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.