Mystory@Apurba Adhikari: How I redefined my career path – Challenges and learnings

Disclaimer: There are a myriad of CAT gurus with their numerous well-written articles out there who can teach you how to prepare for CAT many a times better than I can. So if you are looking for preparation tips, this is not for you. For me preparation is the last lap of the journey and possibly the easiest part, let me highlight the silent killers who won’t even let you come to that phase!

Prologue

It all started on a cold foggy winter morning in the month of January 2015. It was the 7th month at my new site location and my patience was getting thinner with each passing day. I had to report at the site office by 7.30 am sharp every morning and start the gruelling cycle of site activities within 8.00 am; lunch was at 1.00 pm, evening snacks at 6.30 pm and my office ended at…well! Frankly, that used to remain a mystery to me every day, and until I was really standing outside the gates, I was clueless! Then I had a look at my watch: 10.30 pm, one hour earlier than yesterday! Perhaps today I’ll finish the Geometry chapter! That was me being exalted, by the way! Those days my happiness quotient came down to me being able to finish a chapter of Sharma or Lewis because I wanted to get out of that hellhole and they were like my partners who would help me in this great escapade!

Anyway, coming back to that day, I was feeling extremely dejected as the previous night I had a fight with my dad. Reason was obvious, I wanted to quit and I finally gathered courage to tell my recently-retired dad that I wanted to take a career break for a few months and prepare for CAT. And to my utter dismay he just simply declined. I was on the verge of tears and I pleaded but to no avail. I was not angry with my dad as I knew he was right but I was angry with myself as in why I chose civil engineering in the first place and that too I chose my career with L&T while my friends were enjoying their lives in software companies.

(Learning 1: Choose to work in any random software company, no matter what engineer you are, if you want to do well in CAT).

I was just getting started on my daily ritual of cursing my company, my CM, my PM and everybody remotely associated with the project when my phone beeped and there was text message from “Dad”. I don’t remember many occasions when I’ve cried but that long text message from my father where he said how much he believed in me and urged me to come home as soon as possible to start preparation for my “CAT journey”, honestly brought tears to my eyes. I also realised it was mom who played the vital role in convincing dad!

(Learning 2: Retirement does “things” to even super-supportive dads, have patience and try convincing mom!)

The fact, the fact that I can finally prepare properly for CAT was just sinking in when a contractor approached and asked me, “Sir how long do we get to cast the 2nd floor slab?” and to that I very candidly replied, “As long as it pleases you!”

I left the company within a few days.

“Tell me about yourself”

I belong to a middle-class Bengali Brahmin family with both my parents highly spiritual! My father is a former assistant teacher of Mathematics in St. Xavier’s school and my mother is a homemaker. My schooling happened at St. Xavier’s throughout. The pious environment and the strong disciplined approach of my family and that of the Jesuit fathers of my school, helped inculcate high values and work ethic in me very early in life. I was a sincere student from my childhood and participated and excelled in lots of competitions like International Math Olympiad, National Science Olympiad, etc. in my school life. I scored decent percentage (read 85+) in both my 10th and 12th despite being in the State Board of West Bengal, which is notorious for being one of the most miserly Boards in giving marks to students. I still seriously wonder…WHY?

(Learning 3: Your past sins will definitely haunt you back. So choose your Education Board carefully and do study a bit. Not in your hand I know, that advice was for your siblings/children).

And then it begins – The 1st mistake of my life

If you all can remember, there was this very popular show on National Geographic called “Megastructures”. Nothing wrong with the show, it had in-depth analysis of architecture, planning and construction of some of the wonders of the world. Awesome show in all aspects except that it was making an innocent teenager fall in love with “structures”. The beautiful young mind of that chap, oblivious to the fact that rag-picking is still a better option than working in the construction industry in India, grew an interest towards Civil Engineering. My love for it grew so much that I did forego the options of taking up CS/IT in some apparently “reputed government colleges” and chose to do my BTech in Civil Engineering from Meghnad Saha Institute of Technology (MSIT), Kolkata, which decision I would be regretting for the rest of my life!

(Learning 4: All government colleges are reputed or at least they sound cool when you keep replying to the notorious “Tell me about yourself” for the rest of your life).

