Belling the CAT!

The D day had come, though not so for me, coz somehow I have always been the one who believes that life gives us too many options. I’ll swear that’s life’s favorite trick! Anyways, I woke myself in the morning, very reluctantly; assuring myself that after all this too was only going to add to my experience. A quick shower, and the necessary stuff on my face (I don’t like to call it make up, sounds pretty artificial!), and my hair done, I picked up the book I had purchased year before last, for my CAT preparation. A glance at every page, and I was all set to leave. My dad wished me luck, and I wondered about the days of school, how cute and beautiful they were, how nice it was to plan time tables for study, how nice it was to feel tense, how nice to be consoled by a wish of luck! Somehow, all these had long gone from my life, I haven’t felt the least tense for exams ever since. I hired an auto, and it sped across the thankfully empty roads, till its halt at the Christ College. A huge crowd had gathered, as was expected, and I had purposefully arrived a little late, very unusual of me. I made my way through the so many excited aspirants to the IIMs, as though I did not belong, as though I was not one among them. I found my room, walked up to it, and seated myself at the designated bench. Then on, it was a long procedure of listening to instructions and filling up data. I kept myself busy reading funny stuff that was written on the wooden bench I sat. I read, and let out a silent laugh, if only people had seen the bench I used to sit on, during college! Gosh, weren’t we creative artists! We had the whole of the bench covered in ink; little figures depicting stories, funny poems, and statistic count of every time a particular teacher uttered his favorite word! And I thought about the people whom this particular bench belonged to, on which I sat on now, and my mind patterned stories about them, and somewhere my heart smiled at them. If only they had known, they had just been blessed!

We were given the test booklets, as they are called, and were asked to start. I saw the excitement of everyone in the room, as they tore open the booklets, without the slightest delay, as though one minute was too much time to waste. If only people had realized that in life! I took my time, for me somehow it didn’t matter; I took my first peek at the book. I had decided before hand, I would attempt the English part first; I flipped through the pages until I found the section. Then on, the two hour passed, I had thought it would be hard to sit through, but it had me occupied. All the while, I had myself focused on doing it right, than taking chances. At the end of the two hour, I didn’t know until the instructor called, I realized I had done very few, but perhaps I had done them right. I walked out of the room, and looked at the amount of people teeming from all sides, all MBA aspirants, all with hopes; few with vision. I heard people discussing the answers, and I smiled. People talked about parameters, some called and related to their loved ones. I just smiled and walked out, with only one thought, my heart whispered to the IIMs, "You just lost someone beautiful!"

Someday I would like to open a B School of my own, and yes, you wouldn’t need CAT to get in. My parameters would be different, very different.