Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.   

William Ernest Henley

Rendezvous

"Ede Davangere sir", said my fellow passenger after giving a not so pleasant jerk, to wake me from the slumber I was in. Given the way I was sleeping, I won't blame him for that. It was only a while back that I had spoken to her, to inform that I was at a 20 minutes distance from the city. But still then, here I was, sleepy at my best, when the train reached the station. Hurriedly I got down from the train, like those chaiwalas do, just before the train left. I had thought of this one particular moment over hundred times in the past. The moment when I will finally make it to Davangere to meet her, with her consent (well, not to mention, there were those other hundreds of times when I had thought of  meeting her out of blue). I believed it would be like a dream. It was indeed dreamy, only but literally. Huh, How I wish my life was like those of Yash Raj movies' heroes. After few more seconds of dreamy(sleepy) eyes on to the platform, it did dawn on me that I was indeed in Davangere. Finally.

Of the first few things that had come to my mind after getting to know my selection for IIM Lucknow, one of the prominent one was to meet her once before I left for Lucknow. For she was one of the most important rather most influential person in my life. I knew one thing for sure that it was in all ways my last chance to ask her to make herself free for a day. I felt things would chance full circle in next few years that her life would no longer be the same for me. So after lot of introspection, I had finally told her that I really meant it when I said that I wanted to meet her. May be for one last time. (In many ways this one was going to be our first meet too).

My first feeling after coming to terms was "Thanks Anu, Thanks you for letting this happen". For she had told him that it was only on Anu's insistence that she did decide to meet me in first place. So yeah Thanks to Anu,  here I was, finally about to meet my best and the dearest friend. I call her Princess Siddiqua.

It was 27th May 2012.

Many mistakes of life

I am at a juncture where in I can say I have completed 50% of my Post graduation. What is left is exactly what I have completed of PG. One month of internship, two(one) placement process and three terms. Life hasn't changed from what it was when I made my previous post. Its high time I made a list of mistakes i have made so far so that I could learn something out of it.Not all of them were mistakes when they happened. As it turns out its in retrospection that I realize that they were mistakes. While I can go on editing this post over time, for now I want to make a note of two big mistakes so that I could avoid such mistakes in future.

Mistake 1:
Deciding to not attend FMS interview after converting IIM Lucknow. 
Reasons for committing the mistake :  

• Perception of grand value of IIM tag.
• Failing to prioritize works. 
• No proper knowledge about how to decide a B-school.

 Others reasons could be:

• Smugness
• False pride of making to IIML (ranked 4th among best B-schools over FMS at 5th. How stupid I was)

 Reasons why that was a mistake in retrospection.

• Whether FMS is a better college over IIML is still debatable when I consider factors like ROI, Brand value and others. ROI was a very important factor which I should have given more importance. 
• The main reason why I consider it a mistake is I decided not to attend the interview itself. I decided to tank the interview of a college which was like a dream college to me. More sad thing was the reason I found for tanking the interview. I just prioritized my work more over a life time opportunity of making it to FMS. I should have made it to FMS interview. 

Things that could have helped in taking a better decision:

• I should have consulted Sandeep's brother who had just passed out of FMS and should have a got a better perspective of B-school decision factors. I was just hesitant and lazy to do that. There were hundred things I could have done to improve my decision and all I did was to bath in the glory of making it to IIML.
• I should have considered Pankaj's suggestion which he had articulated very well. Again I chose to ignore. I was hesitant to test the waters. I was stupid enough not to realize the gravity of the situation and things I was putting at stake.

 Lessons to be learned:

•  Learning to prioritize things.
• Value judgement
• Avoiding smugness
• Communicate

 

Mistake 2: Tanking the IBM interview in Summers

This was more of a gamble gone wrong rather than a mistake. I would say a honest and rather stupid mistake after looking at what happened at summers.



 

Work and Rest and not the other way

August 12th 2012

Its been 2 months into IIM Lucknow. Its been the most hectic 2 months of life. The cloud nine feeling of making it to IIML, has been subsided completely by the realities of where I stand in the crowd now. Its the most competitive world that I have seen so far, and I am just a close to average guy in this world.
The learning's has been immense. Defeats even better.
It was committee results today. I failed to make it to MCC, which I pursued till last 25. Agreed I could have done far better to make to the lot. The bad thing about my efforts was that they were not genuine. I lacked self confidence. Even more, I lacked the perseveration that was essential. I could have easily followed the Messcom task and could have made it to the list if only I had not wasted time after mid terms. It was the same with Bhavishya. I lost because I didn't deserve to win.
Life has changed big time after making it to IIM. I can no more brag of being the topper in academics all through my life. For I am a guy with weak academics among the crowd of IIML. Its time for me to realize my weaknesses and start working towards them. I dont wanna be just another guy after making it this far. Bygones are bygones. I resolve from today to work with more vigor and more serious then ever before. My target will be to score 7 cgpa. I don't know how realistic this is. But by what I know for now, its very much possible if I can put every effort that I can.