Phew.... what a day it was!! - Part I

Part I - The build-up
Woke up, had my breakfast, spoke to Dada and switched on the computer.... well, that is today, relaxed and leisurely.... so different from yesterday, the 6th of August!!
Let me rewind a bit and begin from 5th evening.... I received a call from Dada, the primary reason being to wish me luck, but then we ended up talking for more than 2 hours, discussing and short-listing the 5 schools that i would send my scores to... I very happily(and quite pompously, i believe, selected 5 schools from the top-10 B-schools in US!! But Dada would have none of it... he wanted me to spread out the selection a bit more... covering the top 50!! I was scandalized... I am not going to attend such a low-ranked school but then it makes sense to apply... whether to enroll is a decision that could me made later... and if heaven-forbid, I get rejects from all the higher-ranked schools I would know where I stand.... Well, I couldn't fight against this reasoning, could I? After a long chat and an even longer session of thinking and staring at the paper-board (where I had noted down all the schools and their deadlines) I finally decided on Y/J/K/ISB/UIUC... UIUC being the least ranked and least known of the B-schools!! It was already 12 by the time I had zeroed in on these schools and I had no time or will left to take a look at the essays (as I had planned earlier) Just tucked myself in for the night.....
Heard the alarm go off too early and thought that it probably had a bug in it... but soon after came along Ma to get me out of bed... Was it already 5 then??!! I trudged out of the bed and got ready in record-time then waited while Ma and Baba got ready with Ma quibbling over how much time Baba took for getting ready... (this is normally how it is whenever we got some place in the mornings... with the trend completely reversed in the evenings! ;) Finally we were at the railway station at around 6:15, in time for the Sinhagad Express... the overcast sky increased my misgivings regarding traveling by train but then the journey was uneventful and we were at Dadar by 10:15! (Did watch a group of office-goers enjoy their daily dose of cards during the travel, helped me take my mind off the exam) The next step was to get a train to Andheri... collected the tickets after a looooong wait and then we were off to Andheri in a local... From Andheri, we were lost coz then we did not know the way to the exact location... Hired a rickshaw to Solitaire Corporate Park and after some amount of hunting around, finally located the place and reached building 9! The heat and noise of Mumbai had gotten to me by then and I was having a splitting headache... gulped down a Disprin and went up the building to wait for the doors to open.... After what seemed like an infinitely long time (but was actually just 10 mins) the doors opened and we were ushered in....