YOUR LOVE IS WHAT KEEPS ME GOING....

When in sorrow and happiness I think of you,
My heart leaps with joy.
When in failures and success I think of you,
My heart leaps with joy.

Your love is the power that keeps me going honey,
Your love is the strength I was looking for.
So pure, so true,
So divine.

May be we were made for each other,
May be you were the light of my life I was looking for,
May be you were the person God wanted me to meet,
May be that was the reason he kept happiness away from me all these days.

I am happy, very very happy,
The reason of that is YOU honey,
The reason is your love.

Some songs, they remind me of you,
I listen to them over and over again,
I like to revel in your love honey,
I like to just lose myself in it.

Your love is the panacea my heart was looking for all these years.
Your love is what keeps me going strong.
Knowing that there is a US rather than a ME,
This is what keeps me going strong.
You make my day honey,
I LOVE YOU……..

THE AFTERSHOCKS OF CAT....

Today is 5th December 2008. That’s right……..CAT is over………and so are the exams for IRMA and IIFT…….Wanted to write about the experiences since long but never actually had either the time or the privacy to reflect upon my thoughts……..A lot has happened since November 14th 2008. For starters, my release date from the project has been announced….19th December being my last day at VISA supposedly….I add the word supposedly to stress upon the fact that if God actually permits, my tenure at VISA can actually prolong to some more months so that VISA can actually remain my first and last project at IBM….Frankly speaking, looking for another project at this juncture can really be overwhelmingly frustrating……..Attending shitty interviews, the same old play of forwarding CVs can actually take my mind away from the exams and GD/PIs for which I have to prepare hard…….And yeah well, coming to CAT……..Scoring neither too good nor too bad…………The case is if my scores would have been too good, I would have been very very confident and could have spent my time peacefully preparing for the battle ahead………………..and if my scores would have been too bad, I would have entirely let go of all the hopes relating to CAT………..but as it turns out, my scores remain stuck at the border line…………..pinning my hopes desperately on a bull shitty DI question (I desperately need to get that correct to at least a 90+ sectional in DI) and a couple of VA questions being correct to actually get a respectable score…………Anyways only 9th January can tell……..IIFT actually went a lot better than I expected……..According to TIME, I am getting a score of 26.775 (TIME predicts a cut-off of 24-26……..Other institutes predict 28-29-30)………..That is again a tough call…………..definitely not a sure shot one…………Don’t really know what the future will bring……..Just hope it’s not too dark…………..

THE LAST LAP....

Today is 16th October 2008.........After finishing a paper cup full of Lemon Tea dispensed from the ubiquitous coffee vending machine in the office premises, I sit down with thoughts about the future...........1 more month to go to arguably the most important exam of my life............What makes it even more important is the fact that this will the last to straighten things up..........The last chance to redeem myself.........May be the most important one month to the most important exam............the last lap where runners are expected to sprint ahead.........I wonder what will be going on in my mind exactly one month from now at exactly this time that is 12:15 PM.............Perhaps a QA question which I might have mistaken for a sitter but it actually turned out to be a demon in disguise..............or perhaps a difficult DI caselet which I desperately need to crack in order to clear the cut offs.............or may be a RC Passage with dealing in ethics, morality, spirituality or some other bull shit for that matter with a lot of ambiguous questions..............I just wonder............Time has flown fast.............From months to days and gradually it will also flow in to the tune of hours................

One interesting thought though.............IF FUEL IS SO SCARCE AND COSTLY AND NEEDS TO BE PRESERVED, WHY DON'T THEY BAN MOTORSPORT???? Given the amount of fuel those things burn up and given their numerous practice laps and races, it could well save up a lot of fuel considering their measly milage.............Think about it........

WITH A HEAVY HEART....

