Partiality?

A neighbor in his late sixties expired today.

A Diwali meet was going on in my complex when the news came to us. It was around 8:30 PM and most people were finishing their dinner. An unanimous decision was made by all the adult residents to suspend the planned events and call it a night.

The parents didn't want their young kids to know what had happened. So no public announcement about the death was made. The only news that the young one's heard was that there would be no tambola games organized tonight.

A group of these boys came up to one of the uncles standing next to me and asked him the reason for this 'wrong' decision. Uncle was caught between the devil and the deep sea - He didn't want to interfere in the decision of the parents but on the other hand the kids wouldn't budge if they didn't get an answer.

He tried to ignore the matter by saying that the decision had been taken by all elders and that the decision was final.

One kid made a very innocent but just objection - "You have to tell us the reason uncle. It's not fair. Why can all the girls know about the reason, but not us boys?"

All the young girls new about the death. One of them had overheard a few elders talking among themselves about it. And the word had spread like wild fire. However, there was an unsaid understanding between the girls that no boy should know. Unable to control themselves, one of the girls had taunted some guys about their lack of 'knowledge'.

The boys were not hurt because their parents hid the information from them. What they couldn't accept was that how come the parents didn't tell them, when they had already told the girls.

The friendship that I miss (Part 1)

I have made many good friends in my life. But somehow, nobody has even come close to the bonding I had with this one special friend of mine – let’s call him John for anonymity’s sake.

He was one of the first friends I made when I shifted to my new school. Within 2 months of joining that school, we had become the best of friends.

We were almost inseparable. We were in the same class in school and most of our time after school was spent together. It was around the time we had read the story of Damon and Pythias. For our common friends, we were the living embodiment of the legendary friends.

We used to play all the games together. We used to fight with people or stop talking to people just because the other person had a fight with this third person.

We used to share all kinds of thoughts and ideas – in their unedited form – literally speaking our minds. Without the usual censoring that people do when speaking in front of other people. We even talked about things that we were afraid or ashamed of talking about in public.

We used to share our joys and help each other in our pains. Whenever his parents were worried about his studies or his behavior, they used to ask me to talk to him and to make him understand - they thought I could most influence John.

My parents had more trust in him than they had me. They found him more mature and level headed. Even if he used to ask for permission for things not permitted for me, he was never denied it. The feeling was the same when it came to his parents and me.

In many ways, we seemed to be facing similar kinds of problems in our lives.

He was my go to man for almost any problem. He was also the guy who felt happier than me when something good happened to me.

Normally guys are not known to talk much with other guys on the phone. However, we have spent hours talking on the phone even after having spent the entire day together.

When I called him, often I used to spend more time talking to his maid and his mom, than I did talking to him. Even our moms chatted a lot with each other.

He was the one who gave me my first drink because he thought it was insane that I hadn’t even tasted liquor till then.

We even fell for the same girl in school – Sara for the sake of the story. In such situations, what you would normally expect is that it would mean trouble for our friendship. And we did fight a lot, but to convince the other person to not feel guilty, and instead propose the girl first! That experience made me realize how important our friendship was to the both of us.

Eventually, when I decided to go ahead and approach the girl, I was feeling sad on the one hand for the possible heart break of my dear friend. On the other hand, I was obviously feeling exhilarated.

I never for once thought that I had a chance with the girl. Although, I was in for a surprise - she accepted!

A week after the event, I and all of my friends went to another friend’s house to celebrate. As we were about to leave her home, John accosted Sara and me and told us that he wanted to make a disclosure. He told her that he had liked her for a long time but now that Sara and I were dating, he did not want to leave and potential for misunderstanding between us. So he wanted her to know about his feelings and that he would now try to get over her. John said that, for him, his friendship with me was very important and he could not let anything come between me and him.

Both Sara and I were shocked! I had never expected it. But after I recovered from the initial reaction, I was very proud of my best friend. My respect for him grew manifold. How many people had the guts to do such a thing?

But such were his ways. He was the most wonderful person that I knew then and probably one of the most wonderful people I have ever known.

