Committed to.......life!

What Matters is Just the D Day!

2023-11-19T08:15:00.000-08:00

India won all their matches in this world cup except 1. Australia lost 2, one of them to India itself. But Australia will still go down in cricket history as World Cup 2023 Champions. No body would remember that they lost 2 matches. Nobody would care. Those 2 matches are irrelevant. And no body will care that India won most matches in the tournament-10 out of 11. Those matches don't count either. India lost the one that mattered most. That's the truth of life- you don't have to win every battle but just a few key ones!

Same is true for you CAT '23 aspirants too. Even if you rarely ever scored a 80%ile in your mocks but score 95%ile in CAT, it is the 95%ile that will count. It cuts the other way round too! If you consistently scored 97+ in mocks but could manage just 85%ile, then 85%ile it is. You don't get to claim your mock scores. No B-school is going to consider your mock %iles, no matter how impressive.

Coming back to Australia's victory, how did this happen? India are surely a stronger side, clear favorites for the cup throughout. In this very tournament, India bowled out Australia for less than 200 and then handed them a 6-wicket defeat with around 9 overs to spare. It was not even a competition that day. How did Australia beat a stronger side that was on a victory juggernaut and had high morale? Simple- it's all about that one day!! And we all know that the wind can blow in any direction on a given day. History of cricket is full of such examples where David defeated Goliath when it was David's day.

In my 14 years of experience, I have seen the same in CAT: students who never managed even 70s ending up in 90s! Those who did not even bother to apply for FMS, believing it was not even within the realm of possibility for them to get 98%ile, eventually clearing the FMS cut off (though still not getting FMS call because of not having applied for it) and those of other top B-schools. The point is- ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE ON THAT ONE DAY. Just as it is in Stock Market, past performance does not guarantee future returns and each day is a new one. So keep your chin up and believe in the possibility that 26 Nov '23 could be that one good day that you need! And one good day is indeed all you need 🕺

Talking about Stock Market, I hope Suzlon crosses 50 by the time I return from Pushkar. Those of you who know me, will know how Suzlon and I have a long history 😛

All the best
Your VARC mentor
Lokesh Sharma

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CAT Form- Your One Stop Guide to CAT Application form

2022-08-22T07:04:00.227-07:00

Author's Note
This blogpost is a work in progress. I will update this blogpost daily to address in it all aspects of CAT form and also include all the queries asked by students.

Background

CAT, the abbreviation for Common Admission Test conducted by IIMs, is the test whose score is used by hundreds of B-Schools in India as the first filter to shortlist students for subsequent selection process. By filling this form, you will also be applying to ALL THE IIMs but ONLY TO IIMs. You will have to separately apply to the non-IIM B-Schools that accept CAT score. The last date to apply to such a college will have to be confirmed from the college's website. Some important facts, figures and dates related to CAT are:

Important Dates
1. Application window 2nd Aug '23- 5 pm of 13th Sept 2023

2. Registration Form Edit Window: Shortly after 13th Sept for a brief period. Only those who had successfully submitted form will be able to edit
i. photograph
ii. sign
iii. test center

3. Admit card download: October 25 – November 26, 2023

4. CAT: 26th Nov '23

5. Result Declaration: 2nd week of Jan

Other details

Registration fee: Rs 2,400 (1200 for SC, ST, PwD)

Eligibility criteria: 50% in graduation or in professional degree (CA/CS/ICWA/ FIAI). 45% for SC, ST, PwD.

Participating colleges: 1211 (last year's figure)

CAT Score validity: Only for this academic session

About CAT

1. 3 slots of 120 minutes each

2. 3 sections:
Section I: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension
Section II: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning
Section III: Quantitative Ability

3. 40 minutes for each section (PwD get extra)

4. Cannot switch from one section to another

5. Tutorials on the CAT website in Oct

Caution: Beware of Youtubers desperate for views!

General Instructions

1. DO NOT RUSH to fill the form. Every year many students fill 2 even 3 forms simply because they make some rookie mistake in the earlier form and submit it too soon. Know that once you make the payment, you CANNOT EDIT the form. So do not make the payment before September.

Also, filling the form sooner DOES NOT increase your chances of getting the preferred center. Center allocation is done through a computerized algorithm which is set into motion after the window for form filling closes.

2. I will update this blogpost in coming days on the various Dos & Don'ts wrt CAT form filling. Read it patiently and then fill the form. You can fill form in multiple sessions. Just keep saving whatever you fill each time.

3. In the meanwhile, find a new email id and mobile number for form filling, because whichever number/id you fill will get calls/mails from the marketing team of all the 3rd class B-Schools for many months.

4. In case you are a reservation beneficiary on account of your caste/physical challenge/parents etc, make sure you apply for the relevant certificate now, in case you do not have an updated one. You CANNOT SUBMIT the form without a valid certificate this year. No change in the category will be entertained after CAT registration

5. Take out your 10th, 12th and college marksheets. In case you have CGPA/Grades instead of marks, see if the marksheets have a formula to convert those into %age. If not, contact your college/University to find that formula.

6. A photo in white background. You must look in photo as you presently do. You will need same photo on exam day in hardcopy.

I. Registration

This is something that must be done before you can fill the CAT form. You must create a User id and password on CAT website, using which you will later fill the form.

FAQ 1: I am a repeater. Can I use my last year's user id and password?
Answer: NO. You cannot use any previous years' user id and password and must generate a new one. However, you can use the same email id and/or mobile number you used in the previous year. Basically CAT does not recognise any previous year's user ids and passwords for present year CAT registrations. It is for this reason that you cannot download your admit card from last year now unless CAT provides a separate login for last year's CAT takers (CAT '22 scorecard download) where your user id and password from last year will still work.

FAQ 2: There is a login for Registration of Non-IIM institutions for CAT 2022. Shall I register here to apply for non-IIM institutes?

Answer: No. This login is NOT FOR YOU. It is meant for non-IIM institutes like MDI, IMI, IMT etc to register themselves. You have no business here. Kindly ignore this login.

Go to iimcat.ac.in and click on New Candidate Registration

In case the page does not upload, use a different browser. Usually latest versions of Mozilla Chrome and Edge browsers work best

i. Your name: Enter your name strictly as per your 10th Certificate. If your 10th certificate lists your name as Tyagi Ashish, then make sure you enter it as Tyagi Ashish and not Ashish Tyagi. Also, even if your name is different in 10th certificate and Aadhar, follow what is there in the 10th certificate. Basically, consider what your name is on 10th certificate and ignore any other document. In case you changed your name following due procedure after 10th class, you must enter your changed name and provide the supporting documents for change of name at the time of examination, interview and admission. Your name will automatically be filled in capitals whether your caps lock is on or off.

ii. Date of Birth: Again strictly as per your 10th certificate

iii. Email id: you may use your regular email id. However, in case your usual email id gets too many useless mails or if you would like to keep your mailbox from being spammed by every tom dick & harry BSchools that contact students, you may create a new email id which you can use for all BSchool applications and exams. Suggestion- ManikSarkarMBA2023@gmail.com! CAPITAL or small letters do not matter in email ids.

iv. Country: Ofcourse you will select India. Why do they ask it anyway? So that NRIs can apply and pay a much heavier fees, should they choose to join an IIM.

v. mobile number: I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you not use your own mobile number, especially if you are one of those who pick their calls. Instead use the mobile number of your grandfather, maid, younger sibling or some spare mobile number you have. Why do I suggest this? Nothing on earth can prepare you for the continued assault by the representatives of the most worthless Bschools who will keep calling you for next 2 years, hard-selling their ‘premier college’ to you. My father still gets calls that begin with the typical ‘Hi, I am calling from XYZ management school. Am I speaking with Mr. Lokesh Sharma?’. But what if the college is indeed a decent one? Well, my suggestion would be- never take admission in a college that calls you.

Do ensure that you have access to this mobile number as and when needed. Though, I would highly recommend that once you create user id and password, let your browser save the credentials so that you remained permanently logged in and thus never need this mobile number for OTP. But should an OTP be needed, you should have access to this number.

Name, Date of Birth, Mobile Number and Email Address cannot be changed once the registration is complete.

Once you have filled these details, click on GENERATE OTP and then carefully enter captcha. Note that you will receive the SAME OTP on both mobile number and email id. Enter the OTP in the space for it. Note that once you have verified the OTP, your mobile number and email id cannot be edited.

As the last step, checklist the ‘I agree’ box under Declaration at the bottom of the page and then again fill the captcha.

NOTE: The captcha is case-sensitive and it is alright to take 4-5 attempts to get it right. If you have trouble reading the characters, click the refresh icon right next to the captcha.

Click on SUBMIT and you will get a confirmation message. 👇

Also, you would get a pop up from the browser, asking you whether you wish to save the details. I strongly suggest that you click on Yes, unless you are not using your own personal computer. You will now receive an sms on the mobile number and a mail on the email id, both containing the same info i.e. your user ID and password. This user Id will now be your identity for CAT. Also this User ID is also your application number. Do save it somewhere safe, perhaps in a mail or in your mobile or on a whatsapp group where you keep all important info. In case you do not find the mail in the inbox, check your spam and other folders.

In future, if you forget your User ID/Password, click the Forgot User ID/Password button at the bottom of the login page after clicking on Registered Candidate Login on the

main page of iimcat.ac.in. The User ID/Password will be sent to your registered email address, and not on the registered mobile number.

In case you make a mistake in the registration, such as your name, date of birth or gender, and realise it once you have generated User Id and password, the only way then is to re-register with correct details using a different email id and same or new mobile number.

II. FILLING THE ACTUAL FORM

Having registered successfully, it is now time to fill the actual CAT form. For that you can either simply click on 'Click here to login' in the email from CAT (as highlighted in the image above) or login again to iimcat.ac.in and click on Registered Candidate Login (since you are a registered candidate now) which is right below New Candidate Registration. In either case, you will be directed to an entry page where you will fill your user id, password and captcha. You will now again be taken to the same page that you saw after successful registration completion. You will see 2 tabs right under CAT 2022 Application view- Applicant Details & Help Desk.

Tab 1: Applicant Details

This is the default tab that you will be at each time you log in after successful payment. Here you will see all the application details that you had filled during registration and your user ID

Tab 2: Help Desk
This is a new feature that you will now see. You can use it to ask your queries to CAT-appointed personnel. Click on this tab and then on the + button at the right side, right next to the refresh button (as shown in the picture 👉).

Once clicked, this icon will take you to a new page where you will find options to choose from the drop down list of Problem Category comprising 3 options- Application Form Related, Payment Related & Admit Card Related. You can then choose the query type from a second dropdown list (to choose the subtype of the nature of your query). Know that there is the option of 'Others' in the Problem Type dropdown list, in case you do not find any of the given options matching your concern. You can then explain the nature of your query in the Problem Statement in the form of text in approximately 150 characters. Finally you can attach a relevant photograph (in jpeg or jpg format) or pdf file in the Document Upload section. Click on blue-coloured tab that says SUBMIT at the right corner of the page. You can now expect a reply from CAT on your query in a few days.

Tab 3: Application View Pdf
You will not see this tab now but after you have successfully submitted the form.

However, the most important tab to appear will be the one at the upper right corner- GO TO APPLICATION.

Click on Go To Application and you will now be taken to the actual CAT application which comprises 6 different tabs-

A. Personal Details B. Academics
C. Work Experience
D. Programmes
E. Test City
F. Payment

Know that the information you fill here MATTERS and affects your chances of being or not being called for the next stage of selection. So it is of utmost importance that the information furnished here by you be accurate and as per the directives of CAT. Also, know that you can edit this form as many times as you want until you make the payment. Once you have made the payment, this form cannot be edited and you will have to refill a new form to correct a mistake, wasting your time, effort and money. Therefore, I would highly recommend that you fill this form not in one go but in rounds. In round 1, fill the all the details you have and note all that you don't. Then keep updating the remaining info in subsequent rounds. Whenever you wish to move to a different tab, click on SAVE & NEXT button at the bottom to save all the info entered. This way, you won't have to fill this information again when you login next time. Also, know that the boxes with a star/asterisk (*) are mandatory while others are not. So in case you do not have a middle name or a spouse, you can leave those boxes blank.

I will now take you through different tabs one by one.

A. PERSONAL DETAILS

This tab has 5 sections

A1. Personal Details

i. Name: this box is auto-filled using the info provided in the registration form

ii. Candidate's Name: It is not necessary that the first name here should match with the first name in i. In fact, the very purpose of asking your first name and last name again is to let you convey what you actually use as your first name, since some people have their first name and last name jumbled in 10th certificate (Sharma Lokesh instead of Lokesh Sharma). In case you do not have a middle name or even a surname, you can leave it blank. In case you have more than 3 words in your name- Rakesh Om Prakash Mehra-, then let Rakesh be your first name and Mehra be the last name. Put everything else in the middle name.

iii. Parents/Guardian: You can enter the name of your parents or guardians. Know that you can put the name of the same guardian in the boxes for Father and Mother. There is no need for any prefixes like Dr. Mrs, Mr, Col. etc. Just write their names as they appear on their PAN/Aadhar card. My father's name is Dr. J. B. Sharma but on Aadhar and PAN it is Jagar Bahadur Sharma, which is the one I would use in my CAT form. Also, in case there is any discrepancy in your parents' name (father's name is different in your 10th class certificate and his Aadhar card), then use the one in your 10th class certificate.

A2. Other Personal Details

i. Date of Birth: this is again pre-filled from the registration form.

ii. Gender: You would know this, hopefully.

iii. Nationality: Check your passport to be sure. Unless you are Akshay Kumar or something, you would fill Indian

iv. Category- This one is crucial. You cannot afford to make a mistake in this one. Know that General is the default category of any individual who does not have belong to any other given categories. So if you do not belong to Schedule Caste (SC), Schedule Tribe (ST), Non Creamy- Other Backward Caste (NC-OBC) or Economically Weaker Section (EWS), then you automatically belong to General category. Also, there is no certificate needed to support your claim of belonging to General category. However, for any other category, you would be required to furnish a certificate to that effect. But it is worth going through that hassle of getting and producing that certificate as members of these reserved categories have lower cut off than general category students and thus stand benefitted.

PS: You cannot choose any 2 of these categories. For example, you cannot choose both EWS and SC. EWS by default is meant only for those students who are from General category but meet certain criteria of financial challenges. Also, know that you self-belief that you are from EWS category is not enough. You must have a certificate from a competent authority that you belong to EWS category.

FAQ 3: I belong to XYZ category but I do not have an updated certificate/ but my old certificate expired some time ago. Can I still fill the form as a student of XYZ category?
Answer: YES. You can fill the CAT form using your old certificate and fill in all the details as per the old certificate. However, you will have to upload a consolidated pdf (merged pdf) containing
1. Your old/expired caste certificate
2. Duly filled undertaking.
You can download the undertaking format from the CAT website iimcat.ac.in under the heading Certificates. You can then take a print out of this form and fill it. Then take a picture of this filled undertaking and your existing caste certificate. Now use your mobile/computer to merge these two pictures into a pdf which you must upload in the Documents Upload section. While selecting the date of the certificate, if the date of your existing/old certificate is not acceptable to the software (let's say it accepts only certain years and your certificate is older than that), then put any date that is acceptable tot he software. You may put the date on which you are filling the form.

FAQ 4: I belong to XYZ category and I have a valid certificate but that certificate will expire before my CAT interview. Shall I apply for and wait for the new certificate to fill the form?
Answer: Apply for the new certificate ASAP and wait for it till the 2nd last date of the registration window. In case you get the new certificate by then, that would be perfect. If not, then fill the form using the present valid certificate normally (since your certificate is still valid as on date). Make sure you preserve this certificate till the interview to prove why the details of the caste certificate used while filling the CAT form are different from the new caste certificate which you will have by the time of interview. You must carry both certificates to the interviews.

FAQ 5: I belong to XYZ category but I do not have any certificate to support my claim as of this moment. Can I still fill the form as a student of XYZ category?

Answer: This is a little bit of an issue honestly. Ideally, a certificate has to be uploaded while filling this form. In case you di not have it, begin the process to get it immediately and see if you can get it before the last date of application. In case you are unable to procure it before the last date, then I suggest this: ask yourself - 'Am I absolutely sure that I belong to XYZ category?' Because if you claim in the form that you are but later during the interview you are unable to support your claim, then that would mean a disqualification. Now fill any date from 1 year ago and fill the State/UT you would be applying to for the certificate. Fill the other details as explained in FAQ 3. Finally, upload just the undertaking (explained in FAQ 3) in the Documents Upload section. And now make sure that you have that certificate before your interviews and hope that CAT accepts your application provisionally.

FAQ 6: I belong to EWS category but I do not know Serial/Entry Number of the Caste that I belong to. What do I enter?

Answer: You can leave that box blank. You would anyway be considered non-SC, non-ST, non-OBC category student if you have selected EWS category.

FAQ 7: I belong to SC/ST/OBC category but I do not know Serial/Entry Number of the Caste that I belong to or the Caste/Tribe name that I belong to. What do I enter?

Answer: Once you select your category (SC,ST,OBC), you will see some new boxes appear in the form. While you can fill up the Certificate Issue Date (only in case of EWS & NC-OBC) and State/UT using your old certificate, you can check Serial/Entry Number and Name of the Caste by clicking on the symbol 'i' in front of the respective boxes. Please note that these numbers may vary for the same caste from one state to another. So make sure that you look out for the number applicable to the caste in your state/UT.

FAQ 8: The caste cerificate issued to us by the government is in Hindi. Is it aceptable?

Answer: Yes. Your certificates can be either in English or in Hindi but not in any other regional language.

FAQ 9: I have a caste certificate but not exactly in the same format as the one on website. Do I need to get a new one? Can I fill the CAT form using this one?

Answer: It depends on whether the certificate you have has all the required information or not. If your SC/ST certificate fulfils the following conditions, you can upload the same certificate:

a. The certificate should have been issued by a competent authority.

b. The name of the caste and caste number should appear in the certificate.

c. The Ministry's resolution/order number should be available.

d. The certificate should be in Hindi or English only.

For OBC-NC certificate, following additional requirement should be met.

e. District and the State or Union Territory of your ordinary residence.

To know whether you belong to the NC-OBC category, see the following website: www.ncbc.nic.in/Home . Refer to the updated list of state-wise OBCs eligible for availing of the benefit of reservation, and information in respect of the creamy layer. The central government norms will govern the validity of the NC-OBC certificate.

The authorities competent to issue the certificate are: District Magistrate /Additional District Magistrate /Collector /Deputy Commissioner /Additional Deputy Commissioner / Deputy Collector / Ist Class Stipendiary Magistrate /City Magistrate /Taluka Magistrate /Executive Magistrate / Extra Assistant Commissioner /Chief Presidency Magistrate / Additional Chief Presidency Magistrate /President Magistrate /Revenue Officers not below the rank of Tahsildar /Sub Divisional Officer of the area where the person and his family normally resides /Development Officer.

Note: The certifying authority should be the one concerned with the locality in which the person applying for a certificate has his permanent place of abode. Revenue Authorities have been empowered to issue certificates on the basis of a certificate issued by an MP, MLA, Gazetted Officer, etc.

In conclusion, if your certificate meets the above requirements, you can use the certificate regardless of the format. However, if it falls short on even 1 of the above requirements, use the certificate to fill the CAT form as per FAQ 3 and then get a new certificate prepared ASAP.

FAQ 9x: The OBC certificate I have was issued by the state. Do I need OBC-NC certificate issued by the center?

Answer: You can use the certificate you have for now but do get one furnished by the center so that you can use the same in all states. For now, go as per FAQ 3

PwD & Scribe certificates

v. Persons with Benchmark Disability (PwD): In case you are a PwD, make sure you have a valid certificate before you fill up this part. Know that you cannot mention an approximation of your own assessment of the %age of your disability. This %age is determined only by a medical expert who then records it in the certificate. So it is highly advised that you first get this certificate prepared from the competent authority and only then fill this form. Get a UDID card made if you don't have one. Although UDID number is not mandatory in CAT application, it will ease the process in many such situations.

Know that you are required to upload a PwD certificate (as per the nature of disability), the format of which is available on the website under the heading Certificate. In case you do not have the certificate ready, you can still apply as a PwD candidate. You can download the undertaking format from the CAT website iimcat.ac.in under the heading Certificates. You can then take a print out of this form, fill it and upload after converting the picture to a pdf file and upload in the Documents Upload section.

Also, depending upon the nature of your disability, you may request for wheelchair support (although most such candidates bring their own wheelchair to avoid the hassle). Similarly, you may opt for a scribe/writer to write your paper in your stead. Note that CAT/IIM will not provide you with a scribe. You will have to arrange a scribe to accompany you on the test date along with duly filled scribe certificate, which you can download from the website (check picture above). On the day of the test, the scribe must bring a valid proof of identity and a passport sized photograph, and sign a declaration about his/her educational qualifications at the test venue.

vi. Covid Vaccination: this is optional. You may choose to leave this blank. However, if you have been vaccinated, all you need to do is download your vaccination certificate from https://www.cowin.gov.in/ using your mobile number and download the certificate which will have the dates mentioned. I suggest you keep this certificate in your phone for ready accessibility.

A3. Communication Address

i. Address Line 1: this is mandatory and other lines are optional, but try not to cram this one box. Use address line 1 for house number and floor, address line 2 for road/area name and address line 3 for village name. However, don't feel the need to use all the lines if your address is rather short
ii. Country, State, District: Once you select India from dropdown list, choose your state/UT and then from the list of districts, choose your districts. It's alright if you end up choosing the wrong district, which happens for many Delhites (you may think that you live in Central Delhi but technically your house lies in West Delhi). Just make sure you get your pincode right. You will have to manually fill your town/city. Just write the name of your city (Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Patna) if you are not sure.
iii. Email address & phone: Your email id and phone number would be auto-filled from your registration form. You may add an alternate email id or just leave it blank.

A4. Emergency Contact Details

This is used only in cases of medical emergency. You can fill your parent's/friend's/relative's number here but make sure you choose someone who would actually pick up the call should it come to that, and not someone like me who keeps his phone on silent 24*7.

A5. Document Upload

FAQ 10: Is it necessary to self-attest the documents before uploading?

Answer: No. You need not attest any document except the undertaking form, in case you fill it, at the space where it asks for your signature.

This is the last step of this tab. You must attach the relevant documents. For a non-PwD general candidate, this would mean just the passport-size photograph and signature. Contrary to what the website says, you can absolutely use your mobile phone to click your picture as well as capture the photograph of your signature on a white sheet. Similarly, you can click the picture of your other documents using your mobile and then convert them to pdf format after cropping them as required.

i. Passport Size Picture: Make sure that your picture is clear, against a white or very light background/wall, without any accessories such as cap, jewelry goggles and with a straight face looking straight into the camera. The picture should display your face & neck clearly. Note that only a Jpeg or Jpg format of file is uploadable here. So in case you have a different format, open that file with Paint software (present in all windows) and save the file as a jpeg file. Do not worry about the physical dimensions (length and breadth) of the photograph. As long as it is a passport-size photograph, it's dimensions don't have to be accurate. Also don't worry about how many pixelate. But do get
physical prints of the SAME photograph that you upload in your CAT form as you will have to affix the same photograph on your admit card which CAT will release in October and you will carry the same to your test center. I would highly recommend that you go through the Do's and Don't of the photograph, the link to which is given in the Upload Documents section and displayed here 👉

Note: The picture has to be a normal (colourful, not black & white) picture against a while or very light (light blue, light yellow) background

FAQ 10: The photograph I have is too big in size and also in a different format. How do I bring it to an acceptable format and size?

