20th November, 2005. What better date can I find to write on this topic, than the date on which I gave this bugging exam. Come to think of it, this day probably was one of those ‘weirdest’ days of my life. Too many upheavals, contradictions and all that emotional jargon. I don’t know where to start so I guess I’ll describe my entire day. Maybe that way I’ll understand how I started feeling sick (emotionally).
The morning was pretty normal. I left my house at 9:30. My test centre was St. Xavier’s College. My roomies had decided to go to the church. Maybe the Indian Gods were too busy distributing their blessings to the Hindu CAT aspirants that it would take a long time before we got our blessings. But I guess going to the church seemed a more up market proposition than going to a temple; Whatever! All I knew was that I hadn’t been to a church since quite some time, and I was excited towards the entire deal.
So there I was sitting alone on a bench, hands folded, eyes closed, sitting there and praying, or confessing rather. It seems funny but when you feel that whatever you’re speaking in your mind is being listened to by a very wise person, its gives you a very satisfied feeling. There is a sense of security that your thoughts are getting conveyed to someone potent and whatever that you confess is being conveyed to the person whom you wish to and not to anyone else. To be very frank I simply don’t believe in Hero worship. Not that I’m an atheist, but I do love silent places. Maybe the temples of India have become noisier than a fish market. But I don’t want to get into all that.
The point is I was confessing things that were not supposed to come out at that point of time. Or maybe they shouldn’t have come out at all. I mean THE ACTUAL CAT was less than an hour away, and I was there, sitting peacefully, pouring my heart out on matters everything else other than CAT. There are times when your mind refuses to concentrate on matters more immediate and important and ponders over other things, which are undoubtedly important but not at the current moment. At least it always happens with me. Maybe I’m too shallow I don’t know.
My friends quickly got up and began to leave. Their test centers were different so they had to leave. I wished I could sit there at the church the entire day, talking to an imaginary person seeking the meaning of life, or something less philosophical. But the irony was I had to appear for CAT. I left the church and entered college, trying to find my classroom. And when I did, I realized I had to sit at the last bench. Life can be pretty symbolic at times I tell you.
There too the reporting time was 10:15 a.m., and you don’t get the question paper in hand before 10:45 a.m. So I had another half an hour to spare, all by myself. It wasn’t that we were not allowed to speak. But the scenario was such. Every other person sitting in the classroom and every other person sitting in hundreds of other such classrooms was a competitor. So everyone was busy giving the you’re-dead-meat glances. Thus, I chose to stare at my answer sheet than see glaring faces towards me. Maybe my dressing was too classic (White Shirt and jeans) that people kept staring at me making false assumptions. Who cares?
I don’t exactly remember what all did I do during those 30 minutes, but believe me they seemed unending. Mentally I could’ve recalled my entire life till date in those few minutes. Luckily, this time I did think about CAT. Not how to devise strategies or something, but it was more of an introspection. Strategy development was an impossible option for me. It was like asking a beggar to choose between 3 bungalows for which he had no money to buy. Coming to the introspection part, I realized that, all I did to prepare for the CAT was spend more than a year going to big-big training institutes and adding heaps of material to pile up on my desk. And that was it. It was the be-all and end-all for CAT in Bhushir’s terms. There was a feeling of apathy and lack of grandeur; you could in fact term it as the ‘Underdog Statement of the Year’. And it was during these 30 minutes that the mental transformation was talking place.
Once I got the CAT paper, all those nasty thoughts disappeared instantaneously. But I knew it, deep inside me, they were still lurking somewhere. They had conveyed the message to me only partially. Perhaps the climax was still to come.
The bell rang and I finally began. While I was opening the seal I suddenly realized that I was giving a competitive exam for the first time in my life! Your mind has a habit of throwing facts at some of the oddest moments I tell you. The next 2 hours passed quickly than the 30 minutes I had to spend with myself. Once the paper got over, I was sort of relieved. Most people after giving the CAT crib about having a severe headache or want to go home and sleep. It never happened to me! I mean I didn’t mark circles in the OMR sheet as per my whims and fancies. I did apply my logic, whatever that I possessed and tried my best. While most people feel drained and stressed out after the CAT exam, I was in fact feeling all charged up! Why don’t all these melodramatic transformations happen to me! Maybe I’m the most uninteresting guy on this planet. And I think my White Shirt and Jeans supplemented the fact.
