पिछली मुलाकात

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सामने बैठी तुम तो लगा मानो
संसार इतने में ही सिमट सा गया हो
इस बार भी "पहली" मुलाकात के लिए
हर बार की तरह समय थम सा गया हो

पलकें उठीं तो लगा जैसे
संसार में अब भी काफ़ी कुछ अच्छा सा है
पलकें झुकीं तो एहसास हुआ
मेरा प्यार सचमुच सच्चा सा है

मुस्कुराई तुम तो संतोष हुआ
नाममात्र ही सही, थोड़ा प्यार तो तुम्हें भी है
शरमाते चेहरे की लालिमा से आभास हुआ
तुम्हारे हृदय के एक छोटे कोने पर अधिकार मुझे भी है

मेज़ पर अंजाने में ही तुम्हारा हाथ छुआ तो लगा
थोड़ा ही सही, मेरे जीवन को आज भी अवलंबित करती हो
खत्म न हो रही बातों से लगा तुम मुझमें
आज भी उत्साह के कुछ शब्द अंकित करती हो

वापस जाने का वक़्त हुआ तो लगा जैसे
उन कुछ क्षणों में कैद मेरा संसार हुआ
थोड़ी देर रुक जाने को जब कहा तुमने
तो मानो हृदय पर ही प्रहार हुआ

किस गति से निकले थे वो कुछेक क्षण
अभी तो तुम्हें बस देख भर पाया था
हमारी पिछली उस मुलाकात की यादों का
सिलसिला आज फिर ख्वाबों में आया था

Food for thought

"Some emotions don't make a lot of noise. It's hard to hear pride. Caring is real faint - like a heartbeat. And pure love - why some days it is so quiet, you don't even know it's there."

- Erma Bombeck

CAT Tips: What to do the day before and on the D-Day

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”

- Elbert Hubbard; The Note Book, 1927

The penultimate

Relax! Your part of the job is already done! If you happen to be an engineer too (which I presume with a 90% level of confidence), recall the days when you used to laugh looking at people messing their heads with “Irodov” and “Krishna’s IIT Physics” on the day of the JEE! If you weigh intelligence and perseverance in terms of importance towards cracking CAT, trust me, this cat is way too sexy to be tamed just by slogging hard for it – I would rank intelligence higher when it comes to getting her! If you count in attitude and thinking-on-the-toes as components of intelligence, you are made for an IIM. Tomorrow is your day to prove that you are great not because you are amongst the crowd of those two hundred thousand guys writing the exam each one of which has the brains to solve those easy Quants and DI problems, but you are great because you are more intelligent in terms of choosing the right ones out of the twenty five questions and calm enough to crack them within fifty minutes. Adding to it, you should be intelligent enough to understand that you don’t need to slog tonight to prove yourself tomorrow!

If you want a personal experience, I had enjoyed a mug of beer in Bangalore’s “Just Another Pub” at Koramangala the day before CAT, chilling out with a bunch of college friends (and I got a “blacki”!!) The point out here is not about alcohol (remain strictly within 50ml!); just relax in the best way which suits you. Stay calm, have a dinner with you girlfriend (if you aren’t as lucky as me who doesn’t have any such filthy burdens), and remain confident that you are made for the big day. It’s meant to be a laid back Saturday, let the essence remain – you’re doomed to be back again to the rhetoric of office or classes from Monday!

The ultimate

Ever actually seen how “mornings” are like on Sundays? The exam is at ten, make sure you wake up in time keeping in mind your transit time to the examination centre. You haven’t taken a bath for past 4 days, do it today (yes, do it even though it’s a “sun” day; it’s the second best thing in the world to refresh with a cold water shower on a November morning!) Feel like revising formulae or something? Personal opinion – it’s of no use. It’s only the easy formulae – which you already have used a lakh times – combined with your sheer presence of mind that is required to sail through CAT problems. Get to the examination centre by 09:45, check out all girls allotted the same centre if you are writing CAT in a real town and, finally, take your seat at 10:00.

The 10:00 to 10:30 period when you’ve to wait in the examination hall for the question paper is the worst torture you might have ever faced in life. Here’s how to make best use of the time. Get your brain working before the exam starts. After you are done with the form filling stuff, this is the time to revise your formulae. Your brain is already at peace with the relaxation you offered it yesterday, let it start afresh. Mentally start recalling simple geometry and mensuration’s areas, volumes, equations and stuff. If you remember some problem you had ingeniously solved (ever), think about the solution again, you’ll bolster your confidence. Start building your focus fifteen minutes before you’ve got the papers. Once you get them, it’s the regular easy trick. Pick up the most comfortable areas (personal favorite – geometry in Quants); steer through rough uncomfortable terrains the last. Constantly look for easy problems, spot them right and you are through the cut-off. Get ready to enjoy the Sunday evening once again!

All the best!