Jul 31, 2010
(This is the concluding part of The GATE Story. Please read
Part-1
and
Part-2
before this.)
Two opportunities down. Sigh.
Early morning on the 12th, I was on the Shatabdi train that would take
me out of Kanpur to Delhi. The previous day, when booking my ticket, I
had requested the reservation lady for a window seat, so that I could
avoid making unnecessary eye-contact with people and have a nice corner
to myself. To my horror, I found that the lady had not only ignored my
request, but had also given me an aisle seat right below an AC vent,
exactly in the middle of the coach, facing half the passengers of the
coach, who kept looking at me curiously as I slowly froze to death. I
quickly buried my face into the Computer
Architecture
book, imagining bad things happening to reservation lady. The train
staff soon brought a bunch of free newspapers for us to choose from.
Since I had paid Rs. 3.50 for my Times of India ten minutes back on the
railway platform, I asked for an Indian Express instead, mostly just to
wipe my tears with it. The food service was excellent, and my attempts
to study were frequently interrupted by the staff bringing me something
to eat. By the time I got off the train, I was reasonably well-fed, had
seen the Supreme Court dome from the train window and read the same
paragraph twelve times.
After the blazing overhead sun thawed me a little, I proceeded to take a
prepaid auto to IIT campus. En route, I saw the India Gate and the
residences of Sharad Pawar, Ram Vilas Paswan and Shiela Dixit on
Janpath. My attempts to see 10 Janpath (Sonia Gandhi's residence) were
thwarted by a truck that blocked my view. Pretty soon I had reached the
Karakoram hostel of IITD.
At the Karakoram hostel, I encountered some of the most irresponsible
people I have ever met. On reaching the hostel office, I was given a
bank slip and asked to pay the rent at SBI at the rate of Rs. 140 per
day. After standing in the queue for an hour and watching a super-slow
cashier age visibly by the time my turn came, I went back to the hostel
office only to be told that they were out for lunch. I went back at 3 o'
clock, and the staff pushed me away and told me to come at 5 o' clock.
Finally at five, I was told that there are no rooms available and that I
should sleep in the common room! Tired as I was walking in the hot sun
all day in my formal shoes, I completely flipped out and yelled at them
politely for five minutes. However I deny that I called them
"irresponsible imbeciles", but that could be because I did not know the
correct translation in Hindi. Finally, I was asked to "adjust" in the
common room for one night and that they would give me a room the next
day. Thankfully, I met an SJCE senior in IITD campus, who most kindly
accommodated me in his room. He also showed me around the campus. The
campus was small and had lots of multi-storeyed buildings. I also had
the opportunity of meeting a couple of guys from the Navy and the
conversation was very interesting.
The Electrical Department interview
the next day went very well. I was asked mostly text book questions on
Computer Architecture and Operating Systems, and ten minutes later, I
came out with the feeling that I may have just secured my first admit.
However my CS admit was still stuck in waiting list and the correct
picture would only be clear two days later. I had my ticket to Bangalore
that evening, and I decided not to cancel it. I would come back to Delhi
on 17th if necessary (Don't judge me, people! I was earning!). As I came
to understand, interview for wait-listed candidates was only a
formality.
One last thing needed to be done. I had paid the stupid hostel guys for
four days of accommodation, so I went there asking them to allot me a
room without any payment if I came back on 17th.
Hostel Guy: What? No no. We can't do that. Go away.
Me: Why?
HG: Because we have already written the date on your receipt. We
can't do anything once it's written. Go away.
Me: Eh? But you never gave me a room on that date.
HG:
Me:
HG: Uhh, I'll ask my boss.
The senior guy angrily said that no alterations could be done on such
solid legal devices as hand-written receipts, and that I was blaming
them unnecessarily. I then calmly gave a long speech, the gist of which
was, "Sir, I am not blaming you. I'm just saying it's all your fault",
after which he was convinced (confused?) and agreed to give me a room
with no additional payment if I swore I would not eat their hostel food.
I had no problems with that.
The SpiceJet flight to Bangalore was three
hours late, so I hung around IITD campus for a little longer and left in
the evening. The departure terminal of the Delhi airport was bigger and
had lots of shops compared to Bangalore. I had more than a couple of
hours before my flight, so I whiled away my time doing some window
shopping. The most interesting thing I saw at the airport was a drinking
water fountain which I tried to use and twisted my neck badly. I backed
away quickly before I made a bigger fool of myself.
After a delay of almost three and a half hours, I was finally on the
flight. The captain was remarkably honest, and said the delay was
because of "late arrival of aircraft". The initial journey was far from
smooth, and the aircraft shook and dipped alarmingly a few times. I
smartly guessed that the cause was "turbulence". The guy next to me had
a different explanation. "Maybe a girl is driving it", he said and
laughed at his own joke. I pretended to laugh with him, but secretly
added "sexist strangers on airplanes" to the categories of people who
annoy me. A few minutes later the seatbelt sign was off, and the captain
explained that there had been turbulence shortly after takeoff (see?).
