SHORTLISTED!

" We need to read all that again and correct the spellings..."

"Allright, kiddo"

Poor Hrishi was roped into helping me fill up the online forms to SIMC and SIIB. Actually i had gone to T.I.M.E to see Joseph Sir( writing about this guy would take up a lot of space, so later) to clear some doubts on those forms, but he entrusted the great responsibility of helping me out to Hrishi. After an enjoyable session of formfilling, the story moves on to another important day, January 15th.

Snap result had already been published on 10th, but i already knew i'd be getting something around 80, 'cause i'd already checked it with the scorecalculaters of TCY oneline and T.I.M.E. All i wanted to know was whether i'd be shortlisted for SIMC. i knew SIMC didn't require scores like 100+ like SIBM , but still.........ah, i just wanted to know if i was in.

Ever since morning, my computer was switched on. Every five minutes, i went and checked if they had published the shortlist. But no.Sometime quite late in the afternoon, the shortlist for the MBA programmes were published. Crap! What's taking them so long? Put up the MMC shortlist!

"Your'e not going to get through, so why bother being tensed?"

Sweet mom. She walked up the stairs shaking her head seeing me pace restlessly all around the house. Hmph! i didn't give her 'comforting' words a thought. I was too busy being curious, anxious, worried etc etc that i forgot to answer back something rude.

Finally, at around 10, the MMC shortlist was put up. I'd never before been so scared to open an adobe pdf file. i scrolled down the list, searching, no, HUNTING for my name. It HAS to be there.

74. RESHMA RAJU EMMATTY

Wow! I made it! My name was 74th in a list of 77, but who cares, i'm selected!!

"Daddy, Mammy," I went to my grandparents first to reveal the good news, "I've been shortlisted for SIMC!"(jumping up and down, dancing about, singing out loud)

"Congrats! Did you tell your mother?"

"Nah, she's not gonna be pretty happy about this"

The next victim of my uncontrollably enthusiastic good news revelation was my dad(appa. i call my grandfather 'daddy'). He wasn't half, well..1/10th as thrilled as i was about this.

" Hm....Pune...shortlisted...You still have the GD and PI"

Wow. And now for Mommy Dearest.

She would've heard all my exclamations, songs, jumping up the stairs etc etc already, so she must've got an idea.

"I got shortlisted!"

"You can't go that far."

"I am going."

"What course is this?"

"Mass Communication. and Journalism."

"Some stupid course! Why didn't you choose MBA?"

As if she didn't know that i wanted to do Mass Comm. By then my dad entered the picture.

" Are you going to send her for this?" She snarled at him.

Me and dad smiled. He was supposed to be on my side on things like these

" I am going for this, okay?"

"Don't worry, she still has GD and PI. She won't get through", my dad reassured her.

How sweet! Et tu padre? Great. Here i'd been slaving away with books like never before for almost two years, digesting even math, my least favorite subject so that i could get into a good institution atleast for PG and this is how i'm 'congratulated'?

A part of me was mad and wanted to start shouting. But the other half was like SO glad about being shortlisted. So glad that i couldn't even be mad at them right now. I'm going to Pune! I walked away and messaged all my friends that i'd been shortlisted. Some 'congrats' and some 'wat's simc?' were returned and i was only too happy to explain.

I went and looked at that lovely pdf file again. Right then, it seemed like the best pdf file in the whole world. What was that on the top?

SIMC CUTOFF 60.25

SIMC SCORE VERBAL+LOGICAL+GENERAL AWARENESS

Oh my God! That means i barely scraped through because of that panama hat question! My SNAP score without the quant was 60.75. If i had got one single question less than i did, i'd never have made it. Thank God Hrishi read out all those questions. Especially the Panama hats question. If i hadn't marked Equador for that..............I didn't want to imagine that possibility. Really had to thank Hrishi. That guy turned out to be my lucky charm.