I must admit.....This post is being written with a rather heavy heart.........The wueation being posted before myself is "Where am I heading towards????".........Something somewhere has been repeatedly going wrong somewhere and I have not been able to decode the secret.........What am I doing?????? Are the hours of preparation put in, the rigours of the weekend classes, the studying in the office helping me at all???? As far as I can see, I can only see my scores, my percentiles dipping and my confidence levels falling inch by inch every week progressively........Am I going wrong somewhere strategically???? Am I not good enough????? Am I not of that level???? Am I actually not that intelligent that I previously thought myself to be???? Are all the dreams that I have shown my honey going to be crushed???? Will I not be able to redeem myself????? Will I not be able to achieve the benchmark I have set for myself???? What does the future hold for me????? After three repeated failures, can I expect some miracle in November 2008???? Where will I be around this time the next year???? What will happen if I can not stand up to the promises done to the people around me????
Lots of questions are bugging me right now and I seem to be lost in the search for the answers.........The future appears just so uncertain and dark.........People in college scoring lesser grades than me and even entering the college at lesser ranks have been scoring substantially higher.........have I become less intelligent of late????? Has my smoking got anything to do with it or my regular intake of Maggi?????? What is going wrong precisely?????? Why am i sitting in the office on a Sunday at around 8:30 PM typing this little pile of shit????? (Well I have the answer to the last question at least and that is my PM)...........Questions galore and me trying to find answers.........Life is not a bed of roses after all...........

ITS A NICE DAY.....

Since some days, I feel genuinely concerned about the climate.......and the spiraling oil prices for that matter........Its not that I have been doing something actively for that sake but I still feel for it.......What would be the general reaction of the public and governments worldwide if we got up one fine day in the morning and find all oil sources depleted??????? Scary huh.......But I find it hard to change myself..........I still keep my comp switched on when I leave my office shutting down just the monitor............the other day, I was actually appalled by the sheer number of polythene bags my mom maintained..........Sometimes I think where is all of these oil actually coming from?????? All these trucks, all vehicles and what not consume enormous amounts of oil.........Man is heading for a doom for sure but we are simply expediting the process.........Now I don't wanna sound like a cranky conservationalist but I don't think I can help it...........May be something is wrong with my outlook.........May be something is severely wrong in the very thought that I can not do anything about it............Why is it still the case that I would prefer a petrol driven car rather than a fuel cell driven car any given day????????? Why do I still dream of owning a car at all???????? Would our future generation still be able to enjoy winters curled up in their blankets with a mug of hot coffee??????? Damn it.......who cares.........I will drag on till 55 odd years more and till then every thing is just gonna be fine............How can I actually change this outlook of mine??????????? CLUELESS............just random conflicting thoughts.......... :-) :-)

DOWN BUT DEFINITELY NOT OUT....

5 AIMCATs over........12-14 odd to go.........Studies, hatred for the job in particular and IT in general continues.......Something went terribly wrong in the last AIMCAT........But I know that it happens sometimes that you get a low after two consecutive highs.........How does it feel to sometimes be back to "almost" square one........the key word being "almost"...........The last AIMCAT actually showed me what can go wrong in the C Day..........It showed me how the verbal section can actually make or break you on that day.........Verbal, my supposedly strong section, ditched me real big time............QA also has not also been up to that level which I had expected and DI as usual............Something or the other always goes terribly wrong in DI...........My speed sucks..........My logical abilities suck............I suck.................Bought the CAT form some days ago..........IIFT online form submission is done...........Will post both of them by the first week of August for sure.........I know I have it in me to get into a decently good B-School..........But IIMs???????? They still remain a big ?????????????????????????????????

WOULDN'T IT JUST BE GOOD....

