An Experience worth sharing

Writing two longs blogs in immediate succession has been my style always. This time also it is no exception. Only thing is this time I am going to take some pages from my dairy. I am among those who never went to college(Please do not mistake my 1 year in ST Joseph’s cuddalore it was more like 13th class in fact I would say like pre-school). But I had a wonderful higher secondary education. I did most of my masti during that time. Knowing how I was psyched up in 12th one can laugh if I call it fun. But honestly I enjoyed it next only to nothing after that.

Everybody in the family knows that Sundar and I are complete paddips. Anush and Ramya will vouch for it more than anybody as they are the one facing the constant brunt of that from all the teachers who knew us.
It all began a few months before 10th exams. CBSE was no longer the preffered education system in T.N. because scoring was becoming nightmare and getting admission is next to impossible. All the teacher in our school took up a supreme responsibility to lay traps for us (in local lingo PULLA PUDIKKA ARAMBICHANGA). I won’t lie I was the class topper but I was among the first 3. I was determined that I will do my 11th and 12th in the same school in CBSE education. Being good in MATHS and science immediately qualified me for science group undoubtedly and being extremely poor in even drawing a straight line and an inherent aptitude to technology made me Science with CS student. That’s when I threw the googly “ I want to do Commerce”. I don’t know whether the decision sprung from the fact that I need to be unique and do something what others don’t expect or whether by what my Mom wanted me to do. But beyond all this if I try retro fitting the decision I find that I was good at analytics but not on concepts. I love to be around numbers not find numbers. May be I am a inherent accountant.
Continuing further the days which followed after the decision was series of discussion with various teachers trying to convince me and I standing on my decision. 10th exams were over with all the tension and excitement. That’s when my school came out with a scheme of what is called Pre-higher secondary (I this to my poor memory do not remember the name of the course) where all the subjects in each stream will be taken for half a day. I wanted that desperately, though had taken a decision to take commerce I knew nothing about it ( if you don’t consider what info I collected hearsay). I attended to those classes more out of fun. There was a good 20-30 people in the class for each subject so was confident that there is going to be a good class strength when I knew most of my other friends had already applied to various other state board schools. Holidays came and went. It was probably the longest holiday after 8th but the worst because you were expecting for a result which today you laugh about. It meant a lot to me then when I desperately wanted to be the class First. I was never concerned that I will fail but more concerned that others will get more marks than me. I think stupidity attributable to that age.
Results were fine not great as expected I had fared pathetically in Social and all time best in Maths ( thanks to Sundar my Maths mark 98 looked like a piece of crap when he hit 100).
First of 11th Standard I enter the class a decent 25 people in the class both science and commerce put together. I was decently happy that a good numbers of friends around. Come Commerce class I get the first jolt. There were only 14 people of which 2 boys including me. The other guy whom I have only interactions to the extent of hi and bye and the girls whom I know by names and nothing beyond that. I think I was never short of surprises in those few days that 14 went through a thorough swing and ended with 10 girls and 1 boy. I don’t talk to them and worse still I have never competed with them on my studies. How essential it is for a above average to have competition I felt then. But yes things started rolling. Within a few days I realized that I had a flare for Accountancy and people hated me for being the teachers’ pet. The worst part used to P.T. hours and classes when the teachers were on leave. I had nothing to do and nobody to talk. The end result is I took more assignments and spend most of the time in library.
Librarian is one person worth a mention. She could not bear with me beyond a point and my inquisitiveness for books. I think by the end of first 6 months I knew where which book was and what each contained even some of the books which were in tattered form. She brought in quite a lot of changes like allowing us to take reference books home other than through library card, getting some good author guides and reference material etc. Today also I can find the pattern in which books are arranged and get books of choice quicker than most.
My classmates hatred towards me of because of one main reason I always wanted more work and I used to complete what was given quicker and ended up being more idle than anybody while they slog like hell. When this hatred turn to good friendship I don’t remember, Touch wood I am still in contact with a few if not everybody.
This was the period when I was made the Assistant School Pupil Leader, I never wanted to be one. I always wanted to be a team captain not an SPL. I realized then that if I don’t want something I can never give even1% of dedicated work. I could never tell the school pledge is the fact when I would recited it all the 12 years in school before that. My teachers tried everything possible but I found new methods to mess the simplest of things. They never knew why I mess it may be they were never meant to know it.
During that year there was the school cultural where 11th standard is supposed to take initiatives. I had more time to do time pass and got officially to freak out. I went to all schools in the city distributing invitation. I was the only guy who went to all the schools with somebody or the other to accompany.
