Ridicurous

If you're here you're either really weird or clinging on strong. This blog hasn't seen a lot of activity lately, by neither the author, nor the audience (by audience I only mean Reshma and Vibhor. All others, if you want credit, comment). Hopefully I'll resume in abundance soon, when most of my deadlines expire this Monday. Buckle up, and expect a plethora of posts at the rate of once per lucky-month.

Anyway, beginning with the update on my life that you really don't need/want: I have been terribly busy. And the weather hasn't been the most helpful (2 degree to nahin banta). Last full month was apping season, at its very best. I have done so many of the following, it suprises me when it surprises people who hear about it:

• International Couriers @ 821/- per courier (avg. 1.2 per university to 9 of them)
• International Calls from my cellphone @ Rs. 10/- per minute - This hits the worst. Because even though 10 bucks a minute doesn't seem all that bad, a call for almost every univ kills balance. And Dad doesn't directly pay for this, so my pocket hurts everytime a website proves too ambiguous.
• Essay writing and getting reluctant friends to review (rewrite) - I believed I was an awesome pen. One SOP draft and the confidence plummeted like no tomorrow. I realized I suck at putting two sentences in correct order with acceptable flow, lets not even talk choosing appropriate words (although you probably already know what I'm talking about). Rule of thumb: If you're embarrassed to show your SOP to people, throw it away. Luckily, I had (note the tense) a hundred willing stud buddies (studdies?) who'd take a look at my what-the-cat-dragged-in with amazing promptness. But like I said, I suck. So much that I pissed off ninety-seven of them with just four drafts. The remaining three include two who are so emotionally bound with me that they can't possibly escape, and the third who's a real benign god (pidus). Thanks!
• Recommendation Scavenging - The toughest part of an application is getting a professor to write good things for you. Slightly inferior in toughness, although equally frustrating, is getting him to make all your deadlines. The only deadlines these guys have ever followed in their lives are those of paper submissions, and your recommendation isn't half-a-percent as significant as those. I'm not blaming them, in fact, one of my recommendors is as punctual as an atomic clock, I'm just expressing the futility of making three conductors play your favourite orchestra together.
• Acing CAT - Well, almost (I'm a BLInK). I had taken a mock which had gone well too, so this wasn't the biggest surprise in history, but I was really taken aback by the possibility of me entering a B-school 5 months from now. Its spooky and unreal to me, and although I'm mostly attending the interviews, its going to be a McKinsey all over again, coz I really don't care. I'm going for my father's sake, who as we all know, digs IIMs. I just hope its less depressing this time.

Talking about the last month brings me to an interesting incident, a description of which I will title "How Anjul got to Hauz Khas market and got a 20/- scan done in 100/-". Background, well this particular university wants my transcript in an electronic version, because they aren't satisfied with the physical version that REACHED THEM A WEEK AGO. I happily tear open a sealed copy and take it to Nalanda, realizing too late the impossibility of scanning an A3 sheet on an A4 scanner. The lady directs me to the Hauz Khas market, and although I've lived for 3 years in South Delhi and all my life in Delhi, I have no freaking clue where this is. Actually, I do have a slight idea of where it *should* lie, and given that IIT is in Hauz Khas too, I embark on the journey on foot. A few panwaalas and unclejis later I find myself taking the longest de tour to reach something that looks like a a poor man's Aurobindo. I assume it to be my destination, and another hour later, find myself looking for the original market again, somehow inside Aurobindo itself. Sometime later I do soon find my place, but in locating the shop I'm looking for, I'm redirected to 236 distinct possible destinations. I reach a photocopy shop that has an A3 scanner which doesn't work. Catch: It takes 25 minutes to conclude that it doesn't work. I reach another shop, this time its a huge photocopy shop, more like a photocopy factory, where I'm sent to a recluse Ahmad sahab who has expertise in my kind of stuff. Why? Because they don't have an A3 scanner either.

Ahmad Sahab makes me wait 20 more minutes while he works on Mr. Batra's SPICE cards, and another unnamed dude's marriage greetings. He is a keyboard expert it seems, in love with the tab key for some reason. Anyway, he then scans this transcript of mine twice using an A2 scanner, with an intention of stitching them together electronically. A thousand tab keys later, he hands me a CD (which I had brought) with all the stuff nice and ready-to-use, indistinguishable from an A3 scan.

In hindsight, Ahmad Sahab rocked. Only, he charged me an exaggerated 100 for his services. But I was so pissed by this time I would have easily paid him a thousand. Satisfied finally, I took a bus back to college, not before I devoured an innocent aloo-ki-tikki.

Good night..

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