To be continued... (One story is too small for me to describe our friendship)

Fear of the future

A few days back, I was faced with a tricky situation. I was having a conversation with my dad and one of his business partners. 

Uncle – as I usually called his business partner – wanted to know what plans I had for the future. I explained to him that I was still trying to understand my interests and passions, but I was certain that I wanted to get an MBA education from one of the top business schools in the world.

Unknown to me, his son was preparing for engineering entrance exams for colleges in India. Tired of the immense amount of hard work required to get the scored required for a good enough college, he had recently given up preparing itself. His idea of higher education now revolved around giving the SAT and aiming for a university in the United States.

Parents in India are often scared about sending their kids to the US for undergraduate studies. According to them, the influence of the west has already started ruining the morals of the younger generations. They feel that if their child were to study in America in those formative years, he would grow so enchanted with the country and its preference for instant gratification, that he would settle down there itself. They however think that since we are more mature when we go for our masters, we might be able to take a more ‘sensible’ decision.

Parents don’t want their kids settling down in a foreign country, far from the Indian culture. And most of them think that the institution of family has degraded completely in the western world. As a result, relationships in the west have become more about momentary pleasures and less about loyalty and dedication. And the media does highlight this often enough, even going to the extent of proclaiming that weak family ties might be the main reason for high rates of depression in the West. Parents don’t want their kids to imbibe such values.

Uncle was discussing the pros and cons of studying in the US and I could provide him with many pros – better quality of education, greater flexibility, experiential learning, greater emphasis on innovation and out-of-the-box thinking. It is my belief that had I studied in such a conducive environment, I would have retained my love for technology and maybe even entered the field of research. At least, given the kind of options that would have been available, there were greater chances of me finding my true passion.

I tried to assuage his fears by explaining all this to uncle. I told him that his values would hold his son in great stead and that he shouldn’t worry so much. Uncle wanted me to talk to his son and help him with his decision making process. However, I had no answer to uncle’s single most important albeit rhetorical question – “If he goes to the US, isn’t there a chance he might never come back?”

My GMAT journey - a debrief on a 770 and 6.0!

Well, my first and most important advice - have a good night's sleep before your GMAT! I know that I got a good enough score and that I shouldn't be complaining, but believe me, its a very important advice.

I have always had difficulty in sleeping properly before any important exam, and unfortunately this time was no exception. I lay on the bed for atleast 6 hours but could sleep barely for 3. And somewhere it did have an impact. I never expected to score below a 51 in quants ( I am another Indian engineer ), yet I did lose out on the crucial score. However, thats a matter of the past now, and on to the real deal - my debrief.

I started preparing for my GMAT around the 2nd week of June. I had just finished with 2 back to back semester exams, an ordeal which was almost 2 months long. So it took me some time to get into the proper groove of things. The first thing I did was to take the OG diagnostics test (Its one of the best things to judge your current level of preparations, albeit being a little tougher than the actual GMAT). I wasn't expecting too great a performance, but I think I did pretty well. Many people suggest that the first GMATPrep should be taken when you are starting with your preparations so that you can identify your strengths and weaknesses, and then proceed accordingly. However, I think the diagnostic sufficed for that purpose. I didn't want to waste such an important resource. I knew that quants wouldn't be much of a trouble, and that I would have to mainly concentrate on my VA. And the diagnostics indicated the same thing. I would also recommend everyone to check out the GMATclub forums regularly and to also sign up for the question of the day emails. This club was a very big help to me right from understanding how and what to start my preps with, to the best books for each section and also for identifying the best practice mocks. I am really thankfull to you all!!

I started with the Powerscore CR Bible. Its a brilliant book and a must have for anyone who wants to improve or brush up his critical reasoning skills. I was fairly confident about CR and RC ( I got only a couple of questions wrong in the diagnostics in these sections), however I figured I would start with something easier so that I could boost my confidence a bit. I was frankly never expecting that I would achieve more than 700, and 720 was my dream score. Along with CR, I started checking out grammar. The grammar we were taught in school was hardly the tip of the iceberg, and I couldn't even understand half the explanations given for the SC questions in OG. The book I went through was Kaplan Verbal Foundations. Though we Indians consider Wren and Martin to be the bible for grammar, the book looked too drab to me, and too detailed as well. And I kinda liked the content and presentation of the Kaplan book. After reading through verbal foundations, I started with Manhattan SC. The book is by far the most important book to have in your arsenal for GMAT preps, after the OGs of course. Its a brilliant book and a must have.