Halfway through the journey, the pilot announced that we could see the
city of Bhopal on the left. I concluded that the pilot was telling the
truth, because I was sitting on the right side and there was certainly
no Bhopal there! We landed in Bangalore at about midnight.
Next day, IIT Madras put up its list of
selected students for MTech in Computer Science and I had made it. Just
like that. Direct admission. Total anti-climax. It was like watching
How I Met Your
Mother for ten
seasons, only to find out that there WAS no mother and that the kids
were adopted. Still, it was a welcome anti-climax. My acceptance along
with original GATE scorecard was supposed to reach IITM in a week, so I
decided not to go back to Delhi. In retrospect, it wasn't the best
decision, because IITD probably offered more courses to my liking than
IITM. Still, I had to prepare for the MSc (Engg) interviews at IISc,
arguably the toughest in the PG admission circuit, and I needed time for
that.
I got calls for MSc (Engg) from all places I applied in
IISc -
CSA,
SERC and
CEDT. SERC and CEDT calls were on the
same day, same slot. But since I wasn't that interested in CEDT, I
didn't bother to reschedule either and just concentrated on getting
through the other two. My first interview was in CSA and the second in
SERC that same afternoon. The CSA test was simple enough with questions
on basic math and programming. The test was not used to shortlist
candidates, and all were interviewed anyway. The interview was not a
disaster, but it wasn't spectacular either. I struggled with algorithm
analysis and needed a lot of prodding from the panel to help me along. I
thought I did architecture decently, but overall, I doubted if my
performance was enough to see me through.
So, now only one call remained. SERC. Back to the same place with which
we started our story. As expected there was a small written test for
half an hour with questions on maths and programming. I got at least
four out of five correct and was not surprised when I was shortlisted
for the interview. However there were a lot of candidates before me, so
it was 7 o' clock in the evening when my turn finally came. And then,
over the next forty minutes, I gave the best interview of my life. The
panel recognized that I had come before and started off by asking
questions I had admitted to not having answered the last time. Somehow,
I was completely relaxed this time around. It was a very interesting
interview, with the panel wanting to know how I would analyze different
designs in architecture. In the end, I had answered/analyzed practically
every question asked of me, and knew I had a solid chance of getting
through this one. In fact, I was even asked why I was applying for
masters and not for direct PhD.
A couple of weeks later, the final results were announced. I had made
it. It was a long, tiring process, but it was worth going through. Since
research at IISc was consistent with why I wrote GATE in the first
place, I cancelled my admission at IITM and finished the initial
formalities at IISc. I also declined the admission offer for the
Electrical Department CT course at IITD.
Looking back at the whole thing, I feel I have been incredibly lucky.
There was a time, December-January I think, that I felt there was a
genuine chance that GATE this year would be a major disaster. Coming
from there to here has been quite unbelievable. True, I did screw up a
couple of opportunities, but everything went well when it mattered. Lots
of things could have gone wrong in those, but in the end, none of them
did.
And a thousand thanks to God for that.
Epilogue:
With all the joining day formalities done, I was finally a student of
IISc. But one thing remained. I had picked up an SBI form for opening a
bank account from where the joining process was going on, but did not
have all the required documents, so today I went to IISc with the filled
application form and marched into the Bank Manager's cabin and said, "I
want to open a Savings account". The Manager looked at me strangely and
said, "But you have an SBI form with you!"
That's when I realized I was inside Canara Bank.
Homework: When was the last time you laughed at your own foolishness?
Jul 16, 2010
(You've read
Part-1,
no?)
So. Where were we? Ah yes. I had just blown my first chance at
IISc, right?
Well, things started getting complicated a few days later. Up north, I
had three calls. One for test/interview at IIT
Kanpur on 11th May, then two days later one
interview on 13th at IIT Delhi for the
Computer Technology course (EE dept.)
and on 17th, an interview at CSE-IITD. For
this last one, I was also put on waiting list for direct admission on
the basis of my GATE score + UG performance. To add even more confusion,
if my admission wasn't confirmed by 15th, I was supposed to attend
interview on 17th. Quite obviously, this caused major confusion in
booking tickets. Add to that the fluctuating prices of air tickets and
coordinating train journey to Kanpur, and it will come as no surprise
that I spent most of my time finalizing my travel plans. Finally I
booked my return ticket on 13th itself, and decided that I would
reschedule in case I had to stay back at Delhi for four more days.
A day before my journey -
Dad: So, all prepared for the trip?
Me: Yes, yes. Everything is done. Except for the studying.
Dad: ...
