Cought with pants down(the climax)

So this is how I got my leave approved. Taking such leaves has its own disadvantages. You can't risk being seen outside. Its like a house arrest. I had heard about it from seniors, now it was the time to experience it. My days only began after 8.45 am. Time at which all the Maruti employees are inside, or late. Before that I couldn't even risk being seen in the balcony. Not that I am a camera shy superstar but one little glitch could ruin it all. I had a good reputation in the company you know, to live up to.

On the first day it seemed like I had zillions of days ahead of me to prepare for the dreaded exam called CAT. I decided to do something I always wanted to do but couldn't because of lack of enthusiasm and initiation. I took up some book, I think it was the Alchemist, or was it the brief history of time? I don't remember. Because I didn't finish the book. I read a lot of newspapers. I realized how long 24 hours can be. Lunch and dinner was supplied by my food caterer (dabba wallah) at time, so I didn't even have to walk out of the house for any thing at all. This is something I was very particular about. I didn't even open the door when someone rang our bell. Reason being, most of the time it was for my land lords downstairs, apart from that I didn't want to come out and sign any courier receipts which will leave a sign of my presence at the scene of crime. So this is how I passed 4 days, locked up inside the flat.

I think it was Wednesday night when my cousin-sister called me up and said she needed to hunt for flats in Gurgaon. That meant I will have to accompany her. That's fine, but I was on Agyat vaas. But what the hell. I was safe to move out of the house as long as it was between 8.45 am and 5.30 pm. All the people I worked with were too busy to come out of office during these times.

So Thursday noon it was the first time I ventured out of my flat after Saturday. I and didi went to n number of property brokers and saw n^m number of flats. It was horrible. Some places were actually not worth living. And the good ones were out of budget, whatever. Soon it was past 3. Even though my deadline of getting back into my shell was quite away I started feeling like a nocturnal vampire before sunrise. We wrapped up for the day. We were in the middle of the busiest market in that area then (sector 14). I was walking, and what did I see? Actually, who did I see? 2 of my dept seniors walking towards me with hands full of packets from Omjee sweets. One of them lived upstairs and knew my little secret. The other one was even more senior and I mostly worked under his guidance. Both of them smiled at me, as I was at them. One of them had the expression saying, "Ab tera kya hoga kaliyaaa, huhaha". The second one was just ."achchha, to ye baat hai!!!". Anyway we stopped and greeted each other. The first thing he asked me was, "aa gaye?"I told them we were looking for a flat for my sister and even asked the second senior who had just married about options to look from. In a minute I came to know the reason they were here. It was about a dept mates farewell party. They were having it today in tea time. And they had come to collect the food. Of all the days they had to have it THIS day. And of all the days I had to come out here THIS day. And of all the hours I had to come to THIS place at THIS hour, THIS minute. What are the odds?

After they left all i could think of the worst repercussions of this which went to the extent of me having to resign before I had planned to, owing to strained relationship with my department. After seeing off didi, I was soon at my room when I got a call from a colleague in Maruti. This is exactly how the conversation went. "Hello", Hello, Rohit?" "Hi, Naveen! :( " "Kya kar raha hai?" "Kuchh nahi, time pass" "Kahaa hai?". I knew by this time his intention behind the question, still I said,"Ghar pe" and he said, "Kaun se ghar? HAHAHA". He was an addition to the number of people who knew my secret. And now I had no control on the population of the species! In my imaginations I could see it growing at a wild pace.

The next 3 days were spent by me in terror. I was too scared to even try finding out the damage that had been done. I just kept mum and imagined the worst possibilities. That's almost all I did at home and soon I was in my office on Monday morning. To give credibility to my well thought of, faultless conspiracy I was carrying some Prasad which didi had brought from Muzaffarpur. I was greeted with smiles. I reciprocated. In some time i realized that only three people knew about this episode, the number had not grown. I was relieved, but also realized probably I had taken a huge risk. And the whole week I didn't even study, out or boredom and fright. Basically on returns for the risk. And using the theories of financial management a risk which wasn't worth taking.

SIPping joy out of life

For the uninitiated, SIP stands for Summer Internship Process. To get placed for summers we recently had our own summer placement sessions. From the outside it may seem that being in a premier B-school and carrying a lot of brands of previous education and work experience, getting placed must have been a cake walk. But it wasn't. The worst part is I don't know why. Okay, I was under prepared, I am casual at times, I don't take load (worry about: kgp lingo) of things much. But I was surprised how the companies could make that out from just my CV!

I will try not to focus on the big names which visited the campus and the process so that I am not convicted of revealing too much info to outsiders. It's supposed to be a serious offense in a B-school. However the importance will be on the emotions I(more generally, We) went through and the reasons behind them.

Two days before the process begun shortlists started coming from companies we had applied for. I was there in the first 2 which were published and there were people who were in none. Pity! Poor guys, not getting even shortlisted. Not even getting the chance to show the hirers their worth. At least I wasn't one of them. Still I was not very excited either as none of these companies offered me what I wanted... something called hardcore finance roles (I don't know what that really means, please find out yourself!). As I was basking in the glory of getting a high number of shortlists other companies kept pouring with their lists. Something changed. My name wasn't appearing in any. And that became the norm. Out of the 15 odd companies which published their shortlists before the placement process started I had my name in TWO of them! That did some damage to my self confidence. People always say, these lists are random. That is a truth but not completely. Some CV's are excellent, and they get max no. of shortlists. They are easy to spot. Few peculiar ones are relatively easy to reject / ignore from any companies point of view. But the big lot of decent CV's are where the randomization occurs. I don't know which case I was. An unlucky member of the decent CV group or a lucky one from the peculiars who still managed 2 calls.