While going back home I saw the church again. It was closed. Or else I could’ve sat there for some more time. While I was waiting for my friends to show up, I did a little bit of statistics on my CAT paper. Just think; 1,70,000 students, 90 questions and 2 hours. This was the test thrown to each CAT aspirant to find out whether he was eligible for an average salary of 7 lacs. It’s a cranky statement I know, but I couldn’t think of any other way to summarize how I felt about CAT. Fundamentally I saw no logic in asking students an RC passage that was all related to Arts & Literature, and thereby also testing one’s aptitude. After giving the CAT, I later found that students of Arts Faculty take a year or so to understand the entire theory, an excerpt of which we got as an RC passage (The theory was on Deconstruction by some loony guy called Derrida). And we were expected to understand whatever he propagated within a matter of 7 minutes and also answer a handful of 4-5 questions on the same. I didn’t find anything wrong about his theory on Deconstruction or whatever. It seemed interesting in fact (During such times anything and everything seems interesting except the CAT paper). But what I didn’t like is that what relation does it hold to you becoming a manager? The previous statement kept ringing in my ears for almost each and every question that I saw in the paper after giving the CAT. Just tell me, how do you judge a person’s ability to undertake responsibility by knowing if he knew synonyms of few inane words like fingummy? Or how would you judge a person’s marketing skills by finding out if he knew the value of 302720! It’s pretty absurd if you ask me. Is this the way one evaluates your prospects of being a future manager? And on top of it, those scumbag IIT grads take away all the limelight and the seats as well.
Just then, suddenly, that something lurking inside me sprang out. My conscience grabbed hold of me right from the neck and said, “Alright mister, enough is enough. You think you can keep complaining about all the systems in the world and get away with it? You think you can publicize your ‘I’m Different’ theory to whomsoever you wish? Well that isn’t going to happen. Sure you can complain about all the exams in the world, it’s your mouth you’re using. But did you ever question about doing anything worthwhile while working with yourself, alone, away from the protocols of any system in the world? Have you? Ever? I think you need to realize mister that the system is not wrong, you are. The system doesn’t constrict your actual potential. It never does. The only bloody fact is you’re nothing more than a dimwit underdog… Get it. Underdog!”
Underdog. That was all I needed to hear. And I lost it. I couldn’t stand the facts anymore. I just lose my control when someone talks about the obvious things about me. That’s when my scruples forced me to realize that whatever I said to the CAT exam and the IIT dudes was not exactly justified. I had to take back my words, whatever that I had said, simply to save from embarrassing my own self, so that I could prove my own conscience that “See mister! I can gulp down my own puke!” I sometimes seriously hate my conscience; simply because there’s no running away from it.
I know I’m physically unappealing and mentally sick and rationally irrational and every other fancy abuse you can think of. But I always have a put on mask, always hiding the real me. But when it becomes too much, conscience whips you in the butt and brings you back down to ground zero. There are few people in the world to whom I listen to. I’m actually a stubborn bastard in that sense. And when you need such people to tell you things, they’re never around. So your conscience takes the advantage and starts giving you left-and-right. And believe me my conscience is not at all humane when it comes to making me realize certain things.
All I know is that 20th November was not at all a great day for me. Sure I always keep on talking to myself while driving or so, but that day was heights. I knew I needed to hear what all I told to myself, still I refused to accept it and it’s still lingering all around me. And I realized the enormity of the situation when I went to a friend’s birthday party that night and find that I had lost my appetite.
I know you might be questioning what does a man’s stomach have to do with what’s going on in his head. But for me, frankly speaking, appetite is like a perpetual phenomenon. I’m always hungry… for food, to be precise. And at that night I felt no urge to eat. It means things were not just serious. They were way beyond serious. Stars don’t fall from the sky every day and I don’t keep losing my appetite every now and then. Rarely and I mean rarely has it ever happened. In short I hope you understood how pissed off I was with the entire thing.
Eventually, all I wanted to say was that after giving the ACTUAL CAT, I really feel, getting into IIMs is not that difficult. Maybe you’ve watched too many news channels if you beg to differ. Probably this was THE ONLY good feeling that I had throughout the entire day. I lost one chance, but I haven’t lost it all. Even after all the castigation I had to suffer from my conscience (the stupid whiner) that perpetually questioned my aims regarding Oxford and laptops, I knew for sure, that all is not lost, but it can. It was the truest feeling of all. No consciences or other similar henchmen in the world can break that conviction of mine. All is not lost, but it can. There’s a ray of hope, a small one at that, which gives me strength. But all the while I also need to remember that there’s an underlying danger as well, which I need to avoid at all costs.
Maybe the strength that ray provides is little, but I guess for the time being it’ll have to do. Hierarchy of Needs; as Maslow would put it.
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