Of late I have been wondering.........Wouldn't it just be good or rather I must say great that whatever people plan or work out for their future, the course of events proceed exactly like that???? Well wistful thinking I must say but that seldom happens for me......Used to happen though but something has somehow changed.......may be my stars are at play or some freaking explanation........But somehow whatever I have been planning of late has been going into dumps somehow.........Like each time I fall into a complacense, a sense of being settled, life more often than not throws up some sort of a surprise for me............Of late, I had been thinking that my life has been going great at Bangalore...........no work load, ample time and focus to study, mom here with me, dad visiting me here, my honey to support me here and the fact that I can spend some quality time here with her being in the same city but then all of a sudden, something shatters the peace and throws all my plans into dumps...........Like the maxim goes.......MAN PROPOSES, GOD DISPOSES.........but then wouldn't it just have been great if we could play GOD????? that might be quite a lot to ask I guess but then my demands are that each man could play GOD for himself........decide his own fate but could have no control on the fate of others........but then again each man's fate at least affects the fate the people around him and we come back to square one that again man can not decide his fate independent of others and thus the entire demand that he be allowed to control his own fate is unreasonable........I know I have been countering my own demand since some lines but thats the state of my mind right now.........CONFUSED........All this stems from something that happens some days ago..........My Project Manager came down to me the other day and asked me to apply for a B1 VISA..........basically a US trip for upto three months........Although I had categorically told him in a one-to-one discussion some days ago about my MBA plans and all and he had assured me that I wont be disturbed after October, he came back to me again and asked for my B1 VISA to be done............ Italked to him again and said that if I am unable to fill the forms up for exams (they come out from August for the uninitiated), how am I going to sit for the exams???? Then he assured me that it will only be for 2 months at a max and it won't be September at all..........So its July and August or never..........Now you may ask "What's wrong with a 2 month paid US vacation?????" My reply to that would be I stayed back from 2007 to 2008 just to sit for CAT with a thorough preparation.......attending weekend classes, appearing for AIMCATs, prepare seriously..........I wanted to do all that and had been doing all that till now but from now onwards I have to keep my fingers crossed............The biggest consolation is that GETTING A B1 VISA IN OUR PROJECT DOES NOT MEAN THAT WE ARE ACTUALLY TRAVELLING. THERE HAVE BEEN MANY TEAM MEMBERS WHOSE TRAVEL HAS GOT CANCELLED ALTHOUGH THEIR VISAS HAVE BEEN DONE. Another consolation is that my Project Manager has also assured me that he is trying to keep me here as much as possible just for the sake of the smooth commencement of my studies and all........This he said is just a measure to ensure that I am ready for travel and nothing else.........Hopefully I should be able to continue with my peaceful and planned life........but then I am at crossroads between a fully paid vacation and a gamble that I am going to play in November called CAT.......because there is never any guarentee that I can do well even after lots of preparations, Mock Tests, classes and all............What will happen then???? Because I have been neglecting my current job for something which is little more than an illusion..........Then I will lose out on both sides...........Again like the popular maxims go...........A BIRD IN HAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE BUSH.............and our very own Hindi one...........DHOBI KA KUTTA NA GHAR KA NA GHAAT KA...............

P:S: This post is dedicated to Richa from PagalGuy who was the first person who commented on my blog and the second person to encourage me to write further (my honey is the first person in this regard :-) )

MY BEST FRIEND....

As life progresses, I have always felt that the definition of a best friend and the corresponding personification of that entity has kept on changing........Who exactly has been my best friend and what have they done to actually deserve that place in my life even if for a fleeting second really appear a mystery to me as I sat thinking or rather contemplating since I accidentally visited the orkut profile of one of my old school friends.......I remember there were two guys when I was merely in standard 3...........we were so good friends that I remember thinking that I must have been related to them in some way in the previous birth........one of them joined at NIT RKL as my junior, same branch and the other, after a gap of many years, met on Orkut and since then we have rarely talked...........I remember meeting friends on Orkut after at least a gap of 10+ years...........but forget about those people since they hardly ever qualified as my best friend........But then came the phase after 10th..........the +2 phase.........when most of my troubles arose due to my "so-called" friends or rather best friends..........Mama used to say friends come and go but by then I was pretty much sure that I had actually made some friends for life.........but then again, that was not supposed to be the case..........those friends came and went causing the maximum damage so far as totally shattering my faith on the institution called friendship.........then came NIT RKL where I again made a decent group of friends in the 1st year itself and again thought to myself that wow........this must be friendship...........these must be my best friends........only to be left behind with an irreversibly broken faith again..........I remember a time had come when I used to contemplate that although I have lots and lots of friends around me I never had a best friend till date............then came the phase of 3rd year and 4th year when new people stepped into my life again.............u know like God sends good people in the end to restore your belief in something that had been lost.............I still cherish those friends.............Although work has forced us to stay in different cities, still they were and are still friends............And just when I had been out of college and in a different city starting work, away from the friends who had restored my belief in friendship...............God finally sent someone to my life who actually showed me how beautiful life can be with someone...........my life was so hollow without her now that I come to think of it...........She thus was, is and always will be my best friend...........I really wish to forget all those people who had caused me terrible pains coming in the guise of my friends.........let me just have the people around me who could restore my faith in friendship...............my friends in the 3rd and final year of college...........friends forever................and my honey...............devoted my entire life to her................my truest and best friend till date................my life was indeed hollow without u.............

LIFE GOES ON!!!! HAPPIER AND MERRIER!!!!