One incident worth a mention, Accounts used to be like learn one chapter in2 days and spend the rest of 1.5 weeks doing all the problem in the book in class. And everyday we used to have 2 accounts and 2 commerce periods and the same teacher used to handle both which is 32 period to complete some 100 problems. I had never gone beyond 3 days to complete it when others would have started doing it I would end my share and end up chatting with my teachers or going to library and worse still is making it difficult for the other to complete the work.
The period also posed a big problem on what do I want to become. Not that I know this today, but then when science group student knew they get into engineering college and ultimately be part of a software company earning good salary, I did not know what to do. I assessed that I liked to talk to people, travel a lot, do a lot of innovative stuff and be around with numbers. This meant nothing near to know what to do. One thing was clear then for me if I ended being a B com. I will be sitting in the bakery shop opposite to school and writing their accounts nothing beyond that. CA came with a big challenge nobody knew of anyone who had completed in one attempt. My benchmark was people who studied seriously, I knew I enjoyed studying but I was never sincere about it.
So I ended up spending my 11th holiday’s doing all kind of errands. I remember going to Ramesh Chittappa’s Office for 4-5 days to know about sales. Only 1 thing I did in that process went around the city which I had never done before. Joined a local newspaper, I think I wrote totally 1-2 article and got a guy job there and got 750 Rs salary also for 1 month. Went for about 3 days to an CA to work and also ended up working for some local channel, thanks to my commerce teacher. I was as aimless as before. I enjoyed everything for some time but never could stick to anything. But one thing became clear I was more an accountant than any of the rest. That’s when the thought of doing an MBA struck. Like everybody I also wanted to do MBA and to do that I wanted a professional degree which I decided I should do CA (I think I carried this for about 5 years before I said bye to the MBA thought).
This was the time when Dad got a transfer to Pondicherry and I got to stay with Geetha Chitti and Ramesh Chittappa. I think it was a lot of change for everybody be it Chitti and Chittappa or dad and mom or me. But I think a different set of experience. May to a larger extent I was indifferent to all this. I was so preoccupied with my boards from day 1(looking back it looks stupid) that I did not care about lot of these stuff. In fact I went to Pondicherry only once during 12th I think for Diwali.
Preparation for 12th board actually made me realize that I had to prepare it as many time as possible because I can never write from memory (Mugging is not possible today also) but I had another quality to write exams in a state of trance i.e write closing my eyes without actually thinking what I am writing. I think it is the best gift one can have if he is doing CA. I remember only writing all my exams for the whole 3 hours till I completed CS but never knew what crap I wrote on paper
I used to mark my 12th books with what I is important. Make notes of the entire books and other reference material and make version to cut short to bring the entire content to a 3 page document. I did this all through 12th. I would have written bundles of notes in my 12th and this went on till my CA exams.
The highlight of 12th Standard was the International Quality convention where we took part. I was never a part of the team when it all started but thanks to my class mates they were grossly ignorant on how to go about the entire stuff and I had become half a goli master I got dropped in that team. In fact the first presentation we made had statistics which were absolutely baseless and fraud to the last bit. We wne t ahead and did that presentation. After doing charts in commerce you can thing of a lot fo complex method to present anything simple. It came in very handy when I was with Wipro Audit team, some of the charts were bull shit which people were thrilled about.
We were through with the first round and got a chance to go to the 2nd round in Lucknow. The worst part was the project was a sham to the core and all that which we did were out a fit of imagination. That’s when reality set in that we need to do some productive work before we go ahead with the presentation. We created photos which weren’t true and details of improvement which was unheard of. Toa larger extent we over did also in some cases as out Principal was super thrilled about it and we were confident that as long as in paper we are good it does not matter how you perform.
We flopped in Lucknow, the only reason is we never had conviction when we presented. And that was very evident to even a passerby. But it was fun to do all this and the best part was we were travelling to lucknow and having a nice time.
It was not all that good. All our teachers did not like it. Internal politics were to the heights cause 12th students were asked to do useless junk instead of preparing for the exams. But I managed for myself others has a tougher battle to fight.
After all this fun when 12th exams was nearing reality started to set in. I psyched in as usual. I started writing model papers everyday. Use to make my teachers prepare question papers and spend solving it at home and getting it corrected and noting my mistakes. If I say I overdid it, it is only an understatement. But I believe all this had given some sneak peek into future in which I am or for the period to come by.

I AM EXTREMELY SORRY IF I HAD MADE THIS BORING BUT I ALWAYS WANTED TO WRITE AND RECORD ABOUT IT MORE FOR ME THAN FOR OTHERS JUST TO HAVE AN INVENTORY OF WHAT I DI