Answer: Click the photograph using your mobile, keeping in mind the pointers above and then mail this photograph to your desktop PC/laptop. Now save this file to your computer. Right click on the file to open it with 👈Paint. Now resize 👇 this photograph as displayed below. Once you have resized the photograph, click on Save As (check the screenshot below 👇) to save the photograph as a Jpeg image. Check the size of the new saved photograph and keep repeating this exercise till you get the desired size. In the example below, I have reduced a 6 mb file to 510 kb size. Follow the same process for signature as well.

FAQ 11: Do we need our name and DoB under our photograph for cat form filling?

Answer: No

FAQ 11: How recent should my photograph be? Can it be 9 months or 1 year old?

Answer: Actually, it DOESN'T MATTER how recent your photograph is as long as you look like your photograph. If your photograph is a year old, perhaps from last year's CAT and you still look the same, you might as well use the same photograph and you won't have any issues. However, if your photograph is 2 months old but your face has changed substantially since then- you have lost/gained a lot of weight, have a different beard style or hairstyle, you now wear spectacles- then you must get a new picture. The person at the entrance will match your photograph with your actual face and the two should be identical enough for him to be confident that the person in the photo graph is same as the person in front of him.

Trivia: My Guruji was not allowed to enter the examination premises as his face (with a thick beard) did not match the clean-shaven look in his photograph 😄

ii. Signature: take a white paper and sign on it using a blue/black colour pen. Use the same process (described in FAQ 7) to resize the picture to less than 80kb.

iii. Other certificates: In case you belong to a category other than General and/or are a PwD candidate, then upload the relevant documents in pdf format. Click clear pictures of your documents using your mobile and then convert them to pdf format after cropping them (if required) using Paint or Microsoft Office Picture Manager.

FAQ 12: What is the criteria governing EWS category? Who is eligible to benefit from the reservation for EWS candidates?

Answer: Persons who are not covered under the scheme of reservation for SCs, STs

and OBCs and whose family has gross annual income below Rs 8OO lakh (Rupees

eight lakh only) are to be identified as EWSs for benefit of reservation. Income

shall also include income from all sources i.e. salary, agriculture, business,

profession, etc. for the financial year prior to the year of application.

Also persons whose family owns or possesses any of the following assets

shall be excluded from being identified as EWS, irrespective of the family income:-

a. 5 acres of agricultural land and above;

b. Residential at of 1000 sq ft. and above;

b. Residential plot of 100 sq. yards and above in notified municipalities;

d. Residential, plot of 200 sq. yards and above in areas other than the

notified municipalities.

Note 1: The property held by a "Family" in different locations or different places/cities

would be clubbed while applying the land. or property holding test to determine

EWS status.

Note 2: The term "Family" for this purpose will include the person who seeks benefit

of reservation, his/her parents and siblings below the age of 18 years as also

his/her spouse and children below the age of 18 years.

Once you have uploaded all the documents, you will see UPLOADED right next to Click here to upload.

Click on SAVE & NEXT at the bottom of the page to move to the next tab.

PS: The form will not let you SAVE & NEXT until you have filled all the *mandatory columns, including photograph and signature. So fill some random info for the time being in order to move to the next tab, if you do not have the answers to some questions. You can always edit this info later.

B. ACADEMICS

This tab too has 5 sections

B1. SSC/10th equivalent Details

Make sure you have in front of you your 10th class marksheet when you fill this section. All the details you need here will be on that Marksheet

i. Board name: choose from the drop down list the name of the board. You will find the name of your board at the top of the marksheet. While for a lot of us it would either be Central Board of Secondary Educator or Indian Certificate of Secondary Education, many of you would have state boards which you can choose from the list. However, in the remote case that you do not find your board in the list, you can choose the last option in the list i.e. Other Boards

ii. Month/Year of Completion: it is usually mentioned at the end of the marksheet in the form of complete date. In case it is not mentioned, you can simply put the month in which you took your 10th class exams (usually March or April). Know that as long as your year mentioned is correct, it doesn't really matter what month you had filled.

FAQ 17x: I passed 12th in May, 2016 but appeared for improvement in 2017 whose result was declared in April 2017. What should be the year of completion?
Answer: It depends on when you started your graduation. If you graduation began in 2016 itself on the basis of your original marks, then you will have to put May,2016 as your 12th completion month, year since your graduation cannot begin till your 12/diploma is complete. The form will not accept August 2016 as your graduation commencement if your 12th completion is April 2017. However, if your graduation started after April 2017, then you may choose April 2017 as completion month, year for 12th.

iii. Maximum Marks: Usually each subject carries maximum 100 marks. So add the maximum marks of each subject. If there are 5 subjects, the maximum marks would be 5*100 i.e. 500. Similarly for 6 subjects it would be 600 marks,

iv. Total Marks Obtained: Add the actual marks you obtained in each of the 5/6/7 subjects and enter them here.

v. Aggregate Percentage: to calculate the %age, keep the Total Marks Obtained in the numerator, Maximum marks in the denominator and then multiply this fraction with 100. For example, if someone has scored 421 marks out of 600, then the %age will be 421/600 * 100 = 70.166. This must be rounded off at the 2nd decimal point i.e. to 70.17. Similarly, 416 out of 600 will lead us to 416/600 *100 = 69.333 which will be rounded off at the 2nd decimal point to 69.33. Basically, the box accepts score only till the 2nd decimal point. So if the number at the 3rd decimal point is equal to or greater than 5, then increase the number at 2nd decimal point by 1 (70.166 to 70.17). But if the number at 3rd decimal place is less than 5, then let the number at 2nd decimal place be what it is (69.333 to 69.33). In the marksheet attached, the student has scored 497 subjects across 6 subjects. Hence his %age is 82.833, rounded off to 82.83.

Similarly, in 👈 this marksheet, the student has scored 497 marks from 6 subjects with each subjects carrying maximum marks of 100. Hence the %age will be 497/600 * 100 i.e. 82.833 which will be rounded off to 82.83. Please note that the %age calculated by the board here is 85.40 since it has considered the best of 5, however, the %age to be filled in CAT form by this student (and he is one of my favorite students) must take into account all the 6 subjects mentioned on the marksheet. The relevant guideline on this released by CAT is: "for computing percentages of marks obtained in SSC/10th/Equivalent examination and HSC/12th/Equivalent/Diploma examination, the total marks of all subjects that appear in the mark sheet/grade sheet would be considered irrespective of the Boards regulation". It would be a grievous mistake on account of the student to fill 85.4 instead of 82.83, especially since it would bump his %age from the 80-85 bracket to 85-90 bracket. His candidature may be disqualified at a later stage because of this error. In case someone has made this mistake and submitted the form, the only way to rectify it is to fill another form, which will automatically supersede the previous erroneous form.

The student need not consider the other 5 subjects (Social Service, Personality Development etc. )for which only grades have been awarded without any guidance on how to convert those grades to marks. However, if there is way to convert those extra subjects to CGPA/marks mentioned on the marksheet, then you must convert those grades to CGPA/marks and then calculate the final aggregate CGPA which would include the earlier subjects for which clear CGPA/marks were given and these subjects for which only grades were given.

FAQ 13: I have 6 subjects in 10th out of which 1 was an elective subject/language which was not compulsory but I chose to take it. Can I calculate my %age on the basis of the other 5 and leave the elective out? Or will I have to include all subjects?

Answer: You must include ALL SUBJECTS' MARKS MENTIONED on the marksheet while calculating your %age. It could be a huge disadvantage for some one you who have very low marks in one or two subjects, bringing down the entire %age significantly, but know that you do not have option here. You have to mandatorily include all subjects that are mentioned on your marksheet. Read the explanation in 'v. Aggregate Percentage' above to know more.

FAQ 14: In my 10th class marksheet, instead of marks I have grades/grade points (GP) for each subject as well as overall CGPA. How do I calculate my total marks, marks obtained and aggregate %age?

Answer: In such a case, you need to use the overall CGPA and convert it to %age. Every board/institute has a formula for such a conversion and it is usually mentioned on the marksheet, mostly on the backside but can be on the front as well (as is the case in the marksheet above 👆). In most such cases, the board/institute asks you to multiply the CGPA by a factor to reach the overall %age. For example, in the above marksheet, the board has mentioned that Overall Indicative Percentage of Marks = 9.5 * CGPA. Since the overall CGPA is 8.6, the Percentage will be 9.5*8.6 = 81.7. Now you can use this %age to reverse calculate the marks obtained as follows: since we have total 5 subjects and we know that the overall percentage ('per cent' means 'per 100'), the Maximum Marks would be 500. Total Marks would be 81.7% of 500 i.e 408.5.

Note: The Maximum Marks box requires a whole number but Total Marks Obtained can have a decimal, hence 408.5 will be accepted.

Let's take a look at another example

👈The student here has a perfect 10 CGPA. As per the board's guidelines, Overall Percentage is to be calculated by multiplying 9.5 with the CGPA. Hence the %age = 9.5 * 10 = 95%. Now that we have the %age, we can calculate the Total Marks Obtained by calculating 95% of 500 (since there are 5 subjects and we know that per cent means per 100). So 95% of 500 is 475, which is the number to be entered in Overall Marks Obtained.

FAQ 16: What if my marksheet has grades/CGPA but no mention of how to convert those grades/CGPA to %age?
Answer: Although this is highly unlikely, but in such a scenario where any Board/Institute/University awards only letter grades and CGPA without providing an equivalent percentage of marks on the grade sheet or a way to convert those grades/CGPA to %age, the candidate should obtain a certificate from the Board/Institute/University specifying the equivalent marks or the conversion procedure, and the conversion to percentage of marks would be based on this procedure as certified by the respective board/University/Institution. If any board /University/Institution confirms that there is no scheme for converting CGPA into equivalent marks, the equivalence would be established by dividing the candidate's CGPA by the maximum possible CGPA and multiplying the result with 100. For example, if the CGPA obtained by the student is 8.7 and the maximum CGPA is 10, then the %age will be calculated as 8.7/10 * 100 - 87%.

PS: The original equivalence certificate needs to be submitted at the time of interview.

FAQ 16x: My marksheet has 6/7 subjects with Grade Point (GP) for each subject but the combined CGPA given takes into account only 5 main subjects. What should I do?
Answer: You need to disregard the given CGPA and calculate a new CGPA taking into account the GP of all the subjects on the marksheet. Calculating CGPA is pretty much like calculating %age. Simply add the GP of all the subjects and then divide this sum by the number of subjects. For example, in the adjacent picture, the student has secured GP in 8 subjects- 8,8,7,7,9,9,9,10. If you add all of these, the sum would be 67. Dividing 67 by 8 (number of subjects) gives us 8.375. Since the CGPA have maximum 2 decimal points, we can round off the 2nd decimal point to 8 (next number at 3rd decimal point is equal to or greater than 5), making is 8.38 as displayed in the marksheet. You can now convert this final CGPA into %age as per the formula on your marksheet or the one provided by your college/university.

FAQ 15: I have 11 subjects in 10th out of which marks/Grade Point (GP) were awarded for 6 and rest of the subjects were assessed in grades. Also, there is no prescribed formula in the marksheet to convert those grades to marks or GP. How shall I include them in my aggregate percentage?

Answer: Leave those subjects. They are not to be considered. In the 10th marksheet shared alongside, there are 5 such subjects for each of which the student has been awarded grade A. These grades is not to be included in the CAT form anywhere. However, the student must include the marks of all the 6 subject given on this marksheet and calculate his aggregate %age which would come out to be 74.33, and not enter 78.60 (displayed on the marksheet and calculated on the basis of top 5 subjects).

FAQ 17: There are 6 subjects on my marksheet mentioning their individual grade point/score but the overall cgpa/%age given on the marksheet is based on only 5 subjects as 6th subjects is my optional subject. What should I do?
Answer: You must ignore the CGPA/%age given on the marksheet and instead calculate new %age/cgpa taking into account the marks/grade point of all the subjects, as demonstrated in the previous FAQ. You will then convert this new CGPA (it case you have GP for individual subjects instead of marks) into %age as per the formula on your marksheet.

FAQ 17: I have 7 subjects in 12th class marksheet but was absent in one of the exams for which no marks have been awarded, instead it says 'Ab' against that subject. How do I include that in my aggregate?
Answer: CAT has not answered/addressed this till now. One interpretation could be to consider Absent as zero but that significantly decrease your aggregate. My suggestion would be to leave this subject out for now. You can anyway claim innocence later in case they question you on this, hiding behind ambiguity/lack of clarity. This is only a suggestion which you may follow at your own risk. You may also write to CAT desk asking for clarification.

B2. HSC/12th/Equivalent/Diploma

Everything here is same as for SSC/10th. So in case you have any query/concern here, I suggest you read B1 in its entirety. Chances are you will get your answer

In case you have a diploma, click on the radio button next to Diploma and fill the details. The only extra info required in case of Diploma would be the Duration and the Commencement date. Apart from this, all details are same for 12th and Diploma.

PS: You cannot select both 12th and Diploma. So even if you have completed both, you can fill just one. Use the one where you have greater %age.

FAQ 17x: I had appeared for the improvement exam in 12th. Which marks do I need to fill in there for CAT form, the improvement one or the original?
Answer: You can fill the improved marks (assuming they were more than the original) but do carry to the interview both the original marksheet as well as the one with improved marks.

B3. Bachelor's Degree Details

I believe this is the one which would require most explanation and will have most queries.

FAQ 18: I have just entered 5th semester. Am I eligible for CAT this year?

Answer: Depends. If you are in a 3-year (6 semester) degree and you have entered the 5th semester i.e. your final year of graduation, then yes, you are eligible. A student can take CAT in his final year of bachelor's degree. Similarly, if you have just entered or are about to enter the 7th Semester/4th year of your 4-year bachelor's degree, you are eligible for CAT. However, if you have just entered or are about to enter 3rd semester of a 3-year degree or 5th semester of a 4-year degree, then you are not eligible. You can take CAT next year. In short, ask yourself the following question- will all the exams of the last year of my bachelor's degree be complete by August next year? If the answer is yes, then you are eligible for CAT this year, otherwise not.

i. Are you in the final year of bachelor's degree: if you are in the final year of graduation, then of course you will choose YES. However, if you have otherwise completed your graduation, but there are some exams/backlogs whose results are still pending, then too you need to choose YES (and enter 6th semester/8th semester i.e. the final semester of your bachelor's degree). Basically, if you expect any change in your aggregate graduation %age, perhaps on account of pending result or some compartment/retest without which your degree won't be complete, then you need to mark YES, here.

Also, if you are pursuing a dual degree (Bachelors+Masters like BA-LLB or BCA-MCA), then too you must click No, regardless of whether you are in your final year or not.

Only 3 type of students can afford to mark NO here.
a. Those who have completed their graduation and hence their graduation score will not change henceforth
b. Those who never went for graduation/ do not wish to declare their graduation and will fulfil this eligibility criterion throng some professional course like CA/CS etc.
c. Those in the final year of their dual degree

FAQ 19: I have aggregate percentage of all my three years degree. Should I consider that percentage or CGPA marks which is for only third year?

Answer: Use the marks of ALL THE SEMESTER whose results have been declared till now to calculate your aggregate %age as on date. So if the marks for first 4 semesters have been declared, but the result of 5th semester is pending, use the marks of all 4 semesters and whatever %age they lead to must be filled. In short, jitne semesters ke marks hain, unko use karo aur %age calculate karke fill kar do. Similarly, if you have the results of first 3 years of an 4-year degree, calculate aggregate %age till now taking into consideration marks of all the subjects form all the 3 years.

FAQ 20: I am in the final year of my bachelor's degree. Do I need to submit any final year certificate in my CAT form?

Answer: No. You not need to submit any proof of your percentage nor submit any certificate in the CAT form. All you need to do is to enter your aggregate %age of the results declared so far. I have explained this in detail ahead.

ii. Have you completed your bachelor's degree: If your answer to the question in the previous step was Yes, then you need to skip this question altogether. However, if you marked NO as your previous answer then
a. Mark YES if you have actually already completed your graduation or dual/integrated course with no result pending.

b. Mark YES if you are in the final year of your dual/integrated course.
b. Mark NO only if you do not intend do declare your graduation/did not purse graduation and will fulfil this eligibility criterion through some professional course like CA/CS etc. which you MUST HAVE COMPLETED by the time of filling this form.

iii. Total Duration of Degree: choose from the dropdown list. In case you have a dual degree, you can bifurcate the total duration into bachelor's and master's. For example, if you have a 5 year dual degree, then you may split it into 3 years of bachelor's and 2 years of masters' degree. Alternatively, you may keep 4 years for bachelor's and 1 year of master's. It would be best to ask your college seniors/professors/administration on what part of the course is considered bachelor's and what part master's. Note that you will have to fill separate marks for graduation and master's degree accordingly.

FAQ 20x: I did diploma after 10th, after that I got admission in 2nd year of engineering which I completed in 3 years after diploma but engineering is of 4 years course. In CAT form they are asking about course duration then what should I select 3 years or 4 years

Answer: Choose Diploma in B2 and fill the details as explained above. Now while filling Bachelor Degree details, choose the duration as 3 years since the duration for you was 3 years.

iv. Current Semester: you will see this column only if you had marked YES in i. Please choose from the drop down list your ongoing semester. Don't be bothered by whether you have the result of all the previous semesters or not. Just pick the semester presently underway. In case your college does not have semester system, choose semester 1 for 1st year, semester 3 for 2nd year, semester 5 for 3rd year and semester 7 for 4th year. In case your final year/semester exams are over but you have not received the result yet or some other exams like practicals are still to be conducted or you have appeared for some supplementary exams whose result is awaited, choose semester 8 (if you have 4 year/8 semester degree) or choose semester 6 (for 3 year/6 semester degree).

v. Type of University/Institution: you would know if you are in an IIT, NIT or foreign university. If you are not, you may confirm with your seniors/professors/administration whether your university is deemed to be a university (like Thapar University, Patiala), State University (like GGSIPU, Delhi) or Central University (like Delhi University) or Private University (like Lovely University). In case you are not sure, you may make your best guess and move ahead. This is one information which you can afford to be wrong at. It doesn't really matter if you get this one wrong.

vi. State/Union Territory of University: Most universities have on their website clearly mentioned their state/UT of affairs. In case you are in doubt, just choose the state/UT where you attend college. In case you are a distance education student, choose the state/UT where this university if physically located if you are unsure. This is yet another piece of info which is not crucial and thus you need not be too concerned here.

vii. University/Institute Name: in case you are able to find the name of your university in the drop down list, select it. Else, just choose 'Others', in which case you know that your University is definitely not a great one.

Note: If you are from Delhi University, choose 'Delhi' from the dropdown list.

viii. Name of College/Institution: you need to type in the name of your college/institute. In case the name of your university is same as that of the institute (TIET, DTU, NSTU), just type the same here. Type the full name of your college/institute here i.e. type Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology instead of MSIT, if the space allows.

ix. Degree Name: choose your degree from the drop down list which is pretty comprehensive. In the off chance that the name of your degree is not in the list (I would be really interested in knowing what the fish you are studying), choose 'Others' from the bottom of the list.

x. Discipline: choose your discipline/specialization from the drop down list which is again very comprehensive. In most cases, the name of your discipline would be mentioned in your degree itself. In the off chance that the name of your degree is not in the list (you must be studying some really strange subjects), choose 'Others' from the bottom of the list.

Note: If you are pursing BA English/Urdu/Hindi, you can choose 'Languages'

xi. Graduation Stream: there are just 2 choices here - engineering and non-engineering. In case you are in a 4 year Btech /BE degree (which you may have joined directly from 1st year or after diploma from 2nd year) or a dual degree that includes Btech (for example Btech+Mtech, Btech+MSc), then pick engineering. For anything else, pick non-engineering.

PS: Know that weirder/less common your graduation stream, higher the chances of a call by top Bschool because of the diversity you bring. Which is the one stream at highest disadvantage- engineering!!

xii. Month/Year of Course Commencement: this is usually mentioned on your degree (August 2009- July 2013). However, in case you are unable to find it or if you do not have your degree yet, just fill the month and year in which you joined college i.e. when you attended your first class or enrolled. This is not a column that matters.

FAQ 21: My college eventually started in January 2021 even though it was supposed to start in August 2020 (due to the pandemic). What should I fill as the month and year of my course commencement?

Answer: Course completion Month, Year (minus) Course duration = Course commencement

If your course completed in June 2022 and it was a 3 year degree, enter June 2019 as course start.

xiii. Probable Month/Year of Completion: the word 'probable' would be visible only to those in final year of graduation i.e. those who chose Yes in i. Fill the month and year in which the final year exams of your degree would be conducted in best case scenario. To those who have completed, you can find this on your graduation degree. In case it is not, you too can enter the month and year in which you appeared for the last exam of your bachelor's degree. This column would matter to those who have work experience. In case you do have work experience, fill the month and year in which you took the last exam of your bachelor's degree. For example, if you took your last graduation exam in July 2021,. you can show work experience from August, 2021, even if your graduation degree shows November 2021 as the date of award of degree.

xiv. Marks % awarded by University/Institute: if your graduation is complete, enter the aggregate %age provided by your college. CAT guideline says, "for graduates and postgraduates, the aggregate percentage of marks awarded by the Board / Institute / University will be treated as final. If the Institute/University does not award the aggregate percentage of marks, it will be calculated based on the marks obtained in all subjects listed in the mark sheet". So remember, if your graduate degree/consolidated marksheet does specify an aggregate %age, then that's the one you need to fill. In case it has just marks, then calculate the aggregate %age taking in account ALL THE SUBJECTS ON THE MARKSHEETS and enter the %age upto 2 decimal points, rounding off as demonstrated for 10th class %age above. In case, your college/University does not provide clear %ages, then look for the formula given on the marksheet (front or back) to convert the final CGPA into %age and use that. In case your college/university does not have any way to convert CGPA to %age and the same has been communicated to you by the University over mail or in writing, then use the following formula to convert CGPA to %age : divide the CGPA obtained by maximum CGPA and multiply by 100. For example, if you have final CGPA of 6.8 and the maximum CGPA was 10, then divide 6.8 by 10 and multiply the result by 100, making it 68%.

FAQ 22: I am in the 5th/6th/7th semester of my graduation degree but I do not have the marks of the last one/two semesters as those marks are yet to be declared or because those exams have not been conducted yet or because there was mass promotion without exams. How shall I calculate my aggregate %age?

