CATography - Part 4 ( January 10th - March 17th)

Last episode on "CATography!!! " ... if you really wanna know what happened last episode, go read it !! You just need to scroll down you lazy bum! And here I continue with my journey..


So there I was.... One IIM call ... it was time to start my preparations. And it started with some advice from Mr. Krishnakumar. There was one seminar conducted by him and in that he stated that atleast 50% weightage for the final selections was the CAT score itself. And I found that extremely disturbing. So I went and talked to him. I asked him, "My chances arn't very good are they?". And he said, "Nothing like that! No point taking probabilities. I know many people who have had one call and converted and I also many with all 6 six calls converting none."

And so I decided to give it my best shot. The TIME GDPI sessions started and I tried to be as regular as I could. And as active as I could. I used to participate in as many GDs as possible. And I pretty much got a technique all worked out (yea ... you can have a technique in GDs as I learnt later). One thing I hate about myself is my lack of general knowledge. So I had to spend these two months working on that. I needed to learn some history and some geography. Mainly political history. I received a lot of help from my friends during this period which helped pack my brain with as much knowledge as I could. This was supplemented greatly by explanations by Mr. KK and Mr. Raghu during the TIME GD sessions. These helped so much. The best part about GDs are that they teach you so much in such a short time. You get to see various angles of the same topic. And KK sir was someone whom I used to fire lots of questions at. Because there were a lot of things that I needed to know but had no idea about, and he was right there to help.

And so with my GD preparations done somewhat, I went for my mock interview ... and it was bloody scary !! That was a huge huge wake up call! I was nowhere near the level required. And that made me work a little bit harder (Atleast for the first few days :D ). And then came the 2 day TIME worshop sessions at Bangalore. And those two days were so much fun!

The first day, I participated in one GD about SEZs and got my butt kicked bigtime!! Wasn't able to say a thing. Unfortunately I din't have breakfast that morning and ended up ill. I decided to go back to our hotel room after I had my mock interview.
I being the brilliant person I am, forgot to bring either a resume or the form to be filled in the actual call letter. So the staff had to get me a temporary resume to fill out. The interview went pretty well surprisingly and that was an extremely huge confidence boost.And the rest of the day was ruined as I was not well. So the next day again we had a couple of rounds of GDs and that is when I learnt the most for my GD preparations. There was a guy called "Sandeep" in our of the GDs I was a participant of. That dude was controlling the entire GD. And I dint mean that in a negative sense. He was the undisputed leader of the group. And that GD I spent watching and analyzing him and trying to learn as much from him as possible. And that I must say, was extremely handy later on.The GD sessions at Bangalore were mini world wars! They would end up as arguments. During one GD, people were actually pushing each other with their shoulders and arms. Was so bloody hilarious! Luckily I wasn't a participant of that one, or mostly I would be at battle as well :D.

And then after that we came back to Trivandrum and resumed our regular GD sessions at TIME. And that was where I practiced and refined all the techniques I had stolen from Sandeep. And whoever was there for that particular GD at Bangalore understood what I was doing. And so I was pretty well prepared to handle most GDs by the end of the GD sessions. And I had also increased my general awareness thanks to Mr. Krishnakumar and Mr. Reghu and some of my closest friends. And that was it. .... my last few days of preparation were also over. It was time for the final battle ... this was where I would win or lose. ... It was a matter of my future ... a "turning point" of my life as my mom says! ...

And so I made my way to Bangalore to attend the interviews. I reached my sister's house in Bangalore on the 8th of March. One of my friends Lijo was there with me for the entire day and we were discussing the forms to be filled and went online to check out some facts and figures about our fields of interest. Luckily he mentioned that they usually ask for a favourite subject. And God knows how awful I was at any subject at that point of time. That night I spent the whole time giving a lot of thought to the answers I would be filling in the form and then finally penned them down. And whatever time I had left, I spent reading through the only area of Mechanical engineering I've liked the first time I read about it .... IC engines. Easy stuff. So i spent close to half an hour reading about two stroke engines and read about how "Scavenging pump" type engines have an inlet port and stuff (Abhi ... thanks for that book!! ). And so I slept early because I wanted to go for the interview after having a good night's sleep.

Early next morning I woke up, excited and tense at the same time. I bathed, suited up, got blessings from my parents and made my way to the place where Vinayak and Adithya were staying. Lijo and Prasanth also came there and at 8:45 we made our way to the venue... "Monarch Hotel".. or "Hotel Monarch" cant remember correctly :D...We reached there and I was so bloody tense !! We entered the waiting room, and there we saw our "competition". And it looked scary. One of the panel members came in and called out everyone's names just to check whether we were all present and then went on to tell us which panels we were in. There were 3 other people in the same panel as me. Lijo, Abid and Ginoy (I dint really know him but I just knew he was absolutely brilliant and amazing in GDs as I had seen him in one). And all of us marched into the GD/PI room. There were 8 of us. I was number 3. We were seated in a U shape. We were given our case to analyze for five minutes and the interviewer stated that he would tell us when the time was up. After those alloted 5 minutes, he says "You may start the discussion". And to my greatest surprise (THANK YOU GOD!!! ), no one started! No one even wanted to start !! And I realised that this was the only chance I might get, and so I started the GD, giving a general summary and then adding a few points of my own. After a point of time, I had run out of things to say and was looking for somebody to please take over the reigns. And Ginoy thankfully took over. And after that it went pretty well. I was quite confident by now, having spoken for a long period. And I felt I did very well in the GD. And now happy and my usual energetic self, I returned to the waiting room.

And the interviews started! After Ginoy was back, he informed us that our panel was asking a lot of tech questions. And that was the last thing any of us wanted to hear. Apparently the one of the other panels wasn't asking too much tech. So I was busy biting my nails waiting for someone to come and call out my name. And then my name was called. I followed the gentleman who called me upto the door of the interview room and here is what followed in my favorite movie script format :D

Me( Entering room) : Good afternoon sir!! (Then I realise it's still just around 10 so I quickly correct myself after makin a complete fool our of myself) ... errr ... Good Morning Sir (And give him a very sheepish smile!)

There were 3 people in the panel, I shall name them (from left to right), Tech guy, Friendly dude and Strict man!

Friendly dude : So Rohin, You are a mechanical engineer, you must be doin your final year project... What is it?
Me: Portable bike ... or rather a foldable bike
Tech guy: How much does it weigh
Me: around 35 kgs
Tech guy: Thats too heavy
Me: Sir, we were looking for a moped engine but we got only a Bajaj Sunny engine blah blah blah
Tech Guy: What type of engine is it?
Me: 2 stroke
Tech Guy: Differences between 2 and 4 stroke engines
Me : blah blah port, valve blah blah yada yada
Tech:What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Me: blah blah
Tech: What material is used for valves?
Me : High temperature resistant blah blah
Tech guy: Earlier you metioned something about a flywheel, what is torsional vibration
Me: *blink blink* .... uh...er...ummm ... (and then i proceeded to try and answer and that proved to be the correct answer :D.... you wanna know the answer? Go search the net :D)

And I guess they were pretty satisfied with my technical know how by then and so the Friendly dude took over ...

Friendly dude : So you are a guitarist in a band .. what kind of music do you like?
Me : Heavy metal ...(and go on to name some bands and said that Metallica was my all time favorite!)

Friendly dude : Trace the genesis of Metallica
Me: Lrs Ulrich blah blah, Advertisement in paper, James Hetfield blah blah

Friendly dude: How did rock evolve?
Me: From Jazz , elvis, johnny cash, yadayada

Friendly dude :How did pop evolve
(And some more questions related to music, and then Strict man took over)
Strict Man: Name some Rock stars who have taken up social issues ...
Me: Um ...bono from U2
Strict Man: Anymore?
Me: Bands like Rage against the machine and System of a down talk about social issues...
Strict Man: There is a difference between singing about something and taking a stand.
(So then I proceeded to admit that I dint know of anyone else and that I was more focussed on just the music)

And then they were about to let me leave when all of a sudden the Friendly dude asks me ..
Friendly Dude: You are a guitarist right? How does the sustain on your guitar work?
Me: I have no idea :D. I just hold the note, there is an effects processor, it sustains (And I gave him one of my classis grins :D)
Friendly Dude: You may leave

After the interview I felt that I did only average, but it was an amazingg interview compared to the other ones I had. MDI was good as well. XLRI I got screwed majorly cos I was asked a lot of GK :D. NITIE too much Tech.

