The road to God's Own Campus - Part I

8th Jan 2008 :

ANURAAG PRABHAKAR 96.37%ile....

You have received calls from the following IIMs....

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The world came crashing down upon me. All that hype about and around me, all those friends telling me that I was made for the IIMs ,all those tests that I had topped at PT Ahmedabad, all my dreams that I would stand in front of an IIM gate (IIMA to be precise and honest) and proudly think that - "Look !!! I don't need to pass you illegally anymore" looked like a bad dream. The realisation that TCS was actually no more a fallback option but a place where I was probably destined to spend so many years was looming upon me to the extent of frightening me. Friends suddenly looked distant and mum's reasoning of "IIM agar itne padhai se ho jaata, toh har koi IIM mein hota" kept ringing in my ears. I was devastated. Never had I had such a big failure in my life. Being educated in mediocre institutions throughout my life had only made the whole situation worse because it kept reminding me that I probably wasn't made for the IIMs.

13th January 2008

Sat in the library I used to frequent and made a list of the days to go to CAT 2008 after I had finally gotten a hang of myself and realised that it wasn't the end of the world. 307 was the number . The next 307 days would determine if destiny had conquered me or if I had conquered my destiny.

16th Nov 2008 (D-DAY)

TCS had finally given me my joining date and typically the date was 10th Nov which meant that I had to come all the way from Trivandrum to Ahmedabad to take the CAT exam since it was too late to ask for a change of test location. After 36 hours of travelling,and 2 flight and 2 train changes I made it to Ahmedabad(hence forth Ahmd) at 11pm on the 15th.I got to sleep only at 2 since I had to complete the requests my friends had made from Trivandrum to be brought back from Ahmd.

16th (9AM) A 2 o clock flight to Mumbai meant that I had to rush straightaway to the airport after the exam and hence made me look like a guy who had camped out the previous night on the street with all my luggage. The only 2 mins I had actually got to myself were just before the exam and I had told this to myself - "Look you can do it, infact you have to do it. A lot of things depend on these next 2.5 hours so just forget about all the worries in the world -TCS ,IIMs and just concentrate on th paper."

16th (1:30AM) Felt that I had done better than last time but was still apprehensive as I had attempted only 11 in the Maths(QA) section. As usual , CAT had thrown up a surprise by giving a 44.44% weightage to the English section and considering that the very section had been my nemesis the last year, I was worried (simply put :) ) Nevertheless, the urgent flight meant I couldn't check my scores but got to know that the flight ha been cancelled since I was the ONLY passenger....Now I was really worried... 5 days in TCS and I was already on the verge of being chucked out. (You can have a cardiac surgery if you please but that should be when you are not supposed to be in the office otherwise its bye-bye to TCS). Still 45 minutes and 14k later I was on a flight to Kochi.I found my way to a computer and logged onto the PT,TIME and IMS websites. I checked with bated breadth. Maths ....11 right out of 11...unbelievable... Moved onto DI. 13 out of 20 for a score of 45. That was worrying. But I still had to encounter my biggest nemesis...Could this screw up 1 more year of mine!!! Well after 12.35  ( kidding !!! ) anxious minutes, the worst I could manage in English was 20 right and 12 wrong to give me a score of 68 out of 160.Now reality was beginning to dawn upon me. Did I stand a realistic chance?

>>>Fast forward to 9th Jan 2009>>>

A lot had happened in the past 2 months since taking the CAT exam. I realized why Kerala was known as God's Own Country during my stay at Trivandrum during the TCS ILP. I probably had the worst rating in my whole batch ( of 360 !!! )so the CAT results were all the more important. Also I had moved to Pune as Pune had been allocated to me as my base branch and already had a glance of the 'famous' Pune night-life and the Pune junta . I also realised that I was not meant for the IT sector and sitting on the bench was indeed amazing.

9th Jan 2009 : My future to-be roomie came up to my room and told me that he had got 99.24%ile but hadn't got any calls.Boy, I was trembling at that moment because if there's one guy who really deserves to go to the IIMs , its him.I got up at the normal 8 o clock to leave for office when a friend asked for my roll number and D.O.B. so that he could ask his friend my marks over the phone (We used to live in a make-shift unfurnished house that has associated with it, many fond memories).  I stood with bated breadth as he made the phone call. After giving him the details , I could hear him say this - " OK 99 point..." that was the first road block crossed. At least I stood a chance..... " point  89 , 99.89" that's when I started getting the creeps.  A small balloon of hope was emerging...Could I realise my dream of the IIMs (Again IIMA to be precise). The next 3 words I heard changed my life - "Calcutta, Indore, Kozhikode". Then all hell broke loose. I started jumping up and down like a maniac (so much for all the dignity to be maintained that was just taught at TCS) , my friends were equally , if not more enthusiastic than me and we celebrated for what seemed an eternity. Finally I was on the path of what I had always wanted to achieve. There was a slight feeling of "What else can I do to get an Ahmedabad call!!!" but the fact that I had managed Calcutta and Kozhikode made me really happy even though there was that feeling of never being able to study in the place I had always dreamt of studying in.

Anyways C,I & K were amazing and I was reallly realllly happy and relieved. Finally I had started to reinforce the thoughts of what people had always said I could do..

The rest....isn't history (don't worry ) but is a next post :) For now in the blog, I'm happy with the fact that I've managed IIM calls :)