'CAT'aclysm

The Prologue

2008-05-18T07:35:00.001-07:00

Another nondescript monday. Two dudes are headed towards their office. Lets call them Dude-on-the-steering(DOS) and Dud-on-the-side-seat(DOSS).

A die hard F1 fan, DOS is pissed with the slowness on roads. Audioslave's "Show me how to live" is blaring on the speakers.

DOS was rattling out names of band members of Floyd etc and giving a scientific explanation on how Megadeath rocks and Metallica sucks. Some of it is going above DOSS's head and the rest of it even higher.

The car reaches the gate of the office. One of DOSS's managers is crossing the gate with her luggage pulling behind her. DOS is unaware that their is luggage behind her. Turns his head right to flash the badge to the security all along thinking DOSS's manager has passed and ends up almost touching her luggage.

Manager starts shouting having noticed DOSS. DOS bhai is unaware and keeps moving ahead.

DOSS: Dude, stop the car.

DOS : What!!??

DOSS: Fucking stop man!.

DOS runs back to the manager and apologises.

Manager: Go call your friend

DOS runs and gets his friend back.

DOSS apologises and the matter seems closed.

We go park the car in the basement and head for the lift making fun of the incident only to realise the same manager waiting for us. I have never been in a more deafeningly silent situation.

Manager goes and makes a complaint on the mannerisms of DOSS and friend to one of other managers who comes down and has a chat with DOSS. Straightly termed "spoilt brats".

DOS, the spoilt brat, heads for IIM Cal that summer.

One in the Queue

2008-05-18T07:34:00.002-07:00

Finally the day came when it dawned upon me that i needed to talk to the 6 most sought after ladies in the country.

VC: Sir, can i also get a chance to talk to Aishwarya Rai, Bipasha Basu, Chitrangada singh, Lara Dutta, Kareena Kapoor and Isha Koppikar.

Sir: Haha!... son!... these ladies don't have the time to talk to all of you. Only few lucky jackasses get the chance.

He whistles at the other guy( sleeves folded, collar upped and gutkha smeared teeth) "Oi!.. give this boy an application form".

VC: But sir ....

i am cut short

Sir: 1100 rupees and get in the queue please.

VC finds out that there are 2,49,999 people also for the same "talk".

Sir: Don't get tensed. There is a chance that Sushmita Sen also might be introduced this year to calm down some raising libidos.

VC: So what next now?

Sir: Nothing much. We need to know if you can find out cost of a wooden chair given the cost of a table , fan and the hair dryer. Oh wait... we also give you the cost of stone. And if you can find out how much was the one way charge of railway ticket from belgaum to ahmedabad in 1987 from a table of airline schedules of Chennai to Mumbai from 1965 to 1986 and a pricing chart of Bangalore BMTC from 1988 to 2008.

VC is looking at the sky now

Also we would like to know what Segmund Freud was thinking when Bertrand Russell said "A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand."

VC: thats it?

Sir: And you have to be real quick. like mach3 you know.

VC: Ok sir, thanks for your time.

Sir: Its ok. There are others who also let you talk to them . Some good ones being Madhuri Dixit, Shilpa shetty, Tabu. Other names are their in that form.

It was time for a drink. Gulp gulp gulp.

Dhobi ghat ka kutta

2008-05-18T07:34:00.001-07:00

There comes a time in everybody's life when everything starts going haywire. A situation so hopeless that you wonder if your bachelor's was worth all the mental pain you underwent. I was in one such desperate situation and desperate situations call for desperate measures. What i did was something sane people usually don't do and i also would "sincerely" suggest people in such situations not to take the way i took.

I had applied for GRE as well. Like a month before the GRE exam i realised that my preparations for both GRE and CAT were neck deep in shit. Take a look at the mock scores below ( in percentiles ) . Test 815 was the first mock and test 801 happened the week before CAT.

QA - Quantitative Aptitude
VA/RC - Verbal Ability/ Reading Comprehension
LR/DI - Logical Reasoning/ Data Interpretation
OA - Overall Percentile


        
TEST      QA        VA/RC      LR/DI      OA    

815     DIDN'T KNOW THAT IT HAS ALREADY STARTED  

814     STARTING PROBLEM

813     96.57       95.21        98.01    98.49 

812     97.98       98.17        97.21    99.65

811     70.02       76.40        98.71    93.41

810     84.71       67.52        42.26    72.82

809     BUNKED 

808     90.41       96.01         9.14

807     97.21       59.62        25.92    77.80

806     DIWALI  

805     BUNKED

804     65.38       76.00        82.72     81.13

803     COORG TRIP 

802     94.66       51.14        67.72     83.55

801     92.58       60.48        71.03     83.10

P.S : Test 808 does not have a overall percentile because i 
had a net negative in LR/DI section. ROFL.

So yes, i had become a dhobi ghat ka kutta - na ghar ka na ghat ka.

The master strategy that yours truly devised. One month from now would be for GRE. 10 days after that for TOEFL. 28 days after that for CAT. The 28 days also included that coorg trip where i made a jackass out of myself.

It was akin to that matrix scene..

Trinity:"Neo.. something like this has never been tried before"
Neo:"Thats why its gonna work!"

GRE,TOEFL ,creating history and TOEFL

2008-05-18T07:33:00.002-07:00

So i sneaked out of office in the afternoon for some "personal" work. And then gave the GREat exam. For all the GRE aspirants i only have one advice - please don't trust barron's when it comes to the aptitude part. I had never been so scared before while doing aptitude. Getting an 800 was more to save the face than getting anything out of it for an admit. And i could see myself turning yellow, which happens when you are "shit" scared.

For a while i seriously contemplating(GRE effect) of cancelling my score. But then i was already late in giving it. I would not make it this season if i had cancelled. So i went ahead. Managed a boundary line score. More importantly quant did not disappoint.

10 days later i had TOEFL, which some of my friends said, would be a walk in the park. Well i liked the park so much that i came back for a second time.

Like 6 days before the CAT i get this mail from ETS which told that their software somehow could not catch my voice and so they could not rate my speaking section which effectively means the whole process is void and that i had to take the exam all over again.Well for one i don't need a mike to address an audience in a theater and then this crap happening with me.

When i contacted the ETS guys, they had more interesting things to say. "This is the first time in the history of TOEFL Ibt that i have heard of something like this" with a sense of bewilderment that only a man who all along thought he was a woman would have surpassed.

6 days to go for the most competitive exam in the world and then this.

oh by the way its a walk in the jungle when it comes to the length of the exam. Some 100 miles long jungle.

CAT

2008-05-18T07:33:00.001-07:00

Yet another time. different place. What did i find?

Dudes.

Guys who think they are dudes.

Chicks. Some hot ones.

Guys who were dressed like Eskimos( Thanks to Bangalore's cold weather).

Gals frantically flipping formulae compendiums. Some guys too.

Parents.

Institutes handing out pamphlets.

Software engineers. How did i figure out?. These guys didn't have a fukin clue as to why they were giving this exam.

Atleast one of the above will continue to remain a software engineer. Or a Farmer.

Guys who were more focussed than a lens of 100 diopters.

Guys with a box full of sharpened pencils.

Guys who were giving this exam because his friend is giving(Peer pressure).

Guys who were giving this exam because his friend gave it last time(Peer pressure 2.0).

Guys who turned up because their brother had filled the form.

Guys who came because its "cool yo" to give this exam.

IIFT

2008-05-15T05:06:00.007-07:00

Had to leave the house by 7 AM. So was on the potti at 6 AM. I hear a painful wail. Trust me i have never heard such a loud and painful wail in my life ever. I wonder if i am the only guy hearing it. It stopped.

I get dressed and open the door. A dead cat right at the doormat. *phew*. What a day!.

9.30 . I am inside the examination centre. The chick in front of me is showing her thong in all glory and my concentration is put under test even before the darn exam has begun!

9.35 . I look around. I love you *****. Love is blind but lovers are not. Love is that. Love is this. Teenage graffiti.

9.40 . I happen to notice my bench. Take any point on the bench. Within a radius of 1 cm you will find 10 holes!.

9.45 . A lady enters. "Children... If you have any chits, papers .. throw them out now only. I am giving you chance now only. Later the squad will come and check. Your future is in your hand(holy shit!!)... I am very strict in these matters... Even if they don't catch , i will catch you(.|.) "

10. The Q-papers are distributed and i am assume Murphy is laughing. Because its in a totally different format from what it was supposed to be. They apparently took a leaf out of meaow's book!.

Some morons start asking clarifications about the paper to the lady.*sigh*.

For the benefit of future aspirants i want to analyze some questions.....

Which of the following teams secured the runner-up position in India's National Football League 2006-07?

a. East bengal Club
b. JCT, Phagwara
c. Mahindra United
d. Dempo SC

OK, at any time i have a fair idea about position, points, Goals-for, Goals-against and Goal-difference, home and away separate, of the top ten teams in English Premier League, Spanish and the Italian Leagues. Yes, I didn't answer this question.I didn't know about our own fukin league!!

Which one of the following is not correct about Palagummi Sainath?
a. Development journalist(what the fuck is that!!).
b. Expert on famine and hunger.
c. Was a student of Delhi University( I know only one university, VTU)
d. Grand son of former president V. V. Giri ( Do i look like a fukin genealogist?)

Match the following


       Country                      President
       i.Ghana                    a) Umaru Yar'Adua
      ii.Tanzania                 b) Yoweri Museveni
     iii.Nigeria                  c) John Agyekum Kufor
      iv.Uganda                   d) Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete

First thing, how the fuk do you spell those names?
Second thing, my state does not have a frigging chief minister and we are worried about presidents of other nation states. What fukin shit.

The best question in the paper, in fact the best question i have ever come across in my life ( because for once i felt all that time spent watching movies came to some use) ...

Match the correct combination in the following:


      Actresses                  Featured in a James Bond Movie
    i.Izabella Scorupco         a. The World is not enough
   ii.Teri Hatcher              b. Die Another Day
  iii.Sophie Marceau            c. Golden Eye
   iv.Rosamund Pike             d. Tomorrow Never Dies.

The only problem was that this question brought all sorts of thoughts ( and not to speak of the still visible thong in front!)...

12. "Children..... stooppppp!!!".

SOP writing for dummies

2008-05-15T05:06:00.005-07:00

When it comes to applying for Masters abroad, giving GRE is the easiest part. Some universities even ask for the years when you finished your class 1 to class 10 individually. For the benefit of future aspirants i will put down a simple procedure for writing SOPs and recommendation letters - a chat between me and my cousin. Its ad verbatim except some details [in {}]censored.

VC: dude
bro: whats up???

VC: the sop :)
did u review?

bro: read your SOP
looks good

VC: ok...

bro: too big

VC: oh!!

bro: one page man

VC: oh.. thats too small man

bro: nope
mine was a page
too much details
about {dept} engg

VC: ok....

bro: and networks and bullshit
nobody cares

VC: ok...

bro: first talk about background
{college}

VC: ok....

bro: courses
relevant
etc etc
then
{company}
what ou did there

VC: ok...

bro: then say i want to do
meng in CS
to gain more knowledge
about certain areas
and done

VC: wah!!
:)
i will trim it

bro: yeah

VC: i will remove all those world crap n all

bro: nobody wants to read more than a page
seriously
everyone knows networks are ubiquiotus
you dont have to tell them

VC: ya ya
:)

bro: :)
this is my opinion
trim it to a page
and shoot me a copy

VC: yap.. i will

bro: and i will tell you
what more to do
sounds good?

VC: cool...
y a p

bro: excellent

VC: i will also fwd u my lors... take a look at em also

bro: lors?

VC: recos

bro: oh
ok
in my opinion
as long as they say good student
motivated
hard working
shows keen interest to learn new things
good enough

VC: :)
ya.. i will include these words

bro: and do include

VC: they are tehre anyways

bro: the fact that cousin in {univ}
if you are applying here

VC: ok.. ya sounds good

bro: why {univ}
because i heard great things abt courses at {univ}
excellent faculty
rigorous and multitude of courses
and plethora of opportunities

VC: haha

bro: through my brother

VC: cool!!

bro: who is currently a MS PhD candidate in the {Dept}
ok?

