CATXPrience

This story dates back to a hot summer afternoon in 2003 . Me and my friends were getting back home after a usual guzzler .. . My bil was dropping us back home and suddenly he started asking abt our plans in life. well , i was about to say " guzzler's tomorrow" , and suddenly it hit me hard - > what the eff am i doing in life ? my bil started off sayin we should prep for CAT and its not that tough blah blah ! i have never heard anybody say that to me "cat is easy " ! I was like " i am not a cat material " will crack GRE and offfff to the USofA ! GRE happened , was decent enough , apping started - was going fine . suddenly "cat is easy" came to my ears again .
Thoroughly bored of the apping shit i decided not to apply to any univs and decided to take up CAT 2004 ! well ... decent enuf plan i thought ! Started off with the BRM shit , and things were pretty much simple . I was like " my bil was right - cat is simple" . Then came the first disaster in the form of IMS mock cats . Rank 5000 became a habit for me , aaahhhhh CAT isnt easy afterall ! managed to make a decent 95 percentile in cat 2004 ! depressing can i call it ? no not at all . I was too dumb to realize what i had missed.
"CAT is by far the toughest management entrace test in the world"--> my friend tells me this in one of the chai shops in chennai. I was like " why didnt u warn me earlier dude ?? " !!
Feeling thoroughly shitty abt myself , like any dumbass sitting in software parks in
bangalore , I decided to prepare for cat 2005 . I called it 'CAT with a vengeance' . But all
the vengeance dried off by the time CAT approached. so it was yet another "CAT" for me , but
a lil better than the previous one. managed to get a consolation call from IIM kozhikode.
More about the IIM K experience in the next post.

IIM K Experience

The gd/pi was scheduled at 2:00 PM on the 7th of Feb 2006. landed there at 1:15 like an idiot and ended up chatting with a few people there. One of those guys , an IITian with 6 years of experience said " if u have read Bertrand russel - u will crack ur GD" . my first reaction was "what the hell - nobody can guess it" . At two i get the shock of my life. There were 10 ppl in my group - all of them around my age except for one uncle ji who seemed to have a lot of experience. the topic presented for the GD was an excerpt from Bertrand russel's book "the analysis of mind" !! some bloody four liner about words and higher intellectuals !! couldnt understand the context. So all of us started speaking about words - means of communication blah blah , the ususal gassing happened. At one point the moderators seemed too amused ; russel would have hanged himself if he had seen us discussing his book.
GD got over with the usual " You may stop now " from the moderators. Then we guys were asked to wait outside for our Interviews. I could hear a lot of rumours that one of the 2 guys in the panel is a mechite and loves fluid dynamics. I swore to myself that I would never mention "Fluid Dynamics" in my PI. My chance came and i was given a warm welcome.
There were 2 guys in the panel ; one frenchie guy and the other was a fair tall guy(fluid dynamics). I will call them frenchie and fluid for the sake of the dialogue. Here it goes ->

Frenchie : So sairam , u r a chemical engineer from BITS. why infosys ??
me : I was interested in both chemical and software and was open to opportunities from both areas ... blah blah ....
frenchie : what did u do in infosys ?
me : explained my project etc.
fluid : so whats so great about ur project ?
me : explained to him about the profitability for infy thro our project and the kind of clietele it had.
fluid : do u know which is the largest pension fund company in the US?
me : calpers sir.
fluid : debt/equity ratio ??
me : ( what the hell , i am sure u dont know ) i dont know sir.
fluid : what is the biggest problem with pension funds in the US?
me : no money to pay ppl back , liquidity problems ....
frenchie : what are the 3 f's about u?
me : fun lovin , frank and focussed sir.
frenchie : why fun loving ?
me : some gassing ...
here is the bomb .........
fluid : what did u learn in chemical engineering ?
me : mass transfer , heat transfer , thermodynamics ..???<> sir !!
fluid : then ?????
me : ( god damn ) fluid dynamics sir .....
fluid : explain bernoulli's theorum
me : luckily i had studied it the previous day so i explained
fluid : drew some pump etc and asked me to solve bernoulli's
me : managed to do it ...
few more bernoulli stuff .....
fluid : how is sugar prepared ?
me : crystallization of sugar syrup
fluid : more details :;
me : not sure sir.
frenchie : What happened during the GD?
me : I guess none of us got the context right , but a few points were real good.
frenchie : so sairam u made 99.4 , only 76 in quant , and managed jus 1 call from K . what happened with ur quant ??
me : it was a bad day , but i am good enuf in quant.
frenchie : so u say u r as good as any other guy who got 99 percentile in quant ?
me : yes sir.
frenchie : good. will give u a situation now. u r on a bike travelling alone in the middle of the forest. u see 3 ppl stranded there. one old lady who has to be taken to the hospital immediatly , one middle aged man who saved ur life 5 years back , and one pretty dame who can make ur ideal match. who's life will u save and why?
me : ( man , what cliched questions???) can i make assumptions sir ? frenchie : sure me : assuming that the middle aged guy knows to ride a bike , i will ask him to take the bike and drop the old lady at the hospital. Will stay with my dame in the forest.
frenchie : wild laughter muhahahahahahahahah - good -> you can go now.
well .. there it goes . dont know if this is good enuf. lets see .....