The Great Indian B school dream

This was the year of vengeance. How can someone, mark the questions wrongly in answer sheet? After all CAT is held once a year. So CAT had to be cracked this time. But what if 60 days before CAT, you had an accident? What if you had to spend seven days in hospital and spend the next 40 days confined in your flat? What if you missed all the CAT mock tests and classes? What if doctors wanted you to be seen nowhere near your laptop/TV/books because it would strain your already spectacled eyes? What if everybody said you should give CAT a miss this time? Well I was in no mood to give in. On November 5, I palliated on Ashu’s (my flatmate) bike to the doctor’s clinic. At the end of that 300m journey, I was panting! Somehow, I coaxed the doctor to give me a “fit to join certificate”. I did not join the company but that played a part in convincing my parents to allow me to go for CAT this year!

Nov 15: This time I decided that I would not take CAT too lightly. As usual we had some chit chat in the flat and then I retired to bed early, with one book in hand and slept. However that privilege was short lived. I could not sleep long and spent the night turning around in the bed till 4 am. I work up late and by the time I was ready, my friend was honking like anything. We managed to reach the center just in time, wandering what IIMs had in store this time. However IIMs decided to go for an easy paper this time. When Rohra Sir (my CAT mentor) heard about my number of attempts, he told me “Check with TIME solutions and call me back immediately. I can’t wait to hear that you would be a BLACKI!” It turned out that I had goofed up big time in DI with some clumsy overwriting. The “crossing of tick mark” in DI paper made all the IIMs virtually cross my chances of any IIM calls. I ended up in high 98%tile with calls from all other top b schools except IIMs.

Then started the GD/PI sessions. You keep meeting the same set of people all over again. In the process you also make some really good friends. You have those soul searching sessions with your friends. Some forms really make you think who you are! You get to know yourself better. And at the end of it, you get to know your result!

One fine day, I got a call from Aashu (another flat mate), saying that I had made to one of the dream colleges. A sigh of relief and then everything changed. Not office, no late night phone calls, No client call! The feeling took some time to sink in.

Some people told you should be going only to IIM A, B or C. Why don’t you try next year? I was a little apprehensive. What if I have another accident just before CAT? What if I again mess up during marking the answers? I decided not to go again next year. I have hope from my b school. As the architect told Neo in Matrix:"Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness."