Time to "Suit Up"

Some cautions and clarifications to begin with – caution because people who are reading this should know that the only writing I have done is on commodity futures – so don’t expect this blog entry to be even remotely fun! (Lower the expectations, higher the chances of you not getting supremely bored) And the clarification – I would have liked to post much earlier - blame this late entry on to the blogging scene on my employers, who have decided to make me slog it out at work till the 8th of June!! Now on to the real stuff –

It’s a big hello to everyone! Here’s hoping this blog post doesn’t become a ‘Hell-Oh’ experience for you! This is Ritika, another addition to the list of people dreaming of becoming bigwigs in the world of Finance! Seeing the current scenario, what with the recession and all, it seems all the finance whizzes had their rationalities whiz past them! Let’s just wish SP teaches us to do better than that!!

Rewind to my past – born and brought up almost entirely in Delhi, I am pretty much what Delhi is known to be – the pampered one! All that is about to end now, but I made the most of it while I could :) I come from a rather diverse family background – a Punjabi dad who first worked for the Air Force *starry eyed* and now for the Government; and a Maharashtrian mom who’s a banker! This is what probably translated into very diverse interests for me – I was interested in politics (thanks to my dad), economics (thanks to my mom), classical dance (learnt Kuchipudi for about 5 years), sports (was on the volleyball team in school), the Youth Parliament (a youth organization, now called the YP Foundation), community work (taught in a school for underprivileged children) and many other things – all at the same time! I like to think I did well balancing all these things with my grades at school:
Class X : 85% (wasn’t very happy with that then but I guess it doesn’t matter now!)
Class XII : 89.2%

Fortunately the grades were good enough to do the course that I wanted to do at college – Economics! Yup, I’m one of the few non-engineers who got the chance to get into a premier B-School despite all ‘you’ engineers vying for ‘my’ seat (I remember cursing all the engineers in the world the first time I didn’t get through CAT for eating up all the seats – you’ve already got a professional degree – aren’t you satisfied?!) Of course I’ve grown up now and understand that engineers have an equal right to be there! :) Anyway, college was where I really evolved into an orgranizer and realized how much I enjoyed being one! I was part of the Economics Society all through college, organizing everything from intra-class events to our national level Eco Fest! And the best part – despite all this organizing and my other interests – I *finally* managed to give my parents an opportunity to brag about how ‘bright’ their daughter is! I topped in college! I was also among the top rankers in South Delhi Campus, Delhi University! It wasn’t a feeling I was familiar with – I had always done well in school but never topped! But I ain’t complaining :P
Graduation: 75.25%

While I think it was mostly a case of ‘luck by chance’, one factor that could have possibly contributed was the ‘reality check’ I had a few months before my final exams. I had applied for the Rhode’s scholarship and I *actually* thought I would get it – talk about thinking no end of yourself!! And no prizes for guessing – I didn’t! That was the real jolt that woke me up, shook me up, made me smell the coffee, and everything else like that! I guess that’s when I realized you don’t get everything you wish for if you aren’t willing to push yourself beyond what you think possible!

I passed out of college in 2007 and have been working at National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange since then. It was a curious choice, but I benefited from it far beyond what I expected! Details on that when we meet! (I realize the post is becoming endless, hence the mid-course correction on verbosity)

Quickly moving on to the ‘me’ section – I love to read, write, listen to music, sing, dance, watch cricket and tennis, cook some pasta, eat lots of pasta (and pizzas and north Indian food), watch some or the other American sitcom (current obsession: How I Met Your Mother), watch practically everything on Discovery Travel & Living whenever possible (noticed someone else wrote this too). Slightly obsessed with the English language – I like getting into the finer nuances!

About how I got into SP - after several non-serious attempts at MBA entrances, I decided to get down to it with some amount of focus this time. Still didn’t manage to clear my Math cut-offs in CAT or XAT to get into the IIMs or the XLRIs of the world, but did well enough to get into SP! And was I glad about that!!
CAT: 98.85 percentile
XAT: 99.58 percentile

Really looking forward to seeing you all.. and to the next 2 years being legend-wait-fot-it-ary!

PS: another caution/clarification that would be nice for you to know before you meet me – I tend to be reserved in the beginning – so don’t mistake it for arrogance!