "I was never ready to sacrifice music. That meant, sacrificing sleep and social life, which was a test on my will power. When all the students were seen with their books, I was busy with my tampura," Manasi says.