Still undeterred by the fact that I’m not in the coveted “Government college league,” I kept my efforts on and to name a few of my achievements in my college days it would be a National scholarship from Government of India and also becoming a finalist in national competition for Civil/Structural Engineers conducted by INSDAG. Life was fine but then came the judgement day – Placement!

But true to myself, my eyes were already set on “the best” of the industry: the mighty Larsen & Toubro, second company on our campus and I got placed! The first phone went to my dad and he heartily congratulated me on fulfilling my “dream” and for a very “bright future”. Such praises from my dad and I was straight on cloud nine and spent the rest of my 3rd year and full 4th year totally basking in the warmth of my recent success. No worries whatsoever, yet again oblivious to what surprises my “dream” and “bright future” held for me.

2nd mistake of my life

The last two years of engineering are very vital, not in terms of learning engineering but deciding your future. I was so happy to be able to pursue my “dream profession” that too in my “dream company”. I was over-sure about the fact that I don’t need an MBA and I taunted those friends who started preparing for CAT: "Such a fool who didn’t choose Commerce in 12th and now wasting 4 years of engineering to pursue something totally unrelated, shame on you!" But actually, shame on me who wheeled away last 2 years of engineering in a state of euphoria.

It is very essential for all those confused engineers to realise after 2 years of engineering whether they want to switch to management studies so that their last 2 years can be utilised in preparing for CAT or other exams. There you can actually save 2-3 years of post-graduation, impertinent work experience and also get that precious “fresher” tag. People may argue that experience helps to comprehend management studies and also get a placement in some of the great brands and rightly so, but not in India. Education system here will always be beyond the purview of any logic or rationalism.

(Learning 5: Don’t waste the last 2 years of your engineering as that may save some valuable years of your future life.)

From my very limited exposure in MBA placements, I have seen huge brands in FMCG, BFSI, IT and other fields giving preference to freshers rather than an experienced guy and that too with a relevant experience in the same domain! So why take chances? Grab those (very limited) chances that life throws at you!

3rd mistake of my life

I have experience working with Larsen and Toubro Construction for 19 months as a senior engineer. My career began really well in L&T and among all the GETs joining that year I got one of the most desirable projects for a very reputed international client in Bangalore, a mighty Rs 1200 crore project. I had responsibilities of heading the construction of several buildings and managed 60 odd workers on any average day in this tenure. My role encompassed execution, planning, estimation, billing and client negotiations for construction on the site. Straight out of college, naive but full of energy I devoted my utmost sincerity to the job. Moreover, L&T has this technique of providing on-the-job training, which meant I was made in-charge of a building construction from early days and my every decision had practical implications on work progress, productivity and cost. With a humungous amount of effort and sacrifice on my part and with continuous support of my team and seniors I managed to win quite a few laurels during my service e.g. Best Productivity Award in L&T for 2 of my buildings; I completed 20,00,000 safe man-hours of construction and also achieved the best quality standards for my buildings.

This was the brighter side of my work life for the 1st year and then started the severe after-effects. I was young, far from home, given all these critical tasks and the acute performance pressure attached to it. The working hours were very harsh and to meet the deadlines I had to put in an average of 14-15 hours of work every day. Moreover, there was a lot of dust, cement particles and particulates in the air and I started having health problems. It will be very unbelievable to a lot of you but I was not allowed to sit down during my working hours. I had to constantly stand at the site and do mindless supervision work of the site activities for 15 hours! Unbelievable? But it’s true. I had a really tough time coping up with all these difficulties pushing me every moment.

It is well known that very few candidates actually survive L&T GET training period due to these very reasons that were plaguing me. But I did not give in, I kept going. But I realised that this thing can’t continue forever.

(Learning 6: You may be happy and well recognised at your work but always ask yourself, can I continue this for the rest of my life? There is always a better option.) 

A ray of hope

Then there was this fellow GET dude who gave me this idea about going for further studies and we had long discussions about our options at hand: MS or MBA. MS was eventually ruled out and we started preparing for CAT or we thought we would.

