Close Conversations of the Third Kind: Part II – The Interwhy

Candidate: May I come in Sir?

Interviewer: Yes. Please Mr.….?

Candidate: Bhave. Adbhut Bhave.

Interviewer: Yes Mr. Bhave. Please take a seat. I am Sanjeev Pinto.

Candidate: (seated)

Interviewer: So, Mr. Bhave, as I understand you are here for the interview.

Candidate: That is correct Sir.

Interviewer: Well guess what? I am here for the interview too!

(silence)

Candidate: (delayed forced laughter)

Interviewer: (acknowledging) I see you are wearing an orange T-shirt to an interview. Do you think it is appropriate?

Candidate: Sir the red one was wet.

Interviewer: I see. (hint of surprise) Before we proceed I’d like to inform you that I’ll be taking your technical, personal and HR interview.

Candidate: Right Sir.

Interviewer: To begin with, tell me something about yourself Adbhut.

Candidate: Yes Sir. I am 20 years old. I am currently doing my 3^rd year in Chemical Engineering from VIT, Pune. Pune is my hometown. I love Pune. I like watching movies, listening to music and studying….

Interviewer: You like to study? (going through the mark sheets)

Candidate: Yes Sir.

Interviewer: Oh…I see. Please continue.

Candidate: I like traveling; I like cycling, playing tabla, watching movies…music……movies.

Interviewer: That’s good. I guess you watch a lot of movies.

Candidate: I do Sir!

Interviewer: So, what is your favourite subject?

Candidate: I like drama mostly. I’m a big fan of Sam Mendes, Innaritu, Guillermo del Toro. I hate the Yash Chopra tearjerkers.

Interviewer: I was asking about studies.

Candidate: Oh! Yes. I like Math, Chemistry. I love Fluid Dynamics a lot.

Interviewer: I see. Haven’t you flunked in all of them?

Candidate: Not all Sir! Fluid Mechanics is still in revaluation.

Interviewer: Why do you love FM so much?

Candidate: I love fluids Sir. A lot. Tea, coffee, water, Coke, beer….

Interviewer: I see. Since you like the subject so much, would you mind if I ask you a couple of questions on the it?

Candidate: No Sir. Not at all.

Interviewer: What is ‘The Bernoulli Principle’?

Candidate: Sir the Bernoulli Principle states that if the lead actor in a movie is above fifty-five years of age, the lead actress should be less than half of that for the film to succeed at the box office.

Interviewer: What?

Candidate: The Bernoulli Principle Sir. Christoph Bernoulli. The famous German screenwriter.

Interviewer: My question was related to Chemical Engineering Mr. Bhave.

Candidate: Oh! That one….it has something to do with water, two drums and a pipe, Sir.

Interviewer: You don’t know The Bernoulli Principle?

Candidate: I do know it Sir. Just not well enough to put it in words.

Interviewer: What is the unit of viscosity?

Candidate: I definitely don’t know that one Sir.

Interviewer: I see (scribbling on paper) What was the other subject you liked? Chemistry was it?

Candidate: Yes Sir. I like it a lot.

Interviewer: What is the fifth element?

Candidate: The Fifth Element is a sci-fi romantic thriller starring Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich in the lead roles. Although the movie was a top grosser it was highly criticized. The Bernoulli Principle is not applicable to this film Sir. Bruce Willis was underage.

Interviewer: I was talking about the periodic table Mr. Bhave.

Candidate: Oh! Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Sodium…..Sodium Sir!

Interviewer: I see. Which are the heavy metals?

Candidate: Black Sabbath and Metallica. Period.

Interviewer: I see (scribbling away) Now, we’ll proceed with the PI and HR Interview.

Candidate: Ok Sir.

Interviewer: What are your expectations from InfySOS?

Candidate: Well….I believe that my job with InfySOS should be a welcome experience. I really want to work for a company as great as yours.

Interviewer: Wow that is a good answer. What according to you is your greatest strength?

Candidate: I can down three pints of beer in less than two minutes.

Interviewer: What? No…I mean work wise.

Candidate: Oh!..Sorry Sir! My greatest strength would be C programming.

Interviewer: Well that is good. I see you have certificates to prove it (going through them)

Candidate: Yes Sir.

Interviewer: Now, consider this situation- Your friend is in love with a girl who lets say is rather promiscuous. And he intends to marry her. What will you do? Will you make your friend realize her flaws?

Candidate: Mmmm…..Sir is the lady in question very pretty?

Interviewer: What !?..Why?

Candidate: No Sir….If she is not that hot-I mean pretty, then I can show him an even hotter-I mean prettier girl, and make him fall in love with her.

Interviewer: Yes she is hot-I mean pretty.

Candidate: Then Mmmm….Sir, is she related to any of our other friends?

Interviewer: Why?

Candidate: Then the situation would be really complicated, Sir.

Interviewer: NO.

Candidate: In that case I’ll directly go to her and ask her to back off.

Interviewer: Ok. That’s mighty thoughtful of you. Well…..that I think concludes the interview. Do you have any questions for me? (scribbling)

Candidate: Yes Sir. I do. In the company’s name of InfySOS, SOS stands for ‘Save Our Souls’ right? The other guys were kinda arguing about it.

Interviewer: (stops scribbling) No Mr. Bhave. It stands for Software Outsourcing Solutions.

Candidate: Oh Ok. I did feel one of the S’s stood for software.

