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.

Belling the CAT

The one best thing about my blogger these days is that I tend to publish whatever I scribble more often now. Literally whatever crap I write. This, I realised when I saw not too many drafts my Edit Posts. Good na? The shift key of my keyboard (the one near to the symbols) is not working properly, and I have to press the other key for all those symbols. And this is taking my nerves. Ok! so coming back. The problem with having so many drafts is that I can't publish 'em now, coz it has become dated. So I have decided that its high time I write about my CAT classes before it gets finished. Btw, I am writing CAT on 1st. Bless me.

No! Don't worry I am not going to write anything about quants, logical, DI or verbal here. (Thats FYI !!!). There's all gonna be, the usual, gossip here. Well, what else could you expect. Anyways, I'll start off with RS. She is a kind a person you could technically define as a nerd. A book worm. I don't think there's any book I know that she hasn't read. Right from Asterix and Obelix to the Shakespears'. She has read it all. Plus she's a genius. The only problem with her is that we students are totally out of her league. And we don't understand what she says. Btw, she did her high school graduation from a school in Chennai which has an Ex-Alumini A.R. Rahman. Can you believe it??? ARR??? Now I wish Vishnu become a BIG filmmaker soon (I totally respect his other interests, but I have a feeling that he would make one hell of a filmmaker), so that I can boast to the world that "We studied in the same class", "We used to go to tuitions together". Phew.

Next comes our own RP. Now this guy, surprise surprise, is a genius too. ;) If he hadn't been my tutor, I would have certainly missed him in the crowd. Slim, tall with a rabbit teeth and importantly unimpressive dressing. That old worn-out jeans of his itself has a story to tell. He washed the jeans for the first time 6 months after buying it only because he was compelled to do it after it was soaked in dirt after lushy rains. Poor jeans.Even I wash my jeans atleast once in a month. He's a pass-out of some notorious Govt. Arts College in TVM. The college which is reigned by SFI, have certain unwritten rules and regulations formed by the student party members. Only SFI members can rag juniors and can also have affairs. And since beautiful girls are less in the campus, there's always fight over 'em. And RP(who also belongs to SFI) played it safe and had an affair with a girl who, he says, is not so beautiful. How does she even survive this guy? And anything on RP would go unfinished without saying about his CAT extravaganza. He's a third timer. Can you believe it, he refused to join an IIM last time only because it wasn't IIM-A or B. Man! I never knew people like these ever existed. Its like giving up CCD chocolate cake for nothing.

And now onto the students. you really understand my problem in naming people na. so please bear me. And I just don't think its good to write their actual names for my health too, since I'll be only gossiping about 'em. So there is a guy V, who outshines everyone in the class with his PJs. Here's one when he's at his best. Our mentor is taking a test for us and we all trying to convince her not to take one and suggesting some whacky alternative solutions. She says."wow! you're brilliant students". V,"No ma'am, we are T.I.M.E. students!!!"
And as always, there needs to be a scapegoat for V. Sometimes its SJ and sometimes its SD. SD once had gone to participate in a rally on Ganesh Chaturthi. And everytime we used to hear some announcements down the road, he was never spared. As for SJ, he is a mechanical engineer, still in making(he's supposedly a 2009 pass-out). Even, he laughs at himself that "even if he gets good CAT score, he won't make it to a b-school because of his innumerable arrears".

Ok! I am now out of syllables, so I guess I have to stop.

P.S. :- The following caused a laugh riot in my house. We were seeing a music show in a malayalam channel. There was a guy who was singing Surmai Akhiyon Mein (God! I love that song!) in his pathetic hindi accent. So much so that he malayalified so many phrases. Well I opine that those who aren't sure of their hindi accent should stop singing hindi songs. Ok, anyways, when the judges started analysing the song, one lady in the panel said that he should improve his diction and probably should learn the song's lyrics more perfectly. And I was thinking "so right, it is". And then she also said that it would have been better if he had sung the tamil version. And when she started singing the tamil version , she was making so many lyrical mistakes herself that I thought I would rather give the guy a thumbs up than to this judge.

One month for CAT

Just 30 days more. On 1st of December, I'll be writing the actual CAT. Mind you, don't ever expect me to write here about the percentile I get. You can forget about the percentage too. My orkut profile now reads as quants takin the shit out of me, the only thing is that it's more of in a cultured manner. What else am I supposed to when the thing I thought would make my head held high is betraying me at this very moment of urgency. I am not a person who has quantophobia. Infact, it was the only subject in my 12th grade in which I got 80plus marks, which naturally makes it the percentage booster. Since I had such fabulous marks, I was sure that no Govt College would be giving me admission. Infact, I remember getting a call card of waitlist number 170 for B. A. English. Rest of my applictaions would surely have had gone into the trash. So Engineering was not an option but a rescue. Mind you, I m pretty lucky when it comes to OMR sheets. Just not lucky enough for the bank tests which I write every other weekend.

