It was the afternoon of 26th Jan, when I was swiftly shifting my concentration from the usual busy work lying ahead to my mail box, which had been waiting for 3 nights to be opened. Chucking one by one, I see the one from my alumni group - bits2bschool. It points to an article introducing me - The Young India Fellowship. Excited with the content of that article and having evaluated the value of it through other sources of BITS, I decided to apply.
I attended the info session on Feb 13th and there comes a surprise. Mr. Jain, who studied at Bangalore and then working at De-Shaw, and myself were the only two people who attended the info session in OU Campus, Hyderabad for which Mr. Bejoy Suri and Ms. Gunjan, the presenters, were little late due to their flight delay. As the group is too small and they have too short a time frame to catch another flight to Calcutta, on my suggestion, we went to Paradise and had a lipsmacking biryani. Though I have been in Hyderabad for around 10 years or more, that was my tryst with Paradise restaurant and its Biryani. After tasting it, I momentarily felt insulted by myself, as I missed it for last 10 years. Getting back to the purpose of the lunch - we talked over lunch for 3 hours and I had a deep insight into the very meaning of the programme and its goals. I was even more confident when I was out from the restaurant. I was even more happy that I met a course, which I myself wanted to start. I set March 15 as the deadline for my application, though the official one is 31st. Thereafter, started writing down the application's content and finally applied with a recommendation from Prof. Soumitra Dutta of INSEAD. Later, I got an interview call from Bejoy Suri , nearly after 5 days of application to attend an interview the coming Saturday in Delhi. In fact, I was given an option to choose between an interview in Hyderabad around 2 weeks down the line and one in Delhi, within next 3 days. I flew myself to Delhi the next weekend and I stayed in a guest house which costed me around 1000 INR. Contrast to my thoughts, it was just another 3 bedroom flat in the "packed" centres of Delhi. THe owner was renting out each of his rooms to visitors like me. (He is making more than thrice the rent with such an adhoc business model ). At 4 pm was my appointment. I was right on time and had a nice shikanji (spicy lime juice) at the canteen there in the Aurobindo Campus (where our classes run), Adchini, just next to IIT Delhi. And the interview started with greeting me for travelling all the way from Singapore. Mr. Shehashish, an Architect and Mr. Anunya Chaubey, an Artist ( I love both the fields ) were eagerly waiting me to sit, so that they can grab my words of (my understanding of) wisdom for the next few minutes. Apparently, it turned out to be an one hour long one, unlike any other which were not more than 15-20 min. Questions I faced are Define knowledge? Did your under graduation empower you with knowledge? What exactly did you learn through out? I should say most of them, intrigued within me the thought of "Is that all I did?". But it is a valuable introspection that I always looked forward for. At the end of the session, whether I will be selected or not, I enjoyed the 1 hour long honest post mortem of myself.
I was selected 3 days after that ( its a wednesday, a weekday - yet another busy working day ). Mr.Uttam, my close friend and mom were both with me when I heard this fantastic news. I jumped off my seat and yelled out. Then my mobile bill touched its peak, as I talked to nearly each of friends and relatives to spread the news. Later, got the admission kit after 10 days. I had to resign from my company (which is quite a shock for my manager, who even knows I applied. We thought I wouldn't manage to get into it.) I then started explaining the CXOs, why I had to leave my job for this, elaborately putting forward the positive points of this programme. I always loved this programme.
Finally, I am into YIF physically, on 25th June. I detail about my camp little later in my blog. For brevity sake, I describe it as a one time experience, that I can never expect to happen to me again.
Today I started writing about all this as I prepare charts for the World Environemt Day Walkathon we planned for the next morning. The entire day was full of work on the Wifi router intalltion by Airtel. Some companies though big, need basic planning classes. huh!
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