So there I was the next morning, on board the Go Air flight, thoroughly
satisfied with how things had gone so far (free newspaper at the airport
and a nice window seat on the plane). My own impression of myself as a
moderately intelligent person took a severe beating when I had to ask
the girl next to me to help me with my seat-belt. But then, so did the
guy on the aisle seat (presumably her husband) and my pride was restored
somewhat. Meanwhile, in the seat in front, two youngsters were happily
taking pictures of themselves on their cellphones. Pfft. First timers, I
thought smugly. Suddenly the plane started rolling down the runway and I
squealed in excitement.
No matter what people say about air travel, it is my opinion that flying
is the most exciting form of transport, simply because of the precision
required to make flying safe, and because humans had no business giving
competition to birds in the first place. As I gazed out of the window,
my mind was filled with questions like, "What kind of instruments do
they use inside the cockpit?", "How is the testing done for the computer
systems on board?", "How do they decide on the wingspan?", and most
importantly, "Are they going to give us free water bottles?"
I made a few observations on board the airplane. Firstly, I decided to
never ever try skydiving, no matter what people think of me. Secondly,
reading Finite Automata and Formal
Languages on an airplane
is just as boring as it is on the ground. Thirdly, the little lakes down
on the ground look like broken pieces of a mirror, and look particularly
beautiful when the sun is reflected off of them briefly. And finally,
you know how the sky seems to bend down and meet the earth at the
horizon? On air, I observed that, in the distance the earth seems to be
curving up and meeting the sky. So I guess the earth and the sky meet in
the sky too. Whatever that means.
More than two-and-a-half hours into the flight, the pilot announced that
we would be reaching Delhi soon. And sure enough, I could see the city
below. So, this was Delhi, the place with the Supreme Court and
Parliament and India Gate, I thought excitedly. But five minutes later,
we had flown right past the city and I realized that wasn't Delhi at
all! I settled back in my seat trying to look cool again.
The airplane story needs one last mention. These low-cost airliners have
such crappy legrooms, it is impossible to change your sitting style
without suffering hip dislocation. In fact, I had to do a triple
somersault over the seat-belt couple to get to the aisle when I had to
use the bathroom. And when we were about to land, the pilot asked us to
pull up our seats back from recline. Unfortunately, mine was stuck in
the reclining position, so I put my hand behind my seat to pull it back
and ended up groping the leg of a female passenger sitting behind me.
Most thankfully, she seemed to realize that I was a decent guy and chose
not to slap me.
We finally landed in Delhi. The plane taxied for what seemed like 25
kilometres before we finally reached the terminal. "Delhi! At last!", I
thought and stepped out of the airplane. And instantly melted into a
semi-solid blob. Man! Delhi was hot! My first thought was that we had
landed in Chennai by mistake. And the whole idea of me being so far away
after just a three hour journey seemed a little phony anyway. I claimed
my luggage and took a government taxi to the New Delhi railway station,
where a train would take me to Kanpur.
The ride to the railway station was pleasant, save for the fact that the
taxi driver made me listen to the same Punjabi song three times. Being
in Delhi, I wanted to try some authentic North Indian food, so I went to
the IRCTC cafe and immediately ordered masala dosa. When in Rome, be a
South Indian, right? I spent the next four hours on the platform, where
the only interesting thing was the railway announcer who sounded
suspiciously like Farhan Akhtar, and spoke English with a fake American
accent, leading to much amusement. Finally in the evening, my Shatabdi
arrived to take me to Kanpur.
The Shatabdi ride was most pleasant. I had been on the Shatabdi before,
on the Mysore-Chennai route, but this experience was much much better.
The coach was brand new, the AC very comfortable, the velvety seats had
smooth recline and the excellent IRCTC staff kept me well fed and
watered. Surely this was the only way to travel in a train. However, a
delayed Rajdhani, which is at the top of the food chain, stalled my
train, and we reached Kanpur an hour late. A quick auto ride later, I
was at Hall of Residence - 5, IIT Kanpur. The polite hostel staff
alloted me accommodation. I slept off hoping the test would go well the
next day.
En route to my test venue, I noticed that the IITK campus was huge and
built beautifully, with most buildings following a common colour scheme,
giving the campus the impression of being very well planned. The test
was supposed to be three hours long with all questions being of multiple
choice. But half way into the test, I could tell with supreme confidence
that I would NOT get shortlisted. Half of the paper was general aptitude
and puzzles and the other half was algorithm analysis, all of which I
was rubbish at. I sort of got the feeling that IITK didn't want any
systems student at all! The test went very badly and I thought that the
only way I would get through was if everyone else in the hall was a
bigger idiot than I was. Which was very unlikely.
