The Interview

The most thought provoking interview I have ever given –

No, I am not a celebrity. And it was not a big TV channel interviewing me. I had appeared humbly for my first job interview for a private multinational company. Before the interview, there was a written test and I had cleared it. Though a mate from my college was not through, I wonder why, since we had done a collaborative job in the test. With tears in his eyes I saw him leave the campus and I waited for my turn.

I watched the public engrossed in their books, into last minute revisions, as if they knew what was being asked. My name was called. It was a big hall and there were three interviews simultaneously going on in three different corners. I went thinking – every room has four corners, still they have left the fourth corner. May be some logical question would be asked on this. Why the fourth corner is left alone. I eyed my interviewer and at the other two interviewees. With the arrangement, I was to sit facing the wall and against my deepest desire, I had to turn my back to the beautiful girl in the opposite corner. My interviewer brought me out of my reverie. I looked at him. This was the man on whom my career depended. He would fetch me my first job. I had never felt so obliged to a perfect stranger before. He began:

Interviewer: “Please take you seat”

I pushed myself down.

Me: “Good morning sir”. Though it was 3 in the afternoon, still, the most used salutation from my school days is still not leaving me. He chose to ignore.

Interviewer: “How are you?”

Not mixing this usual question with the online chat rooms answers I have always given, I carefully watched my words and said “I am perfectly fine sir, though a bit nervous and excited.”

Interviewer: “What’s making you nervous and excited?”

I regretted saying the obvious but then how would I have known that he would drill me on this. I restrained myself from telling him that his presence and being with two other girls in the same room is the reason for my mixed reactions, respectively.

Me: “First job interview sir. Big deal! I am a little apprehensive about it.”

Interviewer: “Apprehensive? So you are not prepared well”.

Am thinking – I am prepared but I don’t know what crap you have loaded in your head today, and I don’t know how hard would you throw that at me.

Me: “I am prepared sir, but being a little nervous is also good I guess. It helps you from getting overconfident.”

He liked the answer. He asked me to tell him something about myself, and I recited to him the one page document I had written about myself and had learned by rote. Though, to give the impression that I was making the answer on the spur, I took time in answering and in the process forgot the lines in between making obvious that I was reading it from a note in my memory while I tried to remember the lines.

Finally I told him, I am a jovial and fun loving person and how I flew kites during my board exams. This piece of information was not necessary but in my haste to complete the four hundred words answer that I had prepared, and bits of which I had forgotten, I had to add this.

I saw a smile growing on his face. Probably he too had a passion about flying kites.

He asked (sarcastically though; I later realized that), “What else fun you have made?”

I told him that I had watched kaho Na Pyar Hai twenty six times. For that I had to bunk my college 10 times. And I even had to bunk a sessional exam.

His smile broadened. Then he asked me the tritest question ever asked in interviews. What are your strengths? And me, made the biggest blunder (as if I have already not done it) of saying that I am very strong on ethical and moral fronts. Why I could not remember ten different points on the same question I had already prepared, I don’t know. May be destiny has its role to play in everything.

I have given him the rope, and he started strangling my neck.

He mocked, “Ahhh, is it? So should I ask you some questions? The questions could be controversial. Would you answer?”.

I pretended to be brave, while thinking what was coming. “Yeah, I will try”.

Interviewer: “Do you smoke?”

Honesty is the best policy. “Yes I did, but have quit”.

Interviewer: “Do you drink?”

Honesty is the best policy. And anyways I don’t drink. “No.”

Now came the shocker.

Interviewer: “Do you watch porn movies?”

I stared at him. Honesty is the best policy, though this time I could have safely avoided the truth. But the name of porn I guess had excited us both. And I said, “Yes”.

And I knew the interview was over and a social debate had started, because the next question was –

Interviewer: “Is that ethical?”

I was bold, “Why not?”

He was surprised, “Why not!! Watching nude girls is ethical?”

I said, “Its art and its entertainment”.

He said, “Entertainment? Justify it?”

I replied, “You watch TV for entertainment. You watch movies for entertainment. I watch porn for entertainment. How is that different?”

He questioned, “But society doesn’t accept it. That’s why it’s not ethical.”

I tried to justify, “But as long as I am not carrying that into the society, how can it be morally wrong? I watch it alone, behind closed doors, enjoy myself and then threw the thoughts away before moving out into the society. How can anyone question the morality of it?”

He still was adamant, “Whatever you say, but illicit thoughts do enter us while watching it, isn’t it? So it’s not ethical.”

I wondered, since when sex had become illicit unless you are not presenting it socially as a very offensive, obscene and vulgar stuff.

I repeated, “Unless I don’t carry the thoughts with me into the society I don’t find it unethical or wrong.”

It has been more than half an hour already and we both realized that it had been enough. As he stood up to see me off, he gave me an advice.

“Be a little more diplomatic the next time you tell something like that.”

I left with a smile and as I came out of the hall, I looked at everyone immersed in their technical books, and hoped that they knew what I had been asked.

