Amongst Monkeys: A Frank Story from IIM-A

Hope

My First Attempt at CAT

It was extremely cold in the late hours of December 1991. I was on my way to Kolkata. I had no sweater; just a towel and a pen. Paranjpe, who accompanied me, was more prepared than I was, with a sweater and a shawl. He had also prepared rather well for the CAT exam that we were heading into. My only preparation, on the other hand, was watching him do it. Several times I had tried to go through the tutorial papers for the CAT examinations, but alas, my ever fertile mind would graze over so many issues – friends, cards, girls – that I never found time to really prepare. I was never brilliant to begin with. Always average, I developed only an average outlook to all the preparatory material. My roommate Jemlin was keen that I prepare well for the exams. Many times, I pretended to prepare so that I wouldn’t annoy him.

There was no direct train from Bokaro to Kolkata. We had to take a bus to a place called Chikel somewhere in Bihar. It was a typical mofussil bus. Dirty and cramped. There were no glass windows to keep out the cold winds. I sort of hunkered down in the bus as it wound its way through a few treacherous roads. Sometime around midnight, we got off the bus and boarded the late night train to Kolkata. It was a Saturday and so there was no need to take an official leave. I worked at SAIL in Bokaro, in the Electronic Testing Lab.

We both had confirmed berths; rather comfortable ones I must say. In the early hours of the first Sunday of December, we got down at Howrah. The job was cushy at SAIL, but I had set my heart on bigger things in life. I somehow mistook corporate life as being more suited for my dynamism than the boring public sector. A lot of private entrepreneurs in the guise of beggars confronted me on the platforms of the railway station. At least one of them looked at me rather sadly. Did he know I was heading for an exam?

We had booked our rooms at the SAIL guest house. We quickly checked in, caught a quick nap and were at the breakfast table by 8 am. The exam center was not far away and Paranjpe knew the way. Over breakfast, Paranjpe introduced me to two friends of his who had also come to write the CAT. Paranjpe whispered to me that one of them had actually spent the previous night with a call girl. ‘But that’s not safe,’ I said.

‘He took some injections,’ Paranjpe replied.

I was about to ask Paranjpe’s friend for the name of the injection, but somehow I controlled myself. At least my preparation for the CAT was safer.

It was 8.30 am when we reached the CAT centre, after our quick breakfast. We were ready for the exam. The center was a huge college. There were lots of guys and girls, each more beautiful than the other. Most of them were Bongs and their earthly charm made me forget the nightlong journey. Many of them looked well prepared and were searching for their places. I somehow took my eyes off the girls and guided Paranjpe, who was equally lost, to the huge blackboard. We spotted our hall numbers. I was in a different hall. I wished my friend good luck and made my way to my chair. It was actually a two-seater, and I was next to a yummy one wearing a red skirt. I quickly sharpened my pencil and arranged myself on the chair. I looked around. A few more guys and girls were slowly coming in. I checked my watch. It was only 8.45 am.

I was on the first floor and, looking out through the window, I could see a pond. All was still around it. Life never changed there. No exams for the free sparrows. But I was caught in the battle of life and had set my sights. I wanted to write the CAT and make a mark. I was determined. I quickly told myself the tricks of the CAT. Go to the last question as fast as possible. There are lots of easy ones en route. Lost in those exciting thoughts, I had failed to notice that the girl sitting next to me had actually come a little bit closer and her splendid leg was brushing against mine.

Well at 22, and being one of those flawless virgin types, the brush was the closest and most sensual moment of my life. It stirred me. I moved away a little, shy guy that I was. But the leg came closer and began to get entwined with my own. She moved her hand and placed it against mine. She was close. Very close. To me, the exam had already started. Tense, I looked up and smiled at her. She smiled back and said she was from the same college. ‘I am an arts student. Are you working?’ I could trace every strain her lips made and sense the slithering of the air as it caressed her slippery lips. My lips dried a bit. ‘Yes, I have come from SAIL, Bokaro,’ I said.

‘All the best,’ she said. Then she enquired; ‘Can you do me a small favour?’

I didn’t know what was coming. ‘Yes,’ I blurted. The answer had actually slipped out of my mouth. ‘I am a little weak in math. Please show me the math answers. I will show you the English section.’ She never hesitated while making those statements. Now I understood her closeness.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I will keep my papers open. And I can take care of the English.’ The leg automatically moved away. The task was done. Her hands left mine. I didn’t know what else to tell her. As a grown up guy, I could not shun her. It was not a college exam anyway. Maybe after the exams she would become my friend. My fertile mind was starting to run wild. I somehow controlled my thoughts and tried to focus on the exam. A young invigilator entered the room.