How can someone just illuminate my life so much as to make me feel an entire city however crappy it may be, worth living........worth calling it a city of eternal joy..........stumps me..........Someone so lovely that I am ready to take all sorts of responsibilities for US...........anyways life has been going good as usual............regular studies, mom at home, honey in the same city and the ever burning desire to prove myself this year............It actually takes something very good to take the form of an obsession from being just an interest any more......I mean, there must something actually be so good in the exam that it completely overpowers you......Like a tempting seductress, it takes over your mind and soul by storm but the catch is that you actually enjoy the fact that something has overpowered you..........I mean instead of feeling like a slave to it, you actually donate your heart, soul and mind............just like a tempting seductress..........You know she is a vamp...........she is playing with your mind and soul..........she is definitely neither the end of the world nor a definite parameter of success...........she is just "ANOTHER EXAM"............but still you actually enjoy her company............unlike the IIT JEE or AIEEE exams when you feel compelled to study, this exam is something different............The entrance exams in the +2 days can be compared to a woman, say your wife (honey I know you will definitely read this.......dont worry I love you very much.......U are my life......This is just an example that definitely concerns other people :-)............Please dont get mad at me...........), who demands to be loved although you may not love her that much...........but the CAT/XAT/FMS/JMET or any other MBA exam for that matter is just like a sexy girl you saw in the subway who just captivated you right from the word GO and you start loving her insanely knowing you may never even see her again forget about even getting her..........She just seduces you without any overt actions or show of sexiness, if I may use the word for lack of any better words to use............She doesnt compel you to love her but you shower her with love nevertheless..........With a look of "Come and get me darling" in her eyes, she just vanishes down the turn leaving you gaping for words........You run, do all that you can do just to have a glimpse of her again and when you actually manage to have a glipmse of her again, you try all you can to woo her but then with a mischievious smile, she again disapperars round the corner flicking her hair out from near her eyes and you are left wondering where was the point that you went wrong........nevertheless with renewed vigour and strength and interest you chase her again wondering when you can be good enough for her..............and the point is no one actually compels you to chase her but you just do that for reason either very varied or for reasons even you yourself are not sure of...........she is just so damn hot and sexy.........seducive, playing hard to get but not overtly so........That come and get me look in her eyes I talked about just drives you crazy........She feels so near yet so far...........so elusive.........One moment you swell in confidence that she can actually be yours but the next moment she does something so mysterious that you feel weak in the knees.........may be also just like your lady-love whom you love unconditionally, giving your heart and soul and want to see her always, any time of the day, do anything to please her and everything else.........Welcome to the world of MBA ASPIRANTS in India.

LOTS OF TIME....

Thank you IBM....Thank you VISA....Thank you for both for all the free, productive and utterly essential time you guys are providing me each day helping me to inch towards my dreams....Someday, I will definitely look back to these days and say that these days helped me a lot....Someday the time will come when I can bid IBM and VISA a lovely goodbye nd say "Kiss my a** suckers!!!!"....I still feel the jitters though....An exam is always an exam after all with the usual share of luck factor determining your success...What if something goes wrong....what if I cant even sit for the exam...what if there is an accident or sickness.....WHAT IF....I know I sound like a pessimistic ass but then the fears still linger refusing to recede even by the surge of confidence....But somewhere deep down within me I feel I CAN....and I WILL.....rather I MUST....

DEFINITELY MORE THAN AN EXAM....

Doesn't it sometimes happen that something you felt was not quite your cup of tea becomes so important that it becomes an addiction.........a passion.......I don't quite follow the turmoil of emotions that sweep me some of these days.......I feel a new phase of life sweeping all over me.......I feel determined, scared, confident,apprehensive all at the same time........A kaleidoscopic array of variegated emotions swirling all around me at the same time......I never knew that a single exam can churn out so many emotions in me..........An exam that can truly make a MAN out of a carefree youth........A responsibility, a sense of duty........dreams, aspirations, determination, a dream of seeing oneself shine........an aim for oneself...........hopes in the eyes of mom and dad..........dreams in the eyes of honey...........all culminate together in just one degree..........

CALM....

After quite a time life feels settled like a calm, serene sea beach just during sunset.......A calm before the storm may be????? But no, I seriously dont think so.........When everyting falls into place, everything just fits in, everything just feels right and everything heads towards near perfection........note the word "near"........I hope this phase gets prolonged for years and years to come...........

AFTER A COUPLE OF HALF POSTS....AFTER A LOOOOONG HIATUS....