And at the end of the entire process. I was left tired and sick. The NITIE experience is another story on its own!!!

So then came the most heart breaking and gut wrenching period .... The wait...

The NITIE results came out pretty fast, and with that started a period of extreme sadness. I dint make it. But I said to myself.... I should get XLRI, cos I scored real high in XAT. And a few days later, things got worse, I dint get XLRI either. That was a big big big blow for me. Cos I had no hope of getting either MDI or IIM. I even asked KK sir about the repeaters classes and he was the one who gave me atleast a little bit of hope. He asked me to wait for the other results to come out and that it was too early to decide anything.

A few days later, MDI results were out. And then I had something to have atleast a half-smile about. I was waitlisted 168 for their PGPM programme and 25 for PGPHR. And it was almost sure that the waitlist would move past that for both.... maybe. Cos the IIM results were still not out because of the tussle between the Government and the Supreme court.

And finally they were out ... IIMA results .... I was waitlist 14.... And last year it went just to 16. And again the tension began. Will I? Wont I? I used to log on to www.pagalguy.com and sit and read the IIMA converts thread. Many times I was brought to tears... I was that scared and worried. So many people were rejoicing that they made it through, and I wasn't that lucky...This post in particular made me feel very very bad ....

Hearty congrats to all those who have converted IIM-A !

Welcome to India's pre-eminent and most exclusive Business School.

Relax for the next couple of months (you would be expected to join somewhere in the 3rd week of June) until the roller coaster called WIMWI takes you on board.Let me assure you that the following 2 years are not gonna be forgotten in hurry.You have come quite far and are going to go farther than ever once you have passed through these 'hallowed portals'.

We wear a T-shirt here thats sports a line : "IIM-A : Branded for life" and that by no means is an exaggeration.You are soon to become part of a brand which spans the who's who of not just India's corporate roster but the who's who of the global one as well. Imagine : to walk the corridors that once Vindy Banga roamed,to play footer in LKP where Harsha Bhogle did,to sit in the classroom that once Raghuram Rajan sat in..... To be part of a network which only 250 of the sharpest,brightest and most talented in India can lay claim to.

Welcome to IIM-A.

On the 5th of May, there was a electricity failure and me and my family were sitting and talkin in the dark.. about how much money we would lose if the MDI call got confirmed first and IIM got confirmed only after I payed the first installment at MDI and stuff like that. Suddenly the land phone rang. Unfortunately, I couldnt reach the phone on time in the dark. After a few moments, I saw a light flashing somewhere and realised my cell phone was ringing....I had kept it on silent mode. I answered ... It was somebody from IIMA and he said that he had called to say that "My turn had come for admission" and that they have sent me an e-mail. So the first thing I did when the power was back was to run to my computer and check my mail. This is what it looked like :

Subject: Admission Offer for PGP: 2007-09

Further to our letter dated April 27, 2007, placing you on waiting list, I am glad to inform you that your turn has now come for admission to IIM Ahmedabad’s Post-Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) for the session beginning June 21, 2007. We will be sending you our detailed offer letter on Monday by Courier.

In the meanwhile, can you please indicate to us by email your decision on this admission offer? This will help us in planning the admission process better.

Thank you.

Admissions Officer

I still wasnt sure whether that was really a confirmed offer. I needed to get my offer letter in my hands. And I did get it on the 8th. And then I was ecstatic!! Absolute joy! My dream had come true! And my work had paid off!!! And that is the end of my CAT journey!
This was one of the most important periods of my life in more ways than one... And in the last and final part, I will be thanking those people who stood beside me and lent a helping hand whenever I needed one ...

CATography - Part 3 (November 20th - January 10th)

And here comes the third installment of this story of mine ...

So where was I? Oh yes... CAT just got over. So I reach home early in the mornin and the first thing I do is go online and go to the TIME, IMS and Career Launcher sites. I compared my answers with those given on the sites. I ended up with scores ranging between 122 and 128. And acoording to all three sites, I was going to get multiple IIM calls. But according to another site called PTindia, I was getting only 9 for verbal. Which basically meant I was screwed. But still the score of 128 was much lower than what I had expected (which was around 150). And so began the agony. I went to the TIME office and spoke to Mr. Krishnakumar and told him that I was worried. And there are no words to express how grateful I am for his words that day. But still I wasn't too sure. And so i prepared a little more before my SNAP exam. The worst part of the wait for the results was reading people claiming on the net that they were scoring above 200 and that "they knew atleast 4 other people in their college who were getting above 200!" That just added to my fear. And hearing the scores of some of my friends din't help much either. The entire time after CAT was spent deep in regret. I regretted doing those last few questions in the quant section and getting them wrong. I regretted not attempting one more set in the LR section. And I basically felt that I had messed up CAT. And so I felt I needed to do well for SNAP.

SNAP happened on the 17th of December and my center was in Cochin. It was a fun journey with some of my good friends. We went roaming around Cochin till the exam was about to start and we left for Trivandrum as soon as the exam ended. SNAP turned our pretty good by the way, I got a score of 98.5, with 87.5 or so being the cutoff for SIBM. But I did not apply to the institute.

And then I had my stupid 7th semester examinations which seemed to get postponed forever. And before I knew it, January 2nd had arrived. The D-day. Most of my friends and I stayed up late waiting for the results only to our disappointment. So then the only thing to do was to write that day's exam and check out the results in the evening. So after the exam was over, I ran to the CAD lab to check the results. The only site that had any update was that of IIM L and that too only to deliver news that the results would be out only by the 8th or so. And so disappointed, (I have no idea why I was disappointed because I wasn't expecting any IIM calls), I returned home. After a nice nap, I went online once again only to discover that the IIMK site was down. And that meant only one thing, the results were out! (Unlike the other kazillion times the IIM sites went down). So started the extremely long and tedious process of hitting the refresh button until something showed up. Finally I got the site's home page and went uptil the page where you enter the CAT Reg. number and then it din't budge an inch. And so again the refresh spree continued. Finally I was able to get my result at the IIMA site.And here is what it looked like .


And that shattered all my small hopes of an IIM call. And so I sat there depressed. I simply logged on to the TIME website to see how others had fared, when I noticed that IIMA results were out. The first link I clicked on was a link to the shortlist criteria for IIMA. And I've posted a screenshot of the page (PS, if you guys think that it's a waste, me putting up screen shots, well Im doing it so that someday I can see it once again :D ).
And then I took a few moments to re-read and re-re-read and then re-re-re-read so that I understood completely what was written. By what was just there, I had made it past the IIMA cutoffs and by a whisker! And for the first time, I didn't regret the choices I made during those two and a half critical hours. My decision to spend more time on the verbal section at the cost of the two other sections did pay off. I had a balanced score. But I wasn't sure of it until I confirmed it from the site.... This was what it looked like. (Click on it to see it properly if you want to :D )




I was good enough for IIMA. And that lead me to the natural conclusion that I was sure to get at least 3 calls (I,L and K), if not all 6, now that I had been called by A!! But how wrong I was!!

The next day, IIMC released their results. And frankly I wasn't too surprised when I read the following :

IIM Calcutta FP PI 2006 Call List Result:

Sorry, as per the details entered, you have not been shortlisted for the Interviews by IIM Calcutta.
Please confirm that the information provided by you is as given below.

And that set of a sequence of rejects. IIMB, IIMK, IIML, IIMI. I did not make the cutoffs for any of them! I expected atleast a few more calls. But no! And then I went into being sad all over again.
Because the way I saw it, I had extremely bad scores for IIMA standards, and I would be competing with 100 percentilers for those 192 seats. My chances were slim.

And so I looked forward to XAT. It was held on the 7th of January, 2007 at Loyola School, Trivandrum. Again saw a lot of friends. But the atmosphere was different this time. Almost everyone there was upset. XAT was the last glimmer of hope for everyone. And the exam thoroughly dashed all those hopes. I thought I performed extremely badly in the exam but apparently not. My XAT score was 99.41 and I got a call for the general management programme.

I also got called by MDI for both the PGPM and PGPHR courses. And by NITIE for their PGPM course. And so there I was. 5 calls. And my order of preference was then IIMA,XLRI, MDI PGPM, NITIE, MDI PGPHR. And now it was time for me to roll up my sleeves and get to work. This was my chance. In Mr. Krishnakumar's words, "You have been given a golden opportunity. Lakh's of students across India would give anything to trade places with you. So make the most of the opportunity."