VC: yo

I went to the college to find out a teacher who would give me a recomendation letter. Most of them had already been picked by fellow applicants and to keep your own and their chances of getting an admit intact you try to minimise the number of recomendations a faculty gives for the same university.

I stood in the department lobby waiting for the teacher and she finally came. I made eye contact with her and smiled. She kept walking.

VC:"Mam .. i need to talk to you"

Mam:"Come"

I am about to take my chair and she says

Mam:"Recomendation letter aa?"

VC:"Yes Mam!"

Mam:"All through the semester , you just slept in the class and now you want recomendation letter!!??"

VC:"Mam.. please mam!"

Mam:"But why should i give you?"

VC:"Because i am applying for {course-name} course and you had taught us {sub-name} subject."

Mam:"Alright.. get a draft in proper format. I will review it and then get evrything at one go. I wont keep signing every now and then. You can go."

VC: PHEW!

And then the madam was the most sweetest of all when it actually came down to signing and filling the online forms. Weird?. You bet!.

The First blood

2008-05-15T05:06:00.003-07:00

It was another day at the office. With new year's eve around, people were going full throttle with their party plans.I returned to my desk after being away for sometime and i saw a chat window open with a message

"dude... congrats!!"

I didn't have the wildest idea on earth what it was about.Unless ofcourse the IIMs this time released the results unannounced. But it would not have made any difference. I had not checked any of my answers after any of the exams despite suggestions from people. Not because i was sure but because i didn't want to shatter my hope till the day they are actually out. But then people would not buy the fact that i had not checked my answers. So i just told i have checked and i would not make it. No matter what the results are it cannot get worse.

"hey!.."
"for what?"

"@#$%^@&.. thats the number right?"

"dude..."
"i have no frigging idea what you talking about"

"IIFT results are out man...."

"oh!.."
"but i cant check the number.."
"the admit card is at the house.."

"should not matter... your name is there"
"congrats.. got to go for lunch..."

"Thanks man!.."

I tried logging in and i could not for hours. The big problem with all the sites is on the day the results are announced you either get in in the first 10 seconds or you are shut out for 10 hours.

I went to have my lunch. There was a weird feeling in my stomach. I mean how the hell did i make it.

I went back to my desk. Saw a mail from ETS telling that my TOEFL score was out. In the previous case i had checked for the TOEFL score almost every hour and this time i had just totally forgotten about it. I recalled how had the second TOEFL gone. It was pretty much like the first attempt. Atleast i did not see any major difference. If i were to create history again i would forget heading to the land of opportunities right here.

I opened the page. My jaws dropped. I was awestruck at the numbers i was seeing.

Two days later, in the evening, an another friend called up

"Dude... shit man!"

"What happened?"

"SP Jain has announced the interview shortlists. ******** checked and none of us have made it"

"Hmmm... its ok... may be you have a chance after the CAT based shortlist will be announced"

I didn't want to check the site.

Later in the night after doing my daily ritual of having a glass of orange juice, i logged into my corporate mail. There was a certain mail from admissions committee of SPJIMR. I mean when did Indian Colleges start mailing even when you are rejected. The US universities do that in case you didnt know.

I opened the mail nevertheless and it said i had been shortlisted for an interview and that i had to choose an interview slot.

I immediately picked the cell and dialed my friend.

"Did your friend check the right site?"

"Yes be!... kyon?"

"Ammmm.... i have a mail which tells me i have made it"

"What!... wtf!.... hang on.. let me log in"

"Yeah.. do that.. i also will"

"Ok... i have logged in.. marketing shortlist..."

"wait!.. what marketing shortlist.. we have applied for finance fucker!"

"What finance... i am pretty sure i applied for marketing"

"and me finance..."

"what!!... ohhhhhhhhhhhh"

"And i see my name in that fin list"

"ya ya!.. i see it too.. congrats [expletive]"

"Uffff!... Thanks [expletive]"

2 days to go for the new years eve and the mood was getting better. Things had changed overnight.

BLACKI

2008-05-15T05:06:00.001-07:00

My aunt told me that she had read on TOI that the CAT results would be out on Jan 8th. Three days to go and there were no "So are you all set?" calls thanks to my worst case hypothesis story.

The results are usually announced in the afternoon. This time they had even introduced a SMS approach to get your results.Not being near a PC with net connection is no excuse to not know your results. sigh.

My business unit director was to visit us and an all-hands meeting was scheduled in the afternoon that day.

I opened the chat window and messaged my friend

"Did you know that today was amavasya... haha!"

"Ya!"

"How co-incidental.. the results!"

"[expletive] .. it does not matter if results come
out on this day.. "
"You should not write the exam on this day"

"oh!..."

I was having lunch with my colleagues. There was an another colleague of mine who also had given the exam.We were joking about the numbers.

Then i went and sat in the all-hands conference. I had kept my cellphone in vibrate mode. I was getting lots of calls and i knew it was out.

I was suddenly so tensed that i felt i would die right their of a cardiac arrest. I was sweating profusely. The fact that the director had gone into a " I pick one guy and you ask me a question"- mode didn't help the situation either.

It finally ended and i came out to see my friend waiting with his cellphone in hand. He was downcast with his results.I took a look at the SMS. One look at him and i didn't want to check my results. He persisted that i check. I brushed him aside and went to my cube.

My friend came on over the chat and told me to login and check. I logged in and i could not.

He kept on persisting telling me to try the SMS. I told i don't know the format. He told me to send my TR number.I said no. He sent me the format.

I typed the message. Kept it ready. Read it again and again to make sure my TR was right.I kept the cellphone down on the table. With my face in my hands i raised my brows. Took one long breath , grabbed the cellphone and pressed the send button. Almost immediately i received an SMS. I could see my name and TR number, the first half of the message. I slided the message down to see the percentiles. That will remain the best SMS i have ever received in my entire life. Unfortunately its now property of the thief who stole my cell.

The SMS format does not tell you the places where you have been shortlisted. I was sure that i would atleast get an interview shortlist from one IIM and that was enough for me.

I just left the office the next instant. Back in the house, roomie was kicking ass with java packages and i told him to log into the site which was the only place to know. Server not found.

I told him to keep refreshing after every two smokes and let me know when the page loads.

After 3 cigarettes the page loaded and then i was a BLACKI!

Ok, BLACKI is one who has interview shortlists from all the IIMs. With shillong in picture now i dont know what happens to the acronym but its an awesome feeling to be a BLACKI. Altough there are two pronunciations, blackeye and blackeee, i prefer the second one and no, i am not a racist.

XAT

2008-05-15T05:05:00.005-07:00

The third of the trilogy was here after the first and the sequel.

Supposedly the younger(and more menacer) brother of meaow!.

My preparation :
I was taking bath the other day and the bathroom singer in me was singing "XL ki kudiyan very very smart ... hai mere tauba tauba!".

I enter the venue and bump into my long lost college friends. They are as frustrated with their jobs as i am. And we also are looking for solutions in the same direction. Just that they have a better chance.

Friend: "Oi!.. why are you in nightwear?"
VC: "Ammmm......"
Friend: "OK OK!"
VC: "OK"

Time to enter the room. I go and sit.
The guy in the seat behind "Can you please remove your watch and keep it in center so all of us(the other guy in his seat also didn't have) can use"

"Yeah why not. Next time around i will bring a fuckin wall clock with fuckin custom sounds built in to fuckin remind you at the end of every fuckin section that its time to move to the next fuckin section.. huh?". Well i did not say that. I removed my watch and kept it. For everyone to see that is.

At the end of the paper we had to write an essay.

"The consequences of gender imbalance - Third World War"

Sheer brilliance i must say. I actually think the guy wanted to give two topics but the guy who printed it replaced the "OR" with "-". And the results of the holocaust are to be out by the end of that month.

FMS

2008-05-15T05:05:00.003-07:00

The season has come to an end. A bitter sweet experience. A sigh of relief. Pangs of anticipation.

The first one ever to be in the afternoon. The least active part of my day.I enter the room. Search for my seat and go sit and look sidewards. A college friend of mine (a hotshot photographer in the making) is sitting.(Hi)s are exchanged.

A quick run up through break-ups, mash-ups and patch-ups, wannabe NRIs, and all the usual gossip. When one starts gossiping, the space-time continuum defies all equations and before i realized it was 15 minutes past the scheduled start time and i don't see any invigilator.

I ask to another guy sitting next to me if he also has come to give the exam or is it some classroom we are sitting in!.

Finally one guy walks in. Starts handing over the papers. 20 columns of 10 guys each. Me in the 6th. He starts and then after he is done with the first column he says "Please don't open the booklet". Five seconds later "Ok Open!".

The look on the faces of guys in the 15-20th columns.

The guy sitting next to me pats my hand "Hey what do i fill here"

"They had sent a letter along with the admit card where they had the instructions to fill it"

"Oh is it?"

"Wait i have it". And i handed it over to him.

Trust me it was free for all.

Halfway through the exam one guy comes and puts a stamp ink pad in front of me. "Your left thumb". I am clueless. "Fast! fast!". I give him my thumb impression.

(After the exam me and my friend discussed about this. But why on earth?. To prevent impersonation. Like they will have my records to match. But they can atleast check the guys who get selected later right?. Hmm.. he had a point)

When 10 minutes are left a guy walks in and with a very loud and clear voice

"If you have mobile phones, pagers and any other gadgets, please hand them over. Keeping them switched off is not sufficient. You will still be disqualified"

The bell goes off on time and the guys in my room lost time. It really would not have made any difference to my chances.

Meeting the future classmates

2008-05-15T05:05:00.001-07:00

Went to the TIME center to enroll for the GD/PI prep classes. Found out that the IIFT class had started long back and there was one last class left. I almost choked at that moment and realized that i was a tortoise whilst the race had changed to "fast and furious" mode.

Our center was privileged to have the director of the institute talk to us.After sending us miles high in the air with adulations and admiration he said

"But i have seen cases where guys with 6 calls could not convert even one and there were people who converted their lone calls... So the game ain't over"

In the first mock GD , after the moderator gave the go-ahead, 5 out of the 8 guys jumped in to talk. 10 minutes done and i had still not opened my mouth

The moderator went ballistic

"Stop.. stop right here"

He singled me out and

"You.. before the GD you appeared like a guy who i expected was gonna smash the crap out of these guys and you are sitting here like a fuckin sissy ( he did use the f-word)... you afraid of these guys?.. huh? ... whats wrong with you?"

i was just silent

"How many calls.. huh"

"6"

"oh boy!..." he just put his hand on this fore head and went and sat back.

People who could rattle out numbers and analysis like the ones one NDTV-profit, Guys who did it like they were addressing the whole nation ( with voice modulations ), Guys who used such flowery language that by the time they came to the point someone else would have cut him, Two people starting at the same time and backing off also at the same instant only to let the third smartass to get hold off the air time - I was seeing at guys who stood between me and my dream .

After about 3 sessions, i just could not take it anymore. Same faces same strategies and counter-strategies.

But i did meet some of the smartest guys out here and made a lot of good friends.

Around this time, North Carolina State University thought that i deserved to study in their university.

IIFT - The Talk

2008-05-15T05:04:00.005-07:00

I had given 3 interviews before - all technical. This was to be my first B-school interview. What made it special was that this was the only school giving a true "MBA" degree. If you didn't know rest of the b schools give you a diploma.

Went and sat in the conference room. Fellow competitors, few old professors and alumni.

An old professor addressed us

"You will be divided into 3 groups of 12 each. First you will have a group discussion and then an interview. Our group discussion is an hour long unlike other places which have it for 10 minutes where the people are expected to shout. We want our students to take a stand and not say yes for everything. In the group discussion you will be judged on 5 parameters - content and not aggression, articulateness, team play, moderation and body language. You will have two professors and two alumni for your entire process. All the best!"

We are made it to sit in order around an oval table with our registration numbers in front of us. A professor addressed us

"We will have GD in this way. First each one of you will speak for 2 minutes on the topic in order. Then each one of you will moderate the discussion for 2 minutes in a different order that i will choose. The moderator will be recognized by this red flag which will be kept in front of him for the 2-minute duration Then you all will summarize the discussion for 1 minute in the original order."

