March 2007 :
It was 9:30 AM and I was wondering restless in the corridors of the Library building in Infosys Bangalore Campus. I needed to wait till 10 AM before I make a call to SP Jain Institute of Management and Research.
From the terrace I could see the small pond filled with colourful fishes , this place has been my most favourite place in entire Infosys campus which was full of beautiful structures. This is the building from where I started my corporate career some 3 years earlier , a batch of 365 people joined Infosys Bangalore as software engineer on December 15th 2003 . Building 12 which was for learning and development with 4 huge auditoriums, 4 big computer labs, 4 online learning centres and one huge Library in the centre which was of dome shaped structure, top part was covered by glass so it was illuminated by the natural light for the most part of the day.
Every time I entered in this building I became nostalgic as have spent around 2 months here in training, made lots of friends done usual mischief’s. From here I was posted to Pune and then back to Bangalore. In last 3 years have seen a lot and Infosys has given me almost every thing which I could have thought of as a typical software engineer , onsite opportunities , great team to work with, probations in various places , promotions and above all greatest care by which any organization can treat its employees.
Since my final year in engineering I was bitten by the word MBA , mostly it was because of the group of friends . Because many of my friends dreamt of doing MBA post MBA so it happened to me as well like a contagious disease. I always wonder how much friends impact your life , these are the people you spend most of the time and hence they have the power to influence you the most , there is so much in one life which depend on the kind of friends he chooses. Some of the best and greatest organizations on the earth are created by good friends who shared common dream or most of the time one in the group has capacity to influence others. Friends will influence almost every point of life on personal and professional front. So it is this species which introduced me to the fancy world of MBAs , the glory of corporate galleries and the exorbitant salaries which a degree called MBA can assure you.
Post this I have written Common Aptitude Test every year and all other entrance tests for various B schools which supposedly can change your life and that of your coming generations ( there are more than 20 such grilling exams). From the third year of the engineering it started , in final year we took it a lot seriously , joined MBA coaching institutes which claim to teach you how to solve questions of maths and English which are of level of standard 10.
Sudden mushrooming of these institutes was a proof that this MBA coaching business is doing well and people are ready to spend huge amount of money to fulfil their dreams of becoming a management graduate, So did we. Even after writing so many of these silly exams I could not manage to crack any one of them , there was no disappointment though because till than media has already started telling how prestigious and difficult these exams were and there were lakhs of people appearing so it was always comforting that only few thousands will get what they really want and we were in majority ( a huge majority !).
Since Jabalpur was a tier 2 city than and in early 2003 the industry was just recovering from the dot com bubble burst , there were no jobs . only 3 companies turned up in the campus and rest had to leave the campus job less. I declared at home that I would like to go and prepare for MBA from a known coaching institute in Delhi , since I come from a middle class family where education and ambition both are valued and supported at the expense of extreme sacrifices by parents , I was granted permission to try my luck with this MBA business . My father thought it would be good idea to prepare for administrative services , I guess almost 75% parents in India think that because of the charm , respect and money associated with these administrative jobs and plus almost all of my cousins were continuously trying for these exams. I could see the agony associated with it , first of all it was a huge process which took two years from the time you fill the form to the time you get final result of your selection and second there were all kind of hassles which are normally associated with government jobs from reservations to bureaucracy third there were many new subjects which I had to take and Above all I had seen it was kind of addictive. I knew I won’t be as patient to go through this painful and long process so decided to stick to the plan.
I could sense the pain which parents felt because of my decision to leave Delhi , specially when they had settled in jabalpur just one year back only because of me otherwise my father always wanted to retire from his native place Rewa .