Interviewer: Well…..It was nice meeting you Mr. Bhave. (shaking hands) The results will be out in an hour.

Candidate: Sir, if I may ask, what are the chances of me getting this job?

Interviewer: I would say the chances are good Mr. Bhave.

Candidate: Really?!?

Interviewer: Nah….Just Kidding…..Please close the door behind you.

(A follow-up to Part I)

Love thy Neighbour?……Still?

                                                                                                            4^th March, 2009

Dear God,

I am a boy studying in the fourth standard in New Dawn High school. I am writing this letter to You in order to complain what Pittu did to Sonu yesterday. Sonu is a little girl who lives in our building and Pittu is my next-door neighbour. Yesterday Pittu invited sweet little Sonu to his home to play and made her cry. He also hit her.

Pittu and I study in the same class. He is a very bad boy. He is not good in studies, sports and also has no friends in school. He teases everybody, makes faces at everybody and always fights with me. He calls me bad names. He steals from Khanna Uncles garden. But still his parents don’t scold him. He is like that only.

My father had told me that he and Pittu’s father had had a fight when I was small. His father wants our parking space even if they don’t have a car. I had asked Pittu about this, but he called me bad names. Why is he like this?

Also three months ago when I and my family were out for dinner, Pittu had come to my backyard garden and destroyed so many plants. He tore down all the branches. He also uprooted the Mango Tree that my grandpa had planted when I was born. I had cried that day. I have cried so many times after that night. I don’t like to cry because I am a boy. But I don’t want to fight him. Every time I fight with him my grades drop. My mother scolds me. But I hate him.

Every year for Christmas, Santa Claus gives so many gifts like toys, chocolates and clothes. All I get is the same Dairy Milk chocolate. Sometimes I wish bad things should happen to him. He should get really hurt. After what he did to poor Sonu, he should be in a hospital for a month. And fail in all subjects. I don’t want to wish all those things. But I do. Does that make me a bad person?

Please help me. I pray to you everyday without fail. Or my mother scolds me.

Yours faithfully,

Bharath.

 

P.S: Please don’t let Pittu ruin my birthday this August.

 

(Hint:Pittu=Pakistan, Sonu=Srilanka,Santa Claus= US, Bharath=?)

(On 3rd March 2009, something happened. This is related to it.)

GREat Expectations

In the last couple of months, I’ve been asked over a million times what any unemployed-unmarried- recent graduate male hates to answer – ‘What next?’.    ‘I am studying for the GRE’ is my furtive answer. What follows is an annoying generic pregnant pause which threatens to kill the conversation. But my inquisitor ends it with an even more annoying comeback like ‘Oh…I see. America huh?’ (Other slangs for the country like USA, US of A, States, Uncle Sam’s Land, Dollar Dreams, Stars and Stripes are often used generously).

I hate it. They judge me. In that pregnant pause I can see them scripting the next 200 years of my life. I guess it goes like this-

Sanket goes to US; completes his MS; gets a job in the US; the job is in LA; he visits India once a year; after three years his mother persuades him to get married; he gets married to a nice Indian girl with a dollar sign for pupils; they move to the suburbs; he buys a Ford sedan which burns more gas than all of  Kothrud; their house is BIG; it has a swimming pool; they have a couple of kids; they name them Krishna and Soundarya; he gets a green ca…….

Is that how they want my life to be? Is that how I want my life to be? I don’t want the movie of my life to be scripted that way. Except for the girl maybe (without the scary pupils) I don’t want a Ford sedan. And I hate the name Soundarya.

Then why am I giving GRE? I don’t know. Everybody else is doing it. All my friends have given it. Most of my friends are already there. It sounds cool. Convinced? No? Me neither. The truth now. I’m not smart enough to get into an IIT. Or, I’m smart enough not to slog for the IIT entrance and learn fifty different words for ‘lust’ to clear GRE. Because my dad can afford it. Because I want to be exposed to  ‘International Educational Standards’ (borrowed directly from visa interview forums).

The plot demands it. The career graph should go upward, right? Or in this case westward. Oh the West! We Indians Love it. The movies, the music, the women, the accent. I mean who wouldn’t. My beloved IT geeks from Bangalore worship it. Their sun rises in the Occident. They drop the names of western cities like eight year old Sanket would do with the WWF wrestlers’ physical attributes. They construct their conversations around it. I don’t blame them. It is their USP in the job market, matrimonial sites or any other social endeavors. It’s in our DNA. I believe if our DNA is kept in an isolated atmosphere, it will point west.

Looking at the overwhelming presence of the western pop-culture in India, one wouldn’t think twice before joining the mass exodus to the west. More than half of the people I knew from my college are already there. And hell, they love it there! By a quick look at their bulging orkut albums sporting the names like ‘Fall-2008’ or ‘My department’ or ‘My first snow’, one wouldn’t think otherwise. I wouldn’t blame them either. It is their prerogative. It is their script.

The Act Two of mine however, is giving a lot of problems. Too many plot holes, too many extras, mean producers and no heroine. It promises to be a rollercoaster for the initial part, but the plot-mein-twist is nowhere to be seen. I realize it is too early for me to go gaga over The Meaning of Life (not the movie), but somewhere between learning the words like subpoena, usury or bourgeois and deciphering an esoteric essay of an obscure author on ‘Social effects of the tribal wars in the Aztec Civilization’, I just feel lost.

May be Mr. Barron can show me the way.