New Year Diaries

Amid several things that happen late in my life is the month by which I get a New Year diary. I have never got one before it starts raining in July and sometimes even the rains had given way to winters. The phenomenon can be easily understood once you consider that there is nothing very distinguishing about it. The same things happens with government grants and scholarships which takes plenty of time to reach from the government cash box to the pocket of the common man.

I sense that I had a hidden passion for diaries. Every time I got a diary, I hoarded it. I was never scared that anyone might read my diary, not because it was hidden somewhere but it was always kept clean and tidy. And by clean, I mean, my diary never knew the soft touch of a pen to its smooth pages. I remember in school, teachers used to dictate homework and we wrote it in our school diaries. Once my history teacher in 5^th grade asked everyone to get ones diary checked. No wonders I was scolded for not taking down homework since the start of the term. Whatever she had dictated ever was written on the back pages of the note copy.

Things have changed now and with blogging I have also cultivated an active interest in writing. Also, this time planets changed their positions and I got the diary very early in the year i.e., 14^thJan only. Though the same gift a month later, fourteenth of Feb, would have marked it as unforgettable, it is ok. Anyways, I have never heard of a girl who has gifted her boyfriend a New Year diary on Valentine’s Day. And I can’t imagine that poor guy to be happy who might receive such a gift. Because if such a diary is gifted I know what it would be scrapped with? – Lines and poems in the ode of the lady. No matter if our guy had faltered while writing even a five line essay on ‘The cow’, he would have to learn to be creative – either think original or steal lines. Love changes you.

Coming back to my diary, I am thinking what I am going to fill it up with. As a beginning, I have filled up the About Me page in that with my name, email ids and mobile numbers – and I have got several. I got a sms a few days back – “How do you know you are in love? – Answer: When you start looking for the cheapest mobile connection.” How true – I must say.

I will prepare a list of all the plausible things that I could jot on my diary. Meanwhile, as you already know, two great poets were born one lonely, horrendous, moonlit night in Chennai, with silence broken only by the crying of wolves. Or were they dogs? Here is an offering from one of those poets …

Raat ki tanhaayee main,

Waqt guzarne ki bhi awaaz sunaayi deti hai…

Din main hum zindagi se ladte hain,

Andhere main beeti hui ghadiyon ka hisaab karte hain.

Uncleji

Priyanka Chopra had a haircut and it made news. I kept a small beard on the chin. I thought I was looking super cool and wanted to exhibit myself to my girlfriend. I was scolded for being in hurry and not shaving properly. Girls think so differently. That’s why I respect them so much. Later, Amir Khan did the same and got free prime airtime on all the TV channels.

I was walking down an empty street. I know brother, it’s a song. But you don’t be scared. I won’t sing it all.

Moving ahead. I was walking down an empty street. What u said? I started again? Ab tu beech main mat bol, mujhe aage badhne de.

So, I walked down … okie, moving. Suddenly a ball dropped in-front of me. What you said? From where did it drop? Abbey failure, padha nahin kya about gravitational pull? Koi cheez kahan se girti hai? Upar se hi na?

I looked around above. A few kids were playing cricket on the terrace of their house (I don’t know about the house, it might have been their neighbor’s also. If you need exact details, then mail me on my personal email id). Before they have said anything, I started bending down to pick the ball and throw it back to them. But just before I could have touched the ball, someone from those kids shouted, “Uncle, ball de dena”.

I got straight again and walked down the empty street. I mean, man I had just joined college and was in my first year. I know that you know that a new joined will be in first year only and not in second year. Patience man, let me create a little suspense, melodrama and confusion. That time was a perfectly legal age for a more polite name. Who says things look smaller from above? They made uncle out of a brother.

Wedding

Beep …beep… a sms on my mobile. ‘shaadi ho rahi teri’.

me too was very glad to hear that I was getting married. I got up from my system, congratulated myself and broke the news to a few close friends. Badhai ka mausam came. And kisi ne unka naam poocha. I coyed a little, creating an atmosphere of suspense in which I would tell these mortals the name of that angel. But oye, even I don’t know the name. when suddenly the reality struck me. someone insisted, but abey naam to mujhe waqai nahin pata. Who knows before me that I am getting married.

Certainly, the message was not from my mom-dad. Shaadi ko leke am not so frustrated that they have to address me like that and have to break the news over sms. And definetly it was not God, I don’t know if Reliance has put a tower in heavens too or Nokia has setup shops there. Anyways, pehle to aakashwani hoti thi. Kalyug hai, but still, God has other stronger means to be heard.

I asked the wedding party that was fuming up around me (because I have told them so late about my marriage) to cool down and checked the message again. Then I understood that it was not an assertive statement. Indeed it was a question. People still behave like class two boys, fooling around with punctuation marks. Question mark missing. Don’t message on an empty stomach. I know, old joke, but universal truth hai. Needs to be keep reinforced. Ek to waise hi short message, usme bhi why do you have to miss the necessary ingridients? am I supposed to read the message or play Da Vinchi Code with it? Yeah yeah, I know you too use No Marks to rub the scars off your face, thought it is meant to wipe some other hangover, but bro spill some marks where they are needed.