Stay in Delhi was ok , I always felt how can one survive in such a huge city where once identity is just another man in a huge crowd , he is no one . Like some of my other friends we worked hard, got good inputs from the coaching institute and prepared ourselves for the D day. Summer passed by , there is nothing much to talk about rains of Delhi as it hardly rains . In fact it is good that it does not rain so much because even a 5 minute rain in Delhi can bring the city to stop still. Arrival of winter in Delhi is grand, it comes and stays. I could see from my balcony that every week because of increasing density of fog my visibility range was decreasing and tall buildings of greater Kailash were disappearing one by one from my sight. Most of the earlier part in winter gone in keeping a track of various institutes admission deadline , running to IIT Delhi , Canaught place and other banks to get the forms and filling those one page OMR sheets. All these forms come with glossy and flaunting brochures of the MBA institutes which used to show their amazing buildings , smartest people on the earth dressed in suits with big smiles on their faces, talking about the values and uniqueness of the institute ( which was most of the time same for all the institutes). Names of all the employers , this list did not leave any good company in India , and the most interesting part the salary figures of the last batch , later in MBA days I would learn how many ways can be there to calculate salary average of the batch and to make sure you always communicate the highest of them to the outer world. In short these brochures has the desired impact on us , the red stony building of IIM A , the fort like rocky structure of IIM B , The lush green campus of XLRI, the tall glossy structure of IIFT and so on.
A similar count down had started for 21st November, the day which is supposed to be turning road for many lives , we were now busy with mock tests and even more extensive preparations. One of the most irritating fact about CAT was its so unpredictable pattern , it is strange as till now these management gurus are not able to decide as what could be the best way to choose students from a written test , some times they expected us to solve 220 questions in 120 minutes and some times it used be just 90 questions. Every time the exam was conducted by one of the 6 IIMs and that used to be an indicator of the section which could be the toughest, It was said that IIM A prepares paper stressing on maths sections where as IIM B on data interpretation. Till now all of these are only speculations, would never got to know whether these are only coincidences or some one has tried to use chaos theory in an effort to link all unrelated events. Only one thing was certain that there is no certainty the paper could be of any kind. There can be negative marking of 0.5 , 0.33 or as good as 1 , some of us who were good in devising algorithms also devised theories how it increases with number of wrong questions .
Considering this, coaching institutes usually gave all kind of shocks in the mock test series which made people more nervous seeing it can go that worst. Consoling part was the relative grading of such exams which assured that if its bad than every thing will be offset against performance of some mortal being only.
This time the admission test was conducted via IIM L. During this time many of my friends were in Banaglore in Pune hunting for job , software industry had revived and companies started recruiting . One by One people started getting jobs, one of my friend from College who also came to prepare for MBA exams was in touch with most of the batch and every time some one gets a job Sumit would come running and shouting from ground floor to third floor ( where my room was) , It felt extremely annoying and pressurizing.
What if I could not crack these unpredictable exams?
Should it has been a better idea to look for a job?
And many such worries started putting more pressure which kept increasing as I keep hearing from Sumit about new record of salaries and brands. During these times even I had tried to send resumes here and there , attended some SSB interviews for engineers recruitment in Army and Airforce.
Airforce being another dream for me , I was always fascinated by the decorous white uniform , and some what enchanting ways of airforce that 2 times for attending Airforce interviews I have thrown all kind of tantrums over my father to sign the forms assuring that I am just attending these interviews for experience and would not go even if selected ( My father did not want me to join defence , he came from old school of thoughts where single son not be allowed to join defense ) but it seems my destiny was not to be in airforce, even after attending 2 SSB interviews in Allahabad and Banaras I couldn’t convert them and had to return disappointed on the 5th day.
So this is how ended my dream of joining forces, after 2003 never got a chance to think about it again.
On 5th November I attended a test conducted by Infosys for recruitment , in those days it was a simple process just pass the test which contained 10 puzzles and some 30 questions of English grammar. Almost 30 of my friends took this test but no one cleared it so far, I was not much optimistic beside my entire focus was on the 21st November. I went and took the test which was just behind my house in east of kailash , it was intimidating to see thousands of people as Infosys took entire Rabinndranath Tagore International school to organize this test . It went well I could solve 9 out of 10 puzzles and made my way through the 10th one till half of the solution, English was cakewalk as well. Returned home with gut feeling that I may crack it. One week later results came , I was nervous to go and check and asked Sumit to Check it for me , he returned back shouting from the ground floor that I have got into Infosys. Very soon entire crowd gathered surrounding and congratulating me. It was early days when Infosys just started enjoying its glory and people thought who ever joins it is bound to become NRN , I couldn’t agree less that even I felt great specially since no one else whom I knew could make it through this test.