Answer: Use the marks of the semesters whose results have been declared to calculate your aggregate %age. So if the marks for first 4 semesters have been declared, but the result of 5th semester is pending, use the marks of the first 4 semesters and whatever %age they lead to must be filled. In short, jitne semesters ke marks hain, unko use karo aur %age calculate karke fill kar do. Similarly, if you do not have marks for first 2 semesters because of mass promotion without any exams but have the results of next 2-3 semesters, then use those 2-3 semester results to calculate your aggregate %age. You need not mention anywhere how many semesters' results you have used to reach this aggregate %age nor do you need to provide any justification for the semesters whose results you do not have. You may simply calculate the percentage by adding the marks obtained in all semesters and divide this sum by the total maximum marks of all semesters. Now multiply this value with 100. In case your college awards SGPA/grades instead of marks, confirm with your college/university the way to convert these grades/SGPA to marks or %age. In case there is no clear way, simply take into account the marks obtained and calculate simple %age.

Note: You must take into account the marks of ALL THE SEMESTERS/YEARS WHOSE RESULT YOU HAVE and you CANNOT fill as per the marks of the most recent/last semester/year.

FAQ 22: I am in 3rd year of my college. My university has not declared the results of 2nd year still. What should I do? Is it possible to fill form on just 1st year result marks?

Answer: Yes. Calculate the aggregate %age on the basis of 1st year marks and fill that.

FAQ 23: I am in XYZ semester of my graduation degree but I do not have ANY MARKS since no exams were conducted or because the results of whatever exams have been conducted have not been declared yet. How do I calculate my aggregate %age?

Answer: CAT does not recognise this scenario anymore. There was a provision for this till CAT 22 as there were some students whose graduation started in 2020 and did not have any exams in 2020 and 2021. However, CAT assumes that all graduation/undergraduate students will have atleast some marks to show.

xv. Have you completed or are you undergoing a dual or 5-year integrated course: Mark YES if you are pursuing or have completed a dual/integrated programme like BBA+MBA, Btech+Mtech. Note that in case you are in the final year of the dual/integrated programme, it would be considered that you have completed your graduation and are pursuing masters. In case you have completed your dual/integrated programme, then it would be considered that you have completed both your graduation and masters. In both the cases, you will fill in the details of the graduation years & marks of your dual degree (as prescribed by your institution) in the section for Bachelor's Degree Details. Similarly, you will fill in the details of the post-graduation years & marks of your dual degree (as prescribed by your institution) in the section for Master's Degree Details.

FAQ 24: I am a General/EWS/NC-OBC category candidate and got 49% in the Bachelor’s degree. I have also completed Master’s degree with 51%. Am I eligible to apply for CAT 2022?
Answer: No. As per the CAT eligibility norms, you should have obtained 50% or more in the Bachelor’s degree (45% for SC/ST/PwD). Following the norm, you are NOT eligible to apply for CAT 2022.

FAQ 25: I have not pursued graduation OR I have entered 2nd year of graduation but I have a professional degree (CA/CS/ICWA). Am I eligible for CAT?
Answer: Yes. All those who have any one or more of these professional degrees- CA, CS, ICWA- are eligible for CAT even if they do not have a graduation degree. Note that your professional degree must be complete at the time of filling the CAT form.

PS: While your professional degree makes you eligible for exams like CAT and XAT, some other exams and colleges do not recognise professional degree as eligibility criterion and require a bachelor's degree to meet their eligibility criterion.

FAQ 26: I have not pursued graduation OR I have entered 2nd year of graduation but I am in the final year of my professional degree (CA/CS/ICWA). Am I eligible for CAT?
Answer: No. In order to be eligible for CAT, you either need to
a. be in the final year of graduation while you take CAT in November and thus be able to complete your graduation by August next year. OR
b. should have completed your graduation already while filling this form. OR
c. should have completed your professional degree by the time you fill this form.
In case you fulfil any one of the above 3 conditions, you can apply else you are ineligible. In short, those who have neither pursued graduation nor completed their professional degree cannot apply for CAT.

xvi. Click here if you have more than one Bachelor's Degree: in the off chance that you have more than one bachelors (for example BCom + LLB or BE + BPharm or Bsc + Btech or Bsc + MBBS) then you may click on the checkbox and proceed to fill the details of the other bachelor's degree, just as you did for the previous one. While it won't fetch you any extra marks for having 2 bachelor's degrees, it will help you justify the otherwise long gap in your academic cycle which would be hard to explain in the absence of this 2nd bachelor's degree.

FAQ 27. In case a student fills the details of 2 bachelor's degrees, which one will be considered by CAT for shortlisting i.e. which one would be considered for assigning diversity marks and also score for graduation %age?
Answer: We do not know this. We have sent a query to CAT and will update this section once we hear from them. It is possible that they too may not have a defined policy on it yet.

B4. Master's Degree Details

While this section is optional i.e. you may choose to enter the details of your master's degree, I would highly recommend that you do fill the details of the master's degree if you have completed the degree or will have completed it (will have appeared for the exams of the final year) by August next year. My recommendation is based on the following benefits
a. some colleges award extra marks for students with master's degree
b. it will help you justify the gap between your bachelor's degree and CAT
c. you may get some extra consideration on the basis of the diversity you would bring as there are only a few applicants with master's degree.

However, if you are in the first year of your 2-year or 3-year master's degree, I suggest that you do not declare your master's degree as you will not get any extra marks for master's degree and will also have to justify during the interview your intent of leaving the master's degree for MBA.

The process of filling the details of master's degree is same as that for bachelor's and hence we are skipping it here.

B5. Other Professional Degree Details

This section is mandatory for those who have not shared the bachelor's degree details or those who are neither in the final year of bachelor's degree nor completed their graduation. Basically, if you do not meet CAT's eligibility criterion through bachelor's degree, then you must have a completed professional degree to meet the eligibility criterion of CAT. Note that if you do not meet CAT's eligibility criterion through graduation and your professional degree too is not complete, then you are NOT ELIGIBLE for CAT this year.

For others (who meet CAT's eligibility criterion through bachelor's degree), this is an optional section. However, I would suggest that if you have completed or are pursuing any of these professional degrees, you mention the details to showcase another aspect of your academic versatility. Besides, it might also justify a gap in your academic cycle or below par performance in your graduation subjects.

The process of filling the details of professional degree is same as that for bachelor's and hence we are skipping it here.

FAQ 27. I have completed CA Inter and also done 7 months articleship after which I left pursuing CA. Should I still mention it? I do have a graduation degree through which I meet the eligibility criteria.
Answer: If there is no gap in your education cycle even on leaving out CA details (your CA was absolutely congruent with your graduation or work ex), then you can leave it to avoid questions on why you left CA midway and whether you may dropout of MBA as well. Else, you should fill the details to justify what you did in that gap. For example, if you completed 12th in 2016 and then pursued CA till 2018 and alongside in 2017 or 2018 joined a bachelor's degree, then CA details will help you justify the 2016-2017 or 2016-2018 period.

I would suggest that you could fill. it's alright to have tried and not succeeded. There are many people who give up CA after a 2-3 failed attempts.

Click on SAVE & NEXT at the bottom of the page to move to the next tab.

PS: The form will not let you SAVE & NEXT until you have filled all the *mandatory columns. So fill some random info for the time being in order to move to the next tab, if you do not have the answers to some questions. You can always edit this info later.

C. Work Experience

Before, anything else, let us understand what work experience is. Word experience is full-time paid job taken after graduation. For your work to be counted as work experience, it must fulfil all the following 3 criteria
a. It should be full-time i.e. all your part-time work like taking tuitions of individual students at their or your place/projects like building some website for a client or filing someone's ITR for a fee /Internships which may last 2-3 months / Articleship which you do to complete your professional degree cannot be included in work experience.
b. It should be paid i.e. any unpaid labour is not work experience. Know that you will be required to prove the financial remuneration of your labour in form of bank account statements of last 6 months reflecting credit of salary by your employer/organisation and/or salary slips of last 3 months issued by the organisation you worked for.
c. It should be after completion of your graduation or to, to be more specific, it should be after you took the last exam of your bachelor's degree. So even if you built and entire multi-billion dollar organiastion (in which case you would anyway not be considering CAT) before or during your graduation, that will NOT be counted as work experience while filling your CAT form. In case you have 3 years of work ex out of which 1 year was during your graduation and 2 years after graduation, only the part after your graduation i.e. 2 years will be counted.

In case whatever you have done as work fails to meet even 1 of the above 3 criteria, do not enter it as work experience in any Bschool application form. You may however include such work under other relevant sections such as 'projects', 'internships', 'other information etc'.

I would highly encourage you to watch this video 👇where I have explained various aspects of gap and work ex in detail

Gap Year and Work Experience

FAQ 29. What is the minimum work experience needed for CAT?
Answer: There is no minimum work experience needed for CAT. This tab is entirely optional. In case you do not have work ex, you can simply click on SAVE & NEXT at the bottom of the page and move to the next tab. It will be assumed that you have zero work experience.

FAQ 29. I have 1.5 year work experience as a Medical Lab Technician/ Call Center Executive/Primary School Teacher. That kind of work experience would be considered or not?
Answer: EVERY full-time paid job done after graduation will be counted as work ex, regardless of whether you were a watchman or sweeper or bus driver. Any job for which you can prove full-time paid employment and was done after graduation is counted as work ex.

FAQ 30. I have started businesses in third year of my graduation.It is registered one and I have all documents regarding it.But my final exam ended in June 2022. How should I calculate my work ex?
Answer: The part of your experience at this business during your graduation will not count but you may consider the day right after your last graduation exam as your start date for work. So if your last graduation exam was on 31st June 2021, then let 1st July 2022 be the start of your work ex. Put 31st July 2022 as your end date (as per CAT form).

FAQ 31. Uptil what date would the work ex be counted? Shall I count my work ex to this date?
Answer: You need to count your work ex till July 31 of the ongoing year. So even if you may be still working and may continue to work till you join a Bschool next year, you must count your work experience only till 31st July of the present year, whatever that comes to be.

FAQ 33. I joined a job in March this year? My work ex till 31st July will be less than 6 months/180 days. Does it make sense to enter my work experience?
Answer: Yes, you should enter your work experience as it will help you justify what you have been doing since March this year. Also, once you are shortlisted by a Bschool for 2nd stage, you will again fill a college-specific form which will also ask for your work experience, and by then your work experience would have been almost a year. Besides, entering your work experience ensures that you get quizzed on your job-related questions which you can prepare well for. It's like ensuring that you get a particular question in an exam. You can now prepare extremely well for this question and prepare impressive answers for the same.

FAQ 35. I have been working in my family business for 6 years. Can I show that as work experience?
Answer: Yes, you can show the duration after your graduation as work experience if your family business is a registered business. For example, if you appeared for the last graduation exam in Aug 2020, then you can count your work ex from 1st Sept 2020 to 31st July of the present year. However, you will need to further the following documents at the time of interview:
a. Experience letter- this should not a be a problem since it is your own business. Just issue yourself an experience letter clearly specifying your designation/title.
b. Bank account statement and/or salary slips- make sure you start transferring salary from your business to your personal bank account every month starting from next month (on a fixed date every month, say 4tth of every month). Most colleges will ask for bank account statements for the last 6 months. Some may give you a choice of providing either bank account statements or salary slips. In very rare cases, some Bschools may ask you to furnish both. So you may need salary slips later but that is something that you can get made later when needed.
Apart from the above documents, the panel will ask you a range on questions on your business and your role & contribution to it in order to judge if you actually worked or are you simply bluffing.

FAQ 37. I have work ex in various sectors/industries. Shall I fill all of that or just the relevant work ex?
Answer: You can fill all the work ex you have along with the duration of each of those different work experiences. Leaving out some of these work experiences will create a gap in your professional work ex which you may not be able to justify. Besides, it is alright to have worked multiple organisations and even across sectors/industries. A lot of young professionals try out different things before they discover their calling.

FAQ 39. I have work ex of over 1 year but in fragments of 2-3 months at different palces. Shall I mention all these work experiences?
Answer: This is a a concern. If you mention all of these work experiences, will will get the marks for work ex since work ex is looked at quantitatively while according marks by institutes but at the same time it will be hard for you to justify during the interview why you could not stick to any one place for long. It might make give an impression that you are not a serious/sincere person. In case you have one relatively sizeable work ex of, say, 8 months and one or two smaller past work experiences of 2-3 months each, I suggest you simply do not mention the smaller ones. However, if all or many of your work experiences are in smaller fragments of 2-3 months, I leave it upto you. If you are a regular student of mine, you may contact me to discuss this further.

FAQ 40. I have work ex of 3 months. Should I add it in my form?
Answer: Depends. If you started working 3 months ago and that job is your present employment, you may choose to enter it. It will just you justify the said duration and also give you opportunity to fend questions from your job. Besides, you will have a ready answer if they ask you your plan B. However, if you worked for 3 months in between an otherwise job-less duration of 1-2 years, then you can skip mentioning it as it will not put you in a difficult spot since justifying why you left a job within 3 months would be hard. Also, there is no benefit of 3 months of work ex in terms of marks awarded for work ex.

i. Industry Type: From the given options, choose the industry that your organisation belongs to. Please note that here the industry is to be chosen as per the nature of product/service your organisation is into and NOT on the basis on the basis of the work you do within the organisation. For example, if you work as an IT personnel in a bank, your industry would be Banking/Financial Services, not Information technology. In case you do not find your industry mentioned in the options, pick one which is very close to your industry. If you do not find any industry close to what your organisation does, then you may check box 'Others' at the bottom of the list of options and then fill the name of the relevant industry in the space provided in front of 'Others'. For example, I have worked with educational institutions all my professional life and I do not find any industry option that matches the work that these institutes do, so I have check-boxed 'Others' and filled 'Education' as industry (see the picture 👉). However, you can choose 'Others' option only once. Hence, if you have worked across 3 industries, atleast 3 of those 3 must find a match in the given options for industries and for 3rdyou may choose others.

ii. Start Date: you must know the exact date of your joining a particular industry. For example, if you have worked in 2 IT companies, say, TCS and Infosys, such that you first worked with Infosys for 1 year and then joined TCS where you are still employed, then enter the date on which you joined Infosys. This date will be mentioned on your joining letter. You may choose this date by clicking on 'Start Date' and then selecting from the calendar appropriate year, month and date.

iii. End Date: note that this is NOT the end date of your tenure in an organisation but the end of your duration of experience in a given industry i.e. the date you finally exited that particular industry. For example, if someone had joined Nestle on 12 Oct 2019 and then left the company on 15th Oct 2020 for RB where he worked for another 1.5 years and finally left RB on 20th May 2022, then for him the start date would be 12 Oct 2019 and the end date would be 20th May 2022 since both the organizations belong to the same industry FMCG. However, had he joined some other industry, say, Tata Motors, then his industry would have changed to Automobiles/Autoancillaries. In that case, the student would separately fill the details of the 2 work experiences in front of the relevant industries i.e. the work experience details of Infosys under Information Technology and details of work ex at Tata Motors under Automobiles/Autoancillaries. In case you continue to work at the organization, then 31st July automatically becomes your end date for the given industry your organization falls under.

iii. Break in Experience: in case there was any break in continuity in work experience within the same industry, usually because of some gap between leaving one organization and joining the next, then that gap must be quantified in terms of number of days and entered here. For example, I joined Tathagat on 3rd August 2011 and left on 3rd August 2016. However, I joined the next organization MBA Guru on 16th August 2016, thus creating a gap of 12 days within the same industry. You would see that I have entered this number as 'Break in Experience'. In case someone does not have any break in experience, then the number '0' should be entered here. Also, if someone moved from one industry to another (Infosys to Tata Motors), then too the break experience will be zero as both the experiences will be filled under different industries.

Note that this box does not accept decimal and hence the value must be a whole number.

iv. Experience (in days): you do not need to fill this. The value in this box will be automatically calculated on th ebasis of your inputs in i, ii & iii.

v. Total Work Experience: just as the previous box, this too will be auto-filled, adding up your work experiences across industries. This is the number that will decide how many marks you would get for work ex at a given Bschool on the basis of the policy for distribution of marks adopted by that Bschool.

FAQ 41. What all documents do I need to upload in the CAT application form to supoort my work experience?
Answer: None. No document has to be attached for work ex. The work ex must be quantified here, as explained in the above section, so that they can assign you marks for work ex which will enhance your chances of a call for 2nd stage from various Bschools. However, be clear that various documents supporting your work experience- joining letter/experience letter, Bank account statements and/or salary slips will be scrutinized later on once you are called for personal interview.

FAQ 44. I worked for a company through my campus placement for 10 months.They had 2 years bond but I broke it and work only for 10 months , because of which the company hasn't provided me with any experience letter/relieving letter. I just have offer letter and last drawn payslip. So are these documents i.e. offer letter and payslips enough to provide proof of my work ex later at the time of interview if I enter my work ex in CAT form, or should I not enter any work ex in form?
Answer: You should enter work ex with whatever documents you have and also clearly ask the company for work ex letter. They are bound by law to issue you the same for whatever duration you worked there. The 2 years bold was illegal unless they paid you some loan which you were to return. Even if they do not issue a work ex letter, your pay slips, bank account statements reflecting salary and offer letter should be sufficient to prove your employment.

FAQ 43. I am a Bcom graduate (June 2021) and from next month onwards I joined my family business and have been doing that since then. I have not withdrawn any salary or made any payments from the organisation to my personal account. Can I fill that as full-time work ex and then explain that I received cash in the range of 10-15 k monthly for that one year, so my income is not taxable as well, hence no returns filed?
Answer: Yes, you can show this as full time work ex starting from July 2021 (right after your graduation was over) till the cut off date mentioned in CAT form. Start taking salary in your account from this month (any suitable amount for the role you choose for yourself) and do that every month. Don't worry about ITR...no one checks that.

FAQ 43. After completing my 12th class, I did 2 months internship in a company and after some time I was offered job and I worked there for 6 months. I know this won't be counted as work ex but as internship. So now how should I mention this in the form like I did 8 months internship or what should I mention specifically?
Answer: This won't be mentioned anywhere in the CAT form since CAT form has no space for internship or 'Anything else' where you can enter extra info. However, you can mention this in other forms that have space for internships. You may also mention this in your interview.

FAQ 43. I got a job in Dec 2020 (at the end of BTech 4th Year). But I had a back which I appeared for and cleared in 2021, hence the graduation date is July 2021. From when shall I start my work ex?
Answer: As discussed above, work ex is paid full-time job after graduation, hence you must count your work ex from July 2021 and not Dec 2020.

FAQ 43. Why do they want to know the industry I have worked in?
Answer: Most top Bschools, including IIMs, award marks for educational diversity i.e. they try to make it easier for students from minority streams (fashion technology, statistics, dentistry) to get through the selection process. Similarly, Bschools also try to have diversity among work experience. It is for that purpose they ask for the industry you have worked in.

Click on SAVE & NEXT at the bottom of the page to move to the next tab.

D. Programmes

Now there are 2 ways to go about with it
a. Easy and quick way (Recommended)
b. Long and tedious way

I will explain both and let you choose.

a. Easy and quick way (Recommended)

i. Simply checkbox the on 'Select All' option at the top left corner, just under the 'Note' (highlighted in the picture 👉). This will auto-select all the programmes offered by all the IIMs, even those you are ineligible for. There is absolutely no downside of taking this option. You will simply not be called by most of the courses (executive courses and others) as absence of required work ex will make you ineligible. For courses where you would be eligible and where you do end up getting a call/invite but you find that course outside your interest (ABM, HRM, FAPM etc), you can simply decide not to fill the subsequent form after CAT result (CAT asks all successful aspirants to fill a form where again a lot of information is sought and only those who express interest by filling that form are invited for second round of selection process). So by not filling that form, you would automatically be rejected/ruled out for those programmes. However if you get an invite from a course of your interest (PGP, MBA) from an IIM, you may choose to fill the form for subsequent selection process and proceed further.

ii. Interview City: for some programmes, especially for the core programmes that most CAT aspirants aim for (PGP, MBA) you will see two preferences. In the Interview City Preference 1 pick the city among the options that would be your first choice, usually the city of your residence or one closest to your residence. In the Interview City Preference 2, pick the city where you would be most comfortable travelling to should you not get the city of your 1st preference, usually a city which is nearby or one where you have ready accommodation because of friends/relatives. In the picture above, I have filled Delhi as Interview City Preference 1 since I live in Delhi and I have filled Mumbai as Interview City Preference 2 because my brother stays there. You cannot select the same city in both Interview City Preference and Interview City Preference 2.

Note: It is almost certain that you will be interviewed in the city filled in Interview City Preference 1.

FAQ 45. Would it give me some advantage to take IIM Ahemadabad's interview in Ahemdabad itself and likewise for other IIMs?
Answer: No. The panel does not discriminate against or prefer students taking interviews in the same city as the institute. So your chances of selection remain the same regardless of the city you are interviewed at. Also, all interviews are taken by faculty of that very institute. Besides, you will have multiple interviews (10-30) to take in a period of around 2 months, and hence it would help to have all the interviews in the same city, instead of taking flight from one city to another.

In some courses (the non-popular ones which many of your wouldn't even be aware), there would be very few choices and may not include the cities you have chosen in Interview City Preference 1 & Interview City Preference 2. Choose the least inconvenient one from the options. In fact for many programmes (mostly PhD programmes), there may not be a choice at all and you may have just one city as the option (the city that the institute itself is located).

This step will be monotonous and when you click on SAVE & NEXT you may realise that you have missed some columns, but the good thing is that the software will keep taking you to those missed columns every time you hit SAVE & NEXT till you have filled them all.

Suggestion: Look at the options of cities and decide in your mind the cities to be entered as 1st and 2nd preference. Now look for only these 2 cities where there are options, else select from the other options. Once completed, recheck to ensure that your selection of Interview City Preference 1 is correct for all programmes. This is the column that matters here.

b. Long and tedious way

This option requires you to make informed and conscious selection of programmes that you wish to apply to. I will help you decide which ones should be your target.

General Information on programmes

Whenever you see the word 'Executive' on any programme, know that it has a work experience requirement and thus not meant for those without any.
FPM/PhD are doctoral programmes and take a minimum of 4 years (best case scenario)
PGP/MBA/PGDM is the flagship programme of all Bschools in India, just as Btech is the flagship programme of al IITs. THIS is the programme that almost CAT takers want to get into.
The date takes as cut off to determine work experience varies greatly from course to course and IIM to IIM. So while the work ex filled in the CAT form will be as per 31st July, different individual courses use different cut off dates to determine work ex.

Core- Post Graduate Programme (PGP), Masters in Business Administration (MBA)- these are the flagship 2-year residential programmes offered at all IIMs. Any given IIM will have either PGP or MBA. No IIM will have both MBA and PGP. Know that this is the programme that you are preparing so hard for. You must select this programme for every IIM.

Note: PGP and MBA are same for us for all practical purposes.

Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM)- same as PGP. Some IIMs (IIM Trichy) offer their flagship PGP programme by this name. Ofcourse you will select this.

