My First Job - The Group Discussion

I had a bit tougher group (as people said) with Priyank Katiyar and Rohit Mishra in my group and ever noisome Manoj Shaw coming as a bonus.

I was there sitting at the faculty gates with people congratulating me and sure enough that I would be there in the interview. Tyagi was there making me prepare for the interview. He told a lot many things about pointers, call by value, call by reference etc. As I sit back and think, thankfully, I will never use these stuff. Tyagi, however, was a great source of strength to me.

I was ranked 35th (last) in the written test and thus was in the last group in ‘Group Discussion’ and that too at Number 8 (again last). It was definitely not because of my name starting with ‘U’.

The period before GD was really anxious one and to be very candid, I was a bit nervous. When I went inside the GD room, I was a bit sure that the topic before us would be ‘Hrithik vs. Shahrukh’ as this was the only leaked topic that had not been discussed by the previous three batches. By the way, it’s still amazing that Hrithik and Shahrukh still make the topic relevant 8 years down the line.

The GD Session

Priyank and I had decided to support each other all through the GD round. The topic got unveiled. It was …

“Who do you think is a better actress: Aishwarya Rai or Karishma Kapoor”

The IT boom had made sure that Engineering studies take the back seat and the students more informed than knowledge-driven come to the party. Training and Aptitude were the key words.

The time of discussion was for 10 minutes and for better part of it i.e. for around 6 minutes, I was in no contention. I had not formed any opinion of mine. I had been doing the group basic right though, i.e. telling others not to form sub-groups within group and just try to give others a chance. But unless you opine, there is seldom a chance.

Then came the real part, the conclusion…The Lady told us: “Two minutes remaining, you can conclude”.

Priyank wanted me to conclude first i.e. from the other side but I gave him the first chance. Everybody’s conclusion was single worded i.e. either Aishwarya or Karishma.

I gave the best shot of the day. I said “ In my opinion, both AR and KK have a reason of their own to be on the acting scene; AR has the Miss World title which has done the job for her whereas KK’s family background has helped her to be there. But given the wider array of roles, that KK has done, my vote will be for KK. At the same time, we can not ignore AR. With her little stint at the Hindi filmdom, she has shown enough talent and is the actress to look out for in the coming days."

That’s it and it did the job for me.

My First Job - The Written Test

We met Tom (another character in his own right) at the ‘Chouraha’. He got irritated with our manufactured premise of ‘Polaris’ being not open to the Cham acal engineers. This has happened to our batch almost through out the year.

After an anxious waiting period, Polaris did arrive at the campus. The PPT (Pre-Placement Talk) was short and formal.

The written test started off and I attempted 41 questions in 40 minutes. There were definitely some questions leaked from one of the other colleges that Polaris had already visited. From the discussions that prevailed after the written test, I was a bit upset. I supposed myself of crossing the upper cut-off. Pramil and I then went to the RamRam Bank Chaouraha to have a shave. Any guesses - what Pramil said
He said “This is the first time I am having a shave before clearing the written” (lol)

I felt confident again. As we conversed with other fellows, I become confident enough to clear the written test. People had done well and crossing upper cut-off now seemed distant.

We had the usual Wednesday mess lunch (Tahri, curd and chutney) and in no time I was in the balcony (my hostel room was near the balcony that faced the main faculty building) going through the C Language basics. I was there, reading and trying to comprehend all the stuff in 20-25 minutes (the computer language skills that students hone in years). The anxiousness grew…

Suddenly, I could hear the noise that signified the declaration of results of the written test. As I stood in the balcony, the person appearing from the bushes (with main building at the background) and moving with his face down, towards the C-Block, turned out to be Tyagi. Tyagi can be compared to an ant who assiduously works towards its tasks at its own good pace. He happened to be the first casualty of our coterie. Manoj, another brilliant brain at social networking and a magpie to the core, faltered. Animesh also did not feature in the declared list.

Anyhow we were still going strong – Shailesh, Mall, Pravesh, Vinod, Pramil and I … made it to the ‘Group Discussion’ round.

My First Job - The Build-up

In the year 2000, when I was in third year engineering, Saturday night exploits were slowly making way to anxiousness and then to midnight oil hunting (searching for reasons to burn midnight oil:)). One of my friends, Shailesh has commented upon us being able to land-up in a suitable job that can still make us live the way we have been doing (careless and bindaas). The thought kind of struck.

With only a few months left while the college gets over, getting a job seemed a distant dream. Not many companies were coming over to the campus (many have already paid the visit and barring few in the coterie we were still jobless...still hopeful)

17th Jan 2001- The day began early. Pramil woke me up at around 6.30AM. Pramil, by the way, is now in the US, raking in big moolah. He, at that point in time, was like us - desperate, conspiring and sanguine. Both of us revised our resume entries in great detail for about 3-4 hours. The company supposed to visit the campus was 'POLARIS' and we knew that our poor computer knowledge compares to a labourer without a shovel. Some of our Computer Science juniors (Ankur, Sumit, Warya) gave us a crash course. In between, Pramil and Animesh kept on encouraging me. Animesh, by the way, is altogether a different species on planet earth and you can expect my future posts to focus on this species solely. Janardan Pandey gave the unfading comment - 'its your day' as I went through morning ablutions.

The News Came - 'Polaris has arrived'

When we reached the faculty gate, it turned out to be a preemptive rumour. Polaris's arrival was due anytime. First, we (Pramil, Animesh and I) went to have fags in front of the administrative block and then Pramil and I went to the Engineering College 'Chaouraha' to have tea. Our main purpose though was to call Batin to see if he could help us through our interview (if it happens). Batin's reply was an indirect 'NO' as he had no direct contact with his friend out there at Polaris's Delhi branch.

We were left to ourselves now.