He then brought out a sealed envelope and handed it over to a guy to tear it. To everyone's surprise that guy struggled before which the professor snatched it back and showed it to him "You tear it like this!"

The topic for the GD was
"Impact of rupee appreciation on Indian economy"

The first guy started..

"See the purchasing power parity of India... which is defined as..... blah and blah..." He had learnt it and he had to tell it no matter what!

24 minutes got over.

"why don't we start the moderation with you" .. said the professor pointing to a girl next to me which meant i would be the last to moderate.

Surprisingly barring one other guy nobody else knew what moderation meant. They again spoke non-stop for 2 minutes. The sad part being that the others after that guy who did moderate properly also did not look at him and learn. 5 of them didn't even realize the flag was kept in front of them.

when the conclusion part was going on, a huge tall dark and imposing person in a brown business suit walked in and stood in the corner of the room and watched the proceedings. We later came to know it was the dean of the institute.

I was third to go in for the interview.

A Lady professor ushered me into the room. I expected to see 4 and i saw 6!. from my left to right sat the Dean, Vice-Dean, Lady-Prof, Alumni-1, Prof, Alumni-2.

Alumni-1 and Alumni-2 looked dapper in their business suits and blackberries in front of them. All of them had a copy of the interview form that they had gotten us filled days back. It had few basic questions on why management, an event that changed your outlook towards life, hobbies, contributions to social causes etc.

So Alumni1 told me to introduce myself and then the

lady-prof:"Your parents still live in the village?"

VC:"Yes Mam"

Lady-prof:"So what is this some kind of upcoming village, like a town or something?"

VC:"No Mam, Its a very small village... not more than 50 houses for sure"

She had this look on her face. she was just not ready to believe that i come from a village.

Lady-prof:"So tell me the 3 problems that need to be immediately addressed in rural India"

VC:"I actually feel..."

Lady-prof:"Just 1 2 3...{cuts the air on her hand three times}... no stories"

VC:"Education, Healthcare and Infrastructure... In that order."

Then few questions on my work, my employers and my business unit and the problems faced by large corporations in getting work done as opposed to start-ups etc were discussed

Then the talk somehow veered towards the cottage industries, employment in villages, geographical patents of India and how come we have not been able to capitalize on it.

This was a true blue "foot in the mouth" experience..

"I think there is a basic flaw in the marketing. I mean lets take the example of Mysore silk which is a geographical patent. Why do we have to market Mysore silk as Mysore silk sarees, why not Mysore silk Lingerie"

Dean and Vice-Dean of the college, a lady professor who i found out later was a marketing genius of the college!,a split second of silence , the two alumni look at each other and before it could get worse..

".. and skirts,shirts etc"

And i would not have been surprised had they told me that the interview was over and i could leave.

IIFT and NITIE were the only two institutes of the ones i attended where the panels that take your GD and PI are different and so it does not give you an edge in the interview if you smashed your GD nor does it kill you if you screwed it.

But then i had the Dean visiting my GD before and he was also in the interview...

Dean:"Did you prepare for the GD topic before?"

VC:"No sir... Just that our sector is badly affected and so we do discuss about over lunch"

Lady-prof:So how is your employer handling it?

VC:"Our main markets are Asia/Africa where we sell in local currencies and so this rupee appreciation has not affected us much".sigh.

Alumni2:"So you have read 'To kill a mocking Bird'.... Tell me what the book is about"

I felt that i had already shown i am a chauvinist by using words like 'Lingerie' in front of a lady before and so didn't want to talk about that incident in the book at all.

VC:"Its the story of a lawyer told from the eyes of his daughter about his fight against a racist society in the southern maycomb county in the thirties"

Alumni2:"No no.. tell me about that incident"

shit!. You asked for it sir, not my fault and i went

VC:" An innocent black man is accused of RAPING a white girl. The whole society knows about it but still wants the black man punished for racist reasons and atticus finch is trying to convince them to stand on the side of the truth". Ufff.

Alumni2:"Who is the author?"

VC:"Sir... Harper Lee"

Alumni2:"he or she?"

VC:"Female sir"

Alumni2 smiles and looks down. alumni1 and lady-prof look at Alumni2. Alumni2 looks at them and says

"He is right"

Lady-prof:"alright.. we are done!.. Can you go back to the room and tell the girl to come over and stand outside the room?"

VC:"Sure Mam"

Went back and gave the girl crisp instructions and dashed back to the house. I was about to board an airplane for the first time in my life!.

The Flightplan

2008-05-15T05:04:00.003-07:00

Some things are always special. The first time you walked. The first time you rode a cycle. And then the first time you fly!.

I had booked an e-ticket . My roomies had given me some basic instructions. I went to the airport. Before i hit the ticket counter i asked help from about five people and my first sentence with each of them when i started talking was
"I am flying for the first time."

I finally hit the spiceJet ticket counter. I gave her my printout and pan card.

Lady-at-the-counter:"So you are Vishwachetan?"
Me :"Ya!"
Lady-at-the-counter:"Is Vishwachetan your name?(she actually meant to ask "Is that a fuckin name?")"
Me :"Ya"

Lady-at-the-counter raises her brows and looks at the screen.

Lady-at-the-counter:"I will give you an isle seat Vishwachetan. OK?"

Me :"I am traveling in a flight for the first time. I donno the seat
you are talking about. Any seat will do."

Lady-at-the-counter:(smiles)"OK.. i will give you a window seat!"

I felt like a kid who had just been given a big Ice-Cream when all he was expecting was a toffee!.

Once inside the flight i was frantically looking everywhere. Then i stopped doing lest they bump me off the flight thinking i am some bomber.

For all the first time fliers , a piece of advise to maximize the fun : Just when the plane comes on the tarmac, put on the "Snow Patrol- Chasing Cars" song . The best part of the song will come when the plane just takes off and then you will thank me!

Also bumped into Rajpal Yadav. I smiled. He smiled. He was in a hurry.

Also that finally my eyes got a lot of exercise at the airports. Half the credit must go to Mr Mallya. I don't need my spectacles now!.

Once in Mumbai, headed off to NITIE to stay at my friends place at 11 30 in the night. There were traffic jams even at that time in Mumbai!.

The next day i had my interview at SP Jain for the Finance stream( the unique thing about them).

SP Jain

2008-05-15T05:04:00.001-07:00

My friend had given clear instructions

"No one knows it as SP Jain here. Tell Bhavans"

The auto guy left me at the gate. I see school kids, teenagers, College guys and gals going in and coming out of that very gate. That Bhavan's campus includes a big set of institutions of which the management college is one. Asked the security guy and he showed me the place. I went near it and i could not believe that that small building was the entire building of the very famous and revered SP Jain.

There were direction boards kept to guide the interviewees. I went in to register myself in a room with circular rows of chairs seated in a theatrical fashion (The height of the chairs rising as you go outward) - more like a mini Colosseum. The guy checked all my marks to individual detail and clicked on the "verified" checkbox in what looked a very sophisticated application on his laptop. I must say i was really impressed with the way they students of the admission committee went about their chores. It was an automatic motivator.

Now SP Jain has something called a Group Interview, a hybrid of Group Discussion and Interview. And there would be two rounds of it in groups of 6, the first one being an elimination.

I went and sat in one of the chairs. Another guy was sitting beside me and another girl next to him. Me and the guy talked for a while after which i kept to myself. The guy introduced me to the girl next to him. she also was for the finance stream.

Girl:"You look scared.."
I smiled.

My turn finally came and they called out the 6 names. I was the sixth. There were 2 other guys and 3 girls. Lets call them B1, G1(the girl who told me i look scared), G2(very pretty), B2, G3(very pretty), VC.

We were taken into a room and made to sit in a square fashion with 2 of us occupying each side and the 2 lady faculty members and the student (Yes, one student is part of the panel) taking the fourth side across a table on which they had all our interview forms which they had gotten us filled some days back - Background information and few questions.

Lady-prof-1 addressed us

"Hello. I am [name] and she is [name]. He is a student here and will be your senior in case you make it. Now i would like all of you to introduce yourselves for 2 minutes and also tell me one thing about yourselves that you have not written in the interview form.Fine?. lets start with you"

The intros went on for a while

B1 was a martial arts expert . He was also for finance . And he said he knew quite a bit about astrology.

G1 was also for finance. Her hobbies included poetry and she was from Delhi.[I had figured it before itself from her attitude]

G2 was a major in arts. A linguist by profession who knew few European languages and said comes from a family which has 3 generations of sanskrit scholars and she herself also had learnt sanskrit.

B2 was currently a software engineer but helping put up an online initiative for his mother who was a leading female sexologist of the country. He knew bharatnatyam and he also wrote and sang songs few of which were telecast on radio/tv.

G3 was a girl with defense background. She had roamed all over the country and very interested in music. She wrote for mumbai mirror.

Yours truly was another software engineer and whose hobby included poetry.

Once the intros were done they started the rest of the proceedings with me only...

Lady-prof-1:"So considering your background where you are today is admirable.."

VC:"Thank you Mam.. but considering what my cousins have done i still have a long way to go"

Lady-prof-2:"So you are part of [employer] and doing really well, why would you have a need to do an Mba"

VC:"I have close to two years of engineering experience now and i feel its time to get some knowledge on the cross functional aspects of executing challenging projects."

Lady-prof-1:"Which area in finance?"

VC:"Investment Banking"[ I didn't know a shit about what investment banking ]

Lady-prof-1:"Which is your dream company?"

VC:"Barclays"[ I was about to tell PWC[ Consulting hotshots] and get another medallion of 'foot-in-the-mouth' but somehow at the last moment changed my answer.ufff.]

Lady-prof-1:"Alright"

VC:"Mam.. does barclays come here for recruitment?"

Lady-prof-1(smiles):"Go find out from the website!"

Lady-prof-1:"So what kind of poetry do you write?"

VC:"Romantic"

Lady-prof-1(Raises her brows):"Ah huh... do your parents know about this"

VC:"No!"

Then was the turn of our Jet Li bhai

Lady-prof-1 tells G1 to maintain some distance from B1

B1:"No Mam!... In Martial arts we are also taught how to restrain ourselves"

The they ask questions on his schooling/background etc and then a common sense question disguised very nicely

Lady-prof-1:"So according to astrology, what will be the outcome of this interview.. will you make it?"

B1:"Astrology cannot predict such events. But i know whatever i get is what i deserve and all that happens is for good"

Then they shifted the attention to dudette G1.

Some questions again on her background etc and then they asked her if she had any of her poems with her and if they could look at them.

I felt so bad because i had taken printouts of mine and would have been more than happy had they asked me to show.

They then told her to recite one and she did.

Then they took on the linguist.

Usual questions on background etc and when she told about the sanskrit part, Lady-prof-2 told her to recite anyone of her favorite shloka and she could not.

She then recited one herself.

Lady-prof-2 to B2 : Can you recite one?

B2 recited another one.

Lady-prof-2 to VC: Can you?

I recited another one.

Lady-prof-1:"Wow!... My opinion on today's generation improved this very instant!"

Then they took over B2.

Again after the usual rigmarole, they asked him if he had screen shots of the e-learning initiative he had been working for his mother. He dint.

Then the focus came to the reporter G3.

Usual questions and then they asked her what kind of music she follows. She gave one list of classic rock that involved Dylan/ doors/ dire straits etc.

Lady-prof-1:"Ok we are done here. Thank you all!"

We were all leaving and i had planned to show my poetry to them. Even B2 had planned to show the songs he had written.

B2-to-Lady-prof-1:"Mam.. on a parting note i would be really happy if you took a look at this"[forwarding a paper to her]

VC-to-Lady-profs:"Mam.. these are my poems". and i kept this and this in front of Lady-prof-1 and Lady-prof-2 respectively.

Lady-prof-1-to-B2:"Do one thing... sing it for us"[He had sid that he had sung on TV]
and then they started reading my stuff.

That B2 guy did a fab job with his song. It was a song he had written for the Indian Cricket Team for the World Cup 2007.