And you guessed it alright ! The second phase of my CAT story begins with part 4 !! woohoo ! another part !! will this never end?? :P

CATography - Part 2 (November 2006 - November 2006) (And yea .. I know the title is majorly corny... so sue me!!! )

Ok .. so where was I?
Yea ... last few days before CAT. November 17th. 2 days to go.After my final prayers were done and got my ticket ready and if I remember correctly, the train was all set to leave at 8:00 pm. So there we were ... a couple of hundred hyperactive college dudes and dudettes all ready to take over the train. And let me tell you this ... the "Cat Train" was one hell of a ride! It's tons of fun. People should write CAT atleast for the entire experience of the train journey. So there was a group of my friends in the same compartment .. namely Ajay,Jaikrishna, Abhijith, Manu, Abhay and I. And at the other end of the train was another group of my classmates .. again namely.. Nidhin, Athul, Aravind, Jojo (Dont remember if there was anyone else). So our entire train ride comprised of walking from one end of the train to the other looking for friends and pretty girls :D. For a while I entertained myself sitting on the topmost sleeper thingy and whackin my friends on the back of their heads as they passed by. And so we spent the night talking and joking and insulting each other.While on the other extreme, there were people sitting and studyin late into the night. A couple of friends of ours were in the IMS compartment as well. So we said a Hi to them and continued talking and generally being a pain in the @$$!!

And then we slept ... and we reached there early in the mornin .. around 7 or so. Then started our hunt for our hotel. Ajay had booked a hotel roomfor the 6 of us and we were out walking trying to find it. So after around half an hour or so, we finally struck gold! It was a nice little room. So we dumped our stuff there, and went hunting for a restaurant to have breakfast. And we found the place that was to be our source of nearly every meal for the next 2 days..." Paragon!! "
. After having a wonderful breakfast,we started roaming the streets of Kozhikode. Our first agenda was to locate our examination centers. Which we did by asking a pedestrian and he told us which bus to get into and stuff. Abhay and I learnt that ours was very close to our hotel room .. walking distance infact. And after that we went to the famous "Mittai therivu" or "Sweets alley" by my translation. And by then we were dead tired and it was 1:00. So then it was time for lunch.

And with that started our search for the "amazingly awesome super tasty the best in the whole wide world" Kozhikodan Biryani. Let me tell you .. we searched in vain. We had heard tales about the great "Hotel Sagara (Or Sagar)". The best Biryani in the world they said! And im sure everyone who was there with us will agree.... IT SUCKED!! Maybe it was just our bad luck or they were having a rough day. But it still sucked!!!!

And so dissapointed with our lunch, we decided to watch Casino Royale!!! Which we did ... It was ok-ok. And the theater was supposedly better than any over theater in Trivandrum. Well that was a lie too. The theater wasn't too great either. Anyways... after the movie, we walked back to our room. (The location of our hotel was amazing. Walking distance from all the major parts of the city!!).That night again we went for the rest of our tour of the city! We walked to the beach and I saw my exam center (St Joseph's Boys school). Then we had ice cream from Baskin Robbins. And finally dinner once again from "Paragon!" (Paratha and Butter Chicken... after fighting with Manu over our legal share of the curry!).Yum Yum!!
Here are some pics we took at Baskin Robbins...




For some reason, certain roommates of mine (AHEM AHEM!!! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!) started asking doubts about the quant formulae the night before CAT when the rest of us were trying to "chill out" ! hehe ... we ended up insulting him into submission :D. And so the night went peacefully.

We woke up at around 6 and took turns using the bathroom. We changed and Ajay had breakfast early and left because his exam center was a bit far off. But just before we left, we decided to take a pic of all of us giving our biggest smiles and holding up our admit cards.This is what it looked like.

The rest of us went to Paragon yet again and had a veggy breakfast because we din't want to run the risk of having an upset stomach during the exam. Then we parted ways, wishin each other the best of luck and Abhay and I jumped into the first auto rickshaw we could find and headed to "St Joseph's Boys Higher Secondary School"!

When we reached there, we saw that the entire place was crowded with people who had come from across the state to write this mother of all entrance examinations. We saw people in the crowd whom we knew. Everyone was tense. And come 9:45, we were let into our respective examination halls. We sat there and began filling out the OMR sheet with our details at 10. That was done by around 10:15. Then came the dreaded wait. We were given the question papers a little later with strict orders not to open them until we were told to. The front page gave us three new pieces of information.
1) There were going to be 5 options instead of the previous number of 4.
2) There was going to be a negative marking of 1 mark and a score of 4 for each correct answer.
3) There were only 75 questions .. 25 from each section.

And then it was time. The moment had arrived...blah blah blah ...
I started as was my routine with the quantitative section .. my weakest. It was surprisingly pretty good. And after my regular 40 minutes in that section, i turned over to the amazingly terrifying english usage section of CAT06. I spent the allocated 40 minutes and then another 10 to try and answer as many as I could confidently. And I could manage 6! So then with nothing left to do, I moved on to the DI/LR section (My favourite) and did only 3 sets because I was short of time. (Because I was stupid enough to not look at my watch while tryin to crack the EU section! ). And then there was the buffer half hour which i spent for ... no points for guessin... the EU section. I started answering based on instinct and answered 17.And then I added my own personal finishing touches. I had around 5 minutes left. And that was when the rush hit me. Cram in as many quant questions as I can do !! And so I did. I did four more. And then in the end. They were all wrong :D. In fact, I answered the last one while the invigilator was collecting the answed sheets :D. And so with no idea what just hit me, I walked out bewildered and dazed. And as usual started discussing the paper with friends. One friend claimed he was going to get 174 marks! And as I analysed the paper further as Abhay and I walked back to our hotel rooms, I realised the mistakes I had made with the last few questions that I had attempted. And so we returned to the room and waited for the others. Slowly the other arrived and we all sat there discussing our papers for a while before we decided to go out for lunch. And so we continued our quest for the amazing biryani and fellow treasure seekers directed us to a restaurant called "Top House" and guess what!!! The biryani there sucked as well!! So then we finally decided to call it quits. After that some of us went to buy Halwa and that was the end of our trip around Kozhkode.We retired to our room where we talked while packing.And we took photos on our way back to the hotel as well!! And here they are ...

Once the packing was done, we had to make our way back to the railway station. And that too wasnt incident free. There was some protest or something going on and most of the auto drivers were refusing to go to the station. And we were already late on top of that. Luckily Ajay, Abhay and I, I think got an auto. Unfortunately the others had to walk/jog/run till the station but they managed to reach on time. We boarded the train and then started the second stage of all the fun. Sure, everyone was talking about expected cut offs and how many questions each one had attempted, but we had fun amongst all that as well. For example, in the set of seats right next to where we were sitting was a group of friends (both guys and girls) and as I passed by their seats I happened to notice that they had a cake in their hands. So I went and announced to all my friends that someone in the next cabin had their birthday today. And so we promptly gave them our rendition of "Happy Birthday To You" and then the Malayalam version "Sandosha Jenmadhinam Kuttikyu", only to learn later on that it was the wedding anniversary of the parents of one of the girls in there :D. And the best part was yet to come, around 10, there were actually 17!! Yes you read it right! 17 of us in one cabin. Where actually only 8 are supposed to sit. We were singing our hearts out until the railway police dude told us to go back to our seats :D. And then we went to sleep and in the morning we were back to our normal everyday routine lives. And the 7th semester university exams were pretty close as well.

I know I had promised much more in part 2, but this has gotten longer than expected, so I'm winding up this chapter here.
In the next part, I'll talk about the mental trauma I went through for the next one and a half month period, before the results finally came out. And I promise to include my SNAP and XAT exams in that episode. So until then ... this is Rohin, signing out ...goodbye and good night, or good morning or good afternoon depending on what time you are reading this. See ya ...
PS. If any one notices any grammatical or spelling mistakes, please do inform me. Thanks.

My CATography - Part 1 (August 2005-September)

Ok .. .its been ages since i last blogged. But I think ill force myself to sit tight and get one more post in before my next round of laziness sets in.

I'll talk about what could probably turn out to be the most important thing in my life. ie. the defining point in my career etc etc.My entire CAT experience. I shall try my best not to sound arrogant. Forgive me if I do.

