After completing graduation I was one afternoon, lazing around with my friends. We planned to go to a movie but was waiting for another friend to show up. He came-in twenty minutes late. We had to scrap the movie plan, furiously we asked where he was. He said, ‘I went to submit my ICET form since it was the last day’ (a competitive exam you take in my state to get admission into MBA/MCA). ‘Ah! OK’ nodded everyone, but I was shocked. I grabbed the arm of a good friend in the group and asked what ICET was and he told me what it was. I was stunned. Forget about it being the last day, I never even knew I had to write a competitive exam to get into MBA (Yes, my ignorance was legendary). I immediately rushed to submit my form. I barely made it. I was furious with myself, how could I not know? Why didn’t I check early? But with whom should I check? I knew no one, my friends were few and as luck would have it most of them were in different fields. Newspapers? We couldn’t afford regular newspapers then, probably got them only when some important event had transpired. Should I have approached a library for newspaper? Probably I should’ve. But, where on the earth was the local library? Where would I find that? That year I did not make it to MBA, ’cause I was not prepared. Similar thing happened again when I applied for MA, I again barely made it on time, this time not for exam, but for admission. These incidents taught me one-thing — knowledge is important, very important. MBA re-emphasised that fact. But, my problem was — access to knowledge — where do I go to know stuff? It further got a little complicated because I was an introvert and preferred not to approach others. Then came the Internet.

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