I looked around and was frightened by the sheer tension in the air. So many faces crowded in that small classroom. One of them would invariably clear the exam and even become a CEO. It might even be the girl next to me. Everyone was staring at the invigilator. She was a young lady in a nice yellow sari. I liked saris. The bell rung and a nameless fear overtook me. This was an old and natural fear. How I hated every bell that was rung to announce the start of an exam or a class.

The question papers were distributed. ‘All the best,’ the girl besides me whispered.

‘Same to you,’ I muttered back, rather bravely. Her smile was the best thing I had ever seen in my life, and she was so close that I could actually smell her lips. By Jove…

The first part of the paper was math and I went on to answer it with great confidence. Actually I am quite weak in math, but every time I take an exam in it, I pretend I am a stud. I marked the answers with great surety and left my papers exposed. The red skirt copied all my answers. She seemed to do it rather easily. There was only one hitch which she overlooked: my question numbers did not match hers. She did not realize it for some time and by the time she did, and asked me to match the questions for her, the young lady in the nice yellow sari was looming large above me. We were caught in the act. I got a strong rebuke from the invigilator. And by the time the closing bell rung, I knew the exam was a lost cause. Bloody hell. It was all because of her. But as the exam finished, my fertile mind gave me eternal hope. Naren, now that you have jacked the exam, at least get the girl.

I stepped out of the classroom and quickly followed the red skirt. But by the time I reached her, she had melted into the hands of a handsome guy. I stopped short. She never even bothered to look at me, before disappearing round the corner. But she had brushed her leg against mine! Oh God. The thought that she would one day become a VP in a MNC kept bothering me for a while, until Paranjpe spotted me. I kept the whole incident to myself.

Of Life at PSUs

The trip back from Kolkata to Bokaro was dull and boring. Occasionally Paranjpe livened up the trip with a few Sardarji jokes. The train chugged along. One of the most interesting parts of crisscrossing Bihar in a train is the sheer acceptance of the great Indian democracy. Every look through the window left you staring at so many villages in abject poverty. The women in these villages did not have the education or the money to wear so much as a choli. Seeing a lot of women topless as the train rushed past the many water holes of another poor Indian village was one of my favorite pastimes. They would just turn their naked backs, secure in the knowledge that they were now safe.

The vastness of the land that I gazed across left me rather lonely. The rhythmic swaying of the train was so unlike the vagaries of life. The swinging rocked me into a pleasant sleep until I was awakened by Paranjpe. ‘Chal, utharna hai,’ he said. The typical Bihari slant. It was sometime in the evening, and we got down searching for the jeep which would take us on the 45 minute drive to the township.

The lovely mess at the Bokaro training hostel was a gush of activity. I got looks of approval from most of my friends. The mere writing of a CAT exam was enough to be a hero. My roommate Jemlin enquired a lot about the exam. He was a very intelligent stud from some college in Kerala. And by the time I finished describing the exam, he knew I would not make it. He guessed something had gone wrong. He himself had appeared for the entrance tests for the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and was waiting for the results. So here we all were, employed in one of the most promising public sectors of India, each of us trying to leave it with different dreams. Every morning we would troop into the company thinking how best to leave it.

Working at SAIL in itself was an adventure every day. Steel was made by heating a lot of iron ore with coke, which is extracted from coal. The extraction of coke in the coke ovens was a dangerous affair. The ovens emitted a lot of carbon monoxide which was poisonous. The huge ovens which burnt the coal also burnt a lot of workers. There was no real protection. The workers packed themselves in sack bags to escape the heat. Accidents were common. Either someone lost a limb or one of the contract employees died. Strikes were violent. And as front line executives, we were asked to stand in for workers who were on strike. The workers hurled stones and rods at you if you worked on the day of a strike.

And if you didn’t, the management punished you with No Pay and an X in the confidential report. Bokaro steel plant was one of the largest steel producers in the world. The pride of India. And there was a bit of blood in every ton of steel produced.

Luckily, I was in a department which was far away from the production zones. It was called the Electronic Testing Laboratory – ETL. I tested the small electronic cards which moved the massive machines. I was in a department of around twenty-five testers. 90 % of the officers were either Tamilians or Bengalis. Both my bosses in the department were Tamilians. Even my department head was a Tamilian. Tams were good testers and this seemed to be an accepted norm in SAIL. And I had to live up to the reputation. ETL was a challenging job. Many times, crucial production lines broke down and the electronic cards would be rushed to our department. The company lost a crore of rupees an hour if the production lines stopped. And our job was to restore them as quickly as possible. Almost every hour at my department was about crisis management and finding solutions under pressure. It was here that I learnt the art of taking your mind