Part A - How ABGL is a part of my life
It’s the housewarming ceremony of my house. Sitting on a chair, I was reflecting on the past few months that went into the process. The selection of all the interiors, sanitary ware, and the other house stuff was a very tiring process. We covered our terrace with Everlast rooftops and installed Eternia windows in all our rooms. Built with UltraTech cement, the house was one of the most beautiful bungalows of society. I am a salaried employee working at Hindalco Industries Ltd and I took a loan from ABHFL which turned out to be a very wise decision.
To invite my friends and family for the ceremony, I travelled to many places and called them using my Vodafone Idea number. The shopping for the occasion was very important and Pantaloons served as the perfect destination for it. All of my family members could get perfect dresses for them here with brands like Allen Solly, Van Heusen, etc to choose from. I choose a Peter England dress for myself. The whole payment was done via BHIM APBP UPI
App.
Everyone was very happy and appreciated the house. They also liked the food and its quality. Few of my friends liked a particular dish so much that they asked me to pack and give it to them. I packed it using Freshwrapp foil and handed it over to them. The caterer for the event used a few raw materials from his own farm, where he used Birla Balwan fertilizers to maintain the health of the crops.
Coming back to the present, I realized how my life was encircled with Aditya Birla Group products and I feel happy to be a part of this family – our own homegrown Indian brand.
Part B - How I overcame one of the most difficult periods of my life
January – Mid March 2017
CAT Attempt #3
QA – 95%ile
LRDI – 96%ile
IIM – No Calls received
Surprised? Well, that’s me. You may be wondering, why no calls? The reason is that I got 48%ile in VARC and hence my overall score was 90%ile and I was not able to clear the section cut-offs.
I was distraught!
Wanting to do an MBA since my B.E. final year, and having given over 10 different B-school exams, I was still not able to get into a B-school I wanted.
Additionally, I was not enjoying the IT Consulting Job I was doing. People who joined with me either switched to better-paying jobs or went to prestigious colleges for higher education and here I was still struggling with English. And being the elder kid, family pressures were just mounting (May be the only job relatives were created in this world was to fix your marriage).
March – July 2017
MBA-CET 2017 Score- 99.36%ile
JBIMS/SIMSREE – Not selected
KJ Somaiyya – Converted in last round
Now comes the twist
July - September
The company I worked for offered me an abroad project. Going, against family wishes, I choose to let go of KJ Somaiyya college for this project. The project kept on being delayed and was ultimately scrapped in Mid – September. Next, my health deteriorated and I was admitted in the hospital.
September End- Mid November
I was depressed, fatigued, exhausted emotionally, physically and mentally. With nothing good happening in life, I was down and out and felt that I was good for nothing. There were too many things happening in my life – in personal and professional spaces both, which had broken me completely. There was no ray of hope in my life.
But then, I realized this is not what I am meant to be and hence I decided to appear for CAT again with just under 2 months to prepare. I changed my strategy this time around. With 12-14 hours of office per day, I only had 4-6 hours per day to prepare for CAT. First thing was to quit Social Media – No WhatsApp, No Facebook! And rather than completing one subject at a go, I used to do one chapter from each of the subject one after another so that I do not lag upon any subject. Norman Lewis – the English book was a Bible for me, so I read it diligently. And I started solving VARC question without using options so that I could put my mental faculties to the extreme.
Last 15 days
Got my already married brother to marry again (Reason for taking leaves from office :P). Came to my hometown, reversed my body clock. 2 mock tests per night and then complete revision during day time. And also analyzed each of the tests to identify mistakes. Mobile phone was completely off. Scores in mocks ranged from 50% ile to 90%ile but i kept my cool and focused on learning.
D-Day
Unable to sleep the previous night, I went for the exam and coolly appeared for the test. Being able to solve a few questions easily, I started to doubt myself that how can questions be solved so easily, but seconded the thought quickly to focus on the exam.
Results and Aftermath
Did not have the guts to check the result online unless an SMS came to display the result.
QA – 93%ile LRDI – 96%ile and VARC – 92%ile Overall – 96%ile
The battle was won!! From 48%ile to 92%ile, I had conquered my fear.
Rather than being complacent, I started to prepare for CAP Round. Being, a GEM with work ex in IT, you don’t expect a BLACKIS call :P
I researched the internet and prepared around 400 pages of material comprising of current affairs, GK, under graduation, work ex, etc etc and what not.
PS: I was still on a 12-14 hours per day of IT job
CAP Interview
“Speak on Startup India for 2 mins”. I spoke more than the interviewer expected (The 400 page GK material helped). The next questions also went well.
“Why do you think Simplex method is called so when it is actually very complex?” This question turned the interview and I am sure this question, even my faculty would not have been able to answer who taught me this 5 years ago. A couple of more tricky questions and I thought my MBA dream ended. (I had decided it to be last CAT attempt).
Results
Multiple lists of CAP Results of different schools had come and my name was nowhere there. And suddenly on 23rd June, I get selection mail from IIM Raipur and they ask me to report on 25th June. Wow!!
After 1 Job, 2 IIM Interviews, 3 Years of hard work, 4 CAT attempts, 5 available days to quit job, 6th month of the year, my dream was finally realized, my hard work paid off and I was off to Flight to Raipur!!
Conclusion
Infinite Patience, extreme Rigour, Adamant towards the goal, Self-Belief, doing the right Act and never dying Desire led me to achieve what I wanted and overcome one of the biggest challenges of my life.
#IIMRaipur #ABGLPWooMe