As I go through my last post, I realise that it has been almost a month since I posted anything.......not that I am posting because it has been a month since I posted anything but I had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I had been neglecting my blog again as always.......I have been very unfaithful my dear pal.........neglecting u time and again and when some friend such as Rohan sends me the link to his decently decorated blog, I start to think about my blog, my muse again............and how I have left her in the lurch even after she helped me through some the apparently toughest days at Bangalore.........Anyways, a lot many things have predictably happened in the last month............In fact the most notable among them would be my two "half-blogs" that I could never complete...........sigh........there......I leave my muse half-lonely this time.........but then the best news would be that my honey has had her relocation to Bangalore done and what could be more exciting........Although we can only hold hands on the weekends, the feeling is simply exhilarating.......I mean 30 mins of meeting after 3 and a half hours of journey also appears to be pure bliss........This is the love I had always desired, always craved for and I am so lucky that I found it just when I needed it the most..........I found an inspiration, a strength just when I needed it to achieve my ambitions, build OUR life...........Sometimes I feel that I have mada an enough mess out of not only my life but also the lives of some people around me...........But that has taught me a lot................has really helped me grow up...............Has made me "perfect"...........well almost and this time around I make a conscious effort that nothing goes wrong...........so that my honey stays happy and contended throughout her life...........She has made my life a real joy.........an experience worth living...........U know someone like someone just comes into your life and pulls u out of a mess, a quagmire...........God I really thank u for that..........and the joy becomes double when both of the people involved pull each other out.......ANd yes one more thing........3 more weeks and again my life would be even more joyous, even more livable.......mom is coming down to stay with me here, help me prepare for CAT..........This is the first time our family is getting disintegrated for a period of around a year so that I can do well in the exams this year..........Imagine the pressure on me...........I have to do something so that all of these don't simply go futile........This is the year and now is the time...........What makes me happy is that I will have a familiar face once I ring the door bell.....A person I can talk to about all my worries.......a person who can say me that its already an hour I have been talking to my honey and probably now I should start studying.....someone who can resolve my worries about good and rather cheap food...........I am really thankful to my parents for being what they are...........My living Gods.........For helping me and guiding through both my happiest and worst times........

LOT MANY THINGS HAVE HAPPENED.....

I cant classify this as a hiatus but I am deinitely writing this post after a gap of some days to say in the least............So much has happened in the last week..........After Padmanabhan's caustic remarks last week, I had decided that it would always be only 8 hours for me in the office........Not even a second more............So since then, I have made it a point to dash out of the office incognito on time............I try to remain as inconspicuous as possible.......I try not to attract as unnecessary attention as possible so that I dont have distractions to disturb my mind and I can focus roperly on what is to be stacked and stored in my life for the days to come.........Anyways, I was waiting for last tuesday with bated breath...........Why????? Because CAT results were going to be out that day...........Not that I expected some phenomenal result..........I think non-geniuses like me should not expect phenomenal results with a total of at best 12 hours of efforts put in for an exam where 1600 odd students battle it out for a single hallowed seat in one of the institutes of their dreams...............I am more than happy with my 94.38 percentile this time..........Quants screwed me as expected this time.............I could only manage a gut-wrenching 71 odd percentile............Even VA was not superbly excellent with a 93.94 percentile.......and could score 95.07 percentile in DI/LR...........But all of it simply makes me feel good.............feel confident.........Figure this out............12 hours of labour supposedly amount to 94.38 percentile.............Then imagine what an intensive dedication of 891 hours should do.............including mock tests..................Dont try the unitary method here............it will of course be futile.............people have achieved better though although I dont think anybody from the 2003-07 batch of NIT RKL has managed an IIM call...........Juniors have definitely shown though with 2 BLACKI..........and some more with 2 or even a single call..........Assume that I enter an IIM in the next year, I would be their junior and pass out after them...........A irony probably...........After the week dragged on, I waited again for Friday, spent 3 restless hours in the office, jumped onto the Air Deccan flight DN-765 or 766, I am not quite sure and reached home friday night...........Man, that was pure BLISS...............Gotta sleep now...............too too tired.............

THIS WEEKEND.....