Others
1. MBA in Human Resource Management (MBA-HRM)/ Post Graduate Programme-Human Resource Management (PGP-HRM/ PGPM-HR)- 2 year residential MBA in HR specialization. Well suited for those who have already decided HR as their specialization. In case you still haven't locked your specialisation, do tick this course. You may have greater clarity on this aspect by the time you get a call or by the time you convert that call. This separate specialisation is offered as a separate course by IIM Amritsar, IIM Ranchi, IIM Trichy and IIM Indore.

2. Post Graduate Programme in Finance (PGP-F)- 2-year residential programme by IIM Kozikode for those who want to specialize in finance (just as some IIMs offer specialised course for MBA in HR fromt he start).

Note: If you decide to join any of the above 2 programmes, you will not have the option to change your specialisation in the 2nd year of the programme, an option that you get in PGP/MBA programme.

3. Post Graduate Programme In Food and Agri-business Management (PGP-FABM)- this is a niche' specialisation and meant only for those who are already in this line of work and are sure of building an career/enterprise in this line. Others may leave it. Although after pursuing this course you can claim to be an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad (just as someone can pursue a 6 month post-graduate course from IIT Delhi and call himself an IITian), this is not the course that will launch you it the corporate world the way you desire. This course is offered by Ahmedabad. A similar course is offered by IIM Lucknow by the name PGP-ABM.

4. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Fellow Programme in Management (FPM) / Doctoral Programme in Management (DPM)- this is an advanced course, a PhD actually, which lasts more than 4 years (4-6 years mostly) and is meant for those interested in research or those who eventually intend to work as professors, perhaps in Bschools. Almost all IIMs offer this course. IIM Ahmedabad offers it to those who hold a 4-year B.Tech. degree with 6.5 CGPA are eligible for this programme. Also eligible are those with a 3-year degree with a master's or post graduate diploma (2 yrs.) or professional qualification (CA/ ICWA/CS). Note that the admission criteria, mode of conduct and number of on-campus sessions in this course may vary from IIM to IIM.

5. Doctor of Philosophy Executive (PhD Executive)/ Executive Fellow Program in Management (EFPM) / Executive Doctor of Philosophy (EPhD) / Executive Doctoral Programme in Management (EDPM) - this is a PhD program where only those with certain amount of work ex are eligible. For example, IIM Nagpur offers this program (PhD Executive) to those with 10 years of work ex. Similarly IIM Trichy offers its EDPM to those with 10 years of work ex while IIM Raipur asks for 7 years of work ex for its EFPM.

6. Executive Masters in Business Administration (EMBA)/ (ExMBA)/ (MBA Executive) / Executive Post Graduate Programme (EPGP)/ Post Graduate Program for Executives (PGPEX)- IIM Amritsar, IIM Kashipur, IIM Kozikode and almost all other IIMs offer this 2-year degree program in non-residential hybrid mode for those with a bachelor’s degree in any discipline and a minimum 3 years of working experience in managerial /entrepreneurial /professional role.

Note: Every IIM offers executive program for those who have work experience. However, the amount of work experience needed and other details of course conduct may vary from IIM to IIM.

7. ePost Graduate Diploma in Advanced Business Analytics (ePGD-ABA)- it is again a niche' specialisation and meant only for those with a strong drive for Business Analytics (BA). In case you are wondering what BA is, this course in not for you. IIM Ahmedabad offers this course to a candidate with a minimum of 2 years’ work experience (preferably in the domain of business analytics); the experience criterion may be waived for candidates with exceptional academic qualifications. Besides CAT, this programme also accepts candidates through other exams like GMAT, GATE etc.

8. Post Graduate Programme Business Analytics (PGPBA) / MBA-Business Analytics (MBA-BA)/ Masters in Business Administration (Analytics) - same as above , although details of eligibility and conduct of course may vary. These are usually 2-year residential programmes and do not ask for mandatory work ex.

9. Executive Masters in Business Administration Analytics (EMBAA)- offered by IIM Kashipur and similar to 3. Minimum of three years of full-time work experience, where number of months of work experience is considered as on date of announcement of the online application process for admission. Participants will be eligible to apply for the programme based on their overall profile and credentials. Eligible applicants will have to appear for EMBA (Analytics) Admission Test and Personal Interview.

10. Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management (PGPEM)- 2-year weekend MBA for working professionals. Bachelor's degree (minimum 50%) in any discipline as per the 10+2+3 norms and a minimum 4 years work experience in any industry after the bachelor’s degree is needed for this.

11. Master of Science in Data Science and Management (MSDSM)- one of its kind course offered jointly by IIM Indore and IIT Delhi. The course intends to combine aspects of management with technology/data science and covers courses on algorithms, data structures, big data infrastructure, big data analytics life cycle, data security and management. No work ex needed for this programme but it is limited to certain graduation streams only (6.0 CGPA in BTech/ BE/ BS/ BPharm/ BArch/ BDes/BFTech Four years BSc/ MSc/MCA/ MBA). The programme accepts students through CAT/GATE/GMAT/GRE/JAM test score obtained anytime in the last three years or through DMAT (Data science and Management Aptitude Test) by the institute.

12. Post Graduate Programme in Liberal Studies & Management (PGP-LSM)- 2-year full-time master's programme offered by IIM Kozikode. Does not require any work ex.

13. Post Graduate Programme in Business Leadership (PGP-BL)- one-year residential programme offered by IIM Kozikode. Eligibility for it is as follows:

i. Candidates with not less than 50% marks in graduation or post-graduation or CA.

ii. Minimum 3 years’ relevant work experience after completion of graduation/CA.

iii. GMAT/GRE/CAT score of last 3 years

14. Post-Graduate Programme in Management for Working Executives (PGP-WE): program is offered by IIM Lucknow but is conducted at the Noida, UP campus of IIM Lucknow for those with atleast 3 years of work experience. It is a two-year weekend programme; the first year consists of four terms and the second year consists of three terms. Students come to the campus on Friday afternoon and go back on Sunday afternoon, every alternative weekend. Each term (except Term-5) has 7 visits distributed over 3 months' period; Term-5 has 5 campus visits on alternate weekends and a two-week International Module.

15. MBA for Working Executives (MBAWE)/ Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration for Working Executives (PGDBAWE)-: this unique 2-year programme offered by IIM Shillong & IIM Udaipur is conducted online over weekends, hence suited well for those who cannot leave their jobs nor move to campus for offline classes. It requires a minimum 3 years of full-time work experience. There will be written eligibility test for admission – Working Executive Management Aptitude Test (WE-MAT) by IIM Shillong. Similarly, IIM U may have its own test. These tests would follow a similar pattern as the Common Admission Test (CAT) conducted by IIMs. However, those having a certain percentile in CAT or certain score in GMAT are eligible to be exempted from the above tests.

16. Post Graduate Programme in Sustainable Management (PGP-SM): offered by IIM Lucknow, this 2 year program offer courses on systems thinking, social entrepreneurship, externalities, lifecycle management, stakeholder management and public policy. A candidate needs 2 years of work ex to be eligible for this course.

17. Executive Post Graduate Diploma in Sports Management (EPGDSM): this one of its kind 2-year programme is offered by IIM Rohtak and is meant for sports graduates and sports enthusiasts. There is no mandatory work ex requirement by work ex in relevant field will be an added advantage. Besides, all applicants will have to undertake Sports Aptitude Assessment Test.

18. PhD for Working Professionals (PhDWP): a PhD programme for those who wish to continue working and cannot afford to take up a full-time residential programme. This is a 4 year doctoral programme (with possibility of extension if the student needs) with online learning but also on-campus immersion a few times in a year.

19. The Master of Business Administration in Tourism & Hospitality Management (MBA-T&HM)- unique 2-year residential programme offered by IIM Sirmaur. It is a niche specialization like agro-business management and Business Analytics

20. Post Graduate Programme in Business Management (PGPBM)- 2-year on-campus MBA at Chennai campus of IIM Trichy for working professionals as classes will be held on weekends. The candidate applying for this programme must have a minimum of three years of full-time work experience as on August 1, 2022.

21. MBA in Digital Enterprise Management (MBA-DEM): 1-year full-time programme offered only by IIM Udaipur. It is a highly specific specialisation and requires students to hold 3 years of work ex.

22. MBA in Global Supply Chain Management (MBA- GSCM)- 1-year full-time programme offered only by IIM Udaipur. It is a highly specific specialisation and requires students to hold 3 years of work ex.

23. Post Graduate Program in Digital Governance and Management (PGP-DGM)- this unique programme offered by IIM Vishakhapatnam is meant for those willing to learn management of digitalization and digital management initiatives. Such programmes are usually run for government officers and are sponsored by the government.

i. Pick the programmes that suit your aspiration. In case you are a fresh graduate or in your final year of graduation with no intent of pusuing a PhD, at least not now, then pick the Core programmes and among others pick 1 &2.

ii. Choose the Interview City Preference 1 & Interview City Preference 2 as described in step a above.

E. Test City

You can opt for 6 cities among the state-wise choices given in the drop down menu. There is a very real possibility of your not getting the city of your first preference. Hence choose your 2nd and 3rd preference wisely. You can choose cities which would be either very close to your residence or where you have ready accommodation so that you can go there a couple of days and advance and be comfortable with the new surroundings so that you can sleep on time the night before the exam and also reach the center timely. It would be a disaster to travel 2-3 hours to your test center for the morning slot (8:30 am- 10 :30 am) and take CAT with a sleep-deprived body. So think wisely and choose our 2nd and 3rd preferences. I have in past been assigned by 3rd preference many times. I have never got my first preference (Delhi) in last 5 years!

Suggestion: keep the city of your residence as your first preference. For 2nd and 3rd preferences, either choose a nearby city that you can easily access on the test date from your residence itself (Noida, Ghaziabad for Delhites) or a nearby city where you have a close friend/relatives (Jaipur, Mathura, Agra as I have close relatives there and hence I can stay with them without worrying about safety, food, accommodation etc)

PS: New Delhi means all of Delhi.
Noida and Greater Noida have been clubbed as one choice
Similarly, Faridabad & Gurugaon have been merged as one choice

Likewise Hubli & Dharwad have been merged as one choice

Here is a alphabetically-arranged state-wise list of cities 👇 that you can choose from.

STATE- CITIES

Andaman and NIcobar- Port Blair
Andhra Pradesh- Guntur, Kakinada, Kurnool, Nellore, Rajahmundry, Tirupathi, Vijaywada, Vishakhapatnam, Vizianajram
Arunachal Pradesh- Itanagar-Naharlagun. Both these cities have been clubbed as one option. So if you pick this option, you can get either of the two.
Assam- Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Jorhat, Silchar, Tezpur
Bihar- Patna, Muzzafarpur, Gaya, Darbhanga, Bhagalpur, Arrah
Chandigarh- Chandigarh
Chhattisgarh- Raipur, Bilaspur, Bhilai Nagar
Dadra & Nagar Haveli- Silvassa
Goa- Madgaon, Panaji
Gujrat- Vadodara, Mehsana, Gandhinagar, Ahemadabad, Surat, Rajkot, Anand
Haryana- Ambala, Faridabad-Gurugram. Both Faridabad & Gurugram have been clubbed as one option. So if you pick this option, you can get either of the two.
Himachal Pradesh- Shimla, Hamirpur, Bilaspur
Jammu & Kashmir- Jammu, Srinagar
Jharkhand- Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Hazaribagh
Karnataka- Udupi, Shivamogga (Shimoga), Mysore (Mysuru), Mangalore (Mangaluru), Bangalore (Bangaluru), Belgaum (Belgavi), Kalaburgi (Gulbarga), Hubli-Dharwad (Both Hubli & Dharwad have been clubbed as one option. So if you pick this option, you can get either of the two.)
Kerala- Trivandrum, Thrissur, Kozikode, Kottayam, Kollam, Kannur, Ernakulam
Ladakh- Leh
Lakshadweep- Kavaratti
Madhya Pradesh- Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore, Jabalpur, Sagar, Satna, Ujjain

Maharashtra- Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur, Vasai, Thane, Solapur, Satara, Palghar, Navi Mumbai, Nanded, Raigad, Kolhapur, Jalgaon, Boisar, Bhiwandi, Aurangabad, Amravati, Ahmednagar
Manipur- Ukhrul
Meghalaya- Shillong
Mizoram- Aizawl
Nagaland- Kohima
New Delhi- New Delhi
Odisha- Bhubaneshwar, Cuttack, Sambalpur, Balasore, Rourkela, Dhenkanal, Behrampur

Punjab- Amritsar, Jalandhan, Patiala, Ludhiana, Bhatinda, Mohali
Rajasthan- Ajmer, Bikaner, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, Sikar, Udaipur

Tamil Nadu- Chennai, Vellore, Madurai, Puducherry, Coimbatore, Salem, Tirunelveli, Tiruchirappalli

Telangana- Hyderabad, Karimnagar, Warangal
Tripura- Agartala

Uttar Pradesh- Agra, Mathura, Merut, Aligarh, Bareily, Ghaziabad, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Jhansi, Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar, Prayagraj, Noida- Greater Noida (Both Noida & Greater Noida have been clubbed as one option. So if you pick this option, you can get either of the two.)

Uttarakhand- Dehradun, Haldwani, Roorkee

West Bengal- Kolkata, Siliguri, Asansol, Bankura, Burdwan, Hoogly, Kalyani, Durgapur

F. Payment

Not much for me to explain here really. Would just remind you NOT TO RUSH to make the payment. Even if you have filled the form, wait till 10th September to make the payment. Many a time, students discover wrong details filled or some guidelines which they were unaware of later. And since by then they have already made the payment, no changes can be made to the form. Hence leaving them with no option but to re-fill the form, wasting the hard-earned money of their parents. There is absolutely no incentive to filling this form early.

F1. Net Banking/Credit Card/Debit Card/Cash Card/Wallet

These are basically the options available to you to make the payment. In this section you will see your name and application fee (2300/1150 depending upon the category you selected)

F2. Payment Details

Again nothing for you to do here

F3. Payment Mode

You can choose either PayU or CC Avenue as your payment gateway. You may choose either, it's the same for you.

F4. Declaration

i. Checkbox the declaration like you always do.
ii. Fill the captcha which is thankfully not case sensitive this time. If you have trouble reading the characters, click the refresh icon right next to the captcha.

Now click on 'PREVIEW' at the bottom of the page to view the entire filled form on a single page and verify all the pieces of information filled by you. Once reviewed thoroughly, click on 'OK' at the bottom. In case any changes are to be made, go to the relevant section and make those changes. If not, click on 'SUBMIT' at the bottom of the page to reach the payment gateway. You will have 15 minutes to make the payment. Choose the payment method as per your convenience and make the payment.

Note: There is no option to make the payment in cash.

In case your payment fails or if you try to go back to the form, you will be logged out and you will have to log in again and re-fill the payment page as this page, unlike the other pages in the form, does not get saved. Any money deducted will be credited back to you via the same mode through which the payment failed.

In case your payment is successful, you will see your entire filled form in its final form on the screen, as if it were opened as a pdf. You should download this form as pdf (click on Print bottom at the top right corner and then save it).

Also, you will receive a confirmation mail confirming successful submission of the form (as shown in the picture 👈). After this, changes to any information provided on the application form is not possible. You can only print or save the form from the website. The only way to make changes is to re-fill a new form after fresh registration using a different email id and same or different mobile number. You may fill as many application forms you want. In case of multiple applications by same individual, CAT will consider the last application that was submitted by the individual.

Whenever you next login to the CAT application form as a Registered Candidate on iimcat.ac.in, you will see the Application Summary that will give a Read-only view of the details you have entered. You will now see 3 red-colour tabs at the top

A. Applicant Details
B. Help Desk
C. Application View Pdf
D. CAT Admit Card (this will appear later)

A. Applicant Details

This is the default tab that you will be at each time you log in after successful payment. Here you will see all the application details that you had filled. Note that in the Payment Details section you will the Payment Status as 'S' which means successful. You will also see Payment Transaction Number.

B. Help Desk
This is a new feature that you will now see. You can use it to ask your queries to CAT-appointed personnel. Click on this tab and then on the + button at the right side, right next to the refresh button (as shown in the picture 👉).

Once clicked, this icon will take you to a new page where you will find options to choose from the drop down list of Problem Category comprising 3 options- Application Form Related, Payment Related & Admit Card Related. You can then choose the query type from a second dropdown list (to choose the subtype of the nature of your query). Know that there is the option of 'Others' in the Problem Type dropdown list, in case you do not find any of the given options matching your concern. You can then explain the nature of your query in the Problem Statement in the form of text in approximately 150 characters. Finally you can attach a relevant photograph (in jpeg or jpg format) or pdf file in the Document Upload section. Click on blue-coloured tab that says SUBMIT at the right corner of the page. You can now expect a reply from CAT on your query in a few days.

C. Application View Pdf
You can use this tab to download your submitted CAT application form. Click on the hyperlinked 'here' in the 'Click here to download Application view PDF' (as shown in the picture 👇). On clicking it, an automatic download of the pdf file of your application form will begin.

D. CAT Admit Card
This tab does not exist as of now but will appear sometime in October once CAT uploads your admit cards here. You can download your admit card after that, just as you downloaded the form in tab C. Your admit card will contain the name of your test center and the slot assigned to you along with some instructions for the D day. Also, you must take a normal printout(black & white or coloured) and affix on it the same photograph that you have submitted in your CAT form on the designated space for photograph.

FAQ 70. Will the last date to submit CAT form be extended?
Answer: It may be extended for a week, which has happened in recent years. However, a serious student would not wait for or bank upon that extension. In my experience, those who fill the form during the extension are not the ones who are even in the race for a worthy %ile. Hence kindly do not wait for such extensions nor should you wait for the last day to fill the form. In case an extension is given, know that it would be last. There is no 2nd extension of CAT form submission deadline.

IMPORTANT: A practice test will be available on the CAT website: www.iimcat.ac.in You MUST familiarize yourself with the functionality and navigation of the actual exam. The CAT Mock Test link will be available by the end of October.

CAT Contact for queries via email/call

In the event you do not receive a confirmation email after completion of the application process or for queries regarding CAT registration, application and payment processing, document uploading, you can connect with the Candidate Help Desk by e-mail (cathelpdesk@iimcat.co.in) or call 1800 210 8720 from Monday to Saturday 9:00AM to 6:00PM (excluding National holidays). Please have your User ID and/or Payment Transaction Number details at hand for reference.

For Academic queries like eligibility, category and PwD certificate, please contact CAT Centre office by email (cat2022@iimb.ac.in) or call +91-080-26993388 / 3017 / 3013 Monday to Friday excluding holiday, from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM. Please note that CAT Centre should NOT be contacted for any issue related to CAT registration, application, or payment processing.

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Maybe Second Time Lucky!

2022-03-07T15:14:00.004-08:00

So it didn't work out for your this time and you are planning to re-appear. Why do you think you would succeed this time? What different would you do or what would you do differently to end up with a substantially better percentile? Because if you are not planning to succeed, you are planning to fail. I would suggest the following from over a decade of my experience of a CAT educator.

1. Mindset: Forget that you have prepared before and this is your 2nd/3rd/4th attempt. Tell yourself that you are starting afresh from the scratch. that's the first thing a re-appearing candidate must carve into his mind.

2. Balance: Try to follow 40/60 rule i.e. 40% of total study time to watching classes and 605 to practice. This has to eventually come down to 80:20 as your syllabus moves to completion.

3. Trainers: May it be sports, education, medicine or law, choosing the right person makes all the difference. Choose the right coach, teacher, doctor, lawyer...and half the problem is solved. First, know that THERE IS NO ONE BEST EDUCATOR! The best for everyone is different. The best actor for you could be Amir khan while for me it would be SRK and for someone else it would be Nawazzuddin. Understand that for every subject you must find a trainer who is BESTF OR YOU! It is alright to spend even an entire month to decide the right set of trainers for you. You should shortlist 3-4 trainers for each of the 3 subjects (take help of other students or Unacademy ranking or online reviews to decide which 3-4 for each subject). Now follow the same topic (for example geometry for QA, Circular arrangement for LRDI and RC for VARC) from each of the 3-4 trainers for that subject. It is important to follow the same topic so that you can judge whose way of teaching you find more suitable and comprehensible. If you follow different topics from different trainers (algebra from one, geometry from 2nd and number system from third) then you would not be able to account for difference in the difficulty level of the different topics. Also, do not attend just 4-5 classes but entire topic from each of the trainers to be sure before selecting/ruling out a teacher. By the end of this exercise, you will have the right set of trainers for you.

4. Follow. Selecting the right trainer is important, but so is following his/her advice and strategies. Once you have chosen the mentor for you, do have faith in him/her and try to practice whatever the trainers tells you to with absolute sincerity.

5. Priority. Keep MBA-entrance preparation your top priority. I can understand that you would have a job to keep and perhaps a hobby to practice...perhaps even a girlfriend or two to spend time with, I do not ask you to renounce worldly pleasures either, but make sure that everything else is secondary to your preparation (except your health and your duty towards your parents). Give bare-minimum to your job, just enough thtat they do not kick you out. Help your girlfriend/s or boyfriend/s understand that this year is crucial for your career and you need their support. Your hobby can wait for sometime and trust me you won't rust at it.

6. Procrastination. Don't wait for an auspicious time to begin. The only auspicious time in this wold is NOW. Life is happening this moment. Opportunities that exist today may not be there tomorrow. The road built with procrastination does not lead to a top Bschool. It only takes you to where you are today. If you do not want to be here next year, make sure you start the above process from today itself.

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Suggestions for the D-day!!!

2021-11-26T15:00:00.013-08:00

Now that we are one day away from CAT, here, at the ripened age of 32 and with 8 years of experience of taking CAT (and excelling at my section) I hereby share with you 14 pro tips

1. Make 3 different copies of admit card and self-declaration and keep each at different places - one in your exam-day bag, one in the pocket of your trousers to be worn tomorrow and one in the vehicle in which you will go to the center. Each should have the same photo as was uploaded while filling CAT. Additionally, this year you are required to carry a certificate if you have a metal implant or pacemaker in your body.

2. Pack your bag before you sleep- 3 admit cards at different places, a few pics (same as pasted on admit card), photo id, hand sanitiser, mask, money, handkerchief, water bottle, spectacles, some fruits, preferably apples and bananas, dark chocolate, money. Clothes should be pre-selected before you sleep. Avoid carrying your mobile. It becomes a cause for concern if the center does not have adequate arrangements for safekeeping, and oftener than not they don’t.

3. Sleep for good 7-8 hours tonight. I might take a couple of beers for a sound sleep, but then that's just me. Do not experiment tonight. Do what works for you to get a nice sleep.

4. Dress comfortably. I take exam in pyjamas/shorts, a loose T shirt and floaters (you will anyway have to remove the footwear outside the hall).

5. Take blessings of your parents before you leave, in person, preferably, or over phone, if you stay away. They are the only permanent well-wishers in your life.

6. Do not take the exam on an empty stomach. Have breakfast but not too much carbs... so no paranthas/rice. Instead, have sandwich or fruits or something with fiber. You can have roti with dal and subzi as well, but don’t over-eat.

