The CATastrophe And The Coimbatore Visit

Everytime I visit Cbe(Coimbatore), I fall in love with the place again.( My love for Chennai and Tamil, which I never deny, had forced my friends to call me Pandi. But that's ok. ) It's more than just the people and the place. The fm radio that is played in every transport bus. The long wider roads- the buses still charging a minimum charge of Rs.2. The conductor who would take the correct change from Achan's hand and put back the money directly into Achan's pocket when they come to know about my father's illness. Even the ladies get up and give their seat to Achan. The first course of the rice meals, when they pour daal and ghee . The filter coffee. I just can't resist anything that Cbe has to offer.


But this time it was not just any exam. It was CAT. It should have been a good one, considering the fact that I dedicated 3 months completely to its coaching. To the extend that it changed my vocab. Maths became Quants. English became Verbal. Aptitude got split into data sufficiency and data interpretation. But then bigger things happened. I getting a "he" to refer to. The engagement. The late night phone calls. And missing him when he's off sailing. Quite a big reason to flunk it. But not for Achan. He always wants to see me buried in books. At times, I do get buried into books-but those are by Sydney Sheldon, Jeffery Archer :P.


The week was really a busy one. 22nd I had SBI test, then on 29th I had BHEL for which I had gone all the way to Bangalore(details in another post). I came back on 30th morning. The very next day it was CAT. Again I had to get up early. At 4 am. Actually, after all these exams, I have quite got used to getting up early. Rushed to station. Boarded the train and got down at Podanur station at 7. We found that there was only one small hotel opened at that time and I was dying for a breakfast . After having breakfast from there, while we were walking towards the bus-stop, Achan told me that this was the only hotel near the railway station and that Rajagopalan Sir( Sir has always been a mentor of my father), as a child always used to have food from this hotel. He continued this practice even when he became the Sr. DME of the Palakkad Division.


When I had the first glance of Srikrishna College, I thought it was an apartment or something. It looked so neat, even the girls' hostel. At the exam hall, we were inducted by 7.30 (two and a half hours prior to the exam). Even wrist-watch wasn't allowed inside the hall. The wallets were also taken away. And I thought, if you had taken a little more effort on real-time testing of CAT, instead of such gibberish security concerns, we wouldn't have our media celebrating CAT as a catastrophe. Btw, I loved the usage of Catastrophe. And then, inside the hall, we weren't allowed to utter a word. In the next 2 hours, these are the different things I tried
1. read and re-read the instructions (atleast 5 times)
2. played with my pancard
3. sleep. (but then I woke up when I realised that I was about to dream some stupid things)
4. drew flowers, plants and wrote my name in 100 different ways in the scrap booklet
5. (this is my favourite)...wrote hindi songs in Hindi first and then in English
I saw some fellow exammates doing the same.Yawning is a contagious disease. You yawn at a person and the next moment, you see him yawning too. It's so much contagious that even when I'm writing this, I yawned twice. I saw one girl flipping through her passport desperate to find a page that has not been read earlier. Really desperate!


But waiting for such a long duration wasn't helping me. My "tank" was getting filled and peeing had become a matter of urgency. I don't remember myself writing an exam without having the pee tendency. Right after the exam, I would always rush to the loo. I call it the PEE PRESSURE. Then I saw many exammates going to the loo accompanied by the volunteers. Humme tab bhi akele nahi chodoge? Whatever! I too went to the loo. Still it was no different, I again had to go to the loo after the exam. The exam was any day better than the mock CATs. In terms of the content, it was a way lot easier. But then, Verbal was too difficult for me. I have no hopes to clear the cut-offs. Anyways, still there's a sense of satisfaction, of having able to attempt a few questions convincingly.

We then went to the Coimbatore town, had lunch and then went to a market to buy some vegetables. Infact, I have started to think of doing regular visits to Cbe for the same. It just costs Rs 9 by train. And if you could get fresh vegetables, it's worth the money you spend. The next 2 hours I spend listening to Radio City, Suryan FM, Radio Mirchi in the train before it started from the station. And there I'm, back to Pkd. But I'm not going to miss Cbe. Atleast not for the next few weeks. The next two sundays have been booked for, surprise surprise, exams in Cbe itself.

P.S. :- With the high prices of vegetables, my pure veggie stand is at stake. Amma is strongly thinking of buying fish everyday. It was last June that I celebrated my first anniversary of Vegetarianism. Somehow, it makes me feel proud of myself. This is something were I have total control of myself.