I had been waiting for this day since the last 3.5yrs.
The day I couldn't make it to the IIT's I had decided,I would crack the CAT.
Thanks to this thought I had underperformed throughout my graduation. I avoided over partying and over indulgence in college masti coz I had a plan in mind.
I dint want a great salary or value added to me,atleast not then. I just wanted to make a name for myself.To prove a point to everybody,especially myself that I was capable of competing with the best minds of the country,if not the world.People around me had landed into IIT's and NIT's then and later I realised I was better than most of them,or atleast I thought so and the reasons for this thought were more than one. Lets not get into the reasons now...
Coming back to the present I had a few butterflies in my stomach.I dint think about the D-Day much and roamed the entire station,greeting my friends and acquaintances. It looked like the entire steel city of ours was going to Nagpur to take the test.......
The train came and I fought hard to get into the right compartment.Deciphering which coach was which was itself like solving a DI questions.Confusion prevailed for some time and by the time the train moved we were in the right seats.
After 4.5 hrs of solving sudoku and chatting with the fellow passengers,most of who were CAT takers I finally was in Nagpur.
Reached my hotel had my lunch, and soon it was evening.Had many college mates staying at the same hotel,1 of them had the same center as I and we went to see our center...
Came back, relaxed a bit and off we went to catch a light dinner...
After dining and after seeing the IPL's 2nd finals between Hyderabad heroes and Lahore Badshahs we finally went to sleep..I was amongst the very few who could sleep soundly that night.
w.r.t sleeping i have always been very lucky. I can sleep at my will,but cannot get up at my will though....
finally the D day this was it. I knew I had to go there and had to give my best shot. Reached my center .5 hrs early and again met all my Bhilai friends there.
Time passed in a jiffy and before too long i was sitting in my seat...
The test started..
I started with maths...
was this CAT?? coz it dint look like. No original questions. Same old questions which I had seen atleast a thousand times before.I literally raced through this section. Wow good luck had stuck me the question I had solved a few days ago had come as it is.. I couldn't help laughing a bit. My benchmate saw me with an angry gaze and I went to solve this and pick up bonus 8 marks as there were 2 questions based on this funda. 50 minutes gone and 15 questions attempted.All was going according to plan...
next section I attempted was English. i always believed my English was good. I started galloping through this section. though i had decided i wouldn't attempt many in this section i couldn't help but tick 29 out off 40 questions here.wow success again
now it was time to win over DI too
but man wasn't this section tough
i tried and tried and couldn't maintain the pace i had solved the 2 sections.
I tried again and fell again
this section i thought was the toughest in CAT-2008
finally the bell rang and i handed over the paper to the invigilator.
my happy start had ended in a sad climax...
discussion and this and that followed and i thought i had done well..
but alas this feeling of joy was shot lived i had continued my tradition of making silly mistakes
the 2 questions which made me go gaga had just got me negative 2 marks. later i realised i had got 26+34 wrong
damn poorer by 10 marks. In DI/Lr section i got another sitter wrong..
I realised am done but still my fav section English was left to be checked I optimistically matched the answers of time with my question paper's and i got the 1st wrong the 2nd wrong third wrong again. a correct ans here and there and the majority wrong
boom i was doomed. the feeling sank that i had screwed the cat......
just then an IIT friend who too had appeared for this exam asked me my score. I was ashamed to tell it but yet i did and i was white with shame to know his marks. the guy who had not at all prepared for this had just got double my marks and in English itself had got 4times as many marks. I couldn't help but sink into despair...
I thought never mind common may be everybody has screwed it but then another Friend from NIT calicut caught me in gtalk and said he had screwed it too I thought huh finally some one else had screwed it too only to know that his bad was double my marks he surely had done a terrific job on the cat day an was now expecting calls from more than 1 iims...
man what had i done wrong...
i slept a sad man that day but then with the 1st rays of the sun i was in my best spirits again....
well though not quite but well......
Looking for the day when this optimism will pay......
