Follow your heart...

Blog.. No SOP.. Blog No SOP.. ok finally BLOG. This is how I have been fighting with myself for the past few weeks. And on one such day my friend Ram called “Machi Skandagiri tomorrow enna solra?” a whole weekend would be ruined, have to write SOP, complete office work, read Fountain Head, update myself with current affairs, read my engineering subjects, attend GD PI classes, invent why I have to do MBA, find out what are my strengths and weaknesses after living on earth for 22 years, write Blog, in spite of all that my heart wanted to go… half of the heart nope in fact as you can count 1\10^th of my heart wanted to go and I said yes!!

Then started GOOGLING about what Skandagiri was. There were plenty of blogs about the place with pictures put up. The scenery looked awesome and I was convinced my decision. We packed loads of health drinks, water, biscuits and of course GLUCOSE. We started at 2 in the night in 2 bikes. It was a freezing ride all the way (close to 70kms from old airport road) on the highway NH7. The place was easy to find, and we saw the place packed with cars and bikes already. We bargained a guide for Rs.250 (thanks to RAM and his kannada skills).

Way up was adventurous. It wasn’t as tiring as tirumala was, but it definitely deserves its respect. At some places it was very steep; at many it was too narrow and almost throughout it was very dark (even on a full moon). You have to really very careful, just a foot wrongly placed and you kiss goodbye to your life. We took occasional breaks, but it wasn’t really all that tiresome especially with PJs from RAM and ARJUNE.

Arjune “Machi can’t we go up soon?”

Ram “Sure da, just place your foot one more inch leftside”

Arjune “Dei then I would fall down”

Ram “Exactly, that is your passport and visa to go straight up”

When we reached the top, it was freezing cold especially when the winds blow against you (even with gloves and a fur coat). It was crowded like a college canteen, people were having campfire everywhere and dancing around it. Then we all waited patiently for the sun to rise.

“Why is taking so long da? It is very bright already but I don’t see it at all” asked a pissed off Arjune.

“Probably it has taken a day off” said Karthik.. machi you too???

“Oh yeah it’s Sunday today da. I told you guys, we could have come yesterday” said MokkaRAJA RAM

For a minute I started believing Ram, but then came up the million dollar sight. There came the sun like you would see in those discovery channels. I first saw a pinch of gold then very slowly a golden ball started rising up slowly. The movement was so gentle and soft like a just born baby. Soon I was able to see a full round reddish orange ball. I would climb ten more skandagiris for that sight. It was definitely worth it.

After quenching our thirst for the eyes we soon started filling up our stomachs. After the photography session we started our way down. It was more fun than the way up. Especially with RAM’s butt slide and Arjune’s Monkey stunt (he just missed a 1000 feet free fall). Though it wasn’t a tiring one it was no less challenging than the way up.

It was very late already close to 9 and we reached city by 10:15. When we had to wait in a traffic signal I felt the scorching heat of the sun when I heard RAM saying “Hell with this SUN who asked it to come up so early…”

One of the best days in my life

It wasn’t anything new to me, I have been there twice already and this is the third time. In fact I have failed on both the previous occasions and hence I was there for the third time. Will I make it at least this time? Or is it gonna be yet another time?

Not every day you sit at work and expect something to happen that would change the way you are gonna live the rest of your life, but it was one such day, the day my CAT results were gonna be out. Actually it was the next day the results were expected, but the anxiety and pressure started a day before. I left office early since there was no point sitting and staring a website refreshing it 500 times a minute.

“Leaving so soon?” my colleague who also had given CAT asked me. One of the advantages of writing CAT is even though you don’t get through you would definitely befriend many. In fact by losing CAT you can possibly make more friends than getting through it. (Have heard about the B school culture and how people are ‘real’ friends)

“Would die of heart attack if I sit here 5 more minutes dude”.

I walked out of office pondering over my result; nothing else in the world seemed to matter. Not even the auto wala who just passed by abusing me for unknown reason. My friend called me then bringing the first bad news of the day, the CAT keys were out. I went running to check my answers with the keys. I never used to mark the answers in the Question paper hoping that I would definitely remember them later. But then I remembered nothing, not even a single answer even though I would have gone through the same paper at least thirty times before.

IIMs had uploaded the results and had tested it for a few minutes. Hundreds had seen their results already and posted them over the forums. I was following them for about 2 hours, some were happy but many were sad. It took me sometime to realize why my hands were wet, I was crying and the tears were flowing down my cheeks on my hands.

One of my best friends called me and caught me in that embarrassing position.

“Hey why are you crying?”

“Nope nothing”

“The results came, is it?”

“Yeah”

“You didn’t make it is it? Come on man there is more in life than just CAT and MBA. Chalo lets have dinner.”

Adi pavi how many days I had called you for dinner, all those days you refused and now you are asking me out.

“No yar I am not coming”

“Seri how much did you get?”

“I haven’t see my result yet”

“WTF, then why the hell are you crying?”

“I saw a few scores posted by people and going by that I am definitely not gonna make it. It is kind of this anticipatory bail which people apply when they know that they are gonna end up in jail, I am crying anticipating my results.”

“dei you and your sick PJs even now eh?? Don’t worry man you will definitely get calls”

That is what everyone has been telling me; somehow others trusted me more than I trusted myself. It was almost 11, no sign of results, unable to control my anxiety I went for a walk in the deserted streets (as though presence of humans would have mattered).

When I was sound asleep almost at 12:30 my colleague called me.

“Dude the results are out”

“WTF, bugger... Why on earth now? How much did you get?”

“99.99 dude all 7” (he meant calls from 7 IIMs for GD\PI)

“Congrats man!!! I will go check mine”

I opened my laptop to check my results half hearted, knowing almost I would have flunked and why am I checking now… ruining my night’s sleep. As expected I had screwed up especially in my verbal. Ok dude yet another year wasted, at least you got a good rating in your appraisal at work, you didn’t lose everything, go sleep I was consoling. When I was about to close the web page I saw that I had actually got calls from 4 IIMs. I called up my parents and friends. Everyone said the same “Dude you should be jumping with joy, why do you sound sad”.

Well frankly I felt nothing, it was too much for me to handle. I had dreamt of this day for the past 3 years in my life, but now when my dream had actually come true it was almost like a shock. That was the best day in my life after almost 6 years (the last best was my TNPCEE results). It took me almost a day to recover from the shock and then only a day later I felt happiness. But then I realized I haven’t completed the work, I have just started it…