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.