When the process starts almost the whole batch sits in a hall fully dressed up in formals to be called for the interview/ group discussions from time to time. Good thing is, I didn't have to. Didn't have that many calls :D So, after reporting to the placement people in the morning I came back to my room and did what I love to do, till 2.30 pm. Sleep. I even skipped the lunch hour. After that I came to know of 2 more calls I had taking my count to 4.

That didn't make me feel any better? You know why? Since 3 of them had group discussions. Something I haven't really cleared in my whole life! Nor did I hope to in a place full of MBA students. You know how fiercely aggressive and competitive they can be. I had a direct interview with a consulting firm, didn't go well. Lots of ifs and buts raised, grammatically wrong words pointed out, still I didn't reject it as a lost cause until results were out. I failed another GD. Somehow a company which is supposed to offer best projects in operations in campus called me for the interview, even though I was not that vocal in the GD. I had to apply for operations in the company as they withdrew the offer of finance roles. May be someone finally noticed something good in my background. But in the interview I made it clear about the kind of project I was looking for in operations. (Un)fortunately I was asking for something they didn't have. On mutual consent I walked out of the room rejected. I don't know how I managed to take that risk. I mean I was walking away from arguably the best company in its field which was again specially interested in me. I didn't have any good shortlists in slot one. What guarantee could I have for slot two. What if I end up going to a company selling FMCG. The bigger issue was, companies I am interested in don't shortlist me. How and why will companies which go against my career interests select me. I can't bluff in an interview. There is no way I can convince some one that I will sell all the soap or paste or cream or drink or newspaper you want me too. No way. Basically when I walked out of the room, I walked precisely into nowhere. Needless to say I got rejected from all the other GDs I had and was out of the race. By this time all the glorious $ stipend companies had announced results and there was a lot of hugging, shouting and clapping. Whatev'

Into slot two. This is the interesting part. You have independence of applying to companies in slot two right-on-the-spot, because most of the people shortlisted originally have been placed. So it seemed like finally we would get a chance. But that was just what I was thinking. At the end of first day of this slot, I only had one bad telephonic interview(no GD for this company) and few GDs (all rejections). In fact the calls were so few that I even stopped asking people if my name was on any list, as I would assume otherwise and just cross check to confirm later. I would start reading about any company in advance and stop reading as soon as the shortlist would publish. I was pretty cool until now. I was just taking it as another practical joke. No company wants me, haha. Any company doesn't even wanna see me, hahahaha. But i knew it wasn't funny.

Day four (slot 2, day 2). Things were getting out of hand. It was important for the school to get everyone placed and for that it was important that I get placed. So I could see my name on every other S&M company list now. I don't want to go there. I will not only ruin my summers but also theirs, to my full might. I wanted to try something in finance. But at the same time I was applying to almost every company now. It was a desperate situation. 3 1/2 days gone, nothing yet in hand. I was cursing myself. At what point in my career did I go wrong. No gaps or breaks in education. IIT Kharagpur - Mechanical Engineering. Couldn't have been better. Then a job in arguably the best manufacturing set-up in India, that too in production. It was all so smooth and meant to be. Then suddenly to MBA? That too looking for finance? and applying to S&M. Boss, things are really out of place. Me and a lot of my friends with similar qualms had formed a well and were cursing just anything and everything, starting with ourselves. It seemed like coming to do an MBA itself was the biggest mistake. Some of the girls had already started to cry and guys had become obnoxious. And the people who had already been placed became angels. They would console us, teach us, feed us, encourage us. They were doing a good thing but sometimes it did make us feel like piteous. You can't even refuse their services as you not only need them but also don't want them to think "bhalai ka to zamana hi nahi raha". I took undue advantage of the situation as well. When else would I get the opportunity to be served by the prettiest and the nicest of the girls in the campus. I even behaved like a kid who is hungry for anything being served and would make demands of his own, ("nahi... humko chocolate khana hai, uwaaan, uwaaan"). I don't know what people thought about me on that, but I was given all i wanted :D

Anyway finally the calls started coming. I had 2 more telephonic interviews which I thought went well and a series of GDs, all of which bombed! I was still stubborn enough not to apply to many companies and was kind of readying myself for a possible slot three. After 930 pm, there were no activities. Some lucky ones were going through the process and we were just waiting for the results. Results were then announced, alphabetically. I got placed. In fact the company was at the top of my priority list. At that moment I couldn't have been happier. What also made me happy is that many of my friends got placed in fin roles as they would have liked to. Finally they had a reason to smile. But what made the celebrations dull was the fact that there were a few friends still to be placed. I know it would happen soon, but still... So this is how yet another eagerly awaited and anticipated chapter ended. As a friend rightly said a game full of bargaining and auction, a once in a lifetime experience. Actually it will be a twice in a lifetime thing. Having gone through the SIP I am only waiting for the CRP to come.