Lady-prof-2-to-VC:"Good!"

Lady-prof-1-to-VC:"Preserve them.. You may need it".

And i took them back and said goodbye and was about to leave the room when they asked everyone to sit back.

Student:" How many of you have heard DOCC"

All Except me said they have heard about it.

Student-to-VC:"Absolutely nothing at all!!??"

VC:"Nope"

Lady-prof-1-to-student:"Its ok. We will leave him out of this. Lets ask others"

B1:"Mam.. i know that its an initiative here and that something which every student does.I want to know more about it. I want to know more about it"[Its not a typo.. he did it say it twice]

G1 knew the full form of it.

G2 also was aware only of what the letters stood for.

B2 did know about it and explained.

G3 told that it had something to do with social causes.

I was glad i spoke the truth.

Then we went back and sat in that same room where we registered . If i were to get eliminated it would be one hell of an expense for nothing. Atleast if you make it to the second round you will have this hope.

There was a big projector which would project the group results as and when it was available for that group. Our turn came. The Martial arts expert and the girl who wrote for mumbai mirror got eliminated. Rest had made it.

Mine was to be the last group of the day and so the last four(instead of 6) were there in my group,

There was this bong guy for finance[lets call him B3], A girl(G2 from my first group) who was a linguist, Another girl who was a bachelors in mass media and who was giving a shot at marketing[lets call her G4], and me last again.

We were ushered in a new room with a table on one side of which we sat and the other side of which sat a professor with a thick book titled 'Discrete Variables' in front of him [Lets call him fin-prof], Vice-Dean of the college - a very jovial person and another student.

Vice-Dean addressed us

"Please introduce yourselves in order and then give answers for these two questions - What will SPJain miss if it rejects you and what will you gain if SPJain accepts you?"

We all rattled off the mugged up intros.

As far the last two questions i said

"SPJain will miss out on a guy who has the potential to bring laurels to the institute and I would gain a lot from the curriculum which has been pretty dynamic and anti-establishment"[AICTE and SPJain get along like India and Pakistan]

Vice-Dean:"This is a very long name. What does your girlfriend call you?"

Everybody starts laughing..

Vice-Dean:"Is it ok if i call you vishy?"

VC:"Sure sir"

Vice-Dean:"See Vishy, the thing is we are proud of all our students .. and all have the potential to bring laurels. Thats why we take them... does not matter.. its ok.. Why finance"

VC:"Sir because it involves a lot of academic rigor"

Vice-Dean:"Who said other stream do not have academic rigor?"

I was put on the defensive...

VC:"Sir what i meant was that it involves a lot of number crunching and maths something in which i am a little better compared to other things"[I used my words carefully lest i project myself as a math genius in front of a finance professor]

Vice-Dean:"Alright.. See You come from a field of information security and from what i look in your form you are very much int rested in this"[My mistake that i had used too much technical jargon in the form]

Vice-Dean"So i feel Information management will be the right field for you"

VC:"Sir they are two very very different fields"

Vice-Dean:"Vishy i feel you are not interested in your job. Am i right, Partially right, Partially wrong or totally wrong?"

VC:Sir, you are totally wrong. I love my job"

Finance-prof:"IT in Finance?"

VC:"Perfect!"[Thanks for saving me sir!]

The two girls didn't have any work experience and so it was mostly on their bachelors/ background etc. They focused on the work experience for the other guy.And also on how societal pressures influence our decisions.

Finance-prof:"So i guess you guys know that you all have been shortlisted based on your profile. So what do you feel about this approach?"

B3:"Sir , this is very good approach. One should consider the entire academic profile of a student rather than a 2 hour exam?"

Finance-prof:"So you think these IIMs use a wrong approach?"

B3:"Yes sir.. i feel so"

G2:"Yes sir, they should take the whole profile instead of an exam"

G4:"I also feel the same sir"

Then the gaze of the panel shifted to me

VC:"I actually feel IIMs do consider profiles and not just CAT Percentiles. IIMB has already published it. The fact that there are lakhs of students competing for the seats most of whom have similar profiles is what necessitates CAT as they cant interview each one of them"

Profs nodded in satisfaction and i also felt happy.

Vice-Dean:"What are your percentiles?"

All of them had less than 90 percentiles.

Vice-Dean:"Vishy.. which all calls you have?"

VC:"Sir.. B L I K" [I honestly felt saying that i was a BLACKI would go against me.Logically speaking for my percentile you will have I and K calls no matter what. And if your profile has been shortlisted by SPJain, then with my percentile there is no way L and B will give you a miss. Too much analysis right?. I know]

Finance-prof:"So Vishy.. what are you passionate about?"

VC:"Sir.. my blog and listening to music"

Finance-prof:"How do you define passion?"

VC:"Sir ....something which you dont get bored of".[Sad i know]

G4:"Something for which you feel from the bottom of your heart"[Brilliant answer i felt]

G2:"Something which you should make your profession to become successful"[Another brilliant point]

B3:"Sir , one which you put all your energy into and never feel tired doing it"

All of them gave nice answers which made me look like a duffer. The Fin-prof shifted his gaze back at me and said with a smile

Finance-prof:"So vishy.."

I was not going to let it slip and launched the rhetoric crap

VC:"Sir i do agree with G4 but what G2 said may not be true always. I mean you are very lucky if you can make a living out of your passion but they are on the extreme ends of a spectrum in most of the cases. And regarding B3's point he himself said a while back about the societal pressures influencing our thoughts and in such instances how can one make any justice to passion"Uffff.

There was silence for a while after which the Vice-Dean, who was the right guy to calm down the temperatures jumped in at the right moment,

Vice-Dean:"so Vishy.. You come from a village.. Good.. What do you grow?"

VC:"Sir.. sugarcane.. Our fields are part of the sugarcane belt of India"

Vice-Dean:"2 Crops?"

VC:"No sir.. 1 crop.. 9 months"

Vice-Dean:"So any thoughts of going back to your village?"

VC:"Surely sir.. at some point i do want to go back and give something back to my village".Ahem ahem.

Finance-prof:"Have you seen Virasat?"

VC:"Yes sir.. but not in such violent ways"

The profs again have a hearty laugh and...

Vice-Dean:"Have you seen Swades?... something like what SRK did?"

VC:Sir.. i wish there is a pretty girl like the one in that movie in my village"

Everybody shares a laugh...

Vice-Dean:"Oh the girls from Coorg are very beautiful. Its near your place right?"

VC:"No sir.. Coorg is far off from my place"

Finance prof:"Alright ..So [G4-name].. i have this file which has four windows on the top covering panel. Please do a marketing pitch for me"

G4 does it like a seasoned presenter complete with features of the product, buzz-words, what makes this one different and with a sleek accent. She even gives satisfactory answers to the cross-questions by Fin-prof on pricing structure and retailing of the product.

Fin-Prof then slides an eraser he has in front of him towards G2 and then says
"Lets say you have this unique eraser , half of it is an eraser and half of it is a small torch. And you are supposed to give a marketing pitch to the head of a school"

He points at the student and says

"He is your head of the school. please start"

G2 did an average job. The problem was that she marketed it as a toy more than an utility. she was also asked some engineering cross-questions on wattage and power requirements of the battery part by the student. She even fumbled on the pricing part.

Finance-prof:"So B3 now that you heard the pitches from both what would you do if you were a prospective buyer?"

B3:"Sir, i would buy the files but not the eraser because she did not give any utility for it"

Finance-prof:"So you do a pitch for the eraser now!"

B3 also does a pitch and surprisingly misses on giving a utility for the eraser-cum-torch.

Finance-prof:"So vishy , what are your opinions on all the three of them?"

VC:"Sir, Considering that G4 was from a marketing background she did a real good presentation. Now G2 also did a good job considering that she is not from a marketing background. If she had given an utility it would have been complete. B3 did a good pitch but again missed out on giving an utility for the product"

Finance-prof:"Ok..now you do the pitch!"

I turned towards the student and

"Lets say the child has to write 10 lines of homework and after he has written 9 lines , lets assume the power goes off. Now the child can finish off his homework using this torch without calling out for his parents. Now we cant use it for the entire page beacuse the wattage of the bulb is low. And it would also harm his eyes. So just small bits of work can be completed in a fun way"

Finance-prof:"Ok people.. we are done here.You may leave"

IIM Indore

2008-05-15T05:03:00.005-07:00

Although i had attended two B-school interviews by now, but this was to be the first of the ELITE group and Isha Koppikar it was who was to start the great series of talks.

4 of the 10 people had not turned up in our group. I just could not fathom the foolishness of someone missing an IIM interview!.But then i was to learn later of even more bizarre things. One guy who had missed his morning slot(after having turned up half an hour before his actual time at the venue!) was put in our group. So 7 people of which there was one girl.

There were two professors one in his early thirties and the other in his late thirties , very young for the standards of an IIM.

We were ushered into a huge room with three tables arranged in a U shape and one single table far off completing the square on which the two faculty members sat.

The young-prof[YP] addressed us, whilst the relatively-old-prof[ROP] watched the proceedings.

"Please keep only the admit card and the interview form in front of you. Rest of your belongings may be kept aside"

After we did that, he handed over an empty sheet of paper to each one of us and

"We will have a case discussion for 15 minutes. Then you will write the summary of what the group discussed on the last page of your interview form. It should be written in points. You can use the empty sheet of paper as well as the case-paper to make notes while you are discussing.After that we will have interviews in some random order."

He then gave us the caselet and were given 3 minutes to think.

The gun was fired and then launched one of the most boring discussions i have ever been part of.

The case involved an young man on the crossroads of his life and he had to compromise ethics over business.Obviously all Utopian solutions were being thrown around. I tried my best to give actionable solutions, which obviously involve some bit of compromising on ethics part.

Me and one another guy did most of the talking or rather beating about the bush. Thankfully the 15 hours ended and then i realized 2 of us 7 had not talked at all!.

YP Came forward and told the 2 guys to speak.

After they were done he told us to write the summary of discussion. I wrote and then realized i myself could not read what i had written.

The first guy was called in for the interview. He came out and said they were asking too many questions based on your past academics. So did the second and third guys. Me and the other talkative guy started discussing some stuff.

Apparently one of the guys was asked about Bernoulli's equations and so the other guy was trying to explain me.I mugged that shit up even without realizing the fact that that question was asked to that guy and was a possibility that they may ask this other guy because they were from mechanical engineering background. Sigh.

My turn finally came and i walked in...

YP:"Please give me your file and take your seat."

VC:"Good afternoon Sir!"

ROP:"Vishwachetan, please introduce yourself."

VC: Tape Recorder on

ROP:"So if you have to start a Web initiative, how would you go about it"
[Ok, this question was asked because i had written about an entrepreneurial idea that had hit me and about which i had written in the "most significant incident of my life" question of the interview form]

VC:Rattled off the same thing again in vivid detail. Threw in alot of technical jargon knowing the fact that they would not know about it. Talked so fast that they did not even stop me when i said "... that would cost 3000 dollars which is 12 lakh rupees.. and so would require venture funding!"[ Ok readers.. 3000$ = 1.2 Lakh rupees and not 12 lakhs. And a 97+ percentile in Quant. sigh]

YP was neck deep in my file going through every single page.

ROP:"So what are the evils of social networking?"

VC:"Lots of personal information is out there which can be misused by people with malicious intents. Also the fact that people do waste a lot of time on these applications present on these websites"[There was so much more to tell but i just went blank]

ROP signals to YP and he takes over

YP:"So what are the types of networks?"

VC:"Sir, whats the parameter?"

YP:"I am just asking you the different types of networks!!??"[with a quizzical look]

VC:"Lan Wan and Man".Also explained them

YP:"Pan?"

VC:"Sir, what Pan?"

YP:"You have not heard about Personal Area Networks?"

VC:"No sir!"[My bad!.. this was sad!]

They look at each other so surprised and worse they are now worried if i work at the company i say i am working.

ROP:"Do you know the OSI Stack?"

I rattle off the names of layers.

YP:"Ok tell me about the significance of slopes"

VC:"Sir they give relation between the variables"

YP:"What about lines in 3D.. do they have slopes?"