Ok, the first time i actually started thinking about starting serious preparations for CAT was during my second year in college. Maybe it was utter boredom from some of the engineering subjects of that semester or the horror of our weekly trips to the IC engines and HM labs that did the trick, but anyways, I started seriously considering doing an MBA after my engineering. I usually jump right into things. Needless to say, that enthusiasm almost never really stays for too long. .. the key word there being "Almost". The first step was probably that lunch break when Abhay and I went around asking our seniors about when to start going for coaching classes. And the response (that surprisingly disappointed me) was "When you are in the third year is enough".Dont get me wrong here... I wasnt disappointed because I was that intent on working for 2 years. But actually because at that moment that was what I wanted to do. And that fire would probably died out in a year's time.But fortunately din't and I have to thank a couple of my friends for that.

So then that was that and I waited another year. Around august the next year, IMS conducted a 12 day personality development session in college and I enrolled for that.That proved to be what actually gave me a bit of confidence. And come August 2005, there were advertisements about TIME's "Time Talent Search Examination". Well needless to say, I enrolled. I still have the hall ticket with me (Atleast half of it.. My beautiful niece tore the other half..) and I'll try and scan it and put it up. Well just for proof that i do have it, my reg. no. was TTSE1350. And I scored 29.65 if i remember correctly, 30 being the cut off required for getting a huge discount and having to pay just Rs5400. Well anyways, i was entitled to a smaller yet valuable discount and had to pay just Rs8000. And that was my ticket to TIME, and I must say, I couldnt have reached where I have without every faculty member at TIME.

So I decided to join the weekday classes, cos I thought that i would much rather spend some time that I spend sleeping everyday for this. And I did take it very seriously (My friends will testify to that).And so started the regular classes on mondays, wednesdays and occasionally on fridays as well. I will be the first to admit that I never was the kind of person who used to go home and sit and practise for hours a day. The major portion of my learning happened in the class itself. Right from the beginning I found the LR section to be enjoyable. And so those classes continued till may or june before the most critical juncture arrived .. The AIMCATs. Oops I almost forgot. Around January 2006, a couple of friends and I decided to start up a study group. We had around 3 succesful sessions before we all just stopped :D. yes .. the AIMCATs. Those tests were one thing I stuck to religiously. Because I knew that I needed as much practice as I could get. Because I wasnt practicing at home as much as I would like to (cos I was too lazy).
The AIMCATs were where most of my CAT preparation took place. I miss those sundays. Going all the way to vazuthacaud or vellayambalam and taking the test for 2 and later 2.5 hours. The place was always crowded. So many people. Meeting lots of friends. And then after the exams sitting and calculating my score (Manu used to get so bugged by this :D). Then came the waiting. Wait till wednesday for the results to come out... and then I would start asking others about their scores. And somehow I saw it as a competition. That I needed to beat XYZ in the next AIMCAT. And so I started working. And that went on for a couple of months. I started reading the newspapers occasionally. But still it wasnt enough. Around august or september, it started getting to me. I started getting worried. What if I wasnt prepared well enough. Because I really wanted to get into a good b-school.And my preparations weren't up to the mark. I received a lot of encouragement from my friends whom I'll be mentioning separately. So I stepped up my preparations by a small little notch. But one thing I later regretted not doing was my preparations for the RC section. I never used to attempt any of the questions from the RC section until absolutely necessary. And I later regretted that.

Then came the news that the CAT forms were availible at the UTI bank Pattom branch. I still remember that day clearly, when Abhijith, Abhay, Manu and I went to purchase the forms for Abhay and I. I remember staring at those beautiful logos of the IIMs on the notice pasted on the walls. They were a distant dream. And my last few AIMCAT scores just proved how distant they were. Because they just kept going downhill. And that fear made me also apply to MDI,NITIE and for the SNAP test. I also applied for the XAT but that I would have anyways.
And that was it. . .. it was time... November 19th was near. There wasnt any time left.

To catch the next action packed episode of "CATography" tune in same place and definitely not the same time cos i donno when im gonna get around to writing the rest of this!
Heres a preview!! The next episode of CATography will include
1) My CAT journey
2) The exam
3)SNAP exam
4)The results
5)XAT!!!
You know you dont want to miss that!! ok ok ... I know im overdoing it ... You have to understand... I have a real boring exam tomorrow (ECM). I am so bored!!! Snore!




And so it was the last few weeks before the d-day.

And so the biggest pain in the @$$ is over !! A job !

Twas the 23rd of June 2006. Wipro was coming to college .... this was my first shot at getting a job. And I was hoping I would land it. And since I loooove telling looooong stories, Ill fill you guys on every single detail I can remember.

The past few days had been hectic .. with all the shoe shopping and shirt and tie selection and ironing and what not !! With all that happening I couldnt manage to fit in much time to preparation. But I went with enough confidence in my CAT preparation that I wasnt too tensed about the test. What I was worried about though was my Tech interview if I managed to clear the test.
So I woke up nice and early .. took a nice long shower with warm water and packed my clothes. Now packing the clothes itlsef was a huge pain in the butt. What to wear, how to fold it, how to carry it so that it dosent get crumpled and all kinds of crap like that. So finally I came up with this brilliant (Yea right!! ) plan. I would wear a neat shirt and a pair of trousers so that in case I dont have time to change in between the test and the interview, I could just throw on a tie and go for the interview. And I carried my main attire in a box. My first stop was my friend Nabeil's place. There were like 5 people there already. And so all of us dumped all our stuff there and started pressing our clothes to keep them ready for later. With very little time left for the pre placement talk, we rush to college and it discovered that it hadnt started. So it finally started around half an hour late (Thank god the Wipro guys arrived late!! There was a problem with the projector....not very surprising:D). It was a pretty decent slideshow. I guess the highlight for Vivek, Manu, Abhay and me was when they said that there was a rock band in Wipro. The reaction of the students was priceless!!! They all turned to try and spot anyone of us :). So anyways at the end they showed the salary scheme and it bloody sucked !!! We were going to get only 1.73 lakhs pa compared to 2.04 for the other branches !! Bloody #@$@^@$!!!

So anyways, since we were desperate student in need of jobs, the sa,ary wasnt a huge negative :D. So we all did write the test. The sight of the answer sheet itself was scary !! 15 verbal... ok manageable, 15 quant and LR .. not bad .... HOLY $#!T !!!! @) TECHNICAL QUESTIONS !! SCREWED !!!!! And so it began ... i spent atleast 45 minutes trying to clear the cutoff for the tech section. Fortunately there was no negative marking and so the old tried and tested shortcut method was called into action ... Eenie Meenie Mynie mo .. :D .. and so cleared the test.

So then we went to have lunch... and just as we were about to leave the restaurant ... IT BLOODY RAINS !!!! So we wait a while and finally decide there is no point in waiting and we go back to Nabeil's house drenched. My interview slot was supposed to be at 4. So we spent the time we had "refreshing" our memory of C++ (more like learning for the first time !! ).
And at 3:30 we started our second round of pressing our clothes when Abhi called and yelled at us and said that they were callin us for the interview. So we throw on our clothes and rush to college all tense and worried. But luckily it din't turn out to be a huge issue. I was sent to room number 103. Luckily the guy there was great. The interview seemed more like an HR interview than a tech interview (Thank god !!! ).

He asked me how the computer faculty was and what my attitute towards computers was. And after making up crappy answers to those, he asked the scary question!! "Do you mind if I ask you some basic questions in C Plus Plus? " ...and there I could feel my heart skip a beat. So since I had no other choice I said "ok". Luckily the guy was nice and he said "I dont usually ask very tough questions to Mechanical engineers.. so write a program to give your name as the output. So I wrote this program with whatever I would remember. And luckily for me there was just one small error. And he dint mind that. He then asked me about header files and Library function and I with no hesitation what so ever, no need for a second thought said "I have no idea"!!! And fortunately he said "Ok fine..I'll ask you something from your branch ... Mechanical" ...then he stares at me for a bit and says what has become one of my favourite lines of all time ... "I am not a Mechanical Engineer so even if you tell me a wrong answer I wont understand .. seriosuly." :D ...and so he asks me to descibe my "FAVOURITE motor "!! ... and AC Induction motor being the only motor that I knew anything about .. i explained the working of that. And so I cleared the tech interview. Some people who we all thought would get through were unfortunate not to make it. I got the easy panel. Some unfortunate souls like Vivek, Abhijith and Abhay got the horrible panel . But Abhi and Vivek managed to get through.

