Monday, May 21, 2007

The Annual Cat Festival

The actual content of this post is a two-liner. Hence, I will build up the crescendo to it by giving random analogies. Searching a thesaurus for such activity will turn up the following result(s): "faff", "globe", "gyan".

Pushkar (Rajasthan, India) has a unique distinction of holding an annual camel festival. A look towards the horizon encompasses scores of brightly-colored turbans bobbing up-and-down on what looks like a misty sea (but is actually dust). The bovine animals are inspected and then selected by buyers. After finding the right fit of profile, the man and the beast walk away into the setting sun. Sigh!

A similar and immensely popular annual festival is also organized in much more urban settings. The annual CAT festival. Its a booming business and every year sees a healthy growth in number of participants. Some are regulars, some are novices. Its a happy mix. The run-up to the actual event is well rehearsed and 'Mock'ed out to such a precision that it would make a trapeze artist wish for wearing eye-pieces fitted with LCD displays showing real-time calculation of projectile motions. Olympics motto says "Cittius, Altius, Fortius" (faster, higher, stronger). CAT festival motto says "faster, accurate-r, easier and guess intelligent-lier".

{Cut to a different thought process}

Some years ago the Tier II cities in India gave way a social phenomenon which can truly be accredited to technological uplift of our nation. The proud mother, whose daughter is of marriageable age, would wear the most cordial smile and answer this when asked what her daughter is currently doing with her time - "She is doing a Computer Course". Guys were generally exempted from this Q&A session. However, the going has now become tough for the Tier-II-city-hometown-engineers-working-as-software-professionals-in-Tier-I-cities guys. What is the answer of their Moms to the above question? It is, "He is participating in the CAT festival".

{Why this random post?}

The CAT 2006 results were announced on 29th April, 2007 after loads of politics and delays. Anyways. I was going through the Orkut scrapbook of a friend who is an Electrical Engineer from IIT Madras with 3 years of work-ex (as of today). One of the scrap on 18th May, 2007 reads, "Tu is baar CAT de raha hai kya?" (Are you writing CAT this time?)

"... is baar..."!!!???? Hardly 3 weeks have passed to the results declaration and the conversation is centered around planning for next CAT. Is there any thought process at all which goes in the heads of the majority of people who write CAT every year? Again and again? Or is there actually a similarity with the bovine existence and walking into the setting sun which makes me muse about the annual CAT festival?




3 comments:

Anjali Bhardwaj said...

The thinking of most of the people who appear is the same. First appear for the exam and then decide whether to appear or not. "exam dene main kya jata hai".

There are some who have a good job but can't refrain from appearing for job interviews because of the same reason.

jcatgbjx (incidentally the word verification contains cat)

Anonymous said...

I must say I really missed the chance of appearing in the CAT ever, even if for the fun-sake!! wanted to be a part of the crowd who can actually talk over it..

by the way what exactly is "The CAT 2006 results were announced on 29th April, 2007 after loads of politics and delays."

-Sachin

Ankit said...

@Sachin: The final calls were supposed to be announced on around 12th April. However, Government's directive on quota and the subsequent tussle between Supreme Court and the HRD ministry put the result declaration on hold. Many students lost precious days where they had to either wait for IIM results or pay the fees for other management colleges they had successfully made to. The results were finally announced on 29th April without the extended reservation.