A bunch of us was just going through the newspaper sometime in the extremely close past – little more than one third of an hour ago. A few words were screaming from the pit of their underbellies, a couple of pages after the third one: Four thousand thirty something CAT 2008 forms sold on Day One! And that is approximately three times that of last year, which supposedly had the largest number of question papers printed for the exam in the history of Asia . More news had that certain branches of certain banks ran out of forms by noon and many distressed, dejected aspirants, after hitting the nearest lamp-post with a tightly-clenched fist , moved towards the next spot of possible availability. In many cases the ordeal turned out to be a sweaty ‘treasure’ hunt under the hot afternoon sun.
The point that comes out is – assuming that the trend continues , we are, in all probabilities going to see about a million hands selectively ( or randomly or a mix of both) blackening circles on the OMR sheet on D Sunday of November, o8. This makes it equivalent to the whole of Pondicherry including its booze-buying-outsiders, run after the cat. (We were told that it is a rat race out there (?!))
The story is going to be not very different for the GMAT takers. I once overheard from a herd of techies outside Tidel Park that all slots and seats for taking the test on a certain date are sold out. And a few Air-India-fulls of takers would be going to Colombo, Bangkok, Lagos etc to give it a shot.
By the closest estimates; considering the figures of the number of applicants last year , the number this year is likely to touch the dew drop resting on the tip of the Eiffel Tower.
Yes, Great Lakes is going to get greater by another hundred heads next year. But the applications are going to get more by the number of hair follicles on a grizzly bear. Now that gives the Admissions Team and the data servers something to sip a cuppa coffee over.
Meanwhile, we sniff bloodshed, mayhem, cut-throat competition and such other aromas.
(Suryya Sarkar)
Leave a Reply