Friday, March 17, 2006

The 'C' Experience

This, hopefully, is my first serious post, not taking into account that blabbing on the name connection I had made in my previous one and let me get straight to the point. Well, not really!!! I can't start about my interview experience for IIM-C I had at the B campus without talking about the wonderful journey I had to bangalore. I had gone by the night train as my interview was shceduled for the following afternoon. Since I had had a really very tiring day, hoping to catch some sleep on the train, I crept into my berth. No sooner had I got into a comfortable position did the trouible start. There were this gentleman and lady on the berths above mine and they really wanted all of us there to have a very eventful night. They snored and snored so very rythmically and periodically, taking beautiful turns that you would have thought they had it all pre-planned. But the only catch was that they were total strangers to eachother. Now us poor souls in the other berths had no other option but to listen to the sonorous, or should I say, snorous concert and toss left and right, of course in rythm with the snores. "Waah kyaa baat hai!!!" Even Zakhir Hussain would have been surprised and appreciated the jugal bandi made by the nasal and spinal chords that night.
Well, net result, I went bleary eyed and yawning to my friend's place the following morning. And, being the adamant soul I am, I turned down an offer to enjoy a luxurious sleep, for no known, sane reason and instead opted to solve the "sudoku" of the day which to my disgust, turned out to be the hardest I had come across for some time now.
Now, for the next disaster. I reached the B campus and went prompt to the panel lists only to find my name 11th(last)on the list. This was certainly not turning out to be my field day. I was in for a loooooooong wait.
On a day which was turning out to be by and far disastrous, came the next bombshell. I was really expecting a factual GD topic. Not that I particular enjoy it. An abstract would have been better but not the one of the likes we got. "The kingdom of heaven is within you". It was certainly not within me that day and so I really had to squeeze my poor brain which was already trying hard to keep awake and get some points. A 11 member gd is bound to be chaotic or so I thought. But nothing was turning out as i thought it would that day, and so the peace and calm did not come as a surprise. The point was, none of us were really comfortable and ready with points for this topic. Ideas from ethics to culture to meditation to karma to fate raged over the gd table. But we ran out of ideas after some time and became very congenial and amicable to our fellow members, almost begging people to continue from where we had ended our blabberings. And finally the time came when the panelists said STOP. Whew!! I have never had such a long 12 minutes before. It seemed more so like 120 minutes. And then the random summarizing started. I think the C people really hated my name, for, even in the random order, I was called in the end to summarize. Now, just imagine, in such a topic where we already have talked to nothingness in the gd and 10 people before me have analyzed it from every nook and corner, what does a poor soul like me do. But, yet I talked. Talking does come easy to people like me, who have to talk their way through projects where there are absolutely no results to show. Now, my collegemates had heartily support me on that.
And then started the long and painful wait. Every time a guy walked out of the room after the interview, poor souls like me would run to him asking him how it was. The feedback frustrated me. "Very general". Now, for a person like me, who has fine combed the entire Union budget '06 for the very first time in life in the hope of tackling interview questions on that, and gone through all the technical subjects possible with finesse, this sure comes as a blow. But I consoled myself saying it was good to have "general awareness" and continued with the wait. Meanhile, we had a mini gd on the differences between the IT industry and computer industry, and mind you, we were not really vetti enough to do it. Only that a guy had been asked it and so, we wanted to be all prepared. We concluded that IT is application of technology while computer industry deals with compiling technology. Now a major question arised. If Microsoft is a computers company, which I believe it is, then is MS-Office compilation of technology? Now, to my already confused soul, such an "intellectual" question is just too much and so I had to give up on that.
To add on to my woes, there was this guy who was just before me on the list and so he was destined to wait for almost the same time as me. This guy was really bugged with life. Now, that is no excuse to bug others, is it? Everybody waiting there came under his attack, and yeah, you guessed it right, it being my very own disastrous day, could I be spared of the noose!!! He just had to talk on and on and on about something or the other, but thankfully, all he needed was someone who could nod his/her head understandingly. Me being an engineering student and having done it all my college life in class, even when I am really sleeping with eyes wide open, the feat came really easy. Now, thats how useful education, especially, an engineering one, can get!!!
Finally, after a long wait from 2.45 when my gd got over to 6.15, I was called in. I guess everyone else in all other panels had left by then. I entered and was flabbergasted seeing 4 panelists seated there. I thought, well fine, atleast one of them would be busy checking my originals. But, yeah, right, it was not at all my day. All four of them were ready to pounce on me. First things first, but. there were a round of apologies from them for having made me wait for so long which I "graciously" accepted. And then, the question I was least expecting was hurled at me. "Since we have kept you waiting for so long, you take up the post of interviewer and feel free to ask us any two questions you would want to know about from us." Come on, yaar, gimme a break. Bu, I had to think up something fast and ask some crap, to which I got, well, you could say, expected answers. And then the firing started. All while one panelist's laptop was churning out songs(dint notice which language) and another's mouth was churning out smoke. I had, due to bad luck, used the word "niche" in my form and was asked to explain on that. I gave some obviously unconvincing answer and then was asked about my niche in engineering. On hearing the answer, there was one round of, "that-could-be-anyone's-specialisation" kind of look and then we proceedeed. Questions on my Veena playing, how algorithms can be applied to Veena playing, the gd experience and so on followed. Am really not very enthused to give detailed explanations on all that and bore you people. Overall, I could just find out they were mighty disinterested with the whole thing, for not even my originals were checked, as all four of them were busy quizzing me. And then, after 15 minutes, they chucked me out.
That night I was back on the train again, on my wqay back to good old Chennai. Now I was pretty much sure I would not be able to sleep that night too, as I would be musing over my dismal performance at the big one's interview. That was not the only reason. The "snorous" lady of the previous night's journey was back in the station to journey back to Chennai. You would have guessed it right this time too. The lady went to a different coach and as had been the case through out the journey, my premonitions failed me and I slept heartily on the train back home.

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