Whoever said that going back to Business school means revamping your thoughts and assumptions was absolutely right. This blog comes after a rapid-fire Financial Accounting class and may hence be infested with uncomprehendable jargon and concepts that come free with every purchase of a Financial Accounting course asset.
So every time I learnt a new concept in this class, I was supposed to debit my "brain" account and credit the "lecturer" account. And every time I indulged in Arbit CP or arbitrary class participation, I credited my "mouth" account and debited the "class" account. However there is nothing positive or negative about debiting and crediting the accounts, as one may have thought thus far. Debiting the brain account may turn out to be a negative since it could get you completely confused. And debiting the class account could invoke the wrath of the people surrounding you if the account is debited with Arbit CP.
Blame it on the banks! No Im talking about the financial crisis for a change. Im talking about the jargon that we have gotten used to since time immemorial, all due to our transactions at the bank. We have been accustomed to the fact that our account will be debited when the bank is taking out money. Whenever Dad transferred money to my account when I was studying, he used to ask me "has the money been credited?". So all we thought was crediting one's account means blessing it with money, while debiting it means stripping it off to some extent. All the same, in the Accounting class, we were made to "un-learn", all in the name of management jargon, what we already knew about debit and credit.
Some were highly intrigued by the concept. Debit and credit are probably the most English-sounding words in Accounting, as compared to words like assets, liabilities, accruals, equity, receivables, etc. And just when you thought that your twenty years' knowledge of the English language was probably the only pre-requisite you had while taking up an Accounting course, that tower of knowledge started leaning like the Qutb Minar. And once you heard the definition of debit and credit in Accounting parlance, the tower just collapsed.
Of course, at the end of the day, it is just a question of practice and working out more and more balance sheets, which most of my accounting friends claim never balance. After a couple of weeks of accounting, I would probably and hopefully be able to rattle off more concepts like "debit what comes in and credit what goes out". But until then I am going to be confusing my friends saying "the sun just rose in the west" or "i climbed down to the second floor from the ground floor".
The Rich Beggar