Then came the pain in the butt process of filling out this huge form (how I hate forms !! ). And after that came the HR interview ..heres how it went... this is as well as I remember it...
Panel dude: Hi. Hows life?
Me (With stupid expression on face) : Good
Panel dude: Why?
Me: uh ....exams are over and no classes. ..so I'm enjoying life.
Panel dude: (Looking at resume) Oh.. You studied in Dubai ... @@#$@#$@$#@$& (Something in Arabic)
Me (With an expression that spelt F**K) : uhh ... I dont know Arabic sir.. we learnt it just so that we pass the exams :)
Panel dude: You are the first person I've met who was in Dubai and dosent know Arabic
Me (Smilin sheepishly) : Sir.. I was in an Indian school and all my friend were Indians so I dint need to speak in Arabic.
Panel dude: OK
Panel dude: Why did you choose mechanical ??
Me (Gears start churnin in my head) : umm ... I'm a huge F1 fan, and before every race they show how each part of the car works and I found that fascinating and that really attracted me towards Mechanical Engineering.
Panel dude: Then why IT now?
Me: Sir IT is everywhere. For example like I has said about F1, TCS is doing the consultancy for Ferrari.
Panel dude: Then why Wipro?
Me (Thinking ..HAHAHA !! I Had already prepared an answer for that one !! ) Sir... Wipro is one of the leading companies in the IT field. IT had started out as a vegetable oil company and now its a leader in IT. Its not going to be long before it ventures into the Mechanical field and stars dominating there as well. (And ending with a hhuuuuuuge grin).
Panel dude: So you want to get into the Mechanical field.
Me: Right now Sir, I want to get into management and in the PPT it was mentioned there was a management section as well and I would like to get into that.
Panel dude: What are the qualities required for a good manager?
Me: blah blah blah (Dont remember ... made up a lot of stuff and then 2 more when he asked "Is that all?")
Panel dude: Ok ...What extra curricular activities are you involved in?
Me (I mention some along with) : Im a member of the college band.
Panel dude: How members are there in the band?
Me: Sir, we started off with 8 and now we have 4.
Panel dude: What happened to the others?
Me: Sir, they were seniors and they passed out of college.
Panel dude: If you are such a good manager, then why dint you get replacements?
Me: Actually we did sir, initially we had 2 singers and 2 guitarist. We lost our lead singer...
Panel dude (Interrupting) : Lost??
Me: Sir he completed his course and had to leave. We got another singer in his place and now we have a balance again. All the positions are filled.
Panel dude: Ok..Nice to Meet you ....

And I get out and sit and blab with the others till the results were out. One of my friends' mother came. And she was so anxious.
When the results were out I heard I got the job. And so did this person. But unfortunately one of my best friends did not make it. So that kinda dampened the celebrations for the 2 of us. 2 of our best pals dint get selected. But watchin his mother shed tears of joy when her son got selected made it all worthwhile. Afterall, isnt that what its all about? Our parents toil day in day out so that some day they can see us do well. And that day just proved it. And I felt proud of myself for making my parents happy as well. Because I know the sacrifices they've had to make and the hardship they have had to face so that I can lead a good life. Mom, Dad .. I love you guys .... You've made me who I am ... Thanks ... your prayers got me that job ...

THE ROYAL MEXX - S3- Rise Of the Mechians !

So we had just finished our 1st year, and after an extreeeeemely looooonnnggg vacations of 10 days, it was back to college. Initially we were back into our 1st year classroom. And we loved that room !! This sem people started cutting classes ...they used to wait at the second door and as the teacher got in, they would leave. Some the more daring ones called out their numbers for attendance and ran out !! The teacher would enter with 55 in class and leave with 40 left :P!!

We had started becoming more like a family when 6 of our brothers went to TKM .. they are ...
Jayadev
Jayakrishnan
Jayakrishnan 2
Mohd. Raseen
Harish
Arif Rasheed

And new guys arrived .....

The results came in s3 and we were proud of our own Praseed ET !! 85 bloody percent !!
We also got our stupid electrical marks in which nearly everyone got around 25-30 marks less that they had expected. That sucked!!!

In s3 we had another football tournament ... we reached the semi finals ... the highlight probably being our 6-1 thrashing of the senior S6-IT class ...

The most memorable thing about S3 was probably the C++ classes . That was the first time that Mr. Jayaraj (AKA Kiliraj) taught us ... or atleast tried teachin us !! All of us hated anything to do with computers... a certain person dint even know how to operate one !! ( you know who u are!!)
And this guy comes and starts teaching as though we all knew everything about programming !! So basically that sem we got screwed in that subject !! Our main man in crime and getting into trouble the all rounder Jaikrishna got kicked out of class for throwing a piece of chalk at Manu ! That was so funny !!!!
Another funny thing that creative head Ajay used to do was switch of the supply lines when the others went to the computer lab (The main switch was in our class !! ) . Half the bloody computers used to turn off and with it the programs that the guys had written with all that pain also went down the drain. That was soooo much fun !!

The main Cpp incident thought involves our friends from the CITY ... yeps thats rite ! METRO BOYS Vishnu and Sajiv ... Vishnu dint have a text to study for the university exams .. so he and Sajiv(Who studied C++ in 12th btw ) went to the library looking for a book! And a book they did find !! They see this book labelled C# .. .and the brilliant Mr. Sajiv says " # is actually 2 +'s joined together !!" and so poor innocent Vishnu takes that book and studies C sharp all night long thinking it was C plus plus .. only to discover on the morning of the exam that it was the wrong subject .. but kudos to him for managing to pass that one!!
And so thats how our hatred to computers began !!

This sem we moved on from "chipping" and "bullets" into a more sophisticated form of entertainment ... throwing paper balls !!
And this is also the sem that Simon started giving every missed calls in the middle of class and we all would scream out the name of the owner of the cell that was ringin like mad !! :P

S3 also saw the arrival of our juniors ... we did unto them like the seniors never did unto us !! :P
The poor kids were tortured... I still remember Vishnu getting a junior guy to propose to Manu .. .the look on Manu's face was pricelesss :P .. it was fun until Arlene mam ratted on us to the principal ... like we cared !! :P
I remember 1 guy was made to dance in our class :P hehe...

By the time the juniors came we were shifted into this crappy little classroom. It was actually a big room split into 2 rooms by this stupid divider. Well the divider had a gap in it and during most of the classes, the back benchers could be seen peepin at the people in the other class or passing messages to them!!
Aaah ! The good times !!

S3 also witnessed the face off between Vishnu and Louie !!! The "banana" face off !! Louie ultimately won !! And Vishnu lost in disgrace after being a victim of the ultimate insult "Go stuff a banana in your mouth !!!" :P

We decided to throw our juniors their fresher's day !! And Jaikrishna and I shared the honors of hostin the event.. actually he did most of the hard work ... I was too lazy !!
That event saw the delivery of probably one of the most famous lines of all time !! Our very own Abhijith's "BASS KOOTI TREBLE KORAKYADA !! " We never forget to yell that out at every single college function!!
The freshers day also saw Rayu receiving "her" first kiss !!
And Me and Vishnu finally revealing to the world THE greatest dance step on earth ... it is simply known as "THE STEP"... that sem was the time Manu, Vishnu and I used to do all kindsa crappy stuff in class ! I still remember the time I did THE STEP to Metallica's Sad but true ... ( Music by Manu) ... That video was soooo hilarious !!

S3 also saw the first college elections ..with our very own Safdar and Jitin getting elected as UUC and S3 representative respectively.
Also in S3 Alen became our rep. It also saw the arrival of Sisupalan !
Alen once looked at Sisu's pic and said "I look like him"!!! ...Famous last words !!

Another weird yet memorable occasion of unity was when we heard that AICTE was coming !! We cleared the class room, borrowed a hose and started washing ... and I mean literally WASHING the class ... And that day also saw the creation of one of the greatest works of art .. Drawn by Kishore and Modelled by Vishnu ... Remember cleanin the fan Vishnu ??
We swept, washed, scrubbed and wiped till the class was sparkling clean !!
Boy that day was fun !!

S3 was also the first time we went to CET for a lab. It was SM lab that sem... we thought that was tough ... but we were wrong .. we had no idea what was in store for us the next sem ... HELL !!!
We dint have enough classes so we had to go for extra classes from 4:30 till 8:30 at night!! And the worst part was that one day the supply went and it started raining extremely heavily ! Not only did the roof have a couple hundered leaks, but the lab was getting flooded !!!
But the person who was goin to prove himself the star once again with another show of "extreme intelligence" was METRO BOY 2 Sajiv himself!! He used his amazing mathematics skills to find out that a small tiny rod was 9 METERS in diameter !!! So he finally decided that was wrong and decided to make a "small" adjustment in his calculation so he would get the right answer. And out of all the variables there at his disposal, he chose none other than the mother of all constants, "The acceleration due to gravity, g" .. he decided to make it 90 m/s^2!! Yep extremely brilliant of him wouldnt you say??? ..he flunked that by the way :P

S3 also witnessed the emergence of the artistic skills of Sreejith ... cos every single hour he used to shape a standard pencil into these beautiful works of art using just a normal blade! Yea thats called "Joblessness"!!!