That afternoon, they put up the list and sure enough, my name wasn't
there. This meant I was stuck in Kanpur the next day because I had
booked my ticket to Delhi two days later, in anticipation of being
shortlisted for interviews the next day. Since there was no point in
sticking around, I got my ticket cancelled, and booked a Shatabdi for
the next morning itself, thinking that would give me enough time for a
decent shot at the Electrical department interview at IIT Delhi.
So with two opportunities gone, will I ever get back my confidence? Will
I have better luck in IIT Delhi? Will I get a decent seat anywhere
(other than on the Shatabdi and the return flight)? Will I survive the
murderous North India heat? And will any reader want to read Part-3 of
this never-ending story?
For answers to these and many such intriguing questions, stay tuned.
(Concluded in The GATE
Story-3)
Jul 07, 2010
Now that the whole circus of PG admissions is behind
me,
I can finally sit back and write a detailed account of my GATE story.
The whole thing starts with last year, when, due to shockingly poor time
management, I got a dismal 800-something rank in GATE and was staring at
one full wasted year. Add to that, I made some stupid mistakes in
application forms (like applying for TA instead of RA at
IITB) and chose to not apply for research
programs at any place other than IISc. As
it turned out, I did indeed get a call for test/interview at
SERC, IISc. I got through the written
test, but the interview was such a disaster that I must not have looked
any more intelligent than your average potted plant. I came out of the
interview hall feeling like the Mayor of Loserville, painfully aware
that my only hope for PG in 2009 was an utter flop.
A couple of months later, I finally decided to wash away my tears of
sadness with the sweat of hard work (ha!) and earnestly began
preparation for GATE-2010, reading
as many as two pages per day. But as luck would have it, I was extremely
busy at work during the prime months for GATE preparation (November to
January), working till late at nights in the office and during weekends.
And just like that, I was at the beginning of February, with my head
feeling unpleasantly empty and almost all of my engineering syllabus to
be studied, cursing myself that I did not take up further studies
seriously in my final year.
Before we go into February, let me produce a fictitious conversation at
a fictitious meeting among GATE committee members, a few days before the
brochure was printed:
M1: So, guys, what can we do to torture students this year? Any
ideas?
M2: I know! Let's change the format of the paper! AGAIN!
M3: Excellent! And let's add a General Aptitude section!
M4: Let's remove the concept of percentiles and make all of them
feel like losers when the results come out!
M5: Great ideas gentlemen! We can do all of that. But I have the
best idea of them all! Let's have GATE on Valentine's Day!
M1, M2, M3, M4: (applause)
Yes, GATE was scheduled on Valentine's Day this time. So on a day when
all the "committed" guys were planning on going out on dates with their
girlfriends and when all the single guys were planning to call their
best looking female friends out for lunch in the hope that the Rama Sene
guys would catch them and marry them off, I was to be found woken up at
5 AM, groggy with barely two hours of sleep, yelling insane things like
"B-Trees! I forgot to read B-Trees! Ayyo!"
Once in the exam hall, I was relieved to see that the question paper was
not heart-shaped and that the room was not decorated with pink balloons
(I had secretly decided to jump off the building if it were so). I found
the paper itself quite manageable and took care to skip questions that I
thought would take a lot of time. Indeed, when the exam finished I
thought I had done reasonably well and even remember singing aloud on
the way home, causing my fellow motorists to look at me with suspicion
and alarm. I even resisted throwing garbage at passing couples.
I got a rude shock later that evening when I realized I had answered one
of the questions inadvertently considering counting
semaphores
instead of binary semaphores (this stupidity would eventually cost me
around 35 ranks). But the rest of the paper was mostly correct and I
estimated a worst case marks of at least 51/100 which meant this year
wasn't a complete fiasco after all.
Happily, a month later, when the results came, I found that I had gotten
AIR 185, scoring 57.67/100 with a GATE score of 841/1000, which was the
best I could hope for given the circumstances. I quickly calculated that
I would get one or two direct admits and test/interview calls at
practically all places I apply.
I quickly applied for course programs at
IISc (CSA,
SSA,
SERC,
CEDT), IITB,
IITK, IITM and
IITD. I even applied for a few electrical
department courses wherever applicable. Quite expectedly, I got a call
for written test/interview for MTech in Computational
Science and
Electronics Design and
Technology
at IISc. Both the tests were on the same day, so I quickly took a call
to skip the CEDT test (I figured I wouldn't join it even if I got
through, so why bother?). Given that I had performed so poorly in the
SERC interview last year, I went with furious determination to get
through the Computational Science program.
I did not even get shortlisted.
Quite strangely, I was a little bit relieved that I did not get through.
Maybe it was because Computational Science was not what I wanted to do
and if I had gotten it, I would have probably taken the easy way out and
chucked all other offers. However, this meant that I would have to
travel to Kanpur and Delhi and try to get through those.
The North India trip was quite an experience, but I shall continue it in
a separate post. Do come back!
(Continued in The GATE Story -
2)