I was obviously happy and felt secure however it meant I would have to leave for joining by mid December by then I would have given only 3 exams out of some 10-11 which I had applied for but the plus point was the biggest of all CAT would be over before it. The D Day arrived and people panicked as if their life depends on it (which to some extent was true). The paper was not a very shocker kind it has normal sections . 2 hours flew like nothing as in such exams there is always much more than you can do in given time period. I felt my performance would be ok , if not IIMs than at least I could expect interview calls from some allied institutes . As I came out of exam centre some girl in front of me complained to her parents almost crying that she did not do well , what came in reply from her mother shocked me . “ Don’t worry dear the examination is scraped , the paper got leaked last night and it is all over in the news since 9:30 in the morning”.
Life has strange ways to play hide and seek with us, one of the most prestigious exam in the country was cancelled because some people were trying to find a shortcut. Entire exam centre was buzzing with media with all news channels covering reactions of students, frankly speaking I was not sure whether I should be happy or sad. There were obvious down side to this including a re exam which means again going through the same agony and also the concern when and where it will happen since I would be leaving to Bangalore soon. When I returned to my room entire PG was glued to TV some were happy as they thought they did not do well and got a life line , some were sad and some were like me not knowing how they should take this news. IIMs decided to have re examinations some later in the year.
It took only couple of days to sink the feeling as other exams were lined up from next weekend onwards , after taking couple of more exams I left for home so that from there I can reach Bangalore on 15th Dec , there were some apprehensions initially on my mind whether I should join the job or stay back since I had already put so much effort preparing for these exams but than I realized it would be better to do some thing which will help in supporting my parents as there was already a financial crunch with a home loan and my expenses at Delhi . Its amazing how parents can never utter a single word about their own problems , all they could see is the dreams and aspirations of their child but it was time for me to share some of the responsibilities and I felt anyway I can prepare from Job also , so many people do it.
Life was great in Infosys; I don’t have to write what IT companies of India have done for the nation and how they have changed youth into a global work force. I could never forget the dream of doing MBA from a top B school and kept writing CAT every year, of course without much preparation . This was just to ensure that I am in touch with the changing pattern and yes also thought that in such exams its more of the luck than actual effort, anyways I have never been that lucky .
After returning from my onsite assignment at UK , it was already around 3 years and I have started feeling may be this is the right time I should try once more with all might . Parents have already started searching for a girl and if I am not taking admission in any college within a year then I will surely be married so I better make sure that I become jobless student before that , after all who would marry to one jobless student.
I started preparing again and appeared in exam in 2006, results were decent with 96.7 percentile in CAT it was rare possibility to get a call from any IIMs but other than that I got some hope from JMET which is enterance test for MBA in IIT , with a rank in 700’s I was expecting call from IIT Kharagpur which was having one of the best MBA programs among IITs. By jan end I had got calls from IIT Kharagpur , SIBM, SCMHRD ,MDI gurgoan, SP Jain institute of Management and research. I felt all 5 were good enough to do MBA after 3.5 years of experience.
In SPJIMR I got a call for a new course which they had started recently in collaboration with Virginia Tech to provide post graduation diploma in system management . After consulting with lots of people around I was assured that two things matter the most one is the reputation of the institute and another is the degree , after getting degree I would be able to do whatever I want ( This was obviously a wrong opinion which I realised very early in my MBA days).
Rest of feb went in hiding from project managers in Infosys so that they don’t assign me to any projects as I had to attend interviews in various places for entire feb , some how managed to attend all of them although it was difficult to find a news excuse for every leave . During these interviews made many good friends some of them would grow closer during next two years. I met Namita a dynamic girl during SIBM interviews since she was also in Infosys we remained in touch sharing our feelings during those stressful times similarly I also got to know Rahul and Siddharth who were again from Infy and later would join IIT Delhi and IISc Bangalore respectively . It was interesting to see in each of the GD and interview in these colleges almost one fourth people turned up from Infosys and so all the professors interviewing us kept asking what is in Infosys which is causing so many people to appear for management admission tests? Answers may be many but I would just say low average age and open work culture which does not create any obstacles in your dreams , in fact in my case I was continuously encouraged by PM to look at options like MBA since he thought we have got jobs easily and too early which may prevent us from dreaming big and pursuing more ambitious targets.
So the final conversion came from SPJIMR and a wait list from VGSOM IIT KGP. At the end now it seems I had only one offer and I had already started making my mind, knowing whatever decision I take my family would support it.