VC:"Sir, all line have slopes. Obviously 3D lines also have"

YP:"So how do we find the slope of a line in 3D"

i smile and say

"i don't know sir"
[Its direction cosines for those of you interested]

YP:"Explain Fourier series"

VC:"A curve defined in the harmonics of its sine and cosine..."

i am cut short

YP:"see... one important thing in management is to use layman terms to explain complex concepts"

I again smile and say "i don't know sir!"

YP:"Tell me about database warehousing"

VC:"Database is a well organized abstraction of raw data"

YP:"I asked you database warehousing... not database"

VC:"I don't know sir"

YP nods his head in disgust.

YP was still going through my file and i guess he happened to see a certain 'Constitution and Professional Ethics' subject in my final sem mark sheet and

YP:"So do you know whose signature is their on the original copy of constitution of India?"

VC:"No sir"

YP:"Make an educated guess."

VC:"Sir, it was written by the drafting committee and so they should have ratified it before handing it over and so i guess the head of drafting committee Mr Ambedkar's signature must be there"

YP:"No.. make another guess"

VC:"Ammm... somebody must have received it from the drafting committee, usually the head of the nation who is president in our case, So at that time it was Mr Babu Rajendra Prasad. So i think its his signature thats there on the constitution"

YP:"How sure are you?"

VC:"I am not sure sir"
[It was Mr Jawahar Lal Nehru, which i found out from my sis. what luck.]

ROP nods at YP

YP:"Alright Vishwachetan... All the best for your other interviews!"

shit!.What did he mean by that.

YP:"Please don't stand back outside the room and leave the venue immediately!"

man oh man!.

IIM Lucknow

2008-05-15T05:03:00.003-07:00

I had to go to my village to attend a ceremony after a disastrous talk with Isha Koppikar. I was pretty distraught and when my grandfather enquired about my interview, I nodded my head in disgust.

VC:"I don't know why but things are somewhat going bad"

Grandpa patted on my back, smiled and said

"I don't know why but i have a intuition that you will make it somewhere"

We shared a laugh and forgot about the bad one. I returned back all charged to go after Lara and Aishwarya which were scheduled in a span of 2 days.

After the beating i got in my academics related questions, I had decided to go all out with my brushing up of academics to save my face and also of my University . And of my employer!.

It was in the afternoon again and we were made to wait in a waiting room of a hotel.

Then an IIML Alumni walked in a well fitting business suit with a paper in his hand. Called out names in 3 groups of 10 each in such a clear, crisp, and suave manner that all the prospective students were immediately charged up and raring to go. It really gave that 'punch' effect. For once a person called my entire name right!.

We went into the assigned room. It was a small room with two small tables merged to form a big table. There was a old professor[OP] standing, almost in his early fifties and another young professor[YP] in his late thirties who was sitting because he had broken his leg and was using a walker which was kept beside him.

2 of the 10 were missing.sigh.

OP made us sit in order.

8 of us occupied the 3 sides of the table , 3 on the longer sides, 2 on the shorter side and the 2 profs on the other short side. I was the first(surprisingly!) in the group and so was sitting next to YP. There was a booklet with 4 empty A4 pages kept in front of us.

I smiled at him and said

VC:"Hi Sir!"

YP:"Hey!!" and smiled.

OP held a paper in his hand and addressed us
"I will give you all a topic on which you are supposed to write an essay. You will have 30 minutes to do the same and please stick to the word limit. After that you will discuss on the same topic for 20 minutes. After that we will have interviews in the same order as you are sitting now"

"Ok please make a note of the topic - If you sell a man a fish, he will have food for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you have ruined a wonderful business opportunity"

After about 20 minutes and having used 3 of the 4 pages , i stopped to do a count and found out that i had already written 100 more words!. I wrapped it up in another 20 words and sat looking at the ceiling for the next 10 minutes.

The discussion started and all but me took the side of the topic. All of them talked about corporate leaks, trade secrets etc . While i was telling that if someone can do a better job of your idea, then you should be smart enough to let him do it and take a cut from what he makes. It was me against the rest and boy i was loving it. I had all the air time in the world. They were fighting with one another "Let me answer his question first" pointing their fingers at me before someone else answered the same thing. And they kept quite expecting me to make a counterpoint. Tailor-made baby!.

The GD ended and we were told to leave the room and me and the guy next to me were told to sit in the lobby outside the room.

After about 10 minutes i was called for the interview.

I walked in, wished them.

YP asked for my file and then after i gave him told me to take my seat.

OP was having my interview form.

OP:"Introduce yourself"

VC:Tape recorder on

OP:"Good!"

OP:"So whats the big news today?.Did you read any newspaper today?"

VC:"Sir, Bangalore International Airport Limited has decided to levy User Development fees on the passengers. A fee of 250 on domestic passengers and 750 on international passengers is being planned. As of now the airlines have not decided as to whether to absorb the costs or pass it onto the customers"

OP:"Lets say they pass it onto the customers, what will happen to the traffic patterns."

VC:"Sir i believe air travel is no longer a luxury but a necessity and so i don't see any dip in the traffic from business circles atleast. Yes, families who used to travel during festivals to get an extra day for festivities and students may be hit"

OP:"What would you do to see that no one is affected?"

VC:"Sir right now there are certain airlines which do give rebates for students on ticket rates and i would certainly do that. I would put in a cap of say 4 times an year to ensure that its not misused by the rich students. On the other hand we can also increase the ticket rates for business classes a little more to make up for the money we may lose on giving these rebates."

OP:"Any international news?"

VC:"Sir.. The US Primaries"

OP:"Continue..."

I talked in length about the US Democrat candidates, Republican candidates giving examples of the states they had won recently and which all states are left and who all are expected to win in them..

I was cut short

YP:"Whats different in the ways votes are counted amongst the Democrats and Republicans?"[After asking the question, he looks at OP and gives a weird smile which i interpreted as -'This boy is trapped now!']

VC:"Sir, In democrats you take the exact number of votes you get while in republicans the person who has the maximum votes finally gets all the votes polled"

OP:"But why is it that only this year the primaries have created so much news?.. We never used to hear so much about them before."

VC:"Sir because its almost sure that whoever wins the democrat ticket will become the president of USA. Republicans don't really stand a chance because of the legacy left behind by Bush Government"

OP:"What are your views about the nuclear deal?"

VC:"Sir i think India should accept it. For one its a de facto recognition of India's nuclear status. And i think the way world runs today its better to be an ally of US then seek a permanent seat in the UN security council. Whats the use of a vote when four such votes could not stop US from having its way in Iraq."

OP:"Ok.. but whats US getting out of it?"

VC:"Sir for one India's energy market is expected to be worth $150 billion in by 2025 and that gives US nuclear firms a good opportunity. The second very important reason being that India's growing energy needs are gobbling up the fossil fuels at a very rapid rate which is badly required for the US economy. Third obviously is to strategically contain the rising clout of China in the Asia-Pacific"

OP:"What do you work on?"

VC:"Sir i am part of a team which develops firewalls. Firewalls sit at the edge of a network and prevent the network from cyber-attacks."

OP:"And the attacks still happen"

VC:"Sir, its a fight of the brains. Sometimes we win and sometimes they do. Firewalls anyways are not meant to prevent expert hackers but are expected to thrawt people who use textbook methods of attacking a network"

OP:"How can you make a living out of hacking?"

VC:"Sir there are two types of hackers- blackhat and whitehat. Whitehat hackers are either on the payroll of firms where they are expected to point out security flaws or works as freelancers and point out the security holes voluntarily for the greater good of society."

OP:"And blackhat?"

VC:"These are the guys with a rebellious attitude who derive pleasure out of breaking into a system. Its more of a mindset difference while both do the same thing"

OP:"I have also heard that companies pay hackers to hack and then release security packs to make more money"[I have never heard of this but i felt this was more of a trap]

VC(firmly):"NO SIR."

OP:"Sure?"

VC:"YES"

OP:"So you write poetry?. Why don't yo recite one.. your favorite"

VC:"Ok.. there is one called 'If i ever'... Its romantic" and i narrated it.

OP:"But this is prose... i can also write this"

VC:"Sir i don't know the subtle difference between prose and poetry"

OP:"No this does not have that rhyming effect"

VC:"Sir the others i have written do have rhyming effect. There are there in that file. You asked me to narrate my favorite " with a smile.

OP:"NO... thats perfectly fine"

YP:"Ok... tell me the measurements of a basketball court"

VC:"Sir the pole is 10 feet high. The three point ring is 15 metres at the centre and 14 metres on the sides....."

I was cut short...

YP:"Thats enough.... Take your file"

VC:"Thank you sir!"

IIM Ahmedabad

2008-05-15T05:03:00.001-07:00

It was almost 9 PM and i was filling up the interview form of IIMA. Never in my wildest fantasies had i imagined that i would be doing this one day. Read the by-line of the blog.

After seeing that the dress, file and the brain were all polished i decided to get some sleep. The previous time i didn't get sleep was the night before the Engineering Maths -4 exam in my fourth semester of engineering. I was trying something which atleast i am not aware of anyone having pulling it off.

I threw the blanket aside, opened the cupboard door and unlocked the keypad of my mobile.1 30 AM was the time. I was just not able to sleep. I was not tensed but it was the occasion that was getting to me. I knew it would be a conversation of a lifetime and i was just hoping it would be remembered for good.

I had heard so much about the interviews of IIMA - Guys coming out and heading to the loo, Guys coming out and downing a jug of water, Guys coming out crying and Guys coming out with their egos hurt so badly that they wondered if they actually did anything worthwhile after they were born. Trust me every IIMA interview is a story in itself.

I didn't catch any sleep that entire night. The fact that the interview was in the afternoon didn't help my situation. The only fact that was keeping me cool was that my IIML interview had gone pretty decent and bad luck forbid i should be studying in an IIM.

At the venue i waited in the lobby and soon people started trickling in. Both the guys who were sitting besides me were 99.9ers. For once all 30 students were present. Two professors called out 10 names each. I wasn't in any of them. I started getting tensed and opened my interview letter to confirm the time and date. To miss an IIMA interview because of such reasons would be worse than the fact that you still lived after jumping from the top of a 100 storey building.

I was in the third group.7 out of the 10 guys in my group were IITians.

We went in and were made to sit in a semicircle on chairs which had writing pads ( like those in the kuch kuch hota hai movie). There was an Old Lady Professor(OLP), Very old Professor(VOP) and another old Professor(OP) sitting across a table in front of the semicircle of chairs.

OLP got up from her chair and said
"Please keep your admit cards and the form on top"

She walked past each of us checking the photo in the admit card and our faces.

VOP and OP nodded at her.

OLP:"Me?"

OP(with a smile):"Yes please!"

She got up again, smiled and said

"Ok, open that empty page of your interview form[There was a page that had to be left empty].Now you all will write an essay for 10 minutes"

The day when everybody got their Interview Letters, there was a sudden confusion. Unlike other B schools which told you have been shortlisted for GD and Interview, IIMA had told only shortlisted for interview. Printing mistake?. Or they have scrapped GD?.But how can they scrap GD?. Then everything on interview alone?. 'Fucked' was the only word on every mouth.

There was a white page stuck on the wall behind them. She went near it and ripped it.

It read "Variety is the spice of Life"

Wah!. Great.!

So i began. Cricket - Test, One day, T20. Cuisines - Indian, Chinese, Continental.
Entry procedures at Leading Institutes - Written exams, GDs, Interviews. My brain could run only as far in 10 minutes.

Once the 10 seconds got over, OLP collected all the forms.

OLP:"I want to see your work experience certificates and admit card on the first page of the file. All the interviews will be roughly for 20 minutes. The first and the second boy[me] can wait in the lobby outside. Rest of you , go down and sit."

As the first guy came out, he just smiled and went off. I was talking with him before he went in for his. An IITian, very sober and appeared very very intelligent.duh!.

I took three deep breaths, for the occasion was as great as landing on the moon and went in...

OP:"Give me your file" and pointed me towards the seat.

My interview form was with OLP.

VOP:"Please pull your chair close to the table"

I promptly did. so far so good.