7. Be absolutely sure of the exact location of your center. Use Google map and also call the center to ask the best way to reach it.

8. Do not forget to take the bag from step 2 :P

9. Keep buffer time for traffic /uncertainties. Reach well before time as they do not allow late entry and also it is not good psychologically to reach late as it works you up. The traffic can be nightmarish (happens every year with many students) and there are always other variables that can go wrong (Murphy’s Law). Do not drive yourself. Pool in with the friends who have the same center or book a cab.

10. Use washroom before the start of the exam at the centre, even if you don't feel like. Susu aur heart attack bata ke nahi aate.

11. Eat a dark chocolate before the start of the exam (the one you kept in your bag in step no. 2). You might have to smuggle it in. Dark chocolates relieves anxiety. Try some to know which ones you like in case you have never had any. For the benefit of the absolutely uninitiated- more the cocoa content, darker the chocolate...and darker the chocolate, better it is for health.

12. Close your eyes and put your head down at your desk till the start of the test. You may have some 30-50 minutes at the desk. Use this time wisely to calm yourself. Those last few minutes are crucial to preparing you psychologically. Breathe deeply and try to take a nap. Meditate on your seat if you are into it already.

13. Enjoy the test. Test taking is somewhat like making love to your partner. You know you did well if you enjoyed the process. The uninitiated boys will one day understand the massive importance of this pro tip 😉

14. Leave the result to the almighty. In life, many a time, I did all I could and yet the result was unfavourable...and so often I could have done way better I still succeeded. Your journey is like a divine plan that you can never fathom but must always try to live to the fullest 😊 No matter how bad the exam goes, there will still be a tomorrow and there will be more opportunities. Regardless of your score in CAT, you will always be aces in my book.

All the best!!!!

Lokesh Sharma

PS- Free beers from me for all those who get less than 50 percentile, so that you have something to “cheer” about even if your CAT ends in a disaster.

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My CAT didn’t Meow! What do I do now?

2021-01-08T14:29:00.008-08:00

I am looking for a tall, fair, very beautiful and professionally qualified girl in her mid 20s from a reputed upper class family for my 52-year-old divorced and unemployed uncle who is 5’4 tall and diabetic. He doesn't believe in dowry but insists on a V-class Mercedes and a flat in Greater Kailash be gifted to the bride by her parents. In case you know such a girl, kindly DM me.

Do I sound like I am over-expecting by a mile and being too naïve? This is exactly how your messages sound when you mention that you have secured 30/40/50 percentile in CAT/XAT or scored 150 in NMAT and ask me which ‘good’ B Schools you should apply to. You may not have got the score you had expected and prepared for. IT’S OK! It really is. Trust me when I say that these scores do not define you or your ability in ANY WAY. But please understand that any college that admits you with these scores as qualifying criterion simply CANNOT be a worthy place to invest your precious two years and lakhs of your parents’ hard-earned money.

A good college won’t take a student with these scores and the one that will, simply cannot be good! That’s the bare minimum reasoning ability I hope you would have developed in your CR classes. Please understand that the likes of IIPM and LPU prey on such students by luring them with blatantly false promises and fabricated placement records. The ones that call you asking to come for their GDPI process, even when you haven’t even applied to those colleges, are no better either. In life as in MBA

colleges, be very circumspect of the doors that open for you before you even knock on them!

Your next obvious question then would be- “so what do I do now? My parents say that I must join MBA this year and also I won’t get a job as yet? Should I prepare again? What’s the guarantee that I will get a good percentile next time? Should I take the low-paying job that I am getting?” The answer to these and many other questions that you may find yourself confounded with are there but are for you to find. However, your trainers and those who have walked this path can help you find those answers and guide you on the basis of their years of experience and constant feedback with students graduating from all levels of B Schools and students working in diverse industries. As for the question of whether you prepare again? If you feel that you can get a substantially better %ile, or even an 75+ and are willing to work towards it with diligence and perseverance, then the answer should be a resounding YES.

DO NOT take a decision on the basis of what your favourite uncle or close cousin or even your parents press upon. Understand that while these people undoubtedly have your best at heart, they are simply not aware of the facts and figures pertaining to this particular specialized area of education. Nor do they have any experience in career guidance in the light of present day job-market and education scenario. DO talk to your seniors studying at different B Schools and to those working somewhere to learn about their experience of that B school/ work role. Think about what line of work you would like to get into and what roles align well with the skill-set and bent of mind you have. Finally, in case you are still not sure, come and discuss your options with a person whom you trust has the knowledge and experience to guide you in what course of action would be best, after understanding your academic, financial, professional profile and your aspirations. Do not take advice from just any Tom, Dick and Harry.

In the meanwhile, if you are already enrolled with an institute, I would strongly recommend that you attend GDPI classes irrespective of your performance this year, as this part of preparation is not just fun, but also very knowledgeable and would most definitely be of immense utility somewhere or the other, most likely in the many college/job interviews that you all are guaranteed to take, whether this year or later. See it as a personality development or skill-development course that shall add value to your candidacy.

Remember, your career has just begun…there are scores of opportunities floating around you. Abhi toh game shuru hui hai doston!!!

Happy New Year to all!!

Lokesh Sharma

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How to speak English fluently?

2020-12-07T22:24:00.008-08:00

We all have that one covert desire- to be able to swiftly converse in the beautiful and sophisticated language that English is!! While some people simple lack confidence to speak up in front of people, others lack the comfort with the language itself given that English is not our mother tongue. So how can you converse in English effortlessly? See, there are basically three things you need to do

1. Read English

2. Listen English

3. Speak English

For 1, read newspaper, preferably The Hindu- at least 2-3 pages (editorial is best but you may read some other pages if it is too heavy for you). Even if that is too much for you, read any story book/novel that interests you. If nothing else, read adult stories (English wali), but do read so that you learn sentence structuring, usage of prepositions, placement of adjectives and contextual usage of words etc.

For 2, listen to Indian news in English since newscasters have a very refined pronunciation.

Most of the people I know mispronounce the word 'chores'! Watching English movies and television series with subtitles is also a fun way, but make it an add-on to news, not a replacement. Watching porn wouldn’t help much in this step since many do not have many words, to begin with, and, if even they do, you already are familiar with words like ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘harder’ and ‘oh yeah’ :D
Once you get into the habit of reading, try reading out loud, at least some part of what you read.

Addressing 500+students at FICCI Auditorium

For 3, speak in English with people around you. THIS IS THE KEY! This is the most important of all steps. You CANNOT learn to speak English, or any language for that matter, unless you speak it! You need not change the topics of discussion…keep the conversation, just change the medium of conversation you have with your friends, colleagues, siblings, girlfriend(s)/boyfriends to English. The only antidote to fumbling/being diffident is practice. Make English the default medium of communication....whenever you can, do it. Find people with whom you can talk (not chat) in English. Request people around to speak in English with you...if they can't, just tell them that they can respond in Hindi but you would converse in English. If you are that one unlucky chap who doesn’t have one person to speak with in this wide world, then start talking to yourself in English- rather than thinking things, start saying things, either in your mind or even perhaps by mumbling. It’s ok to talk to yourself; I do it all the time and often get mistaken for being mentally unstable :D

Exercise suggestion: You can narrate the entire day back to yourself before you sleep, just as you would tell all the events that happened during the day to someone else.

Once you have gained sufficient confidence in these three, move to the ultimate step i.e. writing in English. Start writing stuff in English. Not just FB comments, but some articles. You can choose a random article or write about your day or your dreams or your best friend or a movie review or whatever. Just write. If you want some idea, take a leaf out from my blog- http://lokeshlogan.blogspot.com/

Happy Englishing!

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Strategy for OMETs like SNAP, CMAT, NMAT (not XAT)

2020-11-30T08:48:00.005-08:00

In exams like SNAP, SPEED IS THE NAME OF THE GAME. You must move across and within sections swiftly. One who lingers is the one who loses. One who flows like a river is the one who remains in the race.

Following are my not-so-humble suggestions:

1. Read the instructions carefully since IIFT is notorious for its twisted instructions which are far from the blanket instructions one sees in CAT. For example, some questions may have higher weight while some may attract higher penalty when attempted incorrectly. I would be extra careful if the penalty for the wrong answer is half of the marks awarded for the right answer. Conversely, I would invariably mark some or the other option even if I am unsure, if there is no negative marking for it.

2. Begin with the GK section. In any exam that has a GK section, it should be where you start from, for it takes least time. Quickly mark the ones you know and leave the others without spending any time. Know that you are not coming back to this section. Usually each question here (in IIFT at least) carries .5 mark and negative marking is .17 i.e. one-third of the marks awarded for the correct choice. This is not a scoring section in IIFT and most exams where GK is tested, so do not over-attempt because you do not have to. All you need to do is clear the cut-off for this section which varies between .5 - 2 marks and for that all you need is 2-5 correct answers. While attempting last year’s IIFT paper with a student a few days back, I saw that each of the first 2 questions of the GK section were half-a-page long. I left the questions without even reading them! That is how fast one has to be here. For all other questions, keep it simple- if you know it, mark it…else leave it. Do not use your brains here. In most match-the-following type questions, you do not have to match all the pairs, but only 1-2 pairs that you are sure of and then eliminate the options. How to prepare for this section? If you have been rereading the front page of The Hindu, something that I stress upon in all my classes, then you do not have to prepare for it…you are good to go. If not, rely on the GK material shared with you by Aarambh Academy

3. After GK section, attempt the remaining sections in order of your comfort i.e. begin with the section of your strength and so on. Know that from here on, you must attempt the paper in phases/rounds, something that I explained to you in detail during ENS 2 (eclectic reading) and in IIFT-specific session. Attempt the easy/doable ones in round 1 and keep leaving the ones that prima facie seem tough or lengthy. Attempt only the easy and doable ones in one section and swiftly move to the next section where too you must follow the same approach. This way try to attempt the entire IIFT paper as fast as you can. If you are able to reach the end of the last section this way, you can be sure that you will clear all the sectional cut-offs. On the other hand, even if you do exceptionally well in some sections but miss almost the entire last section (irrespective of which section it be), all your grand overall score counts for nothing since you would miss the sectional cut-off of the last section.

4. Once you have attempted the entire paper this way, see how much time remains at hand and which of the various sections you attempted (except GK) do you think has the most potential for enhancing your score. For example, if you feel that LRDI section has quite a few questions that you left in round 1 but can solve, go to that section and begin round 2. If a question seems excessively lengthy or difficult, leave it again. Likewise go to the next section with best potential. This round 2 will ensure that you clear overall cut-off of the paper and score as high as you can. DO NOT RE-ATTEMPT ANY QUESTION THAT YOU HAD ATTEMPTED IN ROUND 1.

5. For VA section- attempt non-RC questions like Vocabulary-based and grammar-based questions first, parajumbles and reasoning-based questions (if any) later and RC passages at the end.

For RCs, just read the question stems at the end of RCs twice and then quickly read the RCs to solve whatever questions you can and move to the next.

Understand that the RC passages you get in IIFT are lengthy but fact-based. You need not scan the passages the way we trained ourselves for CAT. Also, in RCs, first read questions and then simply read the RC passage at a relatively fast pace (NO SCANNING). Keep marking the answers to the questions that you come across while reading the passage. In short, for IIFT RC passages, begin with step 4 of the process we adopted for CAT passages. Also, if, on reading the questions at the end of RC, you feel that the questions are largely reasoning-based or require deliberation, then leave that passage for later (round 2) and move on.

6. Suggestion 5 assumes that the IIFT paper will have RC passages and other VA questions clubbed in one section. In case they decide to split them into 2 separate sections (as they did last year), then you must attempt at least 2 RC passages to ensure that you clear the cut-off for the RC section.

Remember, speed would determine the winner in IIFTNMAT/SNAP etc. These exams are a race against time. So make sure you practice timed-tests where you strictly adhere to the test-conditions, most especially in terms of time.

The 14 points I shared in another post before CAT are as relevant here too, so do give that a read. All the best!!

Disclaimer- The author has himself never taken IIFT but does go through the GK and VA sections of the paper each year and thus has a sound understanding of its content and nature.

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All You Need is One Seat!

2020-11-29T11:03:00.008-08:00

Imagine it’s a cold evening in December and your little heart is desirous of a strong coffee. So you venture out to the nearby CCD, but find it closed. Do you drop the plan to savour your sumptuous coffee or do you go to the next cafe? If you are motivated enough for the beverage, you would not mind going ahead to the next restaurant that you know serves coffee, despite the apprehension that it may too be shut or may be a little pricier or a little far. The simple question one needs to ask himself is- how many of these shops can be shut or be too expensive or too far? If you want a cup of coffee, you will get it provided

1. you have a reasonable amount of money (ability)
2. you are willing to walk some (effort and motivation)
3. you are wise enough to realize that what eventually matters is the coffee, not the cafe (wisdom)

Replace coffee with an MBA seat at a worthy college, and various cafe with the different entrance exams that are there. Does the above example seem more relevant now? Understand that all you want is one seat at a good B-school, and that which exam that seat comes from shouldn’t matter! Ask a lover if it matters to him where he met his love, or a loyal drunkard the place or material in which he would like to be served liquor or a die-hard football fan whether he would prefer soft copy or hard copy of the ticket to the FIFA World Cup final. The answer would be same- It doesn’t matter! Harivanshrai Bachchan has captured this thought most beautifully and succinctly in the below stanza of his poem which I occasionally recite in my classes.

All You Need is 1 Seat

जो मादकता के मारे हैं

वे मधु लूटा ही करते हैं
वह कच्चा पीने वाला है
जिसकी ममता घट प्यालों पर
जो सच्चे मधु से जला हुआ
कब रोता है चिल्लाता है

Back in 2011, when I was assigned my first batch for CAT, where half the students were elder to me by a year or two, there was a student named Abhishek Shrivastava. Despite his above-average intelligence and whatever hardwork he could manage to put in (after his 10-hour workday at office which was 20 km from his home), he could manage a CAT percentile in 80s. His attempt at almost all other exams met similar fate. However, GMAT clicked, and that landed him at ISB, Hyderabad. So does it matter to Abhishek that the college he eventually got was the only good college that he could convert or, for that matter, the only worthy college that he could secure a call from? No. It is irrelevant now. Had he got 99%ile in CAT and done equally well in all other entrances, he would have still been at ISB, and happily so. There are numerous similar stories that I can recount where some student got to NMIMS, Mumbai or SIBM, Pune or IIFT, Delhi or TISS, Mumbai where that college was the only star call the student had.

So stop fretting about how your CAT did not go as well as you would have liked or prepared. LIFE IS UNFAIR. PERIOD. Get used to it. However, it is NOT ALWAYS UNFAIR. So bad luck, illness, anxiety etc can play spoilsport in one, two or maybe three exams, but not beyond that. Just as a person in the coffee example may not find what he is looking for at a few shops, but eventually he surely will, you too would find success in some or the other exam provided you have put in effort and have common sense/basic intelligence.

Understand that results are never in your hands, and it invariably happens that 1-2 papers go wrong, and we have no control on which ones those 1-2 will be. However, if one has prepared well, then this misfortune can strike in 1 or 2 or maximum 3 exams. The good news is that we have atleast a dozen worthy exams and all we need is to crack one exam that will pave our way to a desirable MBA college. Which exam gets us to that college should not be a worry. I read somewhere that many a time in life we are so busy looking at and mourning for the door that closed on us that we do not realize that four others opened for us in the meanwhile. So stop cursing your stars for CAT and aim at the next exam in front of you, for only the first battle is over, not the war. Pull yourself back up, gather your armory and prepare for the next battle. Get on with the preparations for the rest of the exams, especially XAT, NMAT, IIFT and SNAP. All this while, keep reminding yourself of the fact that all you need is one seat in any one decent college.

Fun Fact : The writer missed his own CAT in 2018 because his bus to Delhi was cancelled and there was no viable alternative to reach the test center in Delhi in time. The writer hopes that his story doesn’t resonate with that of anyone else here.

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The Last Weeks

2020-11-20T15:12:00.025-08:00

Dear students, we are now just 3 weeks away from the exam that we have been preparing for. While you all must be feeling some anxiety towards the exam, I have been consumed by a subtle positivism and anticipatory happiness. I have back-to-back domestic and international trips lined up and am looking forward to them more than I can express. As a consequence of being in that relaxed-plus-happy state of mind, I am able to get a lot more work done, have been meeting everyone more pleasantly than I usually do, and have been enjoying the various activities to their fullest during the rest of the day.

That’s barely any surprise to me. It is well known that you make the best of any opportunity- may it be sports, stage performances or exams- not when you are most worked-up and excited, but when you are calm, relaxed and happy. Understand that to be under some pressure is natural and necessary, but excess of it is counter-productive as it prevents you from giving your best and thus impedes achieving your full potential. In any competition, it is imperative that you walk in with a fresh, relaxed and hopeful mind. It is for this reason that sports teams play games (apart from their sport) and go for team outings right before World Cup finals, for they know that one or two more days of practice or fitness won’t affect their overall performance at all, but entering the field with the right frame of mind and renewed vigor certainly would.

That state of mental peace and positivity is exactly what you need the most in the next 1 week in the run up to the big day. In my 9 attempts at CAT, if there is one thing I have learnt, it is that more than anything else CAT is a game of nerves. I have witnessed numerous cases where a student who was all set to achieve a stellar percentile foundered in the exam simply because he exhausted himself and went in with a fatigued mind. On the contrary, I have seen students expected to fetch a mediocre percentile do wonders in the exam with their happy-go-lucky and ‘Jo hoga dekha jayega yaar’ attitude. In this game, it is not necessarily the smartest who emerges victorious, but the one who goes in with the right mix of intelligence, hard-work and mental equilibrium. While we, your trainers, have tried to guide you at the first two to the best of our ability and you have matched us in that endeavour with same fervor, it is time now to shift the focus onto the third!

Make sure that you keep yourself motivated, relaxed, optimistic and cheerful in the coming week so as to mentally prepare yourself for the exam. While I would encourage you to do things that you find relaxing, I would caution you against doing anything over-the-top. In short, you don’t need to go to Thailand “de-stress" (that's for after the exam)

Here are my 7 suggestions borne out of my experience and observations:

1. DO NOT TAKE any full length tests after 23rd Nov. Some of my colleagues will disagree with me, and I respect their opinion. However, I believe nothing good can possibly come from attempting a full-length test at this point. On the contrary, it can throw you into self-doubt and despair You may take sectional tests, even take 2 in a day, but avoid taking a full-length test. Let the test on 23 Nov Nov be your last before CAT.

2. Watch motivational movies- I suggest you watch 1 movie a day (I am serious here). Some suggestions would be- Rudy, Stand and Deliver, Forrest Gump (my favourite), Fried Green Tomatoes, It’s a Wonderful Life, Life is Wonderful, Pursuit of Happiness, 300, Valkyrie, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, Homeless to Harvard. Feel free to share your best picks with me! Google to discover more such gems.

3. Get 8 hours of sleep. Make sure you align your sleep cycle with the examination day. I had stressed on this in my earlier messages & classes. Know the time of your exam, reverse calculate the time you should get up on 39th November and start adjusting your sleep cycle accordingly. There is nothing worse than appearing for this exam in a sleep-deprived state. Similarly, if you get up at 6 am, you cannot expect your mind to be at its freshest at 4 pm.

4. Go for walks in the park in the morning/evening (on days when the pollution level is bearable, if you are an unfortunate Delhite). Walking around in a lively park and watching small children play is in itself a very life-inducing experience.

5. Indulge yourself in your hobby hobby- now is the best time for you to indulge in what you love: dancing, singing, sketching, and reading. Take time out to do what really relaxes and rejuvenates you.

6. Meditate. If you do this one thing daily and correctly, then it would make for the absence of all above. But then in the world full of Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, how many of us have the patience for this magical activity!

7. Read one motivational novel. For a person as dark and skeptical as I, nothing less than Bhagwad Gita is fructuous. However, if you find that too much, I suggest you read any bestseller like You Can Win, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The Power of Positive Thinking. My learned and well-read colleagues would be able to provide better suggestions here.

Final suggestion- in case you believe in god, pray that the economy recover by the time you complete your management education!!

Note of caution: Do whatever would help your calm your mind, but kindly do not indulge in adventure sports or do something dangerously stupid!

Remember- Guru jo kehte hain humein wo karna chahiye, jo karte hain woh nahi... 😝😝😝
So do as I say, not as I do!

In case you have any more suggestions/experiences on how you relax yourself (not the dirty ones though), then feel free to share here in comments.

PS- The final suggestion was in jest….economy toh Modiji theek kar hi denge 😂

JOIN

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Leave your feedback/suggestions on what else you think I could have included/excluded in this article. Help me get better :-)

How to read The Hindu?

2020-10-27T13:58:00.017-07:00

As explained in one of my earlier articles and during my classes, it is imperative that we read extensively and different genres if we truly intend to, and not just hope to or dream of, secure a stellar percentile in the VARC section of CAT, or any other aptitude test. One indispensable constituent of your daily reading diet must be The Hindu newspaper, more specifically its 3 pages- front page (page no. 1),Editorial (page no. 6) and Op-ed (page no. 7).

While we read the front page to add to our general knowledge and current affairs knowledge, which are tested in some non-CAT B School exams (IIFT, TISS etc.) and also matter in the second stage of selection (GD, WAT, PI etc.), we read the Editorial and Oped to enhance our familiarity with different genres which these two pages beautifully cover. Also, never break the flow of reading by looking up the meaning of a word over a dictionary while reading. You may mark a few of such difficult words and look up their meaning once you are done reading the page/s. And never look the meaning of more than 4-5 words in a day. The idea here is to understand the overall meaning of the article, not each and every sentence and definitely not every word we read. Also, do try to break every article into an Argument, clearly identifying the conclusion and the premises of it. Reading the article and not attempting to break it into an Argument renders the entire effort futile. It's alright though if you are unable to break every article into an Argument, but do try at least.

What to Read and How?
There are ONLY 3 pages of The Hindu that you need to read- Front page (page no. 1), Editorial (page no. 6) & Oped (page no.7). The Front page is to be read normally, as the purpose of reading it is to enhance our knowledge of the important events happening around us.

However, it is the Editorial and Oped pages that will actually enhance our comprehension. Read every article in Editoral and Oped pages using SAP (taught in the first 5 classes of my RC course) and after reading the article, break it into argument, or at least try to.

Learn SAP Reading

Dear students, watch just the first 6 classes of my Para-based Basics course to learn SAP technique to learn How to Read Effectively and then apply the same to Hindu Editorials and other articles you read.

PS: Do not watch more than 1 class in a day. It requires subscription to Aarambh Academy'sV VARC course

Course Link: https://courses.aarambhacademy.co.in/s/courses/6809e4c472cfcc73746a1a05/take#6813210d5753ff747043ac29

What if reading these pages, especially the Editorial is hard?