Back to S3 ... another great day was Onam Celebrations !! The poor artists of our class arrived early in the morning to draw the pattern for the attapoo and found to their horror and dismay that the locals had drawn it already. And that day the flowers arrived reaaaal late. .. but at the end everyone chipped in and we managed to finish it in time. And then we went for the "Tug of War" .. it was an S3 team then .... we got beaten royally :P. But the most fun came after that. Vishnu, Jitin and I returned to class and that was when we had a brainstorm !! Lets bloody throw the flowers at each other !!! And so it started as a small "Flower fight " between the threee of us .. but soon the "Violence" engulfed the entire class and everyone started throwin flowers at each other. I remember Vishnu and I going and gettin a "refill" !! We got a huuuugggee basket full of flowers from the seniors and getting back into the fight !! After a few hours .. we needed a new idea ... and we got it !! There was a small length of rope and we decided to tie someone to the window and decorate him and for that we chose our perpetual scapegoat ... Manu S Das. So we tied him to the window as planned and made him a pretty little flower boy !!

Also that very same day we wer witness to the greatest show of guitaring talent ... delivered by our very own ... and the University's very own ... Abhay Mohan .. AKA Afay Boban ! He played amazing imaginary air guitar that day. And that was soooo bloody hilarious !!!

I also remember us doin "THE STEP" in a line in front of the other two classes!! :P

We also had a new year party that year ...at Abhijith's place .. and that day we were pulling Nabeil's leg .. you see , Abhi's monitor had this problem ... the screen was predominantly red because of some fault in the connecting wire. But Nabeil dint know that ... so when he arrived fashionably late as usual and asked us why on earth the screen was red, we pretended there was nothing wrong with the screen at all .. and the worst part is that he actually bought that !!!
Boy that sure was fun!

Anyways ...
So that pretty much wraps up S3 !! Im pretty sure I'll havta edit this a lot too ...

So here are the teachers ...
Mathematics - Mrs. Sherly and Mrs. Usha
Mechanics Of Solids - Mr. Amjad and Mr. Louie
Fluid Mechanics - Mr. Rakesh
Computer Programming and Applications - Mr. Jayaraj
Machine Drawing 1 - Mr. Satish and Mr. Harish
Civil Engineering Drawing and Estimation - Mr. Anil Kumar, Mr. Amjad
Humanities - Forgot their names .. will find out !
Civil Engineering Laboratory - Mr. Thulasidhran and Mr. Jayaraj (Another one)

2 edits so far .. hopefully this wont be as bad as the other one !! :(

THE ROYAL MEXX - Semesters 1 and 2 ... And so it begins ...

Ive completed 3 years in my mechanical class in GEC. I still remember the first day like it was yesterday. It was such a strange atmosphere ... it was the first time I was in a class with such a massive number ..60 !!!
And on top of that there were just guys !! The first day I noticed just two guys ... Abhijith and Nidhin .. cos they were the guys who were running around and meeting every1. ...the first couple of days were quite uneventful ... then we got to know each other and then all hell broke lose !!!! We discovered that our class had a large number of football freaks. So we collected money and used to play atleast an hour of football every single day ! Then came the inter-class football matches ! And that single tournament made us famous .. we beat the seniors !! So then the football craze went overboard with us playing inside the class and we broke exactly 4 tubelights!!! We also used to have a carroms tournament in class until our stupid staff advisor stopped us !! We also play cricket in class once in a while ! Also there used to be regular card games ... the popular one being "Bluff" ... we even played in the bus.

Man we sure have done a lot of weird stuff in class!
I still remember our first apology letter.... it was hardly 2 months after we joined. It was my sister's wedding and the entire class cut classes for that day and then next day it became a huge issue. Since we were new comers we were let of easy with just an apology letter signed by all of us!
The second one came on the day we were supposed to verify our ID cards at the IT lab. We go there and open the door and then someone screams "close it !! close it!! so 1 guy kicks it shut !! ... And the stupid IT people acted as though we had burnt the entire lab down !! So there came the next apology.
So within three months of joining college we were the notorious class !!
Then came the third one !! :P
We had this electronics teacher named Mrs. Sreelatha . .and she pretty much hated our class right from the first day .. so we gave her a real tough time in return. (And that was a time when we hated anything that had electronics attached with it .. not that thats changed now ..but still..).
So then one day she reads this notice in class and we start applauding .. then she goes like "There is no need to clap" . And so we stopped. And then when the notice was read out in the next class ...they started cheerin ... so we thought "If they can, so can we". And so we start clappin and hootin and screamin and so the teacher walks out . And so there came the next apology. ... and teacher walkout 1!!
A frequent visitor to our class was The Principal .. Mr. Varkey Philip. He used to regularly come and plead with us to shut our traps !! But to no avail ... :P.
The thing we probably hated the most in the first year was probably the workshop! The place was filled with a bunch of assholes !! They used to act like they dint have a spine around girls!
So we spent the rest of the year cursing the workshop teachers and hoping they would sign our records. I still remember standing behind one of the sirs .. it was carpentry I believe.. and was making faces while one of my best friends was trying to get his record signed and was struggling not to laugh his ass off!!
One of the new ideas we had come up with was " Chipping".. invented by arguably the most creative person in class..Ajay MNK.. We used to push the guy sitting at the end of the bench onto the floor in the middle of class... that sure was fun !! It was hilarious to see the look on the teacher's faces !! Especially kaatu's!! Also we used to shoot paper bullets at each other...
Another frequent scence in class was Vishnu, Manu, Athul and Nikhil dancing their heart out to the Ketchup song .. .yup .. it was a regular song and dance routine ... and during the lunch breaks me and manu used to "perform" Linkin park songs !!
The civil engineering classes used to be fun ... especially Mr. Shiju's .. he used to have 2 hour classes and we used to take a 5 min break ( Which we extended to 15-20). During that break we used to buy sip-ups (I know childish but then who the hell cares ???) and we used to stand and suck on them outside class till it was over and the teacher let us in. Then in class we used to take out our reserve stock and suck on them in class!!! Boy those days were fun !!
I still remember how we used to take on the seniors in Booing people off stage and beat em ... our class versus the whole of S4 :P..
That year we were shifted to an isolated location for a while cos we were becoming too much of a pain in the butt ... and there the HOD used to come visit and threaten us regularly ! ..But that class saw the beginning of our famous "Jaloltsavam" ... It started of between me and Nidhin... he had this pitchkoo thingy and he sprayed a little water on me .. so I waited and poured half of a small bottle of water on him .. so he chased me halfway around the block and emptied a huge bottle on me ... and so it began ... slowly atleast 6 ppl were involved.. and that marked the beginning of our most famous tradition !!
This year also marked our respected class rep Visakh gettin involved in politics .... he had one leg in the KSU and the other in the SFI .. so one day he was givin out these SFI pamphlets and the KSU dude found out and came in our class and started calling out the SFI people ... who were in another year altogether .. and all of us were like " Y the F*** is this guy actin like a bigshot here ??? That was so funny !! (He got beaten up later that day btw)..

And here are the stuff I had forgotten the first few times .. I cant believe I had left out such important stuff!! so here they are ....
The raggin we had to "suffer" in first year ..... The seniors were so kind to us .. we had a negligible amount of ragging! The only bit of ragging they actually did was the time they came to class and made people introduce themselves. That was the Vishnu had to get his "Sunshade" cut, Vivek Mohan had to relearn Marching and Thiru "defied" the seniors!!! They left him with a couple of empty threats but thats all!!