VOP(with a smile):"So how are Mr Lalu Yadav and Mr Chidambaram important this week?"

VC:"Sir .. we have the railway budget and Union budget this week"

VOP:"So what do you think the budget will be like this year?"

VC:"Sir.. this being an election year, it will be populist in nature. I only hope they realise the mistake Mr Jaswant Singh did..."

And i had woken up the GODs!..

VOP(smiling):"Oh!.. what did Jaswant do?" and looks at OP and OLP. They nod their heads as they read my file and form.

It was already getting to me.

VC:"Sir he took some very people friendly measures like cutting down the excise duty from..."

I am cut short....

VOP:"Explain excise duty"

VC:"Sir , it is the tax levied on goods that are exported from India"

VOP(slowly):"Are you sure?" looks at OP and OLP again who again nod their heads.

I was right but then i started getting doubtful[they had been successful in their mission!].

VC:"Yes sir!"

VOP:Ok, what are the other types of taxes. which of them do you pay?"

VC:"Sir, direct and indirect taxes. I pay direct tax and some indirect tax also"

VOP:"What direct tax?"

VC:"Sir.. income tax"

VOP:"and indirect taxes?"

VC:"sir.. VAT and sales tax etc"

VOP:"Anything for your sector in budget?"

VC:"Sir they have decided to extend the TAX sops for the software sector for some more time"

VOP:"Does you company pay any tax anyways?"(Laughs and other profs join)

VC:"Yes sir.. corporate tax and the sops are given because its a sunrise sector"
[i had hit the axe on the foot. Very hard.]

VOP:"Sunrise sector? Who comes up with these names?"(Laughing exercise continues)

VC:"Sir i think its because they generate a lot of employment and revenue"

VOP:"Service sector generates far more revenue and manufacturing sector employs far more people. You only know jargon and don't know the real meaning as to why they are used"(Laughs out loud and ya other profs nod their head)

VOP:"So, have you filed income tax returns till now?"

VC:"yes sir, once.. i did it last year"

VOP(excited!):"Good!"[slides a paper and pen towards me]

God save me please!

VOP:"For your salary, calculate the income tax you would have paid according to last year's tax slabs"

man oh man!

I start by writing my salary and then

VC:"Sir.. i remove the standard deduction.. 1 lakh" [and write it]

OLP:"Which account do you have?"

VC:"Ma'am.. savings account"

OLP:"But do you do any savings... or just spend all the money!!" [ All profs again have a good laugh. Weird i know.]

VC:"Yes Ma'am... i do some savings and also invest in section 80c"

VOP:"Whats section 80c?"

I am sure even Mr Chidambaram and Mr Alhuwalia would have thrown a fit and walked off in rage had they been in my place!.

VC:"Sir a certain amount can be invested in Mutual Funds which have a lock in periods of usual 3 years and pay insurance premiums and invest in other government schemes and get tax rebates"

OP:"Ok... include these savings also and continue your calculations"[sigh]

Then after having made all deductions i assume some random tax percentage and calculate. It comes to some ridiculous amount. I know it was wrong. They were sure it was wrong.

OP:"Who filled the IT returns for you last year?"

VC(innocently):"Sir.. We have this CA who comes and does it for everyone"

OP(loudly!):"There you go! I knew it!" laughs loudly and looks at the other two professors who nod their heads and laugh.

OP:"Why cant you do it yourself? Lazy generation."

OP:"Ok... Do you know any management gurus?"

VC:"Sir... i have studied about Mr Maslow and Mr McGregor models"

OLP:"Oh no no!.... any recent people?"

VC:"Ammm.. no Ma'am!"

OLP:"None at all?" with a 'Is-this-guy-even-of-this-generation-which-is-exposed-to-so-
many-things' look?

VC:"Ma'am.. i do read Mr Seth Godin's and Mr Guy Kawasaki's blogs. Mr Godin is a marketing guru while Mr Kawasaki , a former apple evangelist is a Venture Capitalist now and also advises a lot of startups"
[She had not heard of these guys. Talk of luck]

OLP:"Have you heard of [some-name]?"

VC:"No Ma'am!"

OLP:"Have you heard of KPMG?"

VC:No Ma'am!" [Honestly i had not heard of KPMG then. Ok, for those of you like me its like Infosys of the Business world. No no, they pay much better salaries]

VOP:"ok.. any favorite CEO?"

VC:"Steve Jobs!"

VOP looks at OLP and says

"He is all yours!"

OLP:"Alright.... start"

I started talking about his early days.Steve Wozniak. Macintosh computers. His Euphoric rise. Him getting fired. Pixar. NEXT. And then back into Apple. Ipods.

I was expecting the most dreaded question which is usually asked when you talk of these CEOS[The most famous and the most successful ones are all school dropouts and not MBAs!]

"when he could do so much without an MBA... why would you want to do one if you aspire to be him?"

But they did not ask.

OLP:"Did you know that he even after he dropped out of the college , he stayed back and something very important happened.."

VC:"Ma'am.. he used to hang around the Calligraphy classes the knowledge of which he later incorporated into typographies and fonts in macintosh computers and which later came into Microsoft PCs"

OLP:"Good!" with an approving nod!.

Finally something!.

All this time OP was reading my poems[I had stuffed a printout of all the ones i had written in the file].I had written poetry as one of the hobbies in the interview form which was with OLP.

OLP:"So.. you are into poetry"

And at that very instant OP Passes the file open at pages which had this and this to OLP On the other end through VOP and says

"Madam... these are for you!" with a smile.

OLP starts reading them. A Brief moment of silence. She is done, looks up at me tilts her head to her right with her right hand on her right cheek covering it completely.

I could not control and burst out smiling.She looked at VOP and OP. OP smiles.

I had written that i also write fiction.

OLP:"So this fiction thing is also on this blog?"

VC:"Yes Ma'am!"

OLP:"Do you know of any famous Indian fiction writers?"

VC:"Vikram seth"

OLP:"which was his most recent book?"

VC:"Two lives"

OLP:"Which is his most famous work?"

VC:"A Suitable boy"

OLP:"There is one another book of his which is completely in the form of a poem. The entire book is in poems. Know which it is?"

VC:"No Ma'am!"

OLP:"Golden Gate... go read it... ok?"

VC:"Sure Ma'am!.. i will"

OP:"So what other things apart from poetry and fiction?"

I talked about the porcelain mugs which i had introduced in my business unit to reduce the wastage of paper in the form of paper cups. It was my manager's idea but i had executed it. I really thanked him for forcing me to do it. Concern for environment from an aspiring MBA really impresses the old profs. I had put pictures of the mugs and a group of my colleagues holding the mugs in the file. I also talked about another business idea i had. I am sorry i cant write it here.

OP:"So what do you work on?"

Talked in detail about my team. The product we build. The target customers. Our contribution to employer's revenues.

VOP was looking at his watch and nodded at OLP and OP and took over again.

VOP slid another paper towards me and a pen

Not again please!.

VOP:"Draw a graph which has a point whose first derivative is zero!"

No IIMA interview can be complete without Math. They just LOVE Math!.

I drew the curve of function f(x) = k, where k is any constant.

OP takes a look and says with smile..

"All points on this curve satisfy the condition!"

VOP:"Now draw another curve which has a point whose second derivative is zero!"

I drew the curve of function f(x) = x.

OP with a smile says...

"Again... all points satisfy the condition!"

[Later when i was discussing this with my cousin , he told me that i could have shown the first curve itself. Damn, so true!. oh! by the way he is from IIT!]

VOP:"OK.. one last graph, Draw a graph which has one point whose first derivative is zero and one another point whose second derivative is zero."

I could have effectively merged the two above curves but was thinking of something else..

VOP:"Alright let me give you a hint.. have you heard of S-curves?"

I drew an S-curve on the paper and figured it out and smiled.

VOP:"Now show me the points whose first derivative is zero"

I showed him.

VOP:"And second derivative zero"

Showed him that also.

VOP(with a smile):"You have to be told everything!. Todays generation" And gives a sigh!.

All the professors again laugh for one last time and nod at each other.

OLP:"Alright.. Take a toffee!"

IIMA has a very unique culture of offering a toffee to every student at the end of the interview. Before the interview i had thought of preserving it but i dont know how i forgot and just gobbled it.

Came out of the room and the guy next to me gave an inquisitive look at me. I smiled and walked off!.

Oh if you still remember the Maths-4 thing , i did pull it off.

IIM Kozhikode

2008-05-15T05:02:00.002-07:00

After having attended the 4 must-attend weddings and a must-attend house-warming ceremony [That was the reason i had given my manager to take PTOs for IIFT, SPJIMR nd the 3 IIMs] in a span of 3 weeks, I relaxed a long break between the A and K interviews.

The interview forms of all the IIMs more or less have the same questions. The only quirk about K being they wanted all their answers in bullet-points. An extreme case of 'dare-to-be-different' or 'move-away-from-the-herd' attitude. Did not change the answers much though. 4 sentences of a paragraph became 4 paragraphs or rather bullet-points.

One more in the afternoon, the sleepiest part of my day. I usually used to carry my tie to the venue and put it on there. So i went inside the Men's rest room and found another guy adjusting his tie. I tried my best but could not put the button. I asked him to help and he started. He looked a little mid aged and i got scared if this guy was one of the faculty. I and K have very young faculty. Shit!. But he turned out to be another guy for the interview. Phew!.

We were led into a room with a huge( it was very very huge ) oval table. 10 of the 12 people had turned out and there was 1 girl amongst the 10. The table was so big that it was really impossible to listen for one guy on one end to the person at the other end.

There was a very old professor(OP), the head of admissions at IIMK and another very young professor(YP) who we heard was tormenting the previous batches with his quant arrows.

OP:"We will first have a group discussion on a case for 15 minutes. When i say stop at the end of 15 minutes, please stop immediately. Then we will have interviews in the same order."

He then handed us a copy of the case each .

It was about the literacy problems in India. Lack of resources, teaching personnel etc.

After we were told to start, there was a surprise lull for sometime. I finally jumped in and started the discussion. It was an interesting and peaceful discussion. Use of IT infrastructure to give distance learning avoiding the faculty to go there. Making a 3 month teaching program compulsory for all people before graduating. Mid-day meals schemes. And a lot of other interesting solutions were discussed.

I was 6th in the order and so it was going to be a long wait. The first girl's interview went for almost 40 minutes. The rest four had not less than 30 minutes of interviews. Everybody had the same sullen face when they returned.

"Too many quant questions..."

After the third guy had returned we figured that a certain question was asked to all of them . The rest of the people tried solving it outside and we gave up. The guys who were waiting were all chatting very freely. I was sitting on a chair and the rest were huddled around me. OP had noticed it everytime he had come out to call out someone to come over for interview.

I finally went in. OP was going through my interview form and YP my file. There was deafening silence for the first minutes with both of them going through. It had never been this way before.

Actually after the 5th guy had done his interview, a peon had sneaked in and kept refreshments for the professors.

I was looking this side and that side while the professors were reading the respective things. YP looked at me thorugh this thick-framed glasses and slid the plate of refreshments towards me

"Go ahead.. have it!"

VC:"No sir!.. Thats fine!"

YP:"No no!.. its vegetarian.. please eat!"

I was very surprised at the vegetarian comment. I went ahead and took one. It looked very yummy and how many get to eat in an IIM interview anyways!?.

I bit half of it and the bliss was interrupted by thoughts that took me back some days to the 2 day GD/PI workshop conducted by TIME. The director of TIME Mumbai franchise was addressing us about potential traps in interviews.

"They offer you something to eat and then while you are eating they ask you a question. You will not be able to answer while you are chewing the food and you get stressed"

Shit!. Why why why. why did i have to take it?.I just gobbled the rest of it and downed it through my throat without chewing.

YP kept the file on the table and

"So what does it mean when they say you have 99 percentile?"

VC:"Sir , it means 1% of the students who took the exam are ahead of me"

YP:"Not really, it means 99% of student who took the exam are behind you"

VC:"[pause].. ok sir!"

YP:"F(X) = |X+5| + |X+8| + |X+11| X varies from minus-infinity to infinity.. tell me the maximum and minimum values of the function"

VC(instantly):"Maximum value is infinity!"

