I can improve

“Mr. Chahal, you are an exception in our selection procedure”.

Sitting in that room, and giving interview for India’s most prestigious institute, I thought my life was always an exception.

I just smiled.

“We take people with very good CAT score and especially here in IIMA we give lot of consideration to Xth and XIIth marks, but you are poor in both”.

After years, today I realized that my performance was poor in Xth exam. Getting 70% in CBSE board is not a big achievement.

“But we considered you, we are curious about your performance at three levels in your educational career. You got 70% in Xth, 80% in XIIth and 90% in graduation. Now we have two questions in mind, one, how you managed to get such a growth across levels and two, will you be able to sustain this growth given an opportunity for next level”.

Sustain the growth, means they want me to get 100% in MBA and that in IIMA. I just came here too give interview and I was thinking on my way to this room that they will throw me out in five minutes. Here they are asking about 100% score.

I smiled again. 

“So, Mr. Chahal can you explain these two points and these are only two questions we would like to ask you. No third question”.

 I got little relief, although answers of these two questions were not so easy. But I have to answer, after all its about IIMA, and I am a big fan of Chetan Bhagat, the story teller.

“Sure Sir.” I said. 

I was puzzled, they looked at me and hinted to start. I was lost. 

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20-MAY-1995, 08:00 PM 

How history can be written in English?  How someone can solve Mathematics in English? How you can remember where is Arabian Sea? What is the height of Everest and all that in English? After studying for 9 years in Government run schools where Hindi was medium for everything and English only means “A,B,C,D…………”, I never thought that someone can write all these subjects in English too. 

That was the day when my grandparents admitted me to a newly opened convent school near to village area. Everything was in English and that was horrible for me. I thought that best way to get rid of this is burn all these books and go to same government school tomorrow instead of CBSE board school.

 

“Why I can’t give it a try”, I never thought like that but the only problem was money which was invested by my grand parents. Total admission and books cost was 7304 Rs., and that is a huge amount for a small farmer in village of Uttar Pradesh. Then I thought what if I will fail for one year, I will go to convent school. 

I was the first to reach class next day in morning. 

“Chahal, now you get up and start reading”. 

Mrs. Nirmala Gupta was teacher for Geography. She asked me to read something. I don’t know exactly but I pronounced so badly that I was in tears when I sat back on my seat, obviously after receiving first slap of my student life on my right cheek. 

Same harassment by many teachers and I was too depressed in few weeks that I bunked schools for three days. But I didn’t cried. I crammed, crammed crammed and crammed. 

Everything in vain. In class tests I got 3/20 in History, 5/20 in Geography, 11/20 in Mathematics, 19/20 in hindi but 0/20 in English, and it was English again. 

On that day I set only one goal for my student life. “Wherever I be, I will be highest scorer of my class”. I want marks, whatever be the input. 

31-MAY-1998 

Congratulations Chahal you are school topper for Xth board exam. Shocked and thrilled. I met with my goal. Although I scored just 70% but I was happy man. I wanted to improve.

 09-JUN-2000 

Great job done. You are school topper again Chahal for XIIth board exam.No Shock, No thrill. Although I scored just 80% but I was happier man. I wanted to improve further. 

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“Improve further”, I closed two questions with an answer of two words. I don’t know whether they were satisfied or not by my answer but I was happiest man. 

“Thanks”, they said. 

I smiled again and left the room.