Snooze

You finish this afternoon, don’t you?

Yes.

I could not keep the grin and the pride off my face.

Are you excited about your break?

I have been looking forward to this for five years.

Seventeen other people have asked me the exact same two questions since morning and I have given them the same two answers. Sometimes I wonder whether we all are pre-programmed robots.

To say that I am looking forward to this break is an understatement. I leapt out of my couch in joy the first time I saw the commercial for Snooze – the technology that literally turned you off by cryo-freezing you. You are thawed back to life at a predetermined future time.

So for five years, I worked ten hours a day, all days of the year to save money for a Snooze. This is my day.

As the taxi slowed down in front of the Snooze House, a belligerent man came running from nowhere and pushed me back into the car, shouted, ‘Don’t do this man. They put you to sleep but can't wake you up. Don’t do this man.’

Before I realised what had happened, the guards at the building had whisked the man off while a petite receptionist ushered me in.

As I walked up to the door I wondered what bad wiring could do to one.

I walked through the doors of this magnificent building that housed the snooze chamber. It is believed that the snooze chamber was on the one hundred and thirty seventh floor. The rumour is that the storage vault below ground is up to thirty seven floors underground.

I sometimes wonder how our rational minds process and accept such unfounded information.

As I lay naked in the white box, I could not but notice that the floor, the walls, the tables and the machinery were all white. The men and women who worked on me were all dressed in white.  A mist of white smoke filled the air. 

The man with the monstrous moustache winked at me as he closed the lid.

Click. 

I am a Physicist too!

If I were to offer one advice to candidates invited to interview for a place in a MBA programme, this is it: Do not drink a mug of Hot Chocolate 5 minutes before an interview.  

If you did, you might as well abandon your interview and instead audition for Bawwy Kwipkee in The Big Bang Theory. There is a reason why Hot Chocolate is called ‘Hot’ Chocolate.

As I sat precariously on a sofa, waiting to be called for the interview, my primary concern was for the buttons on the suit that I had cobbled up to not pop.  I could see the other interviewees either rushing through the stacks of paper they had brought with them or reciting their pitches to their wives and girlfriends. Soon, peer pressure caught on and I had a compulsive need to pretend to be busy. I checked Facebook once again and realised that I do not have many interesting friends.  So I picked up the only newspaper on the coffee table - The Wall Street Journal.  I had never seen a paper edition of the Wall Street Journal before.  To my surprise, I found out that they don’t do sports on the last page or have pictures of skimpily clad women on the second page.  Before I could flick through the other pages to check if they atleast did Calvin and Hobbes I was ushered to yet another waiting area.

We have two things in common. The essay on your career plan is an area I have a lot of experience in and I am a Physicist too!

Life, ye cynical misanthrope

Thy laugheth at me

At my gullibility and misery

The interview lasted for over an hour and half and the conversations will quietly find its way into my big book of secrets.

So what is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything?

42

I started my application process on the 1^st of March 2013.  In exactly 42 days, I received an email from the London Business School that I have been offered a place in its Executive MBA programme. 

Superman

It was a cold January morning.  For over a month, Jackson had been in the workshop where the car doctors performed various surgeries on it to get it back to life.  I, on the other hand, had to endure the cold, the wind, a bursting bladder, the rush hour train crowd and an unreliable bus service at the end of the train journey to get to work. All for the pay check that would be just enough to cover Jackson’s medical bills. It was not worth it. I had to make more money.

But how?

I could print money. But will I ever get over the temptation of replacing the Queen's face with mine on the bank notes? I doubt it.

I could become a Formula 1 star. The 360 degree spin I did with Jackson on the first corner of a sighting lap at the Brands Hatch race track a few months ago left everyone on the track wondering how on earth anyone could ever do that.

So what is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything?

You should do an MBA

What?

You should do an MBA. You will be a good candidate and it is probably the right time………..

Yet another career progression meeting and yet another mid meeting reverie.  Only this time, I was Wolverine.

The Internet is full of articles on what to write in an MBA application and how to write it. If you follow the Internet, you will have written and rewritten your essays one hundred and seventy three times, spammed every one of your friend’s inboxes with emails requesting them to read and reread your essays and directed How to lose friends and alienate people – Part II.

The hardest part of an MBA application is adjectivising your essays. Once you master that, you are through.

For example: If you would usually write

 I am a Man

In an MBA application, you would have to write

I am a Superman

You are through to the next round of the selection process.

How not to prepare for GMAT

Back in 2010, my sister rang me up and announced that she was getting married. So I decided to write the GMAT. These two seemingly unrelated events are linked through a very complex logic.

That was April. My sister was getting married in August. That gave me three months to prepare for the test, exactly the time recommended by the Internet guys. Poochi recommended a month (and also trek to Snowdon)

I believe in most things that Rajini says. He was once caught smoking a cigar by his father. So his father bought a room full of cigars and locked Rajini inside and told him that he will be let out only after he smokes all the cigars. Rajini does so happily and in the process is fed up of cigars.

Life Lesson 27: If there is a distraction, be distracted by it to the fullest and soon you will be over the distraction.
So I spent all of May inventing potential distractions and getting distracted by them. In the process, I watched 17 movies, hosted three parties, spent a night at the emergency ward in a hospital,walked only 789 yards in the whole month, replaced blood with alcohol for bodily circulatory functions, took vegetables off my diet and ate 400 grams of meat every day.

By the 1st of June I had distracted myself off every conceivable distraction. But by the 11th of June someone invented the football world cup 2010.
So between the 64 football matches that I watched at home and many bars (one with 3D glasses. Bad idea. It gives you a hangover), 1973 ticks, 7892 crosses, 11 full tests and 2 red bulls my preparation was over. Or atleast I have had enough. I spent the last 2 weeks before the test not knowing what to do. I should have followed Poochi's advice.

I know I have got everything wrong until this point. But in this process, I have amassed enough wisdom to share with the world.

1. Prepare for not more than 40 days.
2. Do not drink on the day before a practice test even if you are taking the test on the following afternoon. Alcohol enhances test performance and provides you a false perception that you are super intelligent at all times.
3. Do not drink red bull during test breaks. Red bull takes effect after 17 hours but drills your bladder in exactly 17 minutes.