After a painfully slow and boring week at the office, weekend finally arrived........I say it as a painfully slow and boring week because unlike the previous days, nothing has been happening in the project that involves either me or any of the ELTps for that matter.........I was simply waiting for Friday to end so that I could set foot home.........not because I had anything better to do there but because I am sick of this office, the people here, the environment and heck, even my cubicle........Minutes of meticulous planning and devious thoughts regarding how to avoid Padmanabhan's attention did not quite pay off as he caught me just when I was on my out........My fault, I sat down in the pantry to hang on to the latest issue of the TOI..........But thank God, his attention was diverted and I made my way out gleefully.............Friday night, in the house with only a 15-inches TV and a dumb idiot as a companion did not feel all that pathetic thanks to my honey............Saturday morning did not even allow me to complete my sleep and amongst the various duties that included closing the door after Swapneel left for the exam and then home directly from thereon, switching on the pump, switching off the pump, throwing the garbage out( and being on the receiving end of neighbours for throwing the garbage out in the empty plot in the front and inviting the dogs that shout), washing clothes (including jeans...........the only time that someone can actually curse Levi Strauss), I finally got ready to drag myself to Kormangala.......without a bath for some reasons even I am not very sure of.............I had two things in mind........meet Bhaskar so that I could burn CDs with the college and department pics to show them to my love (even she should have a glimpse of the glorious life his husband and brother-in-law have experienced first-hand) and then go off to the IMS center there to know about the Correspondence courses they provide............Standing in the partial-sun-partial-shade of the SBI ATM at Marathalli, I did not know what to shout at...........the indefinitely long queue or the clouds that had just been mocking at me by exposing the sun they had so cautiously hidden behind them............had a south indian lunch...........so predicatable.............The guy at the IMS center did nothing to clear my doubts regarding the correspondence course..........rather he kept on trying to sell their full classroom course that costs around three times more and which I dont think I can manage considering my work load here at IBM and I will end up missing all the classes...........Then, I did the terrible mistake of going into the Forum with money in my wallet..........ended up buying the Lord of the Rings book and gifts for mom and dad............After I came home, I had nothing left with me other than to eat and sleep..................Sunday morning and Nana called up to inquire if I was coming to their place..........Rushed through the morning not wanting to be late and more importantly not wanting to be hungry for long, I gave the washing clothes part a miss.............after a gruelling journey of around 2 hours, waiting for Theku to turn up even after repeated requests to be on time considering the fact that I was really hungry and ready to faint any moment, confusions about where both of us were supposed to meet, quarrels with the errant autowallahs we reached Nana's place finally...........A very very heavy and comely lunch later, I was burning CDs again...........Seeing Nana's peace of life, I really want to settle down to all that but again...........I remind myself that its still not time yet.......A lot of things are still left to be achieved..........a lot of promises are still to be fulfilled........A lot happier life for me, my parents, my love is guarenteed if I toil for four years more with my sincerest devotion possible..........After three bus journeys, I finally reached home, withdrew money again after walikng for another kilometer or so, shared my day with my honey and dozed off..................Although the weekend was tiring that included around eight hours of bus journey, it was still a welcome change from the monotony............And yes, I forgot to mention, I am opening a Demat Acccount the next month and I will be investing in the share market inspired by Bhaskar and the tidy sum he is earning from the Share Market.......He offered to help me invest my money for me if I give him a percentage share but I want to delve into it myself and learn the intricacies myself so that it will equip me better...........isn't it??????? And by the way, CAT had taken a back seat during the weekend but the determination again resurfaced as soon as I set my foot in the office.............It always does and it should..............

A PASSION….AN OBSESSION…..

