Omkar Pk Mukherjee: How I converted my IIM Calcutta call

Omkar Pk Mukherjee

Omkar Pk Mukherjee appeared for CAT 2016, and was elated once the result of the exam was declared. He scored 99.63 percentile, and knew that the scores were good enough to get him into a top B-school. However, at that moment Omkar also knew that only half the battle was won, and that he would have to perform well in the WAT-GD-PI to be able to make it to his dream school.

When the cut-offs were declared, Omkar got to know that he had just made it to the same. Soon, Omkar received a call from IIM Calcutta, and he knew that he had to make the most of this moment as the CAT scores held 30% weightage for final selection.

Here is a detailed account of his WAT-GD-PI experience at IIM Calcutta:

WAT Topic:

Global warming problem remedies: Is migration to outer space or other planets a good solution? Give some alternate solution as well.

I started off with an Interstellar quote “We used to look up at the stars and wonder our place in the sky. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt”. I followed it up naturally with the cost ineffectively of migration to outer space and how such forms of government (NASA) expenditure would not do justice to the entire populace. I mentioned briefly about how Elon Musk’s SpaceX could be a contingency policy and then went over to the impossibility of sustainability and development coexisting  to form sustainable development and exhorted for economic downturn as a goal for realising a proper solution to the problem stated.

Next, it was time to face the Personal Interview. The interview lasted for about 8-10 minutes. I was the 7^th person to go in for the interview from my panel. (What I heard from those who went in before me was that the interviewers were not pestering the candidates.)

(P1 held door open. I went in)

P2: Pragyan! (With great enthusiasm) Come and have a seat.

Me: (Sitting down, beaming): Thank you sir.

P2: Have you switched off your mobile?

Me: Sir, I have not brought it in the first place.

P2: So have you been asking the previous candidates what we have been asking?

Me: No sir.

P2: So tell me about yourself. Go through family, schooling etc.

Me: I started about how I had been a bad student in junior school.

P2: (interrupting) What does your father do?

Me: He is a retired State Bank Employee.

P2: Mother?

Me: Retired from State Resource Center for Adult Education.

P2: Continue.

Me: I went on about how I gradually improved and when I came out of school my school rank was 4^th in JEE-MAINS out of 850 students.

P2: JEEMAINS or WBJEE?

Me: JEEMAINS school rank was 4^th, WBJEE state rank was 33^rd .

P2: Ok.Go on.

Me: I was very restless in childhood and I played chess to correct this.

P2 (not hearing the last part fully): But if you are restless you cannot play chess well can you?

Me: No, Sir. I had been restless. It was after that I started playing chess and my restlessness went away.

P1 (telling P2): Ya after that he became rest”full”.

{I also laughed along with them}

P2: So who gave you this brilliant advice of playing chess to get rid of restlessness?

Me: My father used to play chess and I picked it up from him.

P2: Ok, go on.

Me: While I was doing my undergraduate in Jadavpur...

P2 (to P1): So many candidates are coming from JU this year isn’t it?

P1 nodded. (All this time he had been glancing over my application form)

Me: So while in Jadavpur, we produced a short film. I was the production manager, casting director...

P2: Did you do any course in these areas earlier?

Me: No sir.

P2: Do you know there is a film studies department in JU?

Me: Yes sir. In fact in one of our projects we worked with a PhD student of that department, Budhdhadeb Barman.

P2: Do you know any professor of that department?

Me: No, sir.

P2: (went away to attend to a phone call)

P1: (on hearing about short films he went back and checked my application form again) Did you have earlier experiences in these areas?

Me: Well sir, as a child I was a part of Sandesh which had been originally founded by Satyajit Ray and I used to act in the plays produced there.

P1: So, why did you not do any other film after the first one?

Me: Sir, firstly pressure of academics. Secondly, it was a maiden project and was successful and after that we tried to do an ad-film. It was for a start-up and hence low budget and so we bagged the order. It is now under post production.

P2 came back.

P2: So what are your hobbies again?

Me: Studying chess games of super-grandmasters of the last 5 decades and playing chess.

P2: So who are your favourite players?

Me: Grandmaster Anatoly Karpov, Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik.

P2: What about Vishwanathan Anand?

Me: Told him why I did not like his playing style.

P2: Differentiate between the playing styles of Vishwanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen.

Me: Explained in detail.

P2: Have you heard about Bobby Fisher? Who was he?

Me: Told.

P2: (suddenly discovering two D’s in my last semester mark-sheet ) Two D’s? That too in electrical power system and machine? Explain.

P1: Isn’t D the lowest grade before you fail?

Me: No sir there is D then there is E then someone fails.

P1 (to P2)(mocking): So there is D then there is E and then Fail.

Me: Sir, I did not have a great interest in power systems. But I liked machines and in fact I took that up as a special paper in 4^th year. However, that semester the professor who taught us did not give us marks.

P2: So you will not study here and then blame the professors for the consequences?

Me (shocked by my own lose talk): No, no sir. Believe me the highest grade in that subject was B.

P1: Really?

Me: Yes sir really.

At this point both of them buried their head in my 6^th semester grade card trying to find a proof of my last statement.

P2: But how do we know?

P2: So tell me does the name Tesla mean anything to you?

Me: (carefully avoiding the magnetic field aspect and veering the interview in a different direction). Told about Elon Musk’s company that manufactured electric cars and how the name was derived from Nikola Tesla who had tremendous contribution to science and who was the most intelligent person when he was allowed.

P2: How do you know he was the most intelligent person in earth?

Me: Told about how Einstein when asked about how it felt for him to be the most intelligent person on earth had said that one should go and ask the same to Nikola Tesla.

P2: So you saw this as a meme on Facebook? It is rubbish. Einstein never said this.

Me: I am sorry Sir. I am not sure about its authenticity.

P2: So you think this will be successful in India?

Me: Talked about its short term problems due to potential lobbying by diesel and petrol car manufacturers and the cost of setting up of huge no. of charging stations on the road but long term prospects due to better efficiency.

P2: Has electric car been in use in other parts of the world?

Me: I told them that I knew it was in use in some countries of Europe (most probably the Scandinavian countries) and in some parts of USA.

P2: So tell me what is Brexit and why it happened?

Me: I told them about Brexit and my opinion on why it took place in the first place.

P2: Asked me on who all voted for Brexit.

Me: Talked about how workers of labour unions and those who did not benefit out of increased exchange voted for Brexit.

P2 was not satisfied.

P1 (for the first time asking a real question): Do you know what is the Scottish referendum?

Me: (thinking)

P2: It occurred roughly two years before Brexit.

Me: Sir I don’t know but may I make a guess?

Both P1,P2: Go ahead, go ahead!!

Me: Maybe Scottish people had a referendum to come out of England’s influence.

P1: But isn’t England and Scotland separate parts of the Britain?

Me: Yes I meant maybe Scottish people had the referendum to come out of the power of London.

Both P1 and P2 were very satisfied and kept saying Okay okay and then asked me to leave.

However since I had guessed the answer I had no way of knowing whether they were happy or whether they were  mocking me and I could not believe they were asking me to leave without asking me any maths or technical.

I left with a crestfallen face.

Verdict: Converted!

CAT scores are used for admission to 20 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and various other top B-Schools. Are you eligible for the IIMs? To know more, click on the image beside.