Then after a few weeks of joining college, we were shifted to the EC class ... and there we went berserk !! We started writing on their tables and walls. I remember we wrote "EC sucks" on their wall with coloured chalk !! :P Boy that sure did get us into trouble...and guess what the EC guys did !! NO they dint confront us or even talk to us about it ... they complained to the teachers!!! BOO HOO LIL BABY WANT A PACIFIER COS BIG BAD MECH DRAW ON WALL !! :( ... ughhh disgusting .. I think thats the day that the anti-EC sentiment took off in our class!! And after that there was this incident where one of our classmates referred to one of the EC girls' dress as "Inappropriate" on national TV :P. And its not her but their class rep who comes to seek justice and when we confront him, the dude is like "Dont make it a class issue!!" !! WTF ?? If you dint want to make it a class issue, then why the hell did the class rep come with a few other guys to clear the issue ??? Boy some people !! I guess all the other mech students everywhere can understand "The anti EC sentiments" .. its genetically imbeded in each of us and we just need something to make it active and I guess these were it for us !

So that was that .... and one day we were simply sitting in Civil engineering class when one of the teachers came and asked for a couple of volunteers. So we being the civil minded students we are (Yea right ... any excuse to cut class is fine ! ) we went to help only to discover to our horror that we had to help shift the entire library !!!! But since we had only like a 100 books altogether the books werent the issue. The problem was the bloody shelves !!! They were so bloody heavy !!!! It took 6 people to carry one !! Man that was some of the hardest manual labour that any of us had done!

Like I mentioned earlier , we used to play football a lot! And one such football match produced arguably the greatest soccer moment in History ..greater than Carlos's freekick, greater than Baggio's miss .. greater even that Maradonna's hand of god. I shall simply refer to it as " The Adithyan Manouvre" because there can be no name that can truly do justice to something so great! That was a "career ending" move for Adithyan .. he never played football after that day! Not because of a horrible injury ... just because of the shame! WELL IF YOU KICK IN A BLOODY BALL THAT WAS GOIN OUT BY A MILE INTO YOUR OWN BLOODY GOAL, YOU BETTER STOP PLAYING AFTER THAT !!!!!

Moving on from sports, .. it seemed even mother nature couldnt stand the trouble we were causing the world...so she made one final attempt to end it all! Twas the workshop model exam. The first omen came when the electricity supply went off. The poor innocent guys in the Smithy section rejoiced not knowing that they were almost going to get fried!!! ..so they step outside for a breath of fresh ,non-coal polluted air when "BANG" a lightning stike just a few feet from them!!And then they get back in as quickly as possible!! Yea I know that wasnt that great an incident and I just tried to make that seem dramatic but hey!! Its a collection of memories from the first year !! Deal with it !!

We also had a Christmas/New Year party in class in first year. Yea guys..... remember we had one in class??? It was the time we were shifted to the class near the HOD's room. Mahesh and Visakh and all went and bought food with the money we had collected from everyone !!
Shaji sir was chief guest then and he said in his "speech" that it's nic to hav such comraderie in the students and that we should cherish such moments. And cherishin we are sir .. we sure are !
REMEMBER !! Yea!! That was a nice time we had but I guess we all forgot.

And remember the song we sang that day .. the song we may call our class "Anthem" ?? Yes... I am talking about Nabeil's song !! The mapila paatu ... sorry but I cant utter the words here. The internet guys will get me banned!! :P

Guys .. remember the University Body Building tornament that was held in our college ???

Yea .. the best exam we had ever written in engineering was probably our first year second series test in Electronics. It was more a test of how many techiniques of copying we knew than of actual subject knowledge. Some of us passed question papers, while the more daring ones took the entire textbooks in!! I guess almost everyone got over 40 in that test. And so our sessional marks dint get totally screwed!!

And talking about exams, the first year story would never be complete without the "University Squad " story...... It was the Engineering mechanics university exam and Visakh as usual hadnt a clue what the subject was all about. But luckily for him, behind him sat geeko nerd Vishnu! So Vishak borrows Vishnu's answer sheet to check the paper quality. But unfortunately the university squad walks in. So the extreeemely brilliant Visakh drops the paper not behind him but under the guy sitting next to him who happens to be the unfortunate Rohith. And so the squad catch hold of him and start "interrogating" him!! But they still dint know whose answer sheet it was.. so they tell everyone to check whether they had all their answer sheets. And that was when there was a display of acting soooooooooo magnificent it has to be mentioned here..
Movie Title - Exam wars ... Attack of the squad!!
Hero - Vishnu R Nair
Heroine - Stadium owner's daughter
Villain - A feared gang from the University of Kerala known simply as "The Squad"
Scene : The search for the missing answer sheet...
The hero is under extreme tension and fear of being debarred and hence ruining his future. His first thoughts were .."Who will maintain the stadium?" ..and that single thought of his love was all the fuel he needed to pull it off.. Us lay people may think that he would slowly check whether each answer sheet was there and slowly reveal the fact that it was him with a look of pure innocence that even a baby couldnt have! BUT NO ... in what would seem like a piece of bad acting, the hero takes one single look at his answer sheets and discovers its his sheet! But that wasnt bad acting.... he was just using his X-Ray vision to look at all the answer sheets at one go. Everyone knows the hero always has super powers!He then made such a "convincing" argument that the answer sheet had infact been blown to the ground by the supercharged high power ceiling fan that our college was famous for. ....And so that scence produced one of the greatest moments of acting genius .. the kind that makes a little part of you die! ..
But all jokes aside, two guys almost got royally screwed that day... but it was through sheer luck that they werent debarred. Luckily the paper fell under Rohith and not Visakh himself. That incident pretty much ruined the exam for the rest of us in that room ... but most of us managed to pass that exam.

But some of the best fun we had in the first year was probably stickin stuff to people's backs and making them walk all around the college... our favourite target was Adithyan. Probably the best one was when Vishnu and I stuck "I STILL WEAR DIAPERS!" to Adithyan's back and made him walk in front of all the other classes:P .. everyone was cheering him on from the class till the cooler. Poor guy ..was so humiliated that he never talked to us after that :P!! There were many more such incidents .. but this was the best one.
We also used to pin tails onto one another ....I am still a regular victim of Vivek Livingstone's "Operation vaal". The best memory of the tails was when Nabeil had a tail pinned to him and at the same time went around lookin for people to put another tail on without having a clue that he had one on as well. That was sooo bloody funny !!!

Since the power supply mains were in out class, we made full use of all the huge switches and levers ......we hung our drafters on them:P. We also used to regularly hide Manu S Das's bag. Hey Vishnu ....remember that day in class when we were throwin stuff out of the class (All of them mine :( )??

Oh yea ... and we came in second place in sports meet unfortunately .. but that was the last time !
The sports day also witnessed the greatest basketball match ever! Between S12 and S6. And the referee ... me ...and I had no clue!! It was one hour of me just being yelled at and threatened by both teams .... in the end the seniors won just because of my amazing refereeing.. sorry guys :P
So by the end of the first year most of us had gotten pretty close .. and I guess the tag of "Mechanical" and "The Royal Mexx" we took to heart. So with that we came to the end of the first year.
So heres a list of our teachers... atleast the ones I remember .. 1)Basic Mechanical Engineering - Mr. Rakesh( staff advisor) and Mr. Suneesh
2)Basic Civil Engineering - Shiju, Louie( AKA mosquito), Amjad
3)Mathematics - Mrs. Nalinakumari and Mrs. Sherly
4)Chemistry - Mrs. Ally ..(I think that was her name ... If its wrong please let me know )
5)Physics - Babu
6)Basic Electrical Engineering - Mrs. Arlene
7)Basic Electronics Engineering - Mrs Reshmi, Mrs. Nadeera and Mrs. Sreelatha
8)Engineering Mechanics - Anil Kumar (AKA kaatu)
9)Engineering Graphics - Mr. Remesh
10)Workshop - Superintendant Mr Babu.


Class topper - Mr. Praseed E.T. with an awesome 85 !!
Football team - Jaikrishna, Ajay,Praveen,Praseed,Athul,Aravind,Jojo,Jayakrishnan, Vivek Mohan, Binoop and Arun SS who betrayed our class and shifted to EC !!
Class cricet team - Vishak, Mahesh, Anurag, Vishnu, Jaikrishna, Kiran, Jitin, Mohd Raseen, Jayakrishnan, Ajay, Praveen, Niju.
1st year also saw the formation of the college basketball team .. kudos to these guys .. they started the team all on their own without a coach and grew into a cohesive unit .. guys .. were proud of you ... they are .... Vivek Mohan, Jojo, Jaikrishna, Aravind, Athul, Manu, Nabeil, Praveen, Faisal, Nitin Panicker.
Guys who represented the college in a cricket tournament - Vishnu, Mahesh,Mohammed Raseen, Visakh, Jayakrishnan
Guys who got into the college football team - Ajay
College TT team ... Adithyan, Jojo and Jaikrishna ...
Chess team ... Thanzeel .. special mention of Honeru Kambi Vivek Livinstone on his valiant effort to get into the team that ended in a humilating 10 move defeat!!
College Band - Vivek Livingstone, Manu S Das, Abhay Mohan, Rohin Thampi
University Youth Festival - Group song - Jibin and Nikhil.
Initial dance group - Jaikrishna, Praveen, Manu, Rohin, Jaikrishna(Yeps he is all over the place..multi talented) .. (we never made it to Dhwani)
College quiz Team - Abhijith and Alen


If I forgot anything please remind me ...
P.S. - ive already edited this 4 times !! make that 5 .. no 6 ... aaagh !! 7 ...8... aaaannndd 9 !! damn .. 10..11 ..got a little more to go ! and finally done with the 12th edit .. atleast I hope I'm done !