The time: November 2006…… The place: National Institute of Technology, Rourkela……People of our batch in the final year of the engineering days……….and so was I………..During the time of my counseling, I had got into Ceramic Engineering at the institute not into Metallurgy and Material Sciences Engineering since I felt that the prospects for an MS degree in Ceramic Engineering were definitely better since the competition was but of course less………..Then I changed my branch to Chemical Engineering………..But getting back to November 2006 again……….Since we were in the final year of our degrees, hordes of people out there were pulling the place down saying they were preparing for CAT……….I had already gone through the dilemma of whether a CAT, GATE or a GRE………….GRE dreams had died down since long because of the practical problems associated with it…………Lots of useless financial strain for simply enabling myself to get an MS…………and talking about GATE, I wasn’t simply able to motivate myself for it…………May be because in the deepest corner of my heart, I felt I was personally not cut-out to make myself stable in the revered field of Chemical Engineering……….So that left the CAT with me……….I remember dad urging me to sit for the CAT…………He said, I will pay you the fees for the exam……….Just sit for it dude……….Don’t let the year slip out of your hands…….Just sit for it as a practice attempt…………..Now I feel that may be I should have listened to him…………I have always repented whenever I don’t listen to him but I still don’t stop doing that……………..anyways…………my justification was, I don’t want to sit for some exam for which I hadn’t prepared in the slightest bit………..I seriously felt I could not have done justice to the exam…………I enjoyed the final year in the college……….and the only thing that was on my mind then was to get into a job, take a break from studies for a year, come back fresh armed with enough preparation to be able to do justice to the exam…………This was all going well, albeit I must add shamelessly that the preparation was almost again tending to be a big zilch…………Fun and frolic with friends, booze parties, time with my girl friend, the joy of getting paid while on bench was really taking a heavy toll on my focused preparation…………Then came the time of the relocation…….sometimes I really feel thankful for that………….Almost immediately setting foot in Bangalore, there was CAT 2007………..This time I had decided to sit for the exam just to prepare myself for CAT 2008……….. I just wanted to know my strengths, weaknesses, and most importantly, I wanted to gauge the correlation between the efforts I had put in totally that year with the percentile I was able to achieve………although I again must admit shamelessly that the total hours I had put in counted to a meagerly 12 hours…………which was like laughable……….Anyways, it was during that time that I joined PaGaLgUy……….and have been following it religiously………..my pagal quotient although came out to be a decent 74%...........This is the year I feel the maximum motivation for CAT……….Yesterday, I was going through a thread in PG that described how people have made it into their dream destinations for an MBA…………After a lot of posts, I was like “WOW”……..Since yesterday, I have been harboring a silent aim to write in that thread someday……….What always matters in a race is the focus…….focus on the end of the race……..focus on emerging out the winner and nothing less than that……..and you know what……that particular thread has motivated me like nothing ever has…………The struggles, tribulations, the determination, the words, the blogs all show that CAT is not just an exam………it is definitely a way of life just like AOE or even CS for that matter……….In college, a friend had said me that don’t do an MBA for the money…………Do it if you really want it………I hadn’t quite taken his words seriously………..For me, it had been just the money then………….But now I realize, that guy had been feeling what I am feeling now some months earlier………..This is really the first time in my life that the want to achieve something has got so ingrained into my psyche that I am ready to burn myself just for that one chance…………It no longer is the money or the education or the competition or the fact that I want to prove my colleagues that I am a lot better than them that is the motivating factor…………In fact I don’t know what is……..But there is something that I want to prove to myself………..During the time of some of the previous posts, I had said that my MBA will be for the people I hate as well as for the people I love but you know what………..It no longer is that anymore not for my Dad, or my Mom or my Love or Deba Bhai for that matter…………Its seriously something I want to do just for myself…………For proving to myself that I am a star………….not necessarily a genius or anything but definitely capable of setting a goal and achieving it…………I never had done that earlier in my life………..I kept on switching my focus…………desultorily and aimlessly moving on………..almost like wasting my life, getting satisfied with whatever life gave me…….I had never set goals, never made my own way, never had I forced life to give me what I wanted……it was almost like a hollow existence ( Papa I do realize the significance of your words now and I am sorry for almost never having listened to you……You are so right always)………….but now I have a goal…………and you know something else……… I have already seen an almost magnificent engineering life and now I want to see another sort of a magnificent life again………..Its something that I owe myself…………Its something that really has got into my psyche this time………..There really is something about this thing that makes falling in love with it indispensable…………During my +2 days, I remember studying was a sort of compulsion……..My dreams and aims had to be forced onto me by my parents……….God I was such an imbecile then………..Wish I could have shown even a bit more of a conviction and strength then……….You know what, CAT is already making me feel a lot grown-up than I ever was……There is definitely some magic in this thing…….It has really shown me facets of myself I was totally ignorant about or may be I was too lazy to see them……I don’t know how, when and why I fell in love with it but I am definitely starting to enjoy the preparation now………..In fact this is almost the first time in my life that I am, in fact, looking forward to a certain exam, preparing for some exam because I seriously want to, setting up a goal without someone else defining the guidelines for me………….Like they say, there has always got to be a first time in everyone’s life…………….. And yes……mark my words…….someday I will be writing about my journey on that PaGaLgUy thread definitely………….someday I will for sure……………

A NEW DAWN RISES……..