The starting of ANYTHING is hard. So it is perfectly fine if you are able to break only 1 article into an argument. With time and practice, this number will go up and there will come a time when you will be able to break EVERY article into argument. And from there on, your VARC will start to fly!! For the time being, you can start with breaking Editorials to Arguments yourself and can also read-up how other students do it in our Telegram group where students break each editorial article into arguments. Also, you may refer to the previous Youtube sessions in which I have explained a Hindu editorial of that particular day:

How much time should it take me to read these 3 pages?
Let it take as much as time takes initially. The only way to increase your speed at anything is PRACTICE! So with practice, the time taken to read the 3 pages will come down. I know students who used to take 2-3 hours reading these 3 pages of The Hindu -) and eventually got to a point where they read all 3 in 30 minutes.

How do I know if my argument is correct?

There is no sure shot way to know. In fact the best option here will be that I break all 4 Editorial articles into Arguments and share it in the group so that all others can match their Arguments with mine. However, paucity of time makes that impossible for me. In recent past I used to daily break 1 Hindu article to Argument and I will re-start that in near future, but then again I would break just 1 of the 4 Editorial articles and you will still have the same uncertainty with the other 3 articles.

So, the best that you can do is to compare your arguments with that of others. That way you would get some measure of whether your view on an article is radically different than those of others. But most importantly, even if you are incorrectly breaking articles into arguments, you will eventually get better at it. And even if you correctly breaking articles into arguments, then too you will get better at it. How is that possible? Just think about a person who goes to park and runs there to shed weight. Regardless of whether his running technique and posture are correct or not, he will lose weight if only he just runs, no matter with what technique or posture. Similarly, I promise that your comprehension will improve if you do this exercise of breaking Hindu Editorials to Arguments, even if you get all 4 articles wrong everyday. So instead of worrying too much about whether you are correctly identified the arguments, just keep doing this exercise daily diligently. Also, I promise that once in a while I will break an article into argument and share the same in the group.

Should I read it online (soft copy) or from actual newspaper (softcopy)?

If you are a beginner, reading newspaper/novel for the first time, then I suggest start with Hard copy as you can feel the texture of the page while reading which makes the experience more real and authentic. You can shift to soft copy once you have developed the habit of reading and certain comfort with news articles.

Where to get The Hindu from?

Some of you students have recently expressed your concern about the availability of The Hindu newspaper. So, here are the options that you have

Option 1. Subscribe to the physical copy of the newspaper- reading the newspaper in the traditional way. The dadaji style! This is the most effective way of reading, especially for all the newbies, as the experience of holding the newspaper in hand and to feel the texture of the paper is the authentic way of reading. This is how I began reading newspapers when I was in 7th grade. However, this may not be safe during the ongoing pandemic. Also, this option might not be available to some of you who put up in far off districts, as one student from Assam recently pointed out to me. Additionally. this will add some monthly financial burden which some of you may not be willing to take.

Option 2. Subscribe to the e-copy of The Hindu, as I have. They charged me just Rs. 499 for an annual subscription. The millennial style! I can now read whatever news I want to on my 24 inches desktop monitor (I avoid reading over phone as it strains my eyes). This option is clearly way more economical than physical newspaper subscription and also, like option 1, supports honest and unbiased journalism. Besides, it is available to any person who lives at a place with internet connection, no matter how slow. Additionally, this method helps you get accustomed to reading articles over computer screen, something which eventually you will have to do during CAT, thus increasing your familiarity with the interface, which is important for those who are not used to reading on screen.

Option 3. Download the pdf version of The Hindu daily from the websites and Watsapp/Telegram channels where it is shared daily. The Indian style! This option is best suited for those who absolutely do not want to pay. For all of you who would rather download Mirzapur 2 from Telegram group rather than subscribe to Amazon Prime! The only problem is that such groups may miss sharing the pdf one one odd day. Additionally, many of these groups eventually become inactive or are banned after a few months. But then then there always are new groups that keep popping up. Some such sites/groups which are working as on 28th Oct 2020 are

Telegram
The PDF version of The Hindu is shared on my Discussion Group Daily morning between 5 to 6 am and students break articles to argument all day here:
https://t.me/+37fG1V1EoB00NTY9

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Happy Reading
Lokesh Sharma

CAT v/s Other Exams

2020-10-03T11:02:00.007-07:00

'Penny wise and pound foolish' is an English phrase which refers to a person who would waste away something far more valuable trying to salvage something of much less worth. Imagine you switch off your refrigerator in a bid to save a few units of electricity, resulting in spoilage of thermolabile medicines worth a thousand rupees!

I draw the same analogy with those who focus too much on exams like NMAT, SNAP etc before they have taken CAT. How many worthy colleges does NMAT have for a student who has prepared well and aims to take admission only in a reputed college? The answer is ONE- NMIMS, Mumbai. NMIMS, Bangalore is alright, Hyderabad is average and the newer ones are meant for those who lack any merit whatsoever!

“But sir there are colleges other than NMIMS that accept NMAT scores.” They are ALL below-average or downright unworthy colleges. So are you preparing so hard for NMAT, which is heavy on Vocabulary and Grammar, topics that are unlikely to appear in CAT, so that you can enhance your chances of selection to that one college? While taking your eyes off from CAT which has umpteen envious colleges under its umbrella?

Understand that NMAT/SNAP, as exams, are very very different from CAT. The type of questions, the difficulty level, the strategy to be adopted, format of the paper- all vary greatly. While it would be prudent to practice a couple of mock NMAT papers, but to change your focus considerably to NMAT or SNAP before you take CAT would be detrimental to your larger aim of getting into a worthy B school and would thus be ‘penny wise and pound foolish’. However, if someone is specifically targeting MICA because he has his eyes set on pursuing a life in advertising or communication, or if one desires only IIFT out of her will to build a career in Foreign Trade, or if one is passionate about rural management due to a clear inclination towards rural sector, then it is understandable for such students to keep exams like MICAT, IIFT, IRMA respectively at the center of their preparation. But for all other 'mango aspirants' who haven't chosen any particular niche specialization (banking, power, foreign trade, rural management) or for students who aspire for the usual specialisations (Finance, HR, Operations, Marketing), it makes perfect sense to keep their focus centered around CAT and XAT. You can prepare specifically for all other exams once you are done with CAT, no matter how little that period (after CAT and before the specific exam) seems. PS: The opinion expressed by the author is completely personal and may not resonate with the views of some other trainers/institutes. As always, I would suggest that you weigh an opinion on the merit of its underlying rationale before you accept or reject it. Feel free to ask your queries related to the content of the above article in the comments below.

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Analyse Your Test Well

2020-08-18T15:05:00.012-07:00

Imagine that you go to a pathological lab, get all the tests done- MRI, Ultrasound, Blood test, Urine test- but do not care to go through the details of the test reports. Wouldn’t that be flushing down the drain the entire cost and effort that went into undergoing the tests? Similarly, taking a mock test is pointless if it is not analysed well. Make sure that whenever you take a test, may it be pathological or academic, you analyse it thoroughly. Even if you spend an entire day in taking and then analysing one CAT-type test, it is a day well spent! However, remember that you should start taking full length mocks only after completing 50% syllabus of each of the 3 subjects i.e. 50% of VARC, 50% QA and 50% LRDI. Till then you can take sectional tests of the subjects whose 50% syllabus you have completed. You may even take topic-wise tests for the topics covered (Number System test, Algebra test, Grammar test etc). For VARC, you can consider that your 50% syllabus is complete once you have covered RC basics and Para-based basics courses with me.

How to fully analyse a test? I highly recommend the following process-

1. Take the test just as you would take CAT- no breaks, no mobile phone, no 2-minute gap. Make it an absolute dress rehearsal. If you know the actual timing of your CAT slot (which you would by October), then take the test in that exact time slot.

2. Take a break for an hour or two, and then solve the entire paper again without any time limit i.e. take 5-6 hours and solve each and every question, all DI sets, all RC passages, no matter how tough or easy. You may do this in parts while taking breaks in between, say 2 hours for each section.

3. Now begins the real analysis. Look at the solutions of the questions you got wrong during the test or one you were not very sure of. Analyse what you did right and what not. Did you choose the right questions? Did you miss the doable ones? Did you spend too much time on certain areas/questions? Did you attempt the tough nuts that weren’t meant to be attempted? How could you have got more juice out of each of three sections in the given time? How could you have done this test better? Ponder over these questions. Analyse everything from your question-selection to speed to accuracy. Identify the areas and skills to work upon for the next 10 days.

You will be able to identify some patterns after 3-4 such analyses. You shall realise your problem areas and your strengths. You will know which areas you must focus on in the next 8-10 days before you take the next test and then benchmark your improvements.

Also, you need not take more than 10- 20 (maximum) tests in the run up to CAT from here. Taking tests does not sharpen your skills, it merely tests them. Remember, a battlefield is not where you learn warfare, it is where you display what you learnt during your preparation. Taking too many tests will wear you down, and kill the enthusiasm and adreneline rush that one must feel while taking a test. So do maintain a minimum gap of 7-10 days between 2 successive full-lengths tests. In between those tests, you may daily take one sectional test daily- QA on Monday, VA on Tuesday, LRDI on Wednesday.. The above mentioned approach of test analysis is time-proven, but only a few would be wise and patient to implement it. However, those who do, will see the magic of it. All the best to all of you.

FAQs
Q My mock scores are fluctuating a lot. What to do?
Ans: Your score/marks DO NOT MATTER. Your PERCENTILE DOES. Understand that the score of 30 in a section could be an excellent score or a pathetic score, depending on the difficulty level of the section. Hence we always look at the percentile in each section and of the overall paper to gauge our performance.

It is perfectly normal for your percentile in an individual section or overall mocks to fluctuate. It is the very nature of the devil. Nobody gets consistent percentiles across mocks. I have interviewed 99 %ilers and you will hear them admit that their percentiles have varied from 70 to 98 in mocks. So know that it is absolutely fine.

What is important is that you analyse the test well to see what better could have been done here and take the learnings with you.

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PS- The views expressed above wrt test-taking are based on the writer’s experience and observations. Some other trainers may have differing opinion about the efficacy of the modus operandi of the test analysis discussed. I would suggest that you try this a few times and see if it works for you.

A Lesson in Test Taking

2020-08-04T05:42:00.006-07:00

Do you know why young Ashwathama, despite being a keen learner and son of Dronacharya himself, was not considered the best student by his father? Ashwathama didn't either, and thus one day asked his father the same. That day, Dronacharya, during the day's tutelage, arranged for an exercise where all students were told that a dummy bird placed on a tree was their target. Each student was asked to aim his arrow at the bird, and while the student was ready to shoot, Dronacharya asked the student what he could see. Some said they could see the surroundings, some said they could see the tree and the bird, some, perhaps to impress their teacher, said they could see just Dronacharya's feet. On his turn, Arjun said that he could see only the eye of the bird and nothing else! A delighted Dronacharya then explained to the students that an archer should have his eyes and mind set only on the target before him and nothing else. This not just answered (and embarrassed) Ashwathama’s question but also has a valuable lesson for us taking monitored or unmonitored tests in the run up to November 28.

A lot of you would have been taking online tests, which are well-designed to prepare you for all eventualities on D day, and I hope that you continue to do so systematically for next couple of months. However, I have observed that while taking these tests, some of you get distracted at the slightest movement or noise, sometimes by something as mundane and frequent as the opening of a door, dropping of a pen or displacement of a nearby chair. Though my observation is limited to a few students I have observed, my guess is that the same would be true for many of us. As someone who has taken CAT seven times, I can assure you that such disturbances are very much a part of the actual CAT experience as well, where people move around to invigilate, students leave the test lab to make a hurried visit to washroom and test takers put their queries to the nearby personnel, sometimes not so quietly. In one bizarre incident a few years back, a girl sitting next to me started crying during the test! Did I mention that she was very pretty!!!

If you continue getting swayed by every movement that takes place around you and every sound that falls on your ears, you would not just waste your precious time, but also lose concentration each time your mind wanders to any of it. The only way to overcome such physical (and even mental) distractions is to be totally immersed in your computer screen with an unbreakable focus and be mindful of only what is there on that screen, as if the rest of the world around you doesn’t exist. Nothing that happens in the test room should be able to shatter that Adamantium wall of your unyielding focus. Be as focussed as you are while revising and studying 10 minutes before you enter the examination hall, when all the chaos around you seems to disappear! That is the kind of concentration that you must aspire for. It will not come in a day or even a week, but your conscious efforts in pursuing it will get you closer each time, and by the time it is November the 28th, you will be Arjun with his eyes fixed just on the bird’s eye, and all else invisible! You can rest assured that in case fire breaks out in the building, your concentration would by itself get disturbed by the ensuing pandemonium. But anything less should not catch your attention :-) The writer in me somehow gets a massive erection if I am awake beyond 2 am, and though, on most nights, what I write has nothing to do with pedagogy, somehow the observation I made today propelled me to write the above. All tests and questions have to be analysed after attempting. How to do that? Read my article on test analysis here: https://lokeshlogan.blogspot.com/2020/08/analyse-your-test-well.html Keep checking this space! All the best for the road ahead!

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If you found this article of some value, leave a piece of your mind in the comments. If not, see if you have any suggestions for me. I would value your criticism as much as your appreciation.

Are you serious about your CAT preparation?

2020-07-02T06:13:00.013-07:00

If yes, then the following might the most important article you will read, especially wrt VARC section

Before I ventured into teaching VARC for CAT, I studied Pharmacokinetics where I learnt that in order to bring about a drastic change in the rate of a pharmaceutical process, we must alter the step that dictates the phenomenon the most. Trying to manipulate a step which has little significance would barely bring any perceptible change. Same, my friends, is true for your CAT preparation!! You are at, say, 70 percentile and wish to jump to 99+. How do you think you are going to make that big a jump? There are topics and subtopics in each of the three sections, but are all of them equally critical? If not then which are the ones on which your performance in the exam broadly rests? A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. So let us look at some data to see the distribution of 34 VARC questions across different broad question categories - Reading Comprehension (RC), Critical Reasoning (CR), Grammar and Vocabulary, in that order

--------------- (RC)----------(CR)----------Grammar---------- Vocabulary

CAT 14-------16-------------14-15------------3-4--------------- -0

CAT 15-------24-------------10-----------------0-------------------0

CAT 16-------24-------------10-----------------0-------------------0

CAT 17-------24-------------10-----------------0-------------------0

CAT 18-------24-------------10-----------------0-------------------0

CAT 19-------24-------------10-----------------0-------------------0

CAT 20-------18--------------8-----------------0--------------------0
(CAT '20 had 26 Qs in VARC instead of the usual 34 in the preceding 6 yrs as the total duration of the exam and consequently individual section were reduced due to covid)

CAT '21-------16--------------8-----------------0------------------------0 (CAT '21 had 24 Qs in VARC)

CAT '22-------16--------------8-----------------0------------------------0

CAT '23-------16--------------8-----------------0------------------------0

CAT '24-------16--------------8-----------------0------------------------0

CAT '25--------?---------------?-----------------?------------------------?

As is evident, the areas that have clearly dominated the VARC section of CAT in the recent years are RC and CR. One may accuse me of being selective in considering only previous 10 years’ data, but the reasons for that are

CAT 14 Scorecard

a) recent trend has to be a parameter of relevance. I am sure that while preparing for your end-semester exams, you pick the end-semester papers of previous 4-5 years as your cornerstone, and do not worry what was asked 20 years back.
b) there has been remarkable consistency in the number of questions asked in CAT (100 in 3 hour test and 66 in 2 hour test) and in the individual sections (34 in VARC in 1 hour section and 24 in VARC in 40 minute) in the last 10 years, before which it is hard to find such consistency and thus difficult to observe any clear pattern.

One may also point out that I am focusing on only one exam wherein there is a multitude of other tests that do have quite a few, or perhaps a lot of, questions from Grammar and vocabulary sub-sections. Understand that CAT is the mother of all MBA entrance exams you would appear for, for no other exam acts as a gateway to so many and such illustrious colleges, including the elite IIMs. There is a reason the name of most of your study groups on Whatsapp and Telegram is CAT preparation and not MBA entrances preparation!

I discuss at length in my classes why CR, and especially RC, remain such darlings of CAT and the cornerstone for any test that wishes to ascertain your rationality, however, I will steer clear of that discussion here for the want of time. The point is VA in CAT, in the present context, is all about RC and CR. If I further breakdown CR, we see that almost all the questions asked under this broad category in the recent years are from 3 topics - Summary, Parajumbles and Out of Context. While the first two are known old devils that have been appearing in CAT since always, Out of Context is a recent, somewhat unique (and cryptic) addition. I may choose to write about this question type some other night if I so feel like, and that, I am sure, will ruffle a few feathers here and there 😏

So that brings us back to what we started with. Is what we are focusing on as important as much we are focusing? Are we sure we are not fixated on certain areas because we are good at them or because we find them interesting? You can be the stud who knows almost every word in the newspaper, but what would you do with that vocabulary if there are no questions where it is tested? Grammar could well be made out to be almost half the syllabus in terms of volume, but what’s the point of your spending so much time and effort on it if you will barely get any questions that require any understanding of grammar? Also, I hope we are not avoiding proportionate effort in some areas owing to the amount of labour it would take there or because it requires us to do things beyond our comfort zone. You know which area I am alluding to 😝

Think. Reflect. ADAPT.

CAT 15 Scorecard

With my 15 years of experience of teaching VA for CAT, and having scored over 99 percentile in VA section on many occasions, if there is one thing that I can say is sure to catalyse your accuracy and improve your comprehension in RC and most of CR questions (all in CAT), it is READING DIVERSE GENRES. Whenever you read CAT RC passages (RCs), the single biggest factor that governs your comprehension of that passage is your familiarity with the field/genre to which that RC belongs. Understand that CAT makers do not write these passages themselves. These passages are
basically excerpts taken from articles posted on internationally renowned magazines and websites such as http://time.com/, https://www.nytimes.com/, https://www.theguardian.com/ international etc. So whoever writes these articles, does so for the readers of these websites and magazines. And like any other article, these belong to a particular genre and thus find place in the relevant section of the magazine or newspaper before they are picked up by someone to be turned into an RC.

Now when we read or watch anything, we go for something of our choice- a young college girl might like to read a fashion magazine, a sports fan would pick up Sportstar or watch sports channel, my political enthusiast father would prefer the front page of the newspaper and watch political debates, I would confine myself to The Economic Times or maybe Bigg Boss, a male engineer would rather watch….well, let’s not go there 🙈. You have got the larger point anyway. We all read what matches our interest which naturally makes what we read interesting for us, and are thus easily comprehensible. But imagine if one day you pick up something that belongs to an area totally unfamiliar to you. Imagine a person who has never had the inkling of the farthest of particle of philosophy is given to read the works of the great Jacques Derrida or Friedrich Nietzsche!! (if you think just their names are complex, you have no idea what’s in store for you when you read their work :D). And that is what happens to you when you read RCs, basically articles, that lie outside the area of your interest. Why does that happen? Simple.

1. You DO NOT get to choose the RCs that would appear in CAT. You have to attempt whatever is thrown at you, which, as a matter of fact, is all luck!

2. RCs that you would encounter would be from diverse genres. I would encourage you to go through some of the 20 RCs (5 in each of the two slots) that appeared in CAT 17 & 18 and are readily available online. You may even go through RCs from previous years. You would discover for yourself how CAT selects passages eclectically, a beautiful mix of passages from philosophy, religion, history, science, technology, social issues, fiction, literature and what not. And with about 15 to 20 genres out there, what are the chances that you would be lucky enough to get all or most of you 5 CAT RCs from the 2-4 genres that you are comfortable with? For an average person who has familiarity with 3-4 genres at best, on a fair day he would have only 1 reason to cheer and 4 to lament while attempting CAT RCs.

CAT 17 Scorecard

So what should you, as rational and informed people, do so that you do not end up fretting when you face RCs in CAT and before that in the exhaustive series which we, at Aarambh, have planned for you? You must develop familiarity with all (or as many as possible) different genres. Read the previous sentence thrice. You must read diverse articles from varied fields so that there remains no genre that you are alien to. While that may seem like a punishment in the beginning, the rewards it would reap you in the long run would be rich! If you think reading is an excruciating pain, you have a choice- face this pain either during the preparation or in the exam! There is a well-known saying in army academies across the world- the more you sweat during the training, the less you bleed in the war. Also, know that it is only a matter of time and habit before you develop curiosity in areas beyond your realm of interest, and then it would be a smooth sail after which RCs would not seem as frightening as they might now do. But that would take persistent and conscious effort to step out of your comfort zone and read what you have never read. To implement the above, I strongly suggest the following:

1. Read one novel every week.
It goes without saying that each novel should be from a genre that you have hitherto been unintroduced to. I generally share a list of authors and novels and also give some genre-wise suggestions in my classes. You would find that in the next post.

2. Read the front page and editorial section of The Hindu newspaper. Add Oped/Opinion (right next to editorial) to this after a month of beginning.
Front page contains the news of national and international importance, adding substantially to your knowledge repository. All this awareness about current affairs would come handy when you participate in Group Discussions (GD), Personal Interviews (PI), Extempore etc., all of which comprise the second stage of preparation. Editorial is one page in the newspaper (usually page number 10 in The Hindu) which has articles from diverse fields. If you are game for it, do read the Oped page, which is the immediate next page to the editorial. And for God’s sake stop reading ToI. ToI to newspapers is what AajTak is to news channels and what fight sequences in South Indian movies are to fights in reality.

Sources used for CAT RCs in recent years

3. Read 1-2 articles every alternate day from https://aeon.co/. The website comprises carefully selected, and highly informative and diverse articles with CAT-level difficulty. In fact, CAT itself has picked 6 of its RCs in the last 5 years from this website! More importantly, choose articles from the genres that you are not comfortable with. You may start with articles that you find interesting to build some momentum, but eventually you need to go to articles that are unknown to you. Know that there is a search icon at the top corner where you can enter the name of the genre (philosophy, economy, art, culture, metaphysics etc) you wish to read articles from.

PS: You need not begin with all 3 of the above simultaneously. Start with 2 (The Hindu) and then add 3 once you have developed some comfort with 2. Finally, add 1.

Having made those earnest recommendations, I concede that only a small percentage of you would actually follow all that I have suggested with the sincerity that is required, but so would be the percentage of the students who would make it to a prestigious B school.

Remember, if it is worthy, it won’t be easy to get; if it is easy to get, it can’t be worthy. “The world is at Sharda University” and not at IIMs for a reason. Where do YOU want to land? If you seriously want to get into a top-of-the-charts B school, you must be mentally prepared to give your 100%, no less. We, at Aarambh, resolve to put in our most sincere efforts to see you through the various obstacles in your path to success, and expect you match us in that. Your choices and efforts today will decide your tomorrow. This current sentence that you are reading has no relevance with the topic of discussion here, and has been introduced solely to mock and expose any competitor who mindlessly lifts this article without even reading it completely and tries to pass it off as theirs. All the best! Let the game begin!!