The Da Vinci Bored. ...

Yea ... so today had a stupid exams and so a couple of friends and I decided to go watch the much hyped about movie " The Da Vinci Code" . I was thinkin that we would be the only engineering students there since the exams were still going on. But I was proved wrong !! Almost 70% of the viewers were engineering students ! Thats what makes us engineers so different from the rest.!!

Anyways as for the movie .... please dont waste your money on it. Read the book. The movie is a drag !!! It isnt even a fraction as interesting as the book. There is no thrill and no sense of excitement during the movie. The movie isnt worth the great actors that play the parts.
Tom Hanks .. who I consider one of the greatest actors , seems uninterested and lacks any emotions and expressions during the movie. I would have preffered to see Nicholas Cage in the role of Dr. Langdon. The girl was cute. Jean Reno got a crappy role for his immense talent. And Ian McKellen wasnt that great as Leigh Teabing either. The only outstanding performance for me was Paul Bettany as Silas. For everyone else, it was a waste of their acting genius.

I might have found the movie so dull because I read the book before watching the movie... There were only a few scenes that were real good for me .. like when they show Sophie's parents Car crash and when Silas attacks Langdon in Teabing's house. I also like the very last scence. The rest was a damp squib. The special effects were good and it ended there. The first 45 minutes seems rushed through, and we never get a chance to connect with the characters. Bad directing job altogeher. So you can watch this movie if you want to see some magnificent old buildings and brilliant churches. But otherwise NO.!!

So my reccomendation would be to save the money to watch X3 or Pirates of the caribbean : dead man's chest. .. Or if you are hell bent on watching an adventure that involves clue solving and discovering historical artifacts .. then go rent National Treasure.

CONGRATS TO ARYA NANDAKUMAR !!!

This post is to congratulate one of my dear friends.. Arya Nandakumar ... cos she kicked major butt and secured 3rd rank for B.Com . She got this through sheer determination and hard work and intelligence. She always was a good student and she got what she deserved. A mug shot in the newspapers and loads of accolades and appreciation.

I hope that she becomes real succesful in life. So for now .... CONGRATS and GO GIRL !!!!

My best friend !

I met my best friend after a long time yesterday. And that made the whole day absolutely great. You know that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you see someone you really care for ?? Yea that pretty much describes it ! It was great being with her. She has always been there when Ive needed her and shes always given me the best advice. She has been my shoulder to cry on.

So I got her a gift just to say " thanks fer bein the greatest friend there is ". I hope she really liked it . no loved it . She said she did .. and she also said it was something that she needed. So that made it all worthwhile. Actually just the look on her face when she saw it made it worth the while. But nothin will ever measure upto what a great friend she has been. And the sad part is that yesterday might have been the last time we ever meet. And just the thought of that fact rips my heart out ! She has been one of the most influential people in my life. So here is the story of our friendship...

I met her during the toughest period in my life. I had to leave the place I had been born and brought up in to come to trivandrum. That was the time I needed friends the most and unfortunately I did not know anyone here. I had to deal with all kinds of crap on my own. It was a life changing few years. I met this person during that period. And she was one of the very few people who were ready to accept me and see me for who I was and not for where I was from.....
The first time I saw her was during math tuition classes. I never noticed her then. The first time I actually looked at her was during a bus ride back home and I thought to myself " Hey !! Isnt that the girl from tuitions? She sure is cute.".... and we started talking thanks to a common friend of ours and we clicked right from the word go.

Most of the friends I make become close to me extremely fast. But this girl wasnt that way. She was the only person who became close to me gradually .. and I guess that just makes our friendship that much stronger. I was a student in a school that hated me. And she was 1 person among probably 6 who were my friends. She used to cheer me on whenever I needed support although I never thanked her for that .. well if she is reading this then " Thank you for all your support. It really meant a lot.".. Most of the memories I'd like to hold onto from that year of schooling involves her. She was such an active person on my life then and has been so far as well.

But then she was still just a friend. But I dint understand how much she really meant to me until the day she said that she was going to move to another state. Thats when it hit me properly ... She was one of the best friends I'd ever had .. and now she was going. I regreted never getting closer to her. But I never knew that she considered me one of her best friends as well.
That became evident after she left and I became the only person she kept in touch. The feeling of pride and joy I felt is indescribable. I know it sounds stupid but it was such a nice feeling knowing that I was someone's real good friend. So then we got a "little bit closer".. and then we had the hardest part of our relationship .. we had reached an awkward point in our friendship and a situation that almost tore our friendship apart. I guess its those few months that acctually brought us closer. That was when I realised again how much she means so me and there was no point in destroying such a great friendship. So we got back in touch. And then we just got closer than we had ever been. And I am so happy with the way we are now.

She is one of the few people who actually understand me. And the advice she gives me is based on that knowledge of me and not on what is logically right in that situation. And the best thing about her is she tells me stuff about me without hesitation. And thats what I expect from true friends. ( Plus she always keeps complimenting me .. just to make me happy .. love you for that!)...She is the kind of friend who can make you happy even when your having the crappiest time.

So thats how it stands so far. So what I bought for her is never going to be equal to what she has given me over the 4 years I've known her. Actually they arnt even on the same level to be compared. So I hope she keeps it as something she will look at when she gets real old and remembers her old best friend.

L..... You'll always be in my prayers. May your life be loads of fun and may it go exactly the way you want it to. Thanks for being the greatest friend on earth.

HAH !! I WAS RIGHT !!

I was right all along !! You dont have to study for good marks !! Today's exam i dint study one bit and I'm expectin marks somewhere in the 80s. !!! The last exam i studied real hard for and that was real tough !! So now i have officially stopped studyin for kerala university exams !!

Exam fever ?? What exam fever ???

Its the sixth sem mechanical engineering exam... and I'm sittin and ritin my first blog! I dont know whether its cos im in a "Mech" class or whether its the fact that I've written more exams in three years of engineering than what i probably have written in the rest of my life ! Nowadays exams have lost the "appeal" (for lack of a better term" that they used to have.

I guess thats cos of a combination of the above said reasons. Three years in a guys only class with 60 testosterone powered freaks of nature must take its toll after a while... Nowadays i do most of my exam preparation during the bus ride from my house to my college ... and guess what ... thats more than enough ... I have statistics to prove it as well. In my S3, i worked my ass off and i managed just 358 sessional marks and a total of 888 in the universities. But in S5 .. i never sat in class, did not study for my series tests, and definitely did not prepare much for the universities ( A subject called Metallurgy and material science i studied 3/4 of a module and I asked my friends to tell me the important stuff from the other 2 modules in short and I converted their 2 senteces into 15 and wrote in the answer sheet !!) and that sem I got 371 sessionals and a total of 895 marks in the universities !! That was sweet. Thats when I made my fine discovery .. Marks are inversely proportional to hard work when it comes to Kerala University examinations.

And so I guess I'll just laze my way past these exams as well. There will be plenty more to come after all.. During my last series tests I sat and counted the number of examinations I had written after getting into engineering and currently it stands at a staggering 108 !!!! Can you imagine writing 108 exams in 3 years ??? Thats 36 exams a year on average !!! It'll be amazing if there is any one left who dosent loathe examinations !!!

So I guess that leaves me with two options .... Study for tomorrow or dont ...hmm ... do study or not to study .... we'll i guess I'll try . .. not that its gonna do any good, because the subject I have tomorrow sucks and the textbooks suck more !!! So I guess I'm in for a ride tomorrow from 9:30 till 12:30 .. aaah .. 3 hours at staring at others and telling them how screwed I am !!