Around the 24th of June, I gave my first GMATprep test, and surprise surprise I scored a 750 (Q51, V40)!! As I said, I had never expected such a huge score and was a little dumbstruck. I thought maybe it was a lucky shot or something. Quants was a cakewalk(as i had expected) and I didnt get even one question wrong in that section. VA was much easier than I had expected and my bottleneck seemed to be SC (I had 8 wrong in SC and 1 in RC, none in CR!). So my analysis till then had been correct about my strengths and weaknesses. I came to know that GMATprep is a little easier than the actual GMAT and so I estimated my level to be at around 700 at that time.

I had my work cut out. I needed to pay attention to SC, while practicing all the other sections. This is when I picked up the OG. Its the best aid in your preparations for GMAT. If you try to learn from both the questions you get right and the ones you get wrong, it helps you improve drastically. My real preps began around the start of July. The books I used during this period were the Verbal OG, OG12, Kaplan Verbal Workbook(some additional practice) and Manhattan SC. I also went through Manhattan RC(for lack of other resources on RC). I think you can give it a read through in case you want to pick up a few pointers. But its not so useful that it can be counted as a necessity.

I had around a months time left for my preparations (I had scheduled my GMAT exam for the 30th July in May itself). I tried to be as regular with my studies as I could and was giving around 5-6 hours every day on the weekdays(weekends were mostly wasted). In the last three weeks before my exam, I started giving MGMAT mocks. I took one mock every 3 days or so. I also tried out Knewton, Veritas and 800score. But out of these I found MGMAT to be the best one. Knewton's quants is weird, although its VA is almost on the mark. Veritas was OK. MGMAT quants was a little tougher than the real GMAT but I didnt really face too many problems with that. My score in quants was consistent at 51. VA seemed almost the same as the real GMAT. But I loved the review interface of MGMAT, it was very intuitive and gave me lots of useful feedback. My scores were as follows:

GMATPrep1 - 750 (Q51, V40)
MGMAT1 - 730 (Q51, V38)
MGMAT1 - 750 (Q51, V41)
MGMAT1 - 760 (Q51, V41)
MGMAT1 - 780 (Q51, V45)
MGMAT1 - 740 (Q51, V40)
MGMAT1 - 780 (Q51, V45)
GMATPrep2 - 780 (Q51, V45)

I re-read Manhattan SC twice. Read through a lot many articles in this forum and loved some of them (like the one by chineseburned for AWA). I also went through all the manhattan quant guides, but didnt solve the exercises in them. I liked the DS strategies that they had. One of my biggest mistakes was to neglect my AWA. Especially since I had not written an essay in almost 5 years. I only read through a couple of chapters from Writing skills for GMAT and GRE and a few articles from the forums. However, I did write atleast one essay in every mock I gave. In the last two days, I also practiced from GMAT Write. I got a 6 in the Argument essay and a 4 in the issue essay(both in timed conditions). As a result, I am still worried about my GMAT AWA.

I am really thankful to all the forum members who helped along the way and to two of my friends who prepared for the GMAT along with me. Couldn't have been able to do it without help from all you guys.

I would also like to apologize for the poor grammar, diction and structure of this debrief. I profess to be a poor writer and another reason why I don't post too often on the forums. I also am still tired from the day I had yesterday. However, if you could suggest any ways in which I could improve this post, I would be happy to do so.

I will continue to go through the forums and try to help all the people I can. I will be applying to HBS 2+2 and am already in the 2nd stage of the ISB YLP program. I am still confused about which other colleges I should apply to, and would love to get any suggestions.

For now, thanks for letting me bore you with my blabbering and I hope you had something to gain from my experience. ciao!

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