Lokesh Sharma

The author of the article is part of VA faculty at Aarambh and unapologetically takes more pride in his understanding of MBA entrance exams than others are willing to concede ;);

Telegram Main group to get unique material/useful posts- https://t.me/Lokesh_varc
Telegram Discussion group to ask queries from me & discuss questions among yourselves- https://t.me/+RZZ7A5eF30wxODBl
Whatsapp group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/IyrrFuOlI1i4GZf28CTRk9
Daily Hindu Editorials & PDF: https://t.me/+37fG1V1EoB00NTY9

Following is the list of the authors whose books/authors I suggest you read from now on. The idea behind reading these books is to choose the sequence in which you would want to read the books from different genres and to explore the areas that you have hitherto been either oblivious to or uninterested in. Take this as an opportunity to read some wonderful masterpieces rather than a drudgery being forced upon you. Performing it as a customary rite would prevent you from experiencing the pleasure of reading such accomplished and ingenious compositions. As Amir Khan rightly puts it in Three Idiots- The fright of a whip's lash does make even a lion sit on a chair, but we call him well-trained, not well-educated! Ultimately our aim is the same as yours- your selection at a reputed B-School! And I assure you that this exercise is imperative and well directed towards actualizing that goal. Obviously, you won’t find Chetan Bhagat or Paulo Coelho in my list of recommendations as the purpose behind reading here is edification, not just entertainment.

Happy reading!!! :-)
Lokesh Sharma

Do leave a comment mentioning what did you like, what you didn't and what more would you like to be added to this. You may even mention on what other aspects of VA/ CAT preparation you would like me to blog about.

Novels-wise suggestions

Dickens- Great expectations
Oliver Twist
David Coperfield
A tale of two cities
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and sensibility
Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights
Jostein Garder- Sophie’s World
George Orwell-Animal Farm, 1984
Nabokov- Lolita
D H Lawrnce- Sons and lovers
George Bernard Shaw- Complete works
Complete series of Sherlock Holmes
Mark Twain- Adventures of Hucklebery Finn, Adventures of Tom Sawyer
R L Stevenson- Kidnapped, Treasure Island
Dostoevski- Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karmazov
Bram Stoker- Dracula
Mary Shelly- Frankenstein
J D Salinger- The Catcher in the Rye
Jules verne- Around the world in 80 days, Journey to the center of the earth
Alexandre Dumas- The Three Musketeers, Count of Monte Cristo

Genre-wise suggestions

Philosopy-
Sophie's world by Jostein Gaarder (for beginners)
The Republic by Plato (advance level)
The Prince- Philosophy+Politics (easy language) by makaveli

Politics-
Any by Karl Marx
Freedom at Midnight
Discovery of India- Jawahar Lal Nehru

Sports-
Sunny Days by Sunil Gavaskar
Tale of a Tiger by Mak Pataudi

Religion-
Perfect questions perfect answers
Bhagwat Gita by A C Bhaktivendanta (Best, must read)

Author-wise suggestions

John Nashe
Jack London
Rudyard Kipling
James Joyce
Stephen Hawking
Bertrand Russell
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Agatha Christie
Leo Tolstoy
Anton Chekhov
Maxim Gorky
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Franz Kafka
Jean Paul Sartre
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Mahatma Gandhi
Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru
Karl Marx
Adam Smith
Jerome Klapka Jerome
Ernest Hemingway
Friedrich Nietzsche
Emily Bronte
Charlotte Bronte
D H Lawrence
George Bernard Shaw
Louisa May Alcott
Mark Twain
Mary Shelley
George Eliot
Bram Stoker
F. Scott Fitzgerald
George Orwell
J. D. Salinger
Malcolm Gladwell
Harper Lee
Daphne du Maurier
Victor Hugo
H. H. Munro
Stephen Leacock
P. G. Wodehouse
Charles Dickens
Thomas Hardy
Jane Austen
Vladimir Nabokov
O. Henry
Oscar Wilde
Somerset Maugham
Samuel Butler
Graham Greene
Alexandre Dumas
R L Stevenson
Harper Lee

Telegram Main group to get unique material/useful posts- https://t.me/Lokesh_varc
Telegram Discussion group to ask queries from me & discuss questions among yourselves- https://t.me/+RZZ7A5eF30wxODBl
Whatsapp group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/IyrrFuOlI1i4GZf28CTRk9
Daily Hindu Editorials & PDF: https://t.me/+37fG1V1EoB00NTY9

Be the lowered matchstick

2020-06-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

Dear students,

In my online classes that I took in March and April, I used to often caution- things will get much worse before they get better. Or you may have read my fb post on this about over a month ago https://www.facebook.com/lokeshrisky/posts/10157660551507496

That worse is here NOW!

Understand that the number of cases in India, and especially in Delhi, will now explode in the next 1-2 months! You might well see a situation of 10k+ cases in Delhi every day! Also, this is the worst time to be looking for a hospital beds because there aren't any. All the tall claims by Delhi government are fallacious- trust me, I have seen the reality of it first-hand. Even if you find one, imagine spending 25k+ per day (yes you got it right 25k). The patient might have a medical insurance for 4-5 Lakhs, but how long do you calculate it would last? Especially with 1 injection of Tocilizumab costing over 40k (just one injection, not a pack, mind you). Add to all this, the possibility of eventually losing your loved one.

Are you at risk? Absolutely not! Almost all of you are young and strong people with healthy immunity. Even if you contract Corona virus, at worst you would have just mild fever with cough and maybe some diarrhea and general weakness for a few days…maybe a week. So what’s the big fuss then? The problem is if you live with your parents, worse still with your grandparents or small children, all of whom have fragile immune systems and existing medical ailments. THEY are the ones at risk, and YOU are at risk of bringing this virus home with you. One it gets inside one house, it is almost certain that it will infect everyone in the house, usually in a matter of hours.

So what if they fall sick? I have a doctor in my family and my family member wouldn’t even need to go to the hospital. Wrong. You parent/grandparent would need a ventilator and continuous monitoring, and for that he would need a hospital bed. Also, there is no cure for Covid 19 as yet. The three medicines used in its treatment Tocilizumab, Remdesivir and Dexamethasone have very limited success and are as hard to get as getting Sanjivani Booti was in Ramayan, that if you can afford these expensive medicines in the first place. Fun exercise- Do call around the chemists and pharmacists you know to see how easily you are able to arrange these…try it. Also, the Plasma therapy that you would have heard of in news and which too has variable success rate is available in only 3 hospitals in Delhi- AIIMS, Max Saket and Apollo. You would need some serious pull to get a bed in one of these.

What’s the gist of this all? PLEASE STAY INSIDE and follow best practices to sanitise whatever comes into the house. This video teaches how - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjDuwc9KBps&app=desktop

If you cannot, then rent a room or shift somewhere you do not come in contact with anyone else. A couple of friends of mine have moved to Chandigarh; that too might be an option for some of you, especially those who have another house or extended family elsewhere which is not as affected as Delhi and Mumbai are. Remember, you must remain Corona-free to protect the ones who would otherwise pay the price for it. You must be the matchstick that pulls away so that the ones behind it do not burn.

How to learn Stock Market Investment

2020-05-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

A lot of my students and some friends often ask me how they can learn about stock markets and investments. While I am myself a novice at this and have miles to go before I can even begin to give ‘tips’ on which stocks to pick, I do have a few suggestions on how to begin learning, based on my 4 years of investment experience. So here it goes-

https://www.varunmalhotra.co.in/landing-page

1. This site gives you access to a 3 hour free video (FLAP) by Varun Malhotra after you register. Let this be the beginning of your learning. I have attended his extensive training program (FLIP) in offline mode and can vouch that he is one of the most learned persons in this field I have met. Subscribe to his You Tube channel and watch some amazing videos- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY1-91vKeDNzyS3_cY-lh_w

2. Once done with FLAP, start reading extensively to

A) develop your aptitude and understanding of finance, money, investment instruments and stock market in general

B) know about basic terminology and concepts

C) get into the habit of being aware of what his happening around you and its implication on the economy, stock market and individual stocks

For A, I suggest reading books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle and then keep going. Must read Letters to Investors by Warren Buffet, which, for an investor, is Bhagwad Gita straight from Lord Krishna!

For B, start following Investopedia.com to learn new terms, ratios, matrices and their relevance. Just subscribe to this website and read the 1-2 articles you would receive in their mailbox. Also, you may watch You Tube videos which explain any term/event you want to understand. So if you want to know what is ‘Free Cash Flow’ or how ‘Repo Rate increase tames inflation’, watch some You Tube videos on it or just Google such terms to find some articles that explain it simply. For example, this video lucidly yet simply explains the sub-prime crisis of 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx_LWm6_6tA

For C) begin with reading the business pages of The Hindu and later graduate to The Economic Times. Along with it, follow relevant articles on sites like Money Control, Livemint and Bloomberg. Join Watsapp groups where you get info of various big developments and where list of headlines from various financial papers is shared daily. Basically surround yourself with people who are into investments.Read the articles whose title seems interesting or useful and share it with others. This way develop a network where valuable and insightful articles are shared and discussed.

3. Once you feel that you are getting a hang of things, join some professional course by someone who can then help you understand how to pick individual stocks and evaluate them. There are dozens of stock market gurus on TV and social media (I wonder how much money they have made and why would they be running their mouth if they really were worth their salt). However, I suggest two- Varun Malhotra’s intensive program (FLIP) and Dr Vijay Malik’s full day workshop titled ‘Peaceful Investing’. I have attended both and can thus vouch for their fruitfulness. They both have offline as well as online sessions. In case you decide to join the online course, do consult me…I might be able to get you some discount. There are some free courses too, like one by Rachna Ranade on her You Tube channel, which is all good for a beginner, but then if you want some real quality, then of course you must be willing to invest for that. I can say without any doubt that the money I have invested in my learning have had a multiplier effect on the profit I have made.

4. On the basis of your understanding, develop your way to shortlist, pick and analyse sectors and companies, and choose the one whom you feel confident about. Use https://www.screener.in/ for that. Discuss those stocks with other learned peers and Google its history to get deeper insights and different perspectives on it.

5. Open a demat account -I have one with Sharekhan and one with Zerodha. (I use Sharekhan to track shares and price movements as it has better interface, but I buy over Zerodha as it has least brokerage). Buy the stock! Congratulations, you are in the game!!!

One last word- 2 is the most important, time-taking and burdensome step. Of course, the problem is that most people start with 5 😁

If you don’t want to lose money here, as a lot of people here do in the initial phase, including myself, then don’t rush. Take it slow and take time in building knowledge. Then start small, invest only small amounts to test your understanding, and do not dive head first.

PS- I attended dozens of free webinars during the lockdown and none of them was worth my time, even when I had loads of it!

PPS: Let me know in the comments below if this added any value, and what else would you lik eme to add to this. Your appreciation will bolster my resolve and your suggestions will improve the article.

10 Crucial Questions Overlooked in Salman Khan Verdict (6 will blow your mind)

2018-04-06T08:20:00.001-07:00

If there is one thing that I have learnt in the recent days, it is that the world cannot stand an honourable, peace-loving, humble yet immensely successful man. I am shocked and appalled by the fallacious and motivated arguments made against my idol, inspiration and hero Salman Khan in the recently concluded Blackbuck hunting case in which he has been unfairly convicted and sentenced to such illogically harsh punishment, all because he is famous and kind-hearted. Both the media and judiciary have been totally biased against him, and have overlooked some key facts which I intend to highlight. Following 10 hard-hitting questions will expose the entire sham:

Even the animals love Bhai

1. Anyone who has ever watched Salman Khan movies (only the most ignorant would not have) would know the animal-loving person that he has ALWAYS been. Remember the pigeon in Maine Pyaar Kiya? And can anyone forget the dotting love of Bhai for Tuffy in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun! And if that’s not enough, recall the horses Salman showered his love on in Bandhan and Sanam Bewafa (morons wouldn’t have even seen the last two movies, of course). For God’s sake, even the name of his last movie is TIGER Zinda hai! Does all of this not sufficiently corroborate his selfless love for animals?

2. Everyone knows the charm that Bhai has and how people faint or bump into objects when they chance upon his heavenly form. So is it not a very realistic possibility that the Blackbuck, upon learning that it is Salman in the vehicle, was following the vehicle to steal a glance when the poor animal ran into a tree or big rock and succumbed to his injuries, and later someone planted those bullets inside those injuries?

3. There were 3 women in the vehicle when the alleged incident took place. Would any woman-respecting man, which Salman has a history of being, ever participate in any kind of violence in the presence of women? Don’t even get me started on Salman’s support to feminism, something very close to my heart.

4. All Blackbucks look the same. So how can one say that the Blackbuck whose body was found is the same as the one who was supposedly killed by his bullet. Or, for that matter, how can one be sure if the one who was hit by the bullet was the one whom Salman had fired at, if at all he did?

5. What took the courts so long (20 years) to establish that Salam is guilty? Do the judges even remember the facts of the case now? There is strong likelihood that they mixed up the evidences and arguments of this case with those of some other case, which should not be surprising given the average age of a judge in our judiciary.

6. We all know that in the times of Watsapp, Insta and Facebook (look at you all losers reading this long post), people suffer from depression and loneliness. Perhaps the Blackbuck too was a victim of depression and jumped in front of the bullet fired by Salman to attain salvation by dying at the hands of none other than the God-sent Bhai (numerous references for same can be cited from Ramayana and Mahabharatta).

7. It is established that Bhai was driving the vehicle on the day when the alleged incident took place. So how can he shoot the animal while he was driving? This in itself proves how fabricated the entire case is!!

8. The Bishnois and the village became famous only after the alleged hunting incident, thereby making the people and the place famous and thus brining much valuable tourism. This makes it abundantly clearly that it was all staged for publicity by the villagers. And if it was not, shouldn’t they be actually thankful to Bhai for their much-improved standard of living?

9. And if all the above do not appeal to your rational faculty, then just look outside at the weather in Delhi! Make no mistake friends, it is a cosmic warning to undo the gross injustice that is being done to the beloved of Thy, before he unleashes fury in the form of floods, draughts, global warming,Tiger Shroff movies and what not.

10. Please use your brains and see that there is a pattern to this- Bapu Asaram, Sasikala, Ram Rahim John Singh Chevosky Insaan, Lalu Yadav and now Bhai. Those against honest people will stop at nothing. Remember, if you are silent today, tomorrow I may be some other great soul like Sri Sri Sri Sri Ravishankar, Yasin Malik or Bikram Majithia.

11. What 11th? I mentioned 10 you dimwits and there will be 10. Anyway if the above 10 did not convince you, your retarded mind won’t be stirred with 11th anyway.

Meanwhile basic facilities like geyser, air conditioner (is it 37 degrees in Jodhpur today), television, Jacuzzi etc are being denied to him in the charade of equality. It is clear that people jealous of his stardom want to end his career, so that he can finally be replaced from the top.

Though I would not like to name anyone, I do suspect some Bollywood bigwigs to be a part of the mega conspiracy, especially the so called ‘King’ who cannot hide his age despite the tonnes of makeup. Though I won’t be surprised to know that other failed actors who have had ex-girlfriend issues with Salman are found to be involved. I stand by him in these trying times and hope that the truth prevail and his innocence be acknowledged.

I leave you with a pic we clicked when I met Bhai after a long gap and he was ecstatic to see me. Of course, haters will say that I photo shopped it, but I choose to overlook pessimism. I am with him. I am Salman!

Lokesh Sharma

The author is an ardent fan of Salman Khan, and is often seen quoting from Salman’s movies and other appearances.

PS- The author would love to read your supporting/refuting arguments on the matter as much as your reviews of the post

Heartbreak

2016-04-12T08:39:00.000-07:00

An evening of April 2015, I cried as if there were no tomorrow… like a child who lost his most precious belonging, like an athlete whose dream just shattered and like a student who failed in his career-defining exam. It seemed that the world had ended for me and the life around me had come to a standstill. I reached back to the hopelessness that I had once experienced many years back. It was after more than a decade that tears had rolled down my cheeks. Of course, I am a man so no one could see me like that, so it was at my office after everyone had left. What was it that I cried my eyes out over? What else could it be! The same old nemesis that accounts for majority cases of depression, tears, suicide and murders- a heartbreak. I had just had the most massive heart break, a heart blast, and that too in installments. I would usually scorn over or look down upon someone being a pussy over some person who left him/her, but there I was, myself sobbing like a little girl. Maybe the fact that I had not cried in so many years added to the intensity, but it was the heartbreak that made me shed a small pond, if not a river. What had happened was that the girl I loved had chosen someone else over me. She had made her choice clear that day and I was left stranded like the sorrowful side-hero of our Bollywood movies who is left crying secretly after the heroine picks the lead hero. In that moment I was mournful, dejected, lonely and felt miserable. Not that I felt I would not get another. I had had more than a fair share of female attention and companionship before and there were other green pastures seeking reciprocity from me, but the point is, for the first time in my life, I felt that I did not want anyone anymore. I always thought that a heartbreak could never happen to me since I never make the first move. All my life, and even in this case, I had reciprocated only after the other person came closer. I fell in love with her more deeply only after she confessed her love for me. It was therefore that I felt somewhat cheated as well. But whatever the case be, the pain was excruciating, more so for a person like me who does everything with passion and has an ‘all or none’ policy in life. It was as if along with her I lost my ability to feel for someone with the intensity with which I felt for her. It was as if there was something in me that I had always held back for one special person in my life and the person I gave it to returned it with an apology. But I could give it only once, and I did not know how to take it back. I could compare it with Karna’s irony where he saved the weapon he got from Indra all his life to use it on Arjun but ultimately had to waste it on Ghatotkach.

I am sure the above part of the write-up would ring a bell with most of you. He who hasn’t had a heart break (not just a break up) has missed an imperative, though agonising, experience in life. It’s been one year since then. In fact, I write this on this night exactly one year after the above incident. Clearly, I have not committed suicide. Nor have I taken to drugs or ruined my career. And I have definitely not given up on life, I never do. Rather, I have tried my best to live up to the other roles that I have- son, brother, teacher, friend- with varying degrees of success and failure. Yes, it was extremely hard and I wouldn’t say that I can dismiss it as just a passing incident or that it does not occupy some space in my mind. But I am back to life, living it to the fullest, just as I had been doing before all the above happened. Ironically, it was this ‘living my life to the fullest’ attitude that she admitted she liked in me the most.

A good friend of mine was talking to me about how he is going nuts dealing with his breakup (he got dumped, for a much lowly reason and by a totally worthless girl) and while talking to him I thought of writing this here, hoping that it might just help someone who really needs to read this. So in the following part of the article (and you thought it was about to end!) I will talk about what you (a girl or a boy) need to do once your heart has been stomped upon. There is clearly no easy or short way, so if you are expecting some magic Talisman, read no further! But if you are looking for some direction, what lies ahead might come handy :-)

1. Accept

Accept that it is over. A lot of us subconsciously keep on waiting or harboring that hope that she/he will come back. That somehow someway things will magically fix themselves. Some of us may not even concede that deep down we do wish that things get back to the way they were. Or we will wake up in sometime to learn that it was all a bad dream. Shake it off. Man up and accept it. She is gone and she is not coming back. Tell this to yourself as the strictest parent would tell his child for something that is impossible for him to get for his child. Don’t be a monkey that carries its dead baby. Let her go, she has already gone anyway. Your disbelief would not change the truth. A good way to do this would be to write her a parting note so as to end things on more relieving terms. Forgive the person, hold no grudges, forgive yourself as well. Should you be active friends with the person. My suggestion- Absolutely don’t. At least not till you are totally out of it. And perhaps not even after that. Out of sight works well to get it out of mind.

2. Decide

The most definite way is to first be willing to get out of it. One usually feels a sense of sadistic pleasure in being a lost lover, sometimes without even knowing it. There is a part of you that wants to remain in the gloom of a lost romantic. So as long as you luxuriate in the despair, you are certainly not getting anywhere near light. I know it is not easy, and there is a great inertia. And it may take some time, sometimes, a lot of time. During this time you would like to listen to slow/melancholic songs. I would listen to Kal Ho Na Ho title track back to back for hours! It’s ok :-) You can give yourself some time. But at some time you have to decide- That’s it. I have to get back to life. Be firm that from this point onwards, she cannot feature in your passwords, you cannot stalk her profile and you cannot read the messages you exchanged. You may sometimes find yourself in a weak moment, but perseverance is the word. Try to get it out of you by doing whatever you think would help- write her a mail, pay her a last visit, shout her name several times at the top of your voice (I did this on Laxman Jhula in Hrishikesh). One of the surest way to get it out it to talk about it in detail with your besties and cry your heart out on their shoulder.

3. Do your job

There is a code that has helped me be stable in the toughest of times in my life. The code is- No matter how you feel in the morning…get up, dress up and show up. It is for this reason that baring a few very very close ones, no one around me would have even got to know when this phase came and went by in my life. I have taught packed classes with a broken heart and not one student could have had known the turmoil that was there inside me. So do not take leave from your work/college/project and sit home. Not one day. Do not let love suffer because of work, but do implement this policy the other way round too.

4. Start doing something new

Hit the gym and exercise, join a dance class and sweat, take up some volunteering work and bring smiles, and if nothing else, just go travel to some place you haven’t been to before. If you even remotely know me, you would easily guess which one of these I did  If you have a hobby that you are passionate about, now is the time to pursue it with all the extra time you now have. The point is, you have to put your extra energy and time to something else. As long as you have extra time, you will have thoughts more the time, more the thoughts. Bring the time to zero. And better still if you do it while pursuing something worthwhile. Haven’t we seen movies and read in stories where failing in love becomes the stepping stone for the protagonist’s success!!

5. Set some goals for yourself

Life is like stock trading. Always diversify. Never invest all your money in one stock. If you invest all your money in one stock, and that stock crashes, you would be bankrupt. Similarly, don’t just have a love life and one person as your goal. Have career goals, hobbies-related goals, fitness goals, travel goals, spiritual goals, sex goals (kidding) etc. This way whenever any one or two of these take a hit, others will help you stay afloat.

6. Sleep on time

Do not stay awake till late night unless you are doing something really ‘productive’, pun intended. Somehow night time is when the throwback kicks in, you feel like revisiting the rosy times and relive the moments, which in turn does not let you come out of it. So the simple solution is, sleep early. If you can’t, run for one hour in the evening or exercise hard, your tired body will drive itself to sleep. Force it on you, and in the process you would develop an excellent routine of getting up early in the day and having more light hours!

7. Socialise

I don’t mean to say that you go all out looking to meet as many people as you can. Just don’t be a recluse because that exacerbates it. Make sure you have some company and you have a social life beyond workplace. These are the times that cronies are for (seen Tamasha?). In fact this could be a good time to make some new friends and know diverse people and learn a few things from others.

8. Don’t be a desperate (Very Important)

Avoid launching a hunt for someone to quickly replace the previous person. You might start contemplating every other girl you know as a possible replacement and there are very high chances that you will make a bad decision. Instead, take time to heal…life is big and world population is phenomenally high! You will come across many more people.

I would sum up by saying that people move in and move out of your life all the time, don't let their exit decrease the value of the moments you spent with them, for those moments are yours. The spectrum of life is immense and what seems a colossal loss today would look small when you look at your life as a whole. And most importantly, remember that the first person you are supposed to be loyal to is yourself. And losing yourself over someone who lost you is not worth the loss :-)

PS- Though the article has been written from my point of view and therefore uses pronouns accordingly, it is not meant to label either gender with any blanket characteristic…it rather talks about the subject in a gender-neutral spirit.