I am writing this blog on the first day of 2008……..Although the start of this year has been nothing worth reporting, I mean nothing has happened till now that can be ideally classified as a “celebration”, except the fact that I am back from the office within two hours from my stepping into it and now I am watching “Hadh Kar Di Aapne” for the 124563rd time……….but then this year has definitely started for me with a lot of enthusiasm and determination definitely………..I feel there always comes a phase in a man’s life when he needs to step up to the many challenges life plans to throw up at him and face it like a man…………when he realizes that he is sick of the mundane life dragging around him and he decides that it his high time that he should buckle up and do at least something to set things right…………set things the way he wants things to be……….step up on the gas, push himself to the extreme, do whatever it may take to not only fulfill his aspirations but also earn the respect of the people around him………….I believe that I am passing through a similar phase just as I am setting my foot into the new year……………It is arguably the first time that I am so geared up to do something with my life that I am really revving myself up to the challenge…….…….During the last few days, I have shown my parents and my honey a lot of dreams, a lot of hopes and now stepping back for me can just be classified as cowardice…………and being tagged a “coward” for the rest of my life is the last thing I want to live with………People around me have a lot of trust in me and I simply can not afford to break that trust………….and u know what, they definitely just want the best for me…………and if I have to work just a bit harder for this win-win situation for both myself and the people around me, I am really ready to slog my ass off………There were a very few people at the office today………….but something I saw at the office today just set me thinking………..Hardly 5-10% of the total junta had turned up………but still there was one guy, Jawahar by name, slogging out on his machine……….Here was a guy who always reaches office before time, gets out of his cubicle only to have his food, always works a lot, stays late nights, comes to the office in the early mornings and here he was on the new year’s day earlier than almost all the others and while the rest of the public were chilling out, he was fervently checking the ROL application………..I seriously believe that these kind of people have no lives……….I guarantee that his wife must have run off with some other charming guy who knows how to live life…….may not be king size but at least LIVE………I guarantee that this nerd does not have a life…………..I mean, seriously are such type of people from this planet itself??????? But in fact, his life style is not my problem…………I don’t know why but I had a disturbing thought that some day I may also end up like that if I really stick to whatever it is that I am doing now………nothing but mindless coding………….Last Thursday, almost half of the VISA team was at the training room as usual surfing crap on the internet and we were also there………….By we I mean, me, Deba bhai, Dandu bhai and all………..We were getting ready to leave work early since the BIG exam was the next day……….Arvind and Anil were sitting nearby when we informed Anil about our intentions and I as usual got tensed about the exam and said that all I wanted that I should still be with IBM in 2008…………It was then that both of them remarked that what a big complaining jerk I was………..a big pessimist and stuff like that………..Anil said that at least the others were more open to challenges than me and I was pessimist eternally afraid of life……….. I just wanted to tell them my side of the story but then I kept quiet………..I thought may be my actions will speak for themselves………..Since how many days do those bastards know me as such…………3 months…………That’s not long enough a time to pass judgments on someone…………May be now I realize why Anil had given me a rating of 3 for my “flexibility”…………..I will show them what I am made of…………what I am capable of………..Arvind said that a person can’t be so afraid of things and challenges if he wants to survive in the I.T. world…………My first thoughts were “Who the f*** in fact wants to survive in the I.T. world anyways……….I don’t give a rat’s ass to this place……..And I am man enough to face the challenges and work extra hard without complaining for the dreams I want to follow………….I don’t want to end up as a bunch of losers as you guys………….” Almost all the people I see at work daily are so complacent with their lives, so smug, so self-satisfied and in fact so proud of an IBM tag that I really feel sorry for their lack of outlook………….Padmanabhan and me got talking the other day and I was just telling him about my dreams of a satisfactory job, a hefty paycheck and stuff like that……….I said him that nothing in this world is ever possible with a mere 20K per month paycheck………..He said “Common man u guys are getting way much more than I was getting back at your age……almost 5 years ago………”…Again my first thought was………”Dude, that’s none of my problem…….Its not my fault that you think that you were underpaid back then…….”…..I said him….” Do you know my friends are at Microsoft earning around thrice that I am managing these days………The people who were with me in my tuition are getting paid in dollars, they are in a lot better positions than I am in now…..” His eyes were simply round with shock and disbelief………Almost all of them here are just plain frogs in a well so happy, so satisfied with their pathetic positions in their life that I simply pity them……They think that they are very well-off when in reality, I don’t think they don’t even know what being well-off actually means……Honey once mentioned to me that I am a very intelligent guy………..I had explained to her then that she had actually not seen real intelligent guys………….Guys who just read for a night and topped in their branches, guys who played so much computer games that they had mouse marks on their finger tips after they finished gaming but still got into an IIT and are now at De Shaw earning 9.5 lakhs per annum, guys who just sat quietly in the corner at K. K. Swain’s and could still manage a AIR of 75 in the IIT-JEE exams……Those were geniuses……..There is a very popular saying……..”I may not be the best but I am definitely better than the rest……..that’s what I am………………