YP:"Ok... and minimum?"

VC:"sir, can i use this paper[in front of him] and my pen?"

YP:"Sure"

I drew a graph and found out the value.

VC:"Sir, minimum value is 6"

YP:"Ok one last question... you have a 3 by 3 grid and numbers 1,2,3. All 3 numbers have to be there once in every row and column. How many ways there are to fill the grid?"

I used the same paper to draw the grid and..

VC:"Sir, its 12"

YP:"12 is right. Now explain to me how did you arrive at it."

I explained to him and then he gave a nod of approval to OP.

OP:"So why MBA?"

VC:Tape recorder on.

OP:"Those guys outside you were chatting with.. are they from your college?" [with a very serious look]

VC:"No sir!.. I have not even met them before and i don't know them also"

OP:"Ok... tell me about inflation"

I explained to him about it connecting one thing to another logically.

He used the same variables and proved the exact opposite logically. That was simply brilliant. I just stared at the paper dumbfounded.

Both the professors laughed and then..

OP:No No!.. you are right. There are some more variables that we both ignored. Its ok!"

OP:"So you are a University ranker.."

VC:"Yes sir!"

OP:"Why didn't you play basketball professionally?.Why did not you pursue it?"

VC:"Sir balancing both academics and basketball became quite strenuous. Eventually one had to be sidelined and basketball it was."

They had some kind of sheet which had all the interviewee details.He looks at it.

OP:"Oh!.. you have all calls!!??"

VC:"Yes sir!"

OP:"Ok.. " and nods the head which signals the end of the interview.

I come out. 10 minutes it had been since i had gone in and the 4 guys are in a state of shock to see me out so early.

Back in house, i opened my mail to find an admit from State University of New York, Stony Brook.

NITIE Mumbai

2008-05-15T05:02:00.001-07:00

My friend at NITIE was not very sure if i had to attend this one by traveling all the way to Mumbai. But i wanted to attend every single interview just to keep all the cards when needed later.

"When will the IIFT results be out?"

"Should be out anytime. It does not matter. I am coming tonight. Will be there at 12 30 AM. Stay awake."

"OK"

I was overjoyed at the thought of boarding an airplane for the second time.

The letter had told us to be their in the auditorium by 8 AM for registration.

"Go late man!... Its ok.. nobody comes so early" said my friend.

I went at 8 30 to find an auditorium filled to the brim and students standing along the aisles also with the students doing a presentation on courses, placements etc on a big screen. A slick slide presentation filled with graphic imagery, macro media flash apps and sync sound.

Large number of guys had turned out. The beautiful greenery of the campus was the only saving grace in the hot humid weather of Mumbai. Our tight formal clothing was not helping the situation either.

20 groups of 12 were scheduled for the day and i was in group 8. There was a formal verification of all the certificates by a group of faculty after which we were made to wait outside a room where a group was having its GD.

Then we went in. We occupied a semi circle of chairs in the same order. Across a very long table sat a panel of 7 faculty members( by far the largest and i was sure nobody would exceed that).11 boys and a girl who was at the center of semi circle.

There was a box at the center of semicircle with 12 notepads and sharp pencils.

A Lady at the center of the panel told us to take a pad and pencil each.

"We will give you a topic. You will be given 3 minutes to think and prepare your notes. Then you will discuss for 18 minutes. And one of you will summarize the discussion at the end of 18 minutes for 2 minutes"

She then held a board in front of us which had a paper stuck on it with a line

"Is Indian IT Industry truly world class?"

3 minutes of silence followed and the go ahead was given.

12 Software engineers and a topic like this. I guess i don't have to say anything. The girl single handedly outvoiced all 11 boys and was in firm control of the discussion. I was very sure she would make it to the final list.

I was 10 in the order. So i just went to the waiting room where all others were there and removed my tie and sat below a fan.

At around 1 PM one of the co-ordinators called out for my name and i went and sat outside the interview room. There was one other guy sitting who was scheduled before me.After they were done with that guy the co-ordinator said to me that the panel had decided to break for lunch and he advised me i do the same.

An interview after lunch is dangerous. High possibility of getting burps!. I went to the mess. The food was heavenly but i resisted over eating and came back and occupied my seat again.

I was wondering what will be the state of panel after having lunch. They would already be bored by listening to lame reasons for doing MBAs and crap.

Anyways i was called in. There were 2 old professors (OP1, OP2) and one young prof(YP1) sitting .

VC:"Good afternoon!"

OP1(smiles):"Please take your seat"

My seat was 3 meters away from the panel table. The farthest i had been till now.

OP2:"Please introduce yourself"

VC:Tape recorder on

OP2:"Sainik school? .. good!.. What are you doing here?"

VC:"Sir, i failed to convince my parents to let me go. I am the only son and unfortunately Kargil war happened and they were anxious"[I carefully worded my answer putting the blame on myself(failed to convince). Well nobody was to be blamed anyways]

OP2:"I understand. Thats fine."

OP2:"What you think are the required qualities for a good manager?"

VC:"Good Leader.Should be outgoing , high-spirited gregarious and extrovert"

OP2:"What do you think you will gain by studying here? whats different here?"

VC:"It wont be a 'you-talk-i-listen' which has been happening till now. More of a practical, case-based approach with hands-on experience of real problems, simulations of corporate environment providing an ideal spring board to try out ideas"

OP2:"What subjects do you think we teach here?"

VC:"Sir Basics of Finance, HR, Marketing. Accounting etc"

OP2 nods to YP1. At this time one more young professor YP2 joined the panel.

YP1:"So you come from belgaum. Tell us about the problem"

VC:"Sir both Karnataka and Maharashtra want the district to be a part of them. The state reorganization act of 1953 had originally made it part of Karnataka. As recent as early 90s when the congress government instituted Mahajan committee to look into the matter and even they declared it as part of karnataka. But majority of the district speaks marathi and thats one major reason why Maharashtra feels that belgaum should be a part of them. But then Sholapur district in Maharashtra has majority of population speaking kannada. Both the states had almost agreed on an exchange pact. While Sholapur is a major textile hub and contributes a lot economically, belgaum has nothing of that sort to offer. Even the lands are infertile and not much water also is available."

YP1:"Which state you think it should be part of?"

VC:"Sir, frankly as long as it is part of India, i don't really care which state it belongs to."

All the professors burst out laughing at this comment of mine.

VC:"Sir, on a more serious note, i would be really happy if any of the states could address basic problems of the region like Infrastructure, Literacy and Employment. That state would be the rightful owner of the district"

YP1 nods to OP2 and

OP2:"Tell us about what you work on"

VC:Tape recorder on.

OP2 nods to YP2

YP2:"No.. i guess we are fine.. its ok.. you can leave."

I thanked them and came out. 7 minutes flat was what i was in for. A 2-way airplane journey for a fish market and a 7 minute interview!.

I returned to my friends room in the hostel complex. Switched on my cell. I had a message.

"Congrats dude!.... Treat us!"

I immediately caught hold of my friend's laptop and logged onto IIFT site. Could not log in for a while. Results had been declared for sure. Finally the page loaded and a link was put up on the main page. There were two links one each for New Delhi and Kolkata campuses. Clicked on the Delhi Link, my heart raced hard and then came back the moment i saw my name. It was a such a relief. I was sure that i would be doing an MBA no matter what now!.

Had to rush to the airport. So changed quickly and caught an auto. As i waited at the airport i saw the huge TV screens flashing "BREAKING NEWS"

Some IIMA grad had landed a crore-package. Pictures of the red walls of IIMA, the stone building of IIMB and SIMB pune were being flickered. Almost every soul watched with their mouth agape at the screens. Gave me goosebumps. Trust me you have to experience it to feel it!.

MDI Gurgaon

2008-05-15T04:59:00.005-07:00

My first one in the morning. A college which heavily preferred people with high CAT percentiles.I had a chat with a guy at NITIE who was done with his MDI interview. He had told me that they had a chat on which cafe is good to take your girl to in chennai.

I went to the venue. We were again divided into 4 groups of 12 each. All were present. 2 in my group were my juniors from my college. I was relaxed after my IIFT admit and lacked the usual fire and anxiety.

We walked into the room. It was the same room were i had my IIMI Interview and i was also made to sit in the same place by a middle aged professor(MAP) while an young professor(YP) sat on the chair behind him.Fond memories of IIMI were haunting me!.

MAP:"We will have a discussion for 15 minutes on a topic that i will tell you. after that we will have interviews in random order[again like IIMI!. sigh!]"

MAP:"The topic is BPOs- boon or bane for Indian society?" and he repeated it.

As he told to start, surprisingly there was a lull and then i again jumped in and spoke for 2 minutes. As soon i had finished 5 guys jumped in and a true blue fish market ensued.

"First let me define what a BPO is..." said one...

"We don't need to define a BPO..." said another cutting him.

I did not speak for the rest of the GD. Everybody spoke nobody heard. After about 10 minutes we heard a big thud produced by the thumping of MAP's hand onto the table.

MAP:"Enough!... leave now!"

I was sure entire group would be chucked out.

5 guys went before me and all were sent out in less than 10 minutes. I was 6th to be called.

MAP:"Please give YP the form and me your testimonials[he meant file]"

MAP:"Is this RVCE ...RV college?"

VC:"Yes sir!"[Felt good!]

MAP:"Whats CE then?"

VC:"Sir, College of Engineering!"

MAP:"So whats ASCII?"

VC:"American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Its a way of representing alphabets and numerals and special characters in binary code"

MAP:"Whats parity bit?"

VC:"Sir its a spare bit and usually has special meanings in different cases. Most of the times a presence of 1 shows that there are odd number of 1s in the rest of bits. sometimes its used for error checking. sometimes to introduce redundancy etc"

MAP:"Whats a Von Neumann Machine?"

VC:"Sir , it was a concept computer which was built on the stored program concept. Where a set of instructions defined what a set of hardware could do"

MAP:"What do you know about subprime crisis?"

VC:Told in detail

MAP:"You talked something about the coupling effect in GD, so you think Indian and US economies are coupled?"

VC:"Sir, its a globalised world and all economies are coupled. US and Indian are coupled to a higher degree"

MAP:"Who is India's biggest trade partner?"

VC(thought for a while):"Sir, China!"

Clean bowled!. They smiled. I smiled.

MAP:"Tell me what you work on?"

VC:Tape recorder on.

MAP nods to YP and he takes over..

YP(smiles):"So vishwachetan... what does your name mean?"

Finally!.Before my interviews started i had expected this to be a regular question in all interviews!.

VC(smile):"Sir..[pause].. role model for the world!"

YP:"Whats your percentile?"

VC:"XX.XX"

YP:"All calls?"

VC:"yes sir!"

YP:"Tell me about this go-green initiative"

VC:The mug thing. Told him.

MAP and YP look at each other and nod.

MAP:"Any questions for us?"

VC:"No sir!"

MAP:Alright then!. thank you!"

VC:Thank you sir!"

IIM Calcutta

2008-05-15T04:59:00.003-07:00

Its not known as the hedonistic capital of IIMs for any reason. IIMC defines pleasure and they know how to mix it with business.

The day before the interview i was on gtalk and

"fucker!.. when will your college announce results?"

"Announced already.. and you have made it...."

"Where is the fuckin link?.. i don't see any link on the home page. What bullshit website man!"

NITIE was also a hit.2 on 2.

The interview was in the morning and i was again unable to catch sleep the night before.

My head was pounding by the time i reached venue. In the waiting room there were two staff from IIMC checking all your certificates and putting a "verified" seal.

We were divided into groups of 10 each and my group entered a room which had a panel of four proffessors, a middle aged professor(MAP), a bald professor(BP), a old professor(OP) and an young professor(YP).

After we had taken our seats along the 3 sides of rows of chairs in U-shape while the panel across a table completed the rectangleYP got up , came in the centre and

YP:"We will now have a business case discussion for 15 minutes and then each one of you will be told to summarise the discussion in random order for 1 minute each"

And then handed over a copy of the case to each one of us.

