AIWTSAC - A journey to WIMWI aka IIMA

Okay, this is going to be a long one. I had been writing since a long time but didn't publish so any feedback is appreciated :)

A few days after new year's in Jan 2020, I met with an accident that led to a partial ankle ligament tear. When I found out at first, felt like everything was finished because I've been a person who was active on my feet always since undergrad. Then COVID hit and since I was already in a complicated relationship with someone (let's call her AB from now), it now became a long distance. I stopped moving at all, just bed, table, kitchen and was on the path to putting on an incredible amount of weight. The 1st wave gave me a lot of time with my family after a long time and made me stop bothering about anything else and AB made sure I was sane. May 2020 was the time when I decided to write a mock test for starting off as CAT had always been on my mind. That led me to start preparing, initially, I was able to manage but suddenly it became a rock hill to climb with work. Made sure I give time to AB at least 10 mins a day and she was understanding enough for that.

When CAT 2020 was over, I was shattered by my missing sectional cutoff and in a way fell into depression. CAT 2020 was the first time I gave in a lot for this exam apart from personal struggles. After scoring 99.60 overall and missing out on the sectional cutoff in VARC, it was a thing difficult to digest. I was about to consider therapy but then AB made sure I was fine and tried to get me out of it. Since I had already enrolled for CFA L1, I got back to it in a month and started the grind again to study. I was already at my peak weight and when I was about to start fitness in March, I got COVID and it stopped again. And then 2nd wave hit. To make things worse, my 4-month-old niece was detected with a rare problem (one in a million type) and I literally cried after a long time. I always wanted a sister in the house and she is much more than that. Since I was recovering from COVID and was isolated and by that time 2nd wave was at its peak so some of the family members decided to go to Jaipur for better consultation. There were times she was not able to breathe and we lost our breath too. With 60% air blockage, she was put on a ventilator and my family was running to find a good doctor. After 5 days on a ventilator, a courageous move was taken which was also the last resort, we decided to go ahead with the surgery. It had 90% chances and I remember talking to my brother that day, never seen him such helpless. All this time, my workplace was one hell of a pillar. I was told that I can take leave whenever I want and just a small text would do. On the day of surgery, every single person in the family was scared like anything and I cryingly sang a song for her before the surgery. The fact that while I'm writing my eyes are watery is a flashback of everything. My mom stood like a pillar, the strongest person I've known ever in my life, she made sure she handles everything. We were also aware of the fact that everyone in family present in the hospital is bound to get COVID. When the surgery was successful, she was brought back home. The next day, my sister-in-law started having symptoms and we found more COVID people in our house now. My mom thankfully didn't have any symptoms and then we decided my brother and sister-in-law will be isolated and we will take complete care of the baby. From learning how to hold the baby to changing diapers and making her sleep was one hell of a journey again. We tried to optimize our time in such a way that I could work as well (which was not a compulsion but the firm had already been too supportive) I decided to cut on sleep and not a moment I regretted an inch, I just used to make my cycle according to the baby and learned whatever I could from my mom so I could be not just a chachu but her elder brother. When everyone came COVID negative, the baby started showing problems again and we suspected that the problem was not fully resolved.

I was all set to start preparing for GMAT in May 2021 but while ordering the GMAT book, I just gave Pre-SIMCAT without preparation for the last 6 months, that changed my outlook, somehow I had the belief I can do it. I cancelled my GMAT book order and purchased test series of IMS and later of CL, TIME and Cracku.

Due to baby's condition, we decided to rush back to Jaipur and this time I went in (an opportunity to finally support my family), we didn't know how long we were going for but we just went. A week earlier I started my CAT 2021 journey already and didn't want to slack on it. In order to balance things, I cut on sleep again and made sure I don't miss a single mock meanwhile supporting the family. I was probably there for more than 2 weeks and I think I wrote 3 to 4 mocks in the bathroom because I didn't want to disturb anyone's sleep in the room. One of the nights, I went to ICU to take care of the baby for an hour but she started crying and was not keeping quiet, I was scared if something is wrong but then my neighbour bed in ICU aunty came in and made sure baby is fine (voh kehte hai angels do exist and enter our life in unexpected ways :) ). One of the days, she lost her breath for a moment and at another time in my life, I felt that fear of losing her. My brother, sister-in-law and doctors there with their urgent sense got the baby back in sense. The doctor released us after some time and she was put on heavy medication, some of them are not even given to adults.

After coming home, I continued with my prep and work and found a family in Dream Team and Goal Diggers, the set of people who could trust with anything and they became part of my life. I saw their scores on Pagalguy and I was like "Damm, this is way too much". Slowly, it became a habit to talk to them everyday.

It won't be justified if I don't call them out here (my extended fam). There have been many more folks so I'm sorry if I did miss any of you and it is just a small mistake of your brother.

