CAT 2005-The Incident
Now for eight Sundays prior to CAT I was going for a test series at
IES Bandra. When my admit card came and I found that I had the same
center, I was overjoyed. I felt that the familiar surroundings would
go a long way in soothing my nerves. So early morning November 20th
I started out on my usual route. I reached IES Bandra 45 minutes ahead
of schedule. After saying hello to a couple of known faces, I started
hunting for my number. Even after I hadn’t found it on any of
the three boards on display, I wasn’t really distressed. I figured
I’d either missed it or there were more boards somewhere. When
a second look failed to produce my room no. or any other boards, I started
to get worried. Seeing me scurrying about the registration number boards,
this bloke, probably the watchman, asked me for my admit card. He gave
it a cursory glance and exclaimed, ‘Tumhara center tho Dadar hai,
IES Dadar. Yahan kya kar rahe ho?’ (What are you doing here? Your
center is IES, Dadar.). My first reaction was, ‘Yeah, Right!’.
Then suddenly overcome by a horrifying foreboding, I looked at my card
again, and it clearly stated there, center: IES, Dadar. I started running.
I took a rickshaw and reached Bandra station with hardly 25 minutes to go for start of CAT 2005. A long serpentine queue greeted me at the ticket counter and a similar sight presented itself even at the coupon-validating machine. Frantically I called up my friend Swapnil and asked him whether a taxi could get me to my center in time. Doubtful, he said. The train was my only option. I could do two things, travel without ticket or drop the whole idea and go home. I didn’t have enough money on me to bail me out if I got into trouble with a TC and suddenly even the 69%ile to 90+%ile gap seemed to huge to bridge. I almost turned back. A train left for Dadar. I ran and stood inside it. After all what are the odds of running into a TC on Sunday morning, right? From Bandra station, to when I finally got out of Dadar station, three Ticket Collectors intercepted me.
A tall and hefty sardar got into the same compartment that I was in. From his bearing and clutched pencils and erasers, it was quite clear that he was on his way to CAT. I didn’t take any further note of him because at this point a TC entered our cabin. I shuffled over and parked myself right behind my fellow IIM aspirant. The TC came up to him and checked his ticket; I bowed my head and kept fumbling in my purse, and then suddenly the TC moved on to the next guy. He never saw me, bathed in sweat right next to him! After we got down at Dadar station, we got introduced (I forget his name, it started with R, that’s all I remember. We’ll call him R paaji for now). Midway through our discussion about CAT strategies on the bridge leading to east, we were stopped by yet another TC! I had by now mentally prepared myself to spend the night in jail. I went back to fumbling in my purse again, a silent prayer on my lips. R paaji showed the TC his ticket, grunted something about the number of times he would have to keep showing his ticket, and pulled me along with him…before the TC had time to realize that I was gripping my test series admit card inside my purse and not my ticket!
We got down from the bridge and ran into another TC standing at the foot of the bridge. ‘Hadh ho gayi yaar! Kithni baar check karoge?’, muttered R paaji and shoved the ticket in the TC’s face. Even I managed to squeak, ‘wohi yaar’, and moved on, all the while engaged in my time tested fumbling in the purse activity. This time I even managed to dig out a week old ticket! Not that I ever had to show it. R paaji was busy pulling me along telling me all about how private tuitions had proved a boon for him. We reached IES Dadar just as the papers were being distributed.
R paaji, if you’re reading this, let me thank you from the bottom of my heart. You were my angel that day.