So the preps is on a full swing. Even the books I got from the institute is intact. Rather untouched. So, if any more of CAT aspirants are out there, do let me know, I can sell those books for cheap prices. I have no idea how am I going to manage to do my regular last-minute-study, when I have so many marriages to attend. Nair's on Nov 12th and Binu's on Nov 15th. She called and informed me that the marriage hall is called "Cultural centre". Remember the chukku bazaar episode? Eldhose had commented on that "avide oru chukkumilla...athukonda chukku bazaar". I wonder, if that repeats this time too with "Cultural". ;)

Speaking of Binu, I whole heartedly thank her for coming up with the idea of Madhumohan serials for my post on DD. I heard Partner really enjoyed it. A brief intro to Partner- the name is what we call each other, inspired from the hindi movie of the same name. He's a buddy from my school and college times. Good at cooking. Long time back he did give me the recipe of cutlet which I naturally forgot. Now having good time onboard. See, this is what happens with me everytime. What I was actually thinking was to post on my real Agenda for CAT. Since there is no real Agenda, I have been blabbering craps here. Anyways, I only hope CAT is just good enough atleast to keep my excitement high for the next day, Ramettan's marriage. Yeah, its happening. It's a full fledged arranged marriage. And guess what, I found out the Mr. Lover whose elopement made it to the blog in Ramettan's friends list. His profile pic has our Mrs. Lover in it. Seems like, they are happily married. All the best for all the couples mentioned here.

P.S. :- And did you hear this one. IITs are going to raise the cut offs to 80%. I wonder what I am going to do if IIMs do the same. Even if they place a 70% cut off , I won't be able to surpass it.

Some updates...

Its seems like ages have passed since I blogged something. The reasons for writing nothing all these days are various. I neither had the "mood" or the "stuff" to write. I have been completely occupied by my new venture for this season- CAT. So the preparation is going in an all-time-high swing. But I am still doubtful of my capability to crack the test. Anyways, so the thing that makes me busy all day is the coaching classes that I attend. It just doesn't stop there. It makes me awake even at midnight. Oh...don't get into the idea that I have become a hardworking girl. Its just that me being a lazy bump, always end up getting a mock-test slot at 12pm or so. And thats how I ended up writing this post at 2.30 am.

Besides CAT, I have started tweeting too. But I really don't have any idea what to write there since I almost write all my updates in Facebook. And believe me, I don't really like the idea of copy-pasting the things I wrote in Orkut to Facebook to Twitter. If one day I bang my head to find two different contents for my facebook and twitter, what will I do for the next day. Logically, I can get drained off my creativity na? Lol...

So, onto some updates on my friends. Binu has got engaged to a guy with a french beard. By the way, she belongs to a place named "Chukku Bazaar". But we found neither chukku (dry ginger, i guess) nor a bazaar there. Infact, we were amused when the auto driver showing a small turning told us that it was chukku bazaar. :) And I got a more news on marriages and engagements. Ammini got married last month. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend the ceremony because of a PSC test. Tuttumon is getting married to Soumi (God, I need to learn the trick of naming someone badly) this sunday. Since both are my classmates, I am expecting a small gettogether of sort there. And Aanakutty is also getting engaged to Kodasa. Speaking of Kodasa, I wish I still have the copies of TEEE, a newsletter of our class in our college which mocked everyone. It is through one such edition of TEEE that I came to know of the existence of the malayalam word Kodasa, which means tummy. And they had also claimed that the word has a Palakkadan origin. Really?

Besides marriages, many friends have got new jobs. Good luck guys. And some like me, Blore and PP are trying to go for higher studies. Taking a respite. From job, I say. But we have still got out of the hangover. Albums in orkut are still being flooded with old snaps. By the way, talking of the snaps, do you know the one thing MJ is so afraid of. (For those who don't remember, this is not the real Michael I am talking about, but MJ of our company....Read the post on theft). A: Putting his pictures in orkut. Duh Huh.... May be he is afraid of somebody morphing his pic and making a porn!!!

Okay. Thats it for now. I think I have some stuff for a new post. So see you with that soon.