We bought books and one night lamp each from Amazon to start the prep! The crazy work load and the exhaustion out of the day long toil soon started making things too hard for us. We used to be so sleepy after coming back, we couldn’t even solve one sum or turn one page of the book. Moreover, Saturdays were working and the only day we had off was Sunday. But due to the fact that Saturdays used to be party nights, we woke up late on Sundays. Then there was the dreaded week-long laundry to be done, other miscellaneous items to be bought and the irresistible urge to chill for few hours after the long week created such immense amount of performance pressure on us for that lone off-day, we often ended up doing very less than we ought to have normally done. We even took mock test series but couldn’t appear for a single test. We eventually gave up. CAT 2014 gone! 

And then came the last blow: transfer! I was put on a project in a remote location in West Bengal. Any kind of adjective to describe the kind of colleagues I encountered there would fall short of the desired intent. I would leave that to your imagination but I could feel each and every passing minute I survived in that “hellhole” and went to bed with an acute desire to just run away from there.

With just 7 months into the new site, I could bear it no longer. I started my preparations again and this time for my life’s sake. I started defying my physical needs for rest and slept for few hours only. But I soon realised that this kind of preparation was not adding value to my learning, I have become a machine.

(Learning 7: You may have a rock-solid motivation and crazy perseverance but do realise that you are preparing for CAT and not Olympics. The aim is to remember things and not pushing your body to its limits. Rest adequately.)

The decision is made

At this point of my journey, the readers may think that taking the decision for quitting the job was pretty obvious and easy for me as I was suffering so much. But let me highlight the other aspects which need to be considered too.

Before quitting I figured out that to crack an exam like CAT I would need at least a few months of devoted preparation as I was totally out of touch with any academics. So I had to actually weigh between physically strenuous but financial surety against absolute uncertainty but a huge career boost.

Moreover, there were these very good friends of mine who used to laugh at me whenever I told them that I’m considering to quit and demoralised me regarding my abilities to cope with the high expectations at work. But I believed in myself and did forego the short-term temptations and embraced the uphill task of becoming a student again. This was definitely the most difficult decision I’ve taken in life.

(Learning 8: No matter what others say, you need to take some hard decisions in life to stand apart. Follow your own path of success! Be brave.)

I informed my parents of the situation and they supported me. I packed my luggage and just took off one fine morning from that god-forsaken place. It took me quite some time to detoxify my mind and body from that traumatising experience before I embarked on the journey to exonerate myself for my past sins: CAT 2015 it was!

Preparation phase

(As stated earlier, this is the shortest section of my story. I am also deliberately omitting the details of my score or number of calls – I believe they have no relevance to the purpose of writing this article.)

The few months that I got to prepare have been the most ascetic phase of my life I’ve spent till now. I confined myself to my room and devoted myself to CAT preparation. My dad shifted to a new place post retirement and I had no friends there so I barely went out, just watched some TV series and played my guitar for a change but the rest of the time I slogged.

(Learning 9: Yes, I slogged! Contrary to the popular belief where people show-off how less they studied to score that perfect percentile, I did study. And I believe unless you’re truly gifted, most of us average people do need to study.)

Fast forward to February 2017, I am writing this article sitting in the MDI Gurgaon hostel.

Epilogue

People say that success is a strong motivator but for me failure has been a stronger one. During my preparation period, I didn’t dream of the BMWs or the world tours that I could afford after a successful MBA but for me the dream was very simple: I didn’t want to go back to that hell. Even now, being halfway through my MBA with a good summer internship offer, my aspirations are still utterly simple, which many people may find quite laughable too: Having a well-defined working hour with weekends off, and having a chair of my own in office on which I can sit and work! You guys may think this is an exaggeration on my part but this is what happens when the whole definition of job-satisfaction becomes so overly twisted and mangled by your 1st company experience that your expectations hit rock bottom.

(Learning 10: Don’t forget your roots, always remember where you have come from. That will help to keep you grounded and motivated).

Everything is in your head, keep fighting. All the best! 

About the Author:

Apurba Adhikari completed BTech in Civil engineering from MeghnadSaha Institute of Technology (MSIT), Kolkata. After working with L&T Construction for a couple of years, he decided to pursue MBA and cracked admission into MDI Gurgaon (2016-18 batch).