The Cat In The Kennel [part 1 of 2]

I have the last of my series exams tomorrow, but the numerous requests by my regular readers have forced me to come up with a new page[...i wish :)] Hey, if i don't write my book who else will alle? So here's another page from my book.

This year's CAT exam falls on November 18th- this weekend. And college is abuzz with with greetings of 'machu, kannur expressil-il alle', 'ah, cat puli ethiyallo', 'neeyum cat ezhuthunnundo?', 'enna cheyyaana kaashu koduthu poyille', etc... And I'm also eagerly waiting to board the Kannur express this friday. No, its not the cat I'm after, but like most of the commuters that day, its the beach and the biriyanis that I'm looking forward to.

The prologue of my cat story falls sometime during 3rd sem, when i got bored of my subjects surprisingly early. Everyone knew of mba before, but it was from that time that terms like 'IIMs' and 'fat paychecks' and stuff began to enter our lexicon. Looking back, i smile at my naivety. I had next to zero understanding of what an mba really was. At home, the decision of my career was left to me, though my parents expected me to choose engineering( That was n is pretty much the order of the day). I didn't disappoint them and took mechanical engineering. But on a positive note, I thank my stars for not making me opt any other branch :). Anyways, it took only a year for me to come to terms with the fact that engg was not something that I loved very much. The subjects were boring and the classes were monotonous. And at that point of time, mba looked as much inviting as does a fire escape during an inferno.

Well, that's stretching things a bit too far. I didn't hate engg that much. But the point is that I saw mba as an escape route from engineering. I assossiated all the fun part of cet life with mba - the fests, the organizing stuff, extra cc reading,... Even bunking classes were soon linked with mba[not that anyone's complaining.. :)]. Soon 2nd year was over and 3rd was well on its way to being over. And it was time to turn all the talk into action.

I'm staying at YMCA( the only YMCA I've seen without a basketball ground), and IMS was quite near. TIME, the only other choice, was pretty far away. With all the built up beginner's enthusiasm, factors like 'not being late to class', 'staying back after class', 'discussing with the faculty', etc meant that the proximity of IMS cinched the deal in favor of it. So by the middle of the 6th sem, I joined IMS. They make you write a Preliminary Test (PT), and my score was real good. Surendrakumar sir calls up and says if i had gotten one more answer right, then I'd have aced that year's cat. ( Have you seen the ad for naukri.com where a guy is shown into a restroom marked VIPee and he swells up with pride... well I wasn't very different). I cheerfully lugged home the quite heavy 'reference material' and went for classes for bout two weeks. Then came the sem end rush and lets just say IMS cat didn't even cross my mind till the beginning of 7th sem.

As with all new sems, 7th also started with resolutions to jog daily, get to sleep on time, etc. There was an addition to the list this time - the cat ofcourse! So i went, straight to Surendrakumar's office, had a nice motivational chat with him. "Okay kris, how many hours a day do you spend for CAT?"..."Uh, zero?..".."Okay, how many sections have you completed in the ref material?".. "None...?"..and so it went. In the end he did convince me to start browsing through the reference material. I came straight to hostel and did two chapters from arithmetic &algebra. To date, they remain the only chapters I've gone through in the entire reference material.

(To be contd..)

And thus i start my book...

Hello world... whew! Never thought i would actually get around to saying that. You see, I've been fascinated with the concept of logging since i first heard bout it and like a million others around the world decided then and there to start my own blog. And left it at that. Well.. it wasn't left at that per se. Every time i logged on, i would log onto blogger, and i would browse nonchalantly through the blogs- usually of people i know, but at times that of strangers too. Writing my own thing was always there at the back of my mind, but i told myself 'you can start it later, when you've free time'. ( Bull crap, considering that I'm pursuing my engineering degree at the College of Engineering, Trivandrum) Sometimes I had the courage to actually click on the Create a Blog link, but didn't go beyond that. And so it went on and on... until today.
And my sudden inspiration? Well, I'm proud to say that it came from a blog i read! It's a blog by Eric, a wonderful and talented( Eric, if you only knew how stingy I'm with compliments ... but no, he doesn't know me that well... neither do I for that matter) friend of mine. I read his first blog and it was about how he overcame his inertia and it set me thinking. I dont know who coined it first, but it was Anthony Robbins who marketed the adage that 'to get the right answers, ask the right questions'. That's something that's so simple and yet so true, something that we overlook in our daily huff and puff, something that we forget to do so many times. And I asked myself- what is your problem? And the answer - man's numero uno fear. No, not that of death you simpletons, but that of public speaking. He he, but that's another wonderfully marketed lin, only this time by Dale Carnegie.( And it's a lie. Few are the men who have contemplated on death, on its myriad yet final ways, and woke up undisturbed, not to mention ranking it second in the 'Fear' hall of fame) Sorry to bring up such a gloomy topic in my first blog, but i just felt like saying it. And you see, that's what i started this blog for.
Yes, as i said, I'm a bit shaky before crowds. Now I consider myself as a person of sense, not profound or anything but at least common, and I don't think that I'm the kind of person who blabbers a lot either. So what was it that was holding me back? Hmm, it was fear, the fear of ridicule. Of criticism. Of sarcasm. Of not being politically correct. And again, Eric's blog came to my rescue. The way in which he overcame his own demons. Now that was definitely not the first time I heard bout the solution he tried. I had read those lines umpteen times before. In the movie The Three Kings, George Clooney says to a rookie marine 'The way it works is, you do the thing you're scared shitless of, and you get the courage AFTER you do it, not before you do it.'
Yes its a dumbass way to work but that's the way it is. So I mustered my courage and when the opportunity rose today with my internet connection being restored, I lost no time.
At this point, I would like to bring to your attention one more thing. This is no news for most of you, but your blog might be touching the life of numerous people around you. In ways you might no be thinking. Most of the time without your knowledge. Just like Eric's inspired me. So before I begin I salute those of you who take the time, effort and courage to share bits of your lives with everyone in this world. You are changing the world by leaving your footprints,... your lingering footprints... that may guide some wandering soul to a better path in this life.
My 2nd internal exam of the 7th semester starts today. I haven't read a word on it. But I've no regret. I'm facing one of my demons, one that's been with me for so long that I had almost warmed up to it. And for me that is a big step. Its 12:45 AM, 12th November 2007.
And thus I start my book...