@avi_.shrivastava - kya gawd scores hai iss banda ke and his vaani <3

@Mysterious10 - the gawd of gawds/mocks - my greatest source of inspiration and person I reached out first when things were going south

@prateek_ayush - the DILR gawd, CAT 20 mai kuch 20 min mai 2 biggest sets solve kar dia

@gangulysayann - the gawd profile

@escanor_7 - bawa bawa bawa, kamal ke bawa hamare - some insane discipline in life and scoring 140 in 2 hour mocks was like a normal day for him

@arvind1998 - converted his single best call, gawd for a reason

@darknite1409 - bhai patani kab padta hai but some insane VARC skills

@raman - if you need some motivation in life, this guy can overflow that with this insane hard work. I haven't seen many people as hardworking as him

@derRabe - when you score 194 after office work in a live mock, that's something beyond imagination. This guy probably has one of the highest contribution in my GWPI prep too

@dada_99 - youngest in our group and often used to scare us with his DILR score but truly a source of inspiration

@GadaElectronics - Kya gajab dedication hai Sir, I'm a fan to be honest

@vbond_007 - he was like younger brother but his sense of humour and VARC is beyond my threshold

@abhar4065 - the silent one in our group but when I spoke to him in one of the video calls, it was an amazing conversation, see you in campus <3

@Govind and @Nihal - great guys to have a conversation. I remember Nihal consoled me a lot after my VARC blunder.

@butterfly53 - the VARC gawdess, she did help a lot for improving my VARC

@yuwansid - his progress in VARC is something to learn from

Few more inspiring folks - @deepak, @parth8a, @sharmaji, @catasp2020, @mk510, @shubhjain12341, @asyp

Mocks - I analysed each and every single one of my 70+ mocks and especially the VARC section. We used to have calls after almost every mock and that changed my outlook to look at VARC. I started reading anything I could find and practising as many RCs as I can. The lowest point was when in a streak of mocks, I scored lowest in DILR which used to be my strongest suit. I called one of my mentors and together we figured out that I had burned out my energy and decided to take a break for 3-4 days and that meant just reading things I like but not solving anything.

A glimpse of my 2021 mocks master Sheet:

Mocks Summary View with percentile

Mocks Detailed View

Daily Plan

It was a roller coaster journey in terms of mock scores but giving a lot of mocks helped me calm down. Everyone around me knew I was not going to attend any party, any gathering whatsoever and people respected that. With the schedule of mocks - analyse - work - sleep - repeat, I started my ankle physiotherapy and started devoting an hour to that daily. Amidst this in October, I officially broke up after AB announced her engagement (I'll be forever indebted to all her support). All this broke me up like anything but I had one thing in mind, I'm not going to deviate from my goal. In November, I stopped physiotherapy for a while since I wanted to focus completely on CAT.

Day of CAT 2021 - I had the morning slot and same centre as 2020 so the flashback of screwing up VARC again comes back to me. I just went to my mirror and told myself - "Whatever happens today, I'll be proud of myself and my journey". As soon as VARC started, I zoned out again and first 12 mins - didn't do anything at all. I ended up changing my strategy which is generally not recommended and went to VA, I ended up doing all VA and 2 RC. DILR went smooth for a while and in the last 5 mins, I realised I missed the easiest set which I could do partially later. After I came out of the exam, I heard mixed reviews of VARC and I was scared like anything for VARC but that family of mine supported me like anything. They asked me not be anxious and wait for the key. Once the key was out, I was satisfied and that insane practice of probably 300+ RCs or maybe more helped me in VARC accuracy.

Final Scores:

After a few days of finally giving time to myself, I started interacting more with people whom I lost touch with and in January, as the calls were out - I was all set to start preparing for GDPI. Initially it was overwhelming since there was a lot to cover but I decided to explore myself more. I stopped going out again and for the last 2 months prepared in a dedicated manner. Met an amazing set of folks in the form of CA Discussions group (My DT Group + Stuti + Anshika + Palak). Spoke to AB, congratulated her on her marriage and decided to move on. I was honestly not happy with some of my interviews so was preparing mentally for the worst-case scenario.

Few glimpses of how my study wall looked like all this while:

At the center I wrote - SMILE (Because at the end of the day, that's what kept me going)

A sigh of relief when the Results were out:

It was always a dream to go to IIMA when I started this journey 2 years ago. When I checked the results, I cried a little (the tears of joy and the tears of hard work). I feel all these were part of my learnings to make me stronger and better.

Learnings:

1. Patience - mock scores can go up and down but you really need to believe in the process

2. Perseverance - whenever things go south, the one who gets back up again finishes the race

3. Hard work - you can work on your weaknesses putting in the required effort

4. Time management - many folks out there are working as well as studying. A lot of them did help me improve my time management. It's all about priorities

5. Importance of study group - if you are not self motivated enough to work hard, find a set of people who become your motivation to work hard

6. Hard truth 1 - it is easy to cry over things and hold on it but it's very damm difficult to move on and own up your shit

7. Hard truth 2 - there will be some people who will tell you - you are not good enough and you are not smart enough - just ignore and move on. You don't owe anyone an explanation.

There are countless individuals from Goal Diggers, CA Discussion and Le'Bancho and my family who have contributed immensely in this journey and I thank each one of them for all the continued support and guidance and if I intentionally/unintentionally said anything which hurt you, I apologise for the same.

Was the effort required? - maybe/maybe not!

Was it worth it? - hell yeah

Do I regret anything? - not an inch

Given a chance, I'd like to change anything? - Be more sincere probably

Is this end? - this is just the beginning of a journey, a lot more challenges lie ahead but this definitely prepared me for some

Enough of stories, now I should get back to my fitness which I ignored all this while with an all new challenge, a challenge to improve myself and a new me heading to meet an incredible set of people at IIM Ahmedabad and learn from them.

And, Thank you if you reached this far.

In case you are interested in profile:

10th - 10 CGPA

12th - 90.2% Undergrad - 8.2 CGPA (IIT Madras, Dual Degree in Chemical Engineering)

Working in financial services since July 2019

CAT'21 - 99.93 (GEM)

Signing off, knocknock_1008