Beautiful destinations have difficult roads | IIM Nagpur

Fast forwarding to my engineering days, I got into a college in Bhubaneswar and Pantaloons had become our go-to place for almost all kinds of shopping, more so on boring weekends when there used to be nothing much to do. I remember the kind of discounts that Pantaloons used to roll out which were the best among all other stores – offering the best products at the most compelling prices. Even being a student, shopping at Pantaloons wasn’t very hard on our pockets. In fact, I got my first pair of formal wear from there that were required to be worn during placements.

Coming to placements and the final year at my undergrad college, I got selected in four of the companies that visited our campus, which for me was a big achievement. I also decided to take the CAT that year (2014). Not because I had a very clear vision in my mind of who I want to become, but because everyone around me was writing it and post MBA prospects looked fantastic. I prepared hard, took coaching, studied for almost 5 to 6 hours after college daily and more n weekends. I was somewhat satisfied with my preparation and hoped to do well. When the results came out, I had failed. Failed to even touch the 80^th percentile mark. I was sad but got over it pretty soon. Since I already had a job offer with me, it didn't bother me much.

The next year I didn't write CAT. I had recently started working with a tech-consulting firm in Mumbai and was somewhat happy with my work. I interacted with a few of the senior members and client facing analysts at my workplace. They had really good and impactful roles to play in the project I was working on. Although the nature of every other analyst or consultant was very different, one commonality they had was an MBA. All of them. This motivated me to write the exams again, not only CAT but many others including XAT, NMAT, SNAP, etc. I registered for these exams in 2016. Although I couldn't prepare very well because of work commitments, somewhere within I felt I could at least fare one of the exams well and get into a college. When the results were out, I was more frightened than shocked to see my scores. Not only were they poor, but they were also worse than my previous attempt. I could manage to get only one interview call which I screwed up. I guess it took me only one question to screw my interview, which according to me was going more or less smooth until the end when one of the panelists asked me the name of Chief Minister of my state and I could not answer. What a shameful situation!

I was very disheartened with my performance. But since I was persistent enough, I decided to take the exams once again in 2017. That year I made a very strong resolute to crack the exams come what may. Things were in my favour, I had the perfect amount of work experience, was recently promoted. I even took a sabbatical leave from my organisation of about 4 months in order to prepare for them. I wrote the exams and I failed yet again. Worse, my scores had stooped even below the previous year's. I only realised it later that I had become very complacent in my attitude towards taking the exams and somewhat a feeling of overconfidence had set in me which said to me repeatedly “is baar to tera ho hi jayega”. In English, it means "this time you are definitely gonna make it.”

I had almost given up on pursuing MBA and started thinking of other career tracks. I had a work experience of almost 2.5 years by then and I counted it as a factor for rejection in MBA colleges since most colleges prefer experience within 2 to 2.5 years. Moreover, my job was getting more and more demanding by the day, with responsibilities piling up on my shoulders. I used to leave for office by 8 am and return by 10 pm, which sometimes could even extend up to 12 am. All exhausted, I could only crash on my bed and wake up the next day and repeat the routine.

But the thought of not being able to clear MBA entrance exams was eating me from within. It was already August of 2018. My competency and my dreams, both were in contention. My desperation to prove and frustration from repetitive failures were kind of beating me down. I thought to take the exams one last time and see what happens. I enrolled for all MBA entrance exams again and started preparations in full swing. I somehow managed to wrap up my work within 8 pm so that I could return home by 9-9.30pm. I took 30 minutes to relax and freshen up and then sat at my study table. I studied for about 3-4 hours daily after coming back from office and used to sleep at about 2 am. Waking up again 7 am the next day and continuing the same. This routine was extremely difficult to follow but it had to be done. I skipped all the parties and outings that my friends or colleagues used to plan. I didn't want to ruin my weekends since that was the only time I could catch up on my backlogs in preparations.

I took the CAT again. When I came out of the exam hall, I called my mom and cried like a baby. Because I had messed up my exams yet again. I was devastated. But there was this thing in my mind that there are other exams lined up which I cannot ruin because of my supposedly poor performance in CAT. I geared up, took all exams and didn't allow the vigour to wither. All exams were scheduled back to back on every weekend. The first joyful moment came on 31 December 2018 (and it felt like it happened after decades) when NMAT results came out and I saw that I had scored well above the approximate cut-off. I was happy but there was a lot of work to be done. A few days later SNAP results were also out and I had fared pretty well even there. I even aced the XAT this time. I am not mentioning CAT because I hadn't performed up to the mark and didn't expect a call from any of the IIMs. The interview processes of all these colleges were scheduled from February to March, starting February 1. I knew a lot was still left to be done and preparing for MBA interviews is no easy job. I had my interviews scheduled every weekend (owing to the number of exams I took and converted). It was again a very hectic period. Somewhere in the midst of all this, I got a mail from IIM Nagpur asking for my Expression of Interest for further consideration of my candidature for admissions. It was only then that I realised that there were some factors other than the CAT scores that helped me get an IIM call, mainly my work ex. This was the only IIM call I had and I had to convert it. I was very happy, though it was still a long way apart since there was one more round of shortlisting and its interviews were to be scheduled in the month of May.

I got the mail of further shortlisting and was called for interview on the 9^th of May. The interview went well. The result was to come on the 25^th of May. When it came I didn't feature on it. I was almost certain of joining another college in Pune. The I was about to leave for Pune, I got a mail from admissions team at IIM Nagpur that I had been shortlisted. That day my joy and happiness did not know any bounds. I was truly elated, thankful and grateful. I had never seen my parents happier than this day. I was truly ecstatic and happy from the core of my heart that I could make them proud.

And today I am here, sitting in my room D-24 writing this article, recollecting how my last few years have been like.

Some of the most important things that I learned in this journey is persistence, perseverance, working as hard as possible and not losing faith come what may! I believe these were qualities that I developed along the way, gaining experiences from failures and standing up even stronger than before.