It was case about a mechanical engineering automation firm which was finding it difficult to recruit talent beacuse it coould not match the lucrative offers of the IT industry.

It was a good and peaceful discussion. Various solutions were given.

The first guy's interview went on for about 30 minutes. Then i was called in..

MAP:"So you were opposing your own industry?"

VC:"Sir, i was just being objective about the situation. I was expected to solve a problem and thats what i did"

YP now opens my interview form and reads it loud for the rest of the panel

"vishwachetan is another software engineer in another software company. He is another guy who has 19 months experience"

Then handed over the interview form to OP.

OP:"So you did come out with a lot of solutions in the discussion. You were trying to help your rival sectors."

VC:"Its good for the economy to have a mix of sectors doing well. If the whole economy id dependent on software then it way become troublesome in times like these"

OP:"What do you think is the GDP contribution of software sector?"

I mistook it for the biggest contributor towards GDP, while he was asking the number.

VC:"Service sector.."

OP(angry):"First listen to the question properly"

VC:"I am sorry sir i don't know"

YP:"whats the percentage of software developed in India in that total exports of software sector"

VC(smile):"I dont know sir"

OP then opens the file and

OP:"Tell me about this go-green initiative"

VC:Told in detail.

BP:"Have you done cost/benefit analysis of this?"

I messed up big time here. They were asking something while i got a little emotional about my stuff and started defending it. It just went haywire.

YP:"but how is this a hobby?. you just initiated it"

VC:"Sir i do spend my free time on it"[Lied point blank]

By now they were pretty distraught with my answers.

MAP:"So you have written so many things here. What you actually wanted to do?"

VC:Basically retold the same thing as in the form.

MAP:"You don't know what you want to do. If a fresher was saying this i would have been fine but such answers from a guy with close to two years experience?"

This interview was done and had reached a bitter stalemate.

BP:"Do you have stock options?"

VC:"Yes sir"

BP:"What was the highest and lowest prices in the previous year?"

Told him.

BP:"The highest and lowest ever?"

Told him those numbers also.

OP:"ok.. we will stop here."

I got up and left.

Was pretty distraught at the way things went after an awesome GD. Cal was gone.

IIM Bangalore

2008-05-15T04:59:00.001-07:00

The last one was like almost ages apart from its predecessors. All i did was sleep in that time. To my utter surprise, Cornell University gave me an admit and my joy knew no bounds.

The momentum was gone and even the usual ritual of filling up the interview form was also not there as it was done and sent beforehand. I was fed up of looking at the GATE book before every interview and didn't even touch it.

Another one in the morning.B has the least weightage for GD/PI amongst all B-schools. Most of it is already over even before you have spoken a word. Nevertheless you have to do the dance.

I could sense a wave of relief amongst all students as it was to be the last one for everybody. There were few very anxious people. I was sure most of them would be lone B-callers, the most dreaded lot. Because this being their only call they come all guns blazing while you are bored of the whole thing.

We are divided into groups of 12. And i was the first in my group!. The panel had a gentleman professor(GP) and a lady professor(LP).

LP made us sit in a room with a big round table in order. The two faculty occupied two chairs kept diametrically opposite in the corners of the room.

It was to be another case discussion. A Lady, who is a performer and a go-getter has been sent by her employer(auditing firm) to set up their branch in India. she is expected to get it up and running as soon as possible. While she does that here, she faces lot of bureaucratic hurdles and the process starts getting delayed. A Man approaches and offers help. He tells her he knows the way works get done in India which usually involve 'gifts' etc. And that she hire him as a consultant and he will get the work done for her.And we[people in GD] were supposed to tell what she should do?.

Classic business vs ethics case. IIMB just LOVE ethical issues.

GD started and we had a discussion. As usual utopian solutions were being thrown around. No bribing etc etc.

After the GD we were given a sheet of paper to write the summary in "free-flowing-english" and answers to 2 questions
1.Who do you think is the most influential person of the 20th century and why?
2.How does PGP at IIMB fit into your career plans?

Question no 2 was already asked in the interview form. Again?. Oh just wait.

Then i was called in for the interview.

LP:"Lets start with your introduction"

VC:Tape recorder on

LP:"And when did you feel that you needed an MBA?"
[third time!]
VC:Tape recorder on. Different tape though.

LP:"Tell me about what you work on"

VC:Tape recorder on. third tape.

GP:"How has [employer] been successful?.Did you know that at one point they were the most valued company in the world?"

VC:"Yes sir, They were fortunate that an Internet boom happened when they were at their peak. They have made some very successful acquisitions and continue to innovate"

GP:"But do you also know that they don't show liabilities of the companies they have minority stake in and thereby show good balance sheets?

VC(innocently):"Sir, i dont know such minute details and i have no idea about any of this"

GP:"No no.. thats fine!"

LP:"So.. you write poetry.. do you have any that i can see?"

VC:"Sure Ma'am!.." and opened my file and gave her.

She looked at 'If-i-ever' and 'Warrior'.

LP:"Sir... this boy is a romantic tragedy hero!" and they share a laugh.

GP:"So why steve jobs?"

Told about his initial achievements. And then how he got fired and made a dramatic re-entry. Inspirational story. blah and more blah.

GP:"whats your opinion on hogenakkal issue. should karnataka give water?"

VC:"Since Karnataka had given a NOC to the construction, i think they should stick to it. And also i believe that its for drinking water, so they should let it be constructed. Who knows TN may show a goodwill gesture for Karnataka in future"

GP:"whats your mother tongue?"

VC:"Kannada sir"

GP:"Very surprised to hear such opinions from a person of this state!"

GP:"And what about belgaum?"

VC:"Sir i think whichever state addresses the problems of the region - unemployment, infrastructure, literacy has the right to claim it. Even successive karnataka governments have not done anything over there"

LP took a look at her watch and nodded to GP.

GP:"Ok.. Thank you!"

I smiled and left.

Results were to be announced in a week and i had to make a visit to Tirupati. LOL!.

Madness followed by 'May'hem

2008-05-15T04:58:00.001-07:00

24 hours to the judgment day. In an act of brilliant timing, the accuracy of which could even put the NIST-F1 Cesium Fountain Atomic Clock at Colorado to shame, The supreme court delivers a landmark judgment that basically called for all central government aided institutes to implement 27% OBC quota.

Almost the next instant, all IIMs put a note on their webpages delaying the release of results indefinitely. The results of IIMs hold so much importance that the second tier colleges usually put the last date of payment of fees after the results are announced so that people can make decisions. The third tier B-schools are dependent on the deadlines of the 2 tier ones. Continue the previous statement in a for-loop for as long as you like with values for 'n' and 'n-1'. So it was like toppling the top card of a tower of cards and watch the rest collapse.

SP Jain announced its results and i had made it to the finance stream.3 on 3

There was a general feeling that the results would get announced the coming week. What we came to know the coming week was that all the directors of IIMs had decided to meet the next week and then decide over the course of action. I am pretty sure a 1000 keyboards were shattered that day in frustration.

MDI announces its results that week and i had made it. 4 on 4. 300 confirmed calls and 1100 waitlist for 240 seats!.Barring 50 odd people anyone who attended MDI interview had atleast a waitlist.

The next few days threw a lot of questions. First being the creamy layer rider that the SC had put. Barring A and C, nobody had information on parents's income.Even A and C could not take that information as basis for awarding a seat.

So many theories were being thrown around. People could not fathom the fact that IIMs did not even make any protest against the dilution of entry standards into these elite institutes. Rumors of they having exchanged a deal for buying government's silence over fee hikes at these institutes also came. The government's desperation at implementing this year was to get mileage in the elections to which i somehow have a feeling SC succumbed to.You cant explain such brilliant timings in a country where the backlog of court cases goes back to decades.

I finally decided to secure the backup options. So mailed Cornell about my affirmation to their admit. It was MDI vs SPJain over here. Decided to go with SPJain after consultations with people in the field.

The situation over the next few days was a 'cricket world cup final - champions league final F1 race roger vs rafa tennis match ' nervousness all packed in one. Almost every student waiting for the results became a investigative journalist himself. The aajtak 'Breaking-news" types. Even if somebody sneezed at the IIMs it was being reported. More than a 1000 fone calls a day to each of the IIMs

Finally the news sites flashed quotations from central government officials that they have sent the directives to the institutes. But the same was not acknowledged by IIMs. In this day of electronic-speeds our government used the postal service to convey their directive. The 5 rupee stamp one.

Finally phone calls to IIMs started giving some positive hopes. There was a change in the tone. They didn't bang the phone down after the call finished.Even they were as frustrated as us over this issue.

The madness finally ended. May 1. 'May'hem.

The order in which the institutes released their results was exactly reverse of the order i had my interviews.

At sharp 12 o clock in the night B put up a pdf on its website of the people who had made it to the hallowed institute. Unfortunately i was waitlisted. The number of people who had multiple converts also was given and there was high probability of me converting it, but still i was distraught. I didn't sleep the whole night.

At around 8 in the morning C released its list

"Your name does not appear in the selected and waitlisted lists" was all it had to say when i typed in the registration number and date of birth.

At around 10, K put a link on their webpage. It asked for your registration number, date of birth and asked to type the sequence of characters that appeared in a box below [usually done to prevent spam attacks]

"Sorry, You have been rejected"

I could not believe my eyes!. I came and lay down on my bed. I was just dumbfounded at what was happening. Slowly , the uselessness of it all started dawning on me. I recalled the TIME director's words

"I have seen cases where people with six calls could not convert one"

A friend of mine called. I didn't want to take the call but i still took. He had encouraging words to say.

Another friend who had made it to B called. I apprised him of the situation. He was just not ready to accept that i got rejected by K. He told me to wait and that he would call me back.

It so happened that the K guys had still not uploaded their results and it was showing a reject for everyone. Our own over-enthusiasm gave us the medicine.

A little while , around 12 pm, i checked again and i had made it. Ufffff!. what a relief. Finally i will be studying in an IIM.

I had not eaten anything since morning. I changed and went to have my lunch with my roomie.

Came back and logged again. 'A' had announced their list.

I just entered by registration number, date of birth in the boxes and waited. So many things crossed my mind. Will it be the closest ever i will come to the most revered institute of India or will it be further. My roomie was watching TV.

I decided to go for it and pressed enter. A white screen and then

"Congratulations!!.You have been selected for admission into XXXXXXX"

I could not believe my eyes!.I rechecked it 20 times [i am not exaggerating] and in different browsers[sometimes even they fool around.Well most of the times actually].I closed the door. It was a very emotional moment and i was in tears. I just stood and kept looking at the ceiling and crying.

At around 4 pm L released their list and i had made it. No nasty surprises.

The fun part was that of I. From 4 to 6 pm. I saw their web page change everytime i refreshed their page. Some part of the page would disappear and then reappear and then change their places. Sometimes the 'result' link would be visible but you cant click it. If clickable it gave some error. PHP errors. Connection timeouts. MySql maximum connections done. I learnt of more Database errors in those 2 hours then i had learnt in my entire engineering.

Finally it was up and i had made it!. surprise surprise!.

Days later the B waitlist also got converted.9 on 10.University of Minnesotta, Twin city also felt i deserved to study there.

The Epilogue

2008-05-15T04:57:00.001-07:00

The day before CAT if someone would have offered DOSS a seat at SP Jain or NITIE or other place in exchange for him not giving CAT , he would have happily grabbed the offer.

It has been a journey of a lifetime. Hope , fate and destiny.The feeling is yet to sink in. surreal and nice.

People ask DOSS the number of hours he studied. what coaching he took? What did he do different? He didnt go to any classes[when people teach him.. it becomes a lullaby]. He atleast feels he didnt do anything abnormal. He is clueless like always and thats the truth.

If there is anything to be realized in the whole journey, its that there are forces beyond your own control that are also in play.

A friend-cum-colleague of mine asked me the other day

"giving CAT this time?"

"Lets see!".. i said.

Weird looks DOSS receives when people come to know of the stuff that has happened with him. The weirdness increases when they talk to him and find out he is just another normal guy.

"How the fuck!!??"

"A Ridiculous run of luck"

"Oh dont give all this crap..."

DOSS shrugs and walks off smiling.