10 years!

It's 10 years to the date I landed in the States for the first time!

In the third year of engineering, there was a panic that set in when ETS announced that they were changing the pattern of the GRE and replacing the analytical section with two essays. "We're obviously at a disadvantage if they drop a scoring section and replace it with two essays", declared some of our batch-mates emphatically while others nodded in agreement.

"What is this GRE?" ... That's the question that popped into my mind. That's how clueless I was. After asking around sheepishly, and getting looks that betrayed condescension from some of the more aware folks, I was finally educated about what this was all about.

But did I really want to go abroad for studies? My father had mentioned it to me a couple of times in passing that I should consider it, but I always thought I had more time to figure it out. But the panic to secure a date prior to September 30, ensured that I could no longer focus on the 5th semester. Soon the only topic being discussed in class was "Which wordlist are you on? ... Anand has already finished going through all of them once ... Did you buy flash cards?".

The herd effect was powerful. I made the first dollar transaction of my life and booked my exam slot. Slogged through the word lists, skimmed through the quantitative and analytical sections. This wasn't enough. ETS allowed you to send your scores free to 4 universities. Even though everyone knew this exercise was pointless as we were submitting scores more than a year in advance of Fall 2004, everyone was busy researching universities. I picked 4 lucky ones out of what everybody else was selecting. There was this strategy of trying to distribute the "good" universities between us so that we didn't send all the topper applications to the same school and end up fighting each other ... again pointless as we'd have to submit the scores again next year.

The result was a mixed one. My nemesis ... English which has publicly caused me enough humiliation in big exams before and after the GRE again made my scores modest at best even though I aced the sections that should matter. Even so, it was over, for then at least.

The frenzy rekindled in the final year, when the on-campus interviews were to be held. There were two very obvious camps within our very own group. Some were very clear that they had to go abroad for studies and were looking at the placements just as a formality. Others had either fared badly in the GRE or were genuinely interested in getting into the work force as soon as possible and were taking the placements really seriously.

Once again, I was underwhelmed. I have this tendency where big events - excitement, good news, bad news - all, don't really have a big impact on me and my response is visibly underwhelming. Was joining the work force so bad? Once again my father pointed out that it wasn't. I could work for a few years he said before deciding to study further.

But the policies in practice at VJTI said that once you got an offer from a company, you could no longer appear for another placement interview. Infosys, the Indian IT giant was the first company to visit us and if you had good grades and did reasonably well in their entrance test, you could get their offer without much effort. But it was unthinkable that the batch topper of an engineering branch would join an IT firm and not take up an admit from a well-ranked US university!

I had absolutely no idea what I wanted. Is this even a choice I thought? Maryland vs Bangalore? For someone who has lived his life in Bombay without any reason or intention to leave it, this is a lose-lose situation. There was no dream, no goal, no 5 year plan and for the first time in my life I felt utterly incompetent. How come other folks had such a clear vision when I didn't even have a glimpse?

The final few days in engineering college make you brave. You lose inhibition and a now or never attitude sets in. You gain enough courage to pose the question. But when destiny has other plans, the default case takes over. I realized that it was time to move on. I've been fortunate to have been trained in one of the best grade schools in the country where all of us know that if we put in enough effort, there are no dead-ends in life. I had just enough confidence to believe in myself that I had a chance in a far off unknown land.

And so on August 12, 2004, I landed at Dulles International Airport backed by no particular dream or goal in mind, but rather by the default case which often rescues us, and makes decisions for us. 10 years on, I have no idea whether that decision was the right one. Life has compensated by giving me a lot, in turn. When I retrospect, I realize that I have no regrets so as to speak. When life gives you a lemon, you make lemonade ... and I'm good at making lemonade from the default lemon :)