As always, would love to read your views on my ramblings :-)

P for Perspective

2016-03-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

mylifeisnowhere

What did you read above? Was it- my life is no where? Or was it- my life is now here?

Beyond junior classes, as a student I was a disaster! And the magnitude of it kept scaling up. But one thing that has always worked to my advantage is my ability to look at situations with different perspectives. Perspective- this one eleven letter word has a wide meaning and holds tremendous value to it. It makes the difference of heaven and hell for the same given setting. Both logic and humour demand that the person dealing with them be able to look at facts with multiple angles and in different lights. No wonder people who have good sense of humour are smart! Being able to come up with a different perspective on the same situation may even lead you to see the positive side of a seemingly bad situation or come up with a significantly better solution, perhaps even a game-changer . It all depends on your standpoint on the given event. There is this famous story of two shoe salesmen who were sent to Africa to see if there was a market for their product. The first salesman reported back, “This is a terrible business opportunity, no-one here wears shoes.” The second salesman reported, “This is a fantastic business opportunity, no-one here wears shoes!” The point is when you begin looking at the same issue with a different thinking hat, you might just focus on the opportunity in difficulty than difficulty in the opportunity.

When I look back at my life, I see that somehow I had a natural propensity to question the employed rationality and sometimes have a differing view from the one presented. I was in a junior class when I noticed something on the educational notice board of our school. It read- “What’s in a name. By William Shakespeare”. Even though I did not know the meaning of the term paradox, I could laugh at the contradiction in the sentence. There was another instance of my early schooling when I commented in our maths class that square is simply a special case of a rectangle, to which the teacher chided me and warned me against voicing my irrelevant and stupid thoughts in class. But the earliest instance I can recall is of when I was in a much junior class, maybe 1st or 2nd .My Hindi teacher, Chauhan mam, a very sweet lady who used to tell us fables to inculcate morals in us, narrated a story in class.

There was once a boy who, while entering his home at night, saw that the concrete water tank had a hole and water was flowing out if it. He realised that the seepage, if left unattended, would not only lead to the loss of all the water but might also damage nursery under it. He inserted his finger in the hole and stood there all through the cold night. In the morning when his mother realized what the boy did, she was proud of his dedication towards the house and also rewarded him for his dutiful behaviour. Hence the lesson we learn is that at times you need to do things that require will-power and sacrifice for family and others.

At the end of this story I asked her- “but mam...why did he stand there with his finger in the hole all night...he could have stuck a stick in it for the night, and then get it repaired the next day”. Some of my classmates were laughing, and many did not get it. As sweet as Chauhan mam was, she did not scold me or kick me out of the class as many of the teachers over the following years of my schooling did. In fact, she smiled to it. Though the idea of telling this story was to preach sacrifice and responsibility, but perhaps she too came to recognise the futility of the boy’s well-intentioned endeavour. Or maybe she was too kind to discourage a young mind questioning the way things go around. I too learnt something that day. Many a time in life one works very hard or does something rigorous and feel very content wherein actually that action perhaps was completely or partially unnecessary or could have been done in a smarter way, which is not necessarily tantamount to being lazy or foxily avoiding hard work. All it means is that one is smart enough to do it in a simpler way. When I was very young, people in our locality would fill their room coolers with buckets of water that they would carry all the way from their bathroom to the cooler...and then there were people who would simply use a pipe. This of course does not apply to places where doing the work in the traditional way would be of some value addition over the simpler alternative. Instead of solving the set of questions given by his teacher if a student simply copies them from internet then that would defeat the very purpose of the assignment. But if the work does not add any value as such and can be done in a simpler way, I see no reason why the efficient should not replace the traditional or prevalent.

Toh yaad rakho doston, zindagi mein har jagah ungli daal ke khade nahi ho jaana hota, kabhi kabhi lakdi fasa ke aage bad lena hota hai! Also, at times,you need not completely solve the problem then and there... just to fix it for then and move on to more pressing concerns :-)

Do comment under, and be honest and blatant :-)

Happened to find this class picture from the same class

Coz We Fight Like Bros

2015-03-15T08:39:00.000-07:00

Do you have a childhood anecdote behind that scar on your face? I have a different one for all the odd designs that you can count on me, stories spread over two decades!

Last night while we were casually discussing the relationship between siblings, more specifically the relationship between siblings of same gender, and started to pour our experiences, I inadvertently travelled back in time to my boyhood which is rife with uncountable incidences of our ‘brotherly disagreements’. My brother is about a year and a half older but I would always give him a tough fight. Consequently, our bodies at multiple places, particularly face and hands, have marks from stitches, deep flesh-cuts and bruises that we share in equitable proportion. Our entire childhood in the many rented apartments of Patel Nagar are interspersed with such stories of our bravado, from as early as we could stand till late teenage. We don’t fight anymore, not physically at least. And it has nothing to do with the fact that my brother is now tall enough for us to not fit in one frame! (He is 6”2’). But we would kick each others’ asses in the years when I was not as respectful of the difference in our age and when the disproportion in our size was not this significant, and when I would not discount him on his being my elder brother. Add to that we were die-hard fans of WWF (WWE back then was WWF). A small trigger over which channel would be watched or who would get to play with the new bat today would incite the Hitman Heart and the Austin in us. Of course it was the worst nightmare for our mother who would rush the wounded warrior to the nearby Bhatia clinic while chiding us with the usual Punjabi curses- khottey, sayappeyjoge, khasma nu khaane- when she saw one of us crying and bleeding, and the other one standing with an innocent face with a ‘I-didn’t-do-it’/’It-isn’t-my-fault’/he-started-it look on the face and a slightly triumphant feeling inside. Our father would at night thrash the other warrior as a reward for his valour. To us, well, the next day was as if nothing happened, except for a little sympathy for the retired hurt and a little guilt for having hurt the brother.

Somehow that, it seems, has changed with brothers over the years. They do not fight as nastily as our generation brothers used to. Instead they write nasty things on their Facebook wall to avenge their insult in some ‘pic’ shared on Watsapp. Perhaps we too would do the same if we were doomed enough to have in our times Facebook and Watsapp and other modern wonders that the technological illiterate me does not know of. All we had were TV video games with Mario and Contra, and a shared cycle, and that were enough for us to end up in blood and shrieks!

I am not decrying the advent of technology here. In our times it was video games, in the generation before us it was Televison, the one after us had computers, today it is the I pads and all the I-fucks…each generation has its toys. But the change that I do ponder on here is that somehow brothers don’t fight like brothers anymore. As naïve and unreasonable as it may sound, there is a great deal of loss that accompanies the absence of these skirmishes in the formative years. It was these battles that used to bring out men out of boys, so to say in a very dramatic heroic sense. And to have a brother to fight with prepares you for all the ‘pangas’ you would have in school and the street-fights you would have, which in turn would prepare your mind and body to face competitions and challenges of different kind, say a sport or an exam or perhaps even the nervousness of standing on stage or protesting against something in public, which in turn prepares a young boy to face the many battles in times to come. The reason for that is rooted in science- fight, like any other competition, is preceded by a surge in adrenaline and other hormones in the body which is basically the brain’s way to signal an imminent danger or pressure situation and to prepare the body for that upcoming challenge. The sudden change in breathing pattern just at the start of a competition, the hyperactivity or paroxysm the we experienced as one steps on the stage, the increased heartbeats on meeting someone who intimidates us…these are all situationally different nonetheless, in principle, similar to a fight and have the same physiological effect on us is what I mean to highlight. The more frequently you face these situations, the more comfortable you get with them, the more confident you become and hence your personality blossoms. Apart from that, basic fighting skills are something we all need at many a time. Should the time someone corners you on a dark road or someone misbehaves with a known female be your first fight? Can anyone deny that these incidences in today’s life have become all too common and to fight, at times,is the only option for any self-respecting person? In such a situation all the boyhood clashes become the preparation for the time you actually have to defend yourself or agress. In ancient Rome, fathers used to teach their kids to fight, even if they did not aspire their son to become a soldier. It was these lessons that would forge deeper filial bonds. This training was the inheritance and schooling that the child would receive from his father/ elder brother. And lastly, if Bollywood has taught us something time and again then it is that the boy has to fight to get the girl! Tell me one Bollywood movie where the hero did not kick some ass!! Essentially, it‘s a part of growing up of all tiny men, and it becomes easier if you have some in-house practice from time to time. Elders, back then, used to say- chhot lagegi tabhi toh bada hoga. Somehow elders today don’t say this anymore, at least not the ones around me.

What has changed in the last decade? Why don’t brothers fight the way Updesh and I used to? Is it because our society has become more civilised and parenting has improved tremendously and thus fraternity now has no place for a little violence? Is it because brothers love each other too much to hurt them? Or is it because the energy which would earlier go into physical activities is now being sapped by fingers tapping somewhere or the other? Could it be because boys do not find their best friend in their brother and seek it outside? From the one person who knew all their secrets, he has become the only person oblivious of it all. Once someone asked kids- how does one express love? Kids replied- by playing and fighting with them. The fight is the love. These scars and marks on us are reminiscent of the growing up that we shared, of the times we grew in, of the quarrels we had as boys, of the love the remains between us, and of the childhood that bonds us. Yeah we may have looked a little better absent these small scars put so prominently and strategically on our faces (I have one at the center of my right cheek and Updesh has one just under his left eye), but then these tiny medals of bravery and fortitude are worth the space they take in the sense that they remind us that we had someone awesome to play and grow up with, someone who wouldn't easily hand over the video game remote or the cycle, someone whom we share an unbreakable bond of blood.

Dedicated to my brother

This is a few days after Updesh had got stitches under his left eye

The North East- A different India within India

2014-09-07T13:42:00.002-07:00

Locals of Majuli Island, world's largest river island, situated on Brahmaputra in Assam

"As innocent as a child, as beautiful as a newly wedded girl, as dreamy as first love"- this is how I described North East when someone asked me how it was after my maiden journey to the region.

Friends, I had hitherto not been a person who writes travellogue, but have finally decided to give in to the demands of a few travel-crazy friends who have requested, threatened and even emotionally blackmailed me into documenting my travels. So here is my first one, part 1 of my trip that I took to North East in March-April of 2013.

The Journey Begins

It was once again a travel journey, once again I had my big blue bag on my back, and once I was racing against time like a mad bull on the platform of New Delhi Railway Station to make it to my train. There was once again a Déjà vu, the feeling of having been in the exactly same surrounding in the exact same way so many times. From a distance I could see my train already sliding smoothly. For someone who has travelled in Indian Railways for as long as I have, it is disappointing to see a train leave on time. I pride myself on having been the absolute last passenger to have boarded the moving train on so many occasions after giving it a kilometer chase. Just as Undertaker cannot lose at Wrestlemania, Salman Khan movies never make any sense, Rahul Gandhi will always remain a retard and even God cannot kill a South Indian movie hero...I considered it impossible for me to miss my train. And today, for once, it occurred to me that this could be the ultimate dark night when the heaven falls apart. I gave the last burst of energy in me and exhausted whatever little life that remained in me to push myself faster and ultimately achieved the dubious distinction of being the last person to board the running train, and with a sprained right leg.

I savour travelling in train, even if it is at the cost of additional time or extra journey or compromised safety. I love the characteristic smell of sleeper class train bogie, the rhythmic noise of the rail gaadi, the air blasting on to your face when you sit against the window, the view of the distant houses and farms- a perfect place to reflect and think, to relish and repent, to re-live and forget, to smile and sulk. The train journey to Guwahati was usual- punctuated with phone calls, watsapp, conversations with fellow passengers, something to eat at every railway station, something to read, finding a charging point.

The train, 8 hours late, took me at Guwahati at 3 pm. It was at the railway station where I first met Lisa, the British traveller who was in India for the second time. We had interacted online and decided to cover the common part of the journey together to save ourselves some money and have someone for company. She had been travelling alone and was a little desperate for company and I too definitely did not want to travel alone. It was quite a sight to see a white, slender, tall British girl in a white Salwar and yellow Kameez. There she was, with her golden shoulder-length hair as confident as Britons typically are. Not a wee bit nervous or apprehensive about traveling with or sharing a room with an stranger male from Delhi (perhaps the notoriety of Delhi was unknown to her). Though she was a little confused and somewhat moody, but she hid it to some extent and was courteous as her nationality demanded of her.

We went first to her room near the station at a hotel. At 700 per day, the room’s rent definitely exceeded its worth, something most hotels are guilty of when it comes to servicing foreigners. We met two Spanish travellers whom I deeply suspect to be gay (one of them used to read a novel to the other each night: D I learned that at Majuli Island but that comes later). We talked to them for a few minutes and then proceeded to the Mizo House to procure Inner Line Permits for Mizoram which we thankfully did not get as we never made it to Mizoram. We toured the city and spent some time at Assam State Museum befbefore covering Kamakhya Temple, on the way to which I told her that the temple is devoted to Sati whose vagina, as legend has it, fell there and still ovulates during a particular time of the year under the sacred cave. For the rest of the evening we tried street food and then had dinner before we retired to the room.

If you are having trouble picturising her by my description then here she is- Lisa

For those of you who plan to visit North East, I recommend not to customarily waste a day at Guwahati as there isn’t anything there, something Lisa rightly observed and said to me while I was in Train and she was there. Infact, you could even skip Kamakhya unless you are the religious types or the one who must see every known monument in the area.

Below are a few of the memorable pictures from the trip.

The fabled and marvelous double decker living root bridges of Nongriat, Meghalaya

Kaziranaga National Park, Assam

The dark and eerie caves of Mawsmai, Cherrapunji, Meghalaya

Will try to find time to write the remaining parts!

Happy Diwali

2012-11-13T08:32:00.004-08:00

We all have in our hearts the darkness of lonliness, deficits, disappointments, failures, departures and pain….today, on Diwali, we can either choose to continue being in this darkness or light up a candle of hope and start with a renewed vigour to spread the luminescence of companionship and joy that we all seek. I am about to light up mine. Happy Diwali !!!

The Journey of Life

2012-09-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

It’s been exactly one year. It was the night of 31^st of May 2011 that I was in a train to Pathankot from where I would board a bus to Dharamsala. I had written my last exam of a degree that I neither had any interest in nor had any skill for, and thus could not garner the same numerical value of the accrued credits as most of my classmates did. Four years of college life had culminated in a glaring nothing. I certainly did not make many friends while I was in college. However, what really disheartened me was fact that my life was heading nowhere…in all possible interpretations of the statement. My academic life ever since high school had been a series of disasters, one bigger than another. And this continued at college too. Hence I was at a stage in life where I had no real educational qualification and very limited employability. The only jobs that I could think of were those in BPO or of a Medical Representative. Career was not the only dark aspect of my life. All that could possibly go wrong was wrong. There was nothing that I could think of and with each day I felt as if I was being sucked in by a black hole of disappointment and a sense of failure.

Out of an unexplainable state of mind, I packed my bag with whatever I found handy, collected whatever money I had and went to the railway station to head to Dharamshala, where a classmate was posted for his first job. I guess I just desperately wanted to get away from all the worries and seek some solace in being at least physically away from all that would tell me that I was in a spot that was far from desirable. I bought an 80-rupee general bogie ticket and boarded a second class compartment in a desperate hope that that I may get away with it, no luck here either.

There I was in the train, the midnight of 31^st May 2011…exactly one year back as I write this. I lay by the window through which the cool breeze could fall onto my face. The rhythmic noise of the train was lost in the quietness of the night. Vision could see as far as it could across the sprawling fields. But this serenity, this tranquility, this reinvigorating atmosphere, this calmness repeatedly caused me to ponder on all that was wrong in my life. No base to build a career on, no clear direction to walk in, no educational degree, neither capital nor idea to start something by myself, hardly any real options. An equally disappointing and saddening tale of personal relationships. One lost to the realities of life and one to reasons I was clueless of. I would time and again wonder and try to find some answer to the question- how did things go this way between me and her when there was hardly anything wrong? When did it took this turn? Another blow came from him whom I valued most. Most trusted and loved friend of over a decade had turned hostile for “love”…classic bollywood plot where an a lascivious seductress robs a person of his senses to turn him against his own. And she turned out to be really good. Apart fom all this, we had lost a property-related case. And other family members were grappling with more pressing concerns.

I had absolutely no idea of where this train of life was taking me. I wasn't shattered or broken, nor had I given up on myself, but it was this race of thoughts and flash of images that I simply could not drive off my mind. I thought thoughtlessly of what all had gone wrong and where all I was at fault. I pondered haphazardly from personal life to career to family to lost friends…I just lay and thought for hours, to the point where my mind got numb. I reached a saturation point where I could not think any longer…and then I kept thinking. I would always remember that night.

It’s been exactly one year..…I am about to set my foot in the same train, on the night of the same date, to the same destination…only difference is that this time my mind is a lot more aligned. No year in my life has been more generous and prosperous as has been the one from that night to this. I am not very successful, nor have I found my “ultimate soul-mate” , as they say, nor have I made peace with my old friend who turned hostile. And I haven’t made any academic advancement either (not in reality ;)). It’s just that I have realised that no matter how intricately interwinded, the threads of life do get untangled with time and though initially the darkness may preclude you from discerning the path ahead, but if you allow your eyes, your innerself to get acclimatized to the darkness, you’ll see that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Just because you presently do not have answers to your questions doesn't mean that there aren't any. It may take time but sooner or later one of the two things will happen- either you will find the answers or the questions would become irrelevant. Most of the factors that worry us are outright baseless and the remaining ones would either be solved with time, or be conquered through persistent efforts or be of such nature that you will learn to live with them. So ultimately, everything passes. So whatever the present pain be, whatever the dark phase be…remember it is all a part of a great plan. It is all, as the Vaishnavas believe, the part of a story HE has written for you. And remember- HE writes only best sellers!!!

Labcoat scribble on the Last Day at College (May, 2011)

2012-09-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

Friends, while walking down the memory lane last night, I saw these scribbles that I had saved before I gave away my lab coat. It’s amazing how parting words, even from those who weren’t all that close to you, have the power to shape your memories of the people you shared a part of life with! If you are/have been a collegemate/schoolmate/colleague, whether batchmate or junior or senior, and after reading this feel like adding to the below published testimonies one of yours, don’t hold yourself back J

Lokesh! Mr. Eloquent…Lots of words I learnt from u…u r very helpful person. Among all the things I remember u because of your knowledge which is energetic, electrifying and always improving, exploring day by day…Keep in touch….PALI

No comparison. To every problem, any difficulty, you are always available to a friend. Great human. No words to describe.
Rahul Kaila

Lokesh you are very supportive and encouraging. I have learnt to be positive from you. Multi-talented person. Miss you.
Arjun Prajapati

Lokesh!! Will definitely miss u n I still remember the day when we together participated in the play. It was so funny but it was superb. Ur style of saying hello Diksha is so funny but I just like that. Be in touch ….will miss U. Diksha Sahai

Lokesh, maine tumse bahut English words seekhe…aur tumhare aur veeru ki wajah se main bahut hasi bhi hoon…thank you. Be blessed….aur nautanki thodi kam kiya kar samjha. All the best!
Sakshi Agarwal

Don’t you dare to forget ki jahan pe bhi “X ” likha ho who cheez meri hoti hai…kabhi haath bhi mat lagana us cheez ko….hahaha….u r very nice…adorable…good sense of humour…mast ho tum bhi…..bus yeh baat mujhe last year mein pata chali. Wish you good luck. Aur haan …yeer hum pen pencil chor nahi hain….humse cheezein kho jaati hain…hum toh nadaan se bachche hain..haha
Aparna Mishra

U r a very talented and wonderful person with sharp wit :-). I just luvd teaching you while exams :-) I have always been so impressed by your confidence and extrovert nature :-) Good luck in lyf :-) u r a smart personJ
Sana Khan

You are one of my greatest motivator. Always liked to interact with you.
Amit Anand

A guy of substance. U have tremendous potential to get what you want. I wish you good luck. I really like teaching U. U are a very good student.
Gud luck :-)
Saba Khan

Lokesh yaar tu sabse best friend hai mera. Tu humesha dil mein dhadkan ki tarah dhadakta rahega…Always miss you yaar. Take care
Arun Kumar

PS: Scribbles are in the same order in which they were on my lab coat :-)

Good Morning!

2011-10-28T02:18:00.001-07:00

Good morning my friends!

There are two major motivations behind my writing this article for you.

Each Morning brings new hopes to life and new life to hopes

1. You are special to me and I know that the contentment I would get by sending you this message would justify the money, time and effort that went into composing it.
2. I want to tell you how beautiful you are, how beautiful are the people around you (not just women but all the people), and above all how beautiful life is.

There were so many who were in this world till a few hours back but couldn't make through the night. If you are reading this then you certainly are one of the fortunate ones who have been granted another day to live. Be thankful for it and make the most of this day. Realize the worth of the time, people and opportunities that you have now, for none of these come with a forever tag and tomorrow you may have to repent not valuing them.

Life is like a latest super-hi-fi multifunctional mobile/laptop/gizmo. There is so much that you can do with it, only if you know how to operate it. Its functions may be complex and procedures perplexing, but nothing that a person who really wants to use a particular function will not be able to do. Similarly, happiness in life, at times, may seem to be elusive, but one who desires it earnestly will somehow find it somewhere around him. On the other hand, someone else may give up on the phone and someday realize that the application he was looking for was just a press away. Understand that cursing your life would be like accusing the phone of being purposefully biased against you or to have intentionally and selectively obscured that application from you. So quit cribbing, complaining and lamenting for everything that you lost or did not get…no matter how badly you wanted it or worked for it…

We all know that in life people do change with time, things do go wrong even when you did everything right and things don’t work out despite your best efforts….don’t let these things hit your morale or discourage you from making new friends, undertaking fresh tasks and trying to make things work..
Each struggle and effort, irrespective of the effect it may bear, makes you better suited to face challenges that are yet to come. So look ahead and enjoy today.

With my experience in life I know that one minute from now it would not matter to you if that girl in the metro caught you staring at her….one hour from now you wouldn’t still be disappointed with that tasteless dish you ordered at the restraunt ….one day from now it would be pointless to you that you were late for a meeting or work.…one week from now the terrible fight you had with your neighbour over parking or poor marks at an exam wouldn’t bother you..…one year from now you would not be worried about the financial loss you suffered or the job you lost…a decade from now you may not even remember the name of the crush/’gf’/’bf’ you cried for for nights.

Moral of the story is that the losses and worrisome circumstances that we perceive to be humongous and ever-lasting are in most cases ephemeral and evaporate with time, faster if you divert your mind from them. So, remember- Jo beet gayi so baat gayi. Screw the past and have a blast!

Smile!....for there are so many who long for what you whine over, who dream of what you look at with disdain, who pray for what you quantify as too little. Know that happiness lies not in riches but in contentment.

Have a wonderful morning!
Lokesh Sharma