Getting Started

19th Feb 2008
I've been keeping journals from along time back. But I've to be honest here, I neither was really serious about it and I was really really irregular. I have very little to go back to, except for the one's that I wrote since I came to Kolkata for my Graduation. Those are also not a lot, say an average of 1 entry per month. Back in my school days too I used to write stuff, however inconsistently, but never saved them up in a memory chest of yesteryears…don't even have a box too where I've saved up my old things. All I have of my past is what my seriously abused memory can muster up.
Its been almost 4 years in Kolkata. I came here in July 2004 for my Graduation which I completed under amazing circumstances (that’s another story altogether) last year …..abt 7 months ago….maybe 8. Had a Post Graduate Degree in Philosophy all lined up infront of me, but I went in search of greener pastures (read an MBA degree). Big Bucks, City Life and all that. So I gave up a career as a Professor of Philosophy in my hometown in Kalimpong, no I wasn't offered the job…but just pipe dreaming my way if I had taken a PG Degree in Philosophy…feels good. Anyway, I got my self enrolled in one of the institutes that imparts packaged training modules for preparation for the MBA Admission Tests. I slogged my way through - doing Math after 5 years (I started from Fractions man), reading 'The Economic Times' (which seemed like French at the beginning), giving up my weekly schedule of playing football in Sunday morning's to guess whether 'Bus A will take 5.7s , 8.7 or 6.6 seconds to reach Kya Kya Island' in the elusive Quant section of the weekly Mock Cats. Scavenging through newspapers for admission notices and test registration details, trying to figure out the 'n'th power of 'whatever' and after countless sharpening of pencils. The Big Day had arrived - CAT Nov. 18th 2007 - the mother of all entrance exams.
The night before the Big Day…….I was up till 3 A.M. in the morning twisting and turning in my bed since 10 P.M.(About 5 hrs of mental rape caused by the most ill-timed bout of anxiety attack)…..talk about shit happening. Woke up around 8 A.M. and left for the centre which wasn't really that far an hour early..( second big mistake). I reached an HOUR earlier as planned but didn't know what to do outside the gate, felt really nervous especially after a horrible night of sleep. For some inexplicable reason I felt my throat dry up and bought some water and with it the curse of the Urinary God..if there ever was one. 15 mins into my exam I felt the pressure, which had assumed tremendous proportions by the time I was 30 mins into my exam. By the time I got excused after 1 hr of the exam had finished, I could almost feel piss running through my entire body instead of blood. The feeling that I had at the rest room (which was most 'conveniently' placed a FLOOR below my examination hall) was as close to an oxymoron that I'll ever experience. With my mind thinking that I've fu****d up my exam to the lower part of my body experiencing what they say is 'the best feeling in the world'…….I was nervously relieved (don't care if the oxymoron doesn't stand). I felt the pain in my heart every time I friken pissed for almost a month after the CATastrophe.
That’s history now, the subsequent entrance tests - MAT, SNAP, XAT, had suddenly gained a lot of brownie points as far as importance was concerned. MAT came as some retribution with 98.5%ile, SNAP got me an SCMHRD call but missed out on SIBM by 1.5 marks ( #$%@&*). XAT was an exam I hadn't intended to appear for but did nonetheless after the CAT situation. I was so casual about XAT (known to be the toughest entrance of them all) that I didn't even apply to XLRI or XIM-B. But as it turned out I got 99.3 %ile in XAT… talk about "the khota sikka coming to use".
Then came the season for calls, Group Discussions and Interviews. Now that was unchartered territory alright. I fumbled, mumbled, sweated my way through the mock GD's. Then I went for the first GD and Interview call's of this season - to Bangalore (Christ) and Pune (SCMHRD). The journey and my experiences is another long story and I hope to write about it some time later.
18th Feb '08 (Yesterday) Got rejected for SCMHRD…Shit Happens I know but dunno why it feels like diarrahoea (sp. may be wrong) this time. I haven't even washed my formals which I thought I'd seen the last of, but looks like the noose (read tie) is gonna be around my neck again soon. And a bloke in pagalguy who's been rejected too shared something very 'reassuring' will all us losers….It went like "If you don't clear your entrance exams like CAT, XAT etc..it means you're not working hard enough. But if you don't clear your GD and Interview it means there's a hole in your personality"… Thanks mate, felt really grand after reading that.
Aki.
19th Feb '08