Anyways, I didn’t put much attention into why this guys was so shocked hearing the news of my marriage as if I have broken his heart and have proposed someone else. And if he was, I am better a bit distanced from him. Though who might have spread this rumour about my marriage interested me a little. Ma pa, jaldi se shaadi kara do meri. If not me, then my friends are getting impatient of waiting for the good news. Look, they are having delusions and shocks!!

I too felt a little bad because of the false rumours on this sensitive issue, but consoled myself off the thought that, chalo babu, koi ni, you saved some bucks. Otherwise, these guys dancing around you were not discussing your wedding present, but were looking up that most princely restaurant in Gurgaon deciding the menu based on the reversed Big Bazaar motto that – sabse mehnga, sabse accha.

This sms guy caught me on chat a few days later. He was still furious.

Guy: ‘you didn’t told me you are getting married?’.

Me: ‘where did you got the news from?’.

(I could be very argumentative at times. A simple NO, AM NOT would have ended the chat then and there, but as I said before, I too was keen on knowing the sources.)

That question from me raised more doubts in him about my marriage. He might had been a little skeptic, now he would completely disbelieve me whatever I tell. Either a yes/no would count as a wrong answer. I am in a predicament now.

Guy: ‘tell me, is it true?’.

Me: ‘No you tell me, who gave you the news?’

Guy: ‘its someone I cant reveal, but you must have told me.’

Me: ‘I would, but who is that someone whom you can not reveal, but he certainly knows a lot about me’

Guy: ‘I have promised, I wont tell you about him’

This is now getting cheaper than a melodramatic scene from a bollywood movie. Nahin, kabhi mat batana, kasam mat todna, chahe dosti toot jaye …

Me: ‘ok, if he knows so much about me, trust him only.’

Guy: ‘I want to hear it from you.’

Emotional blackmail ab, sounds like the heroine who has just heard that the hero is dating some other hot chic. Am enjoying it now.

Me: ‘nahi bhai, you cant tell me who is discussing my life, I cant tell you anything now’

(some more dhan te nan goes on …. )

Finally…

Guy: ‘okie, live your life, you don’t care for good friends. You have not told me. still I am wishing you a happy married life’.

Bang … this guy logged out.

Final break up. Climax. Girl and boy seperated. Not a happy cool ending. But emotionally paisa vasool …!

time pass

September, I was alone in Chennai. No, the Chennaites have not abandoned the city but I mean that my ears starved for some Hindi. I was left virtually alone at my room. Television is there but you can’t talk to the television. My roommate is there. A college friend, but he prefers talking to his girlfriend now. Believe me, the major network operators in India who cut such huge revenues are running healthy because sleep deprived, socially nonexistent people like him never feel sick of talking for hours on phone. Office was also at the same side of the coin. A team of all Tamil speaking people, who I guess must have proved a miserable failure in their Hindi classes.

It’s very natural that when people from the same community collide they resort to speaking in their mother tongue. Ideas always float more efficiently and succinctly in the natural language of the people. So in boardroom meetings, it was always Tamil that took the upper hand over English, and I was just left clueless. Finally, I came up with a suggestion. I told them that before starting a discussion or argument, however they might want to phrase it, just inform me on the topic. Then they can continue brainstorming on it in any language they want. If I would have something to contribute I would do so. And after they are done, just read me what was the conclusion. This proposition proved to be a breather in the coming meetings.

The only positive thought that made me survive among these people was that I am polishing my communication skills in English. Whenever I had to say something, I had to tell it in English. I have discovered in the process that I have a very weird problem speaking English. Whenever two consecutive words start with an s, my tongue falters. As an example, if I have to say ‘she sits’, it always comes out of my mouth as ‘she shits’. I hope I do not ever have to tell anyone about the movements of a lady!

Going for lunch and evening snacks with these guys is always amusing. The team here is super cool, and I would have enjoyed it a lot but only if I knew Tamil or they knew Hindi. So even if I enjoy their company, sharing laughs always turns out to be an exercise. By their gestures and context I have to make out the joke and have to match my facial movements with theirs. I have to follow their eyes which are busy following a girl, and though their glance return to each other after a while, mine continues to stick with her, following her all over the place till she disappears inside a lift. But then another one comes out of the lift and she is stalked, and the cycle continues until my reverie is broken by their guffaws and I become conscious that I am not part of the group anymore and need to concentrate again.

Join a software company and the first few months are a little light. The expectations of your manager hover around your getting acquainted with the product, your learning of the system and ice breaking with the team. Unless you are not of the types who want to do it all, you can stretch yourself a bit and enjoy the work and learn at a leisurely pace. Many people call this honeymoon period. But once this honeymoon period (typically lasts for 3-4 months or so) gets over, the pain of pregnancy and delivery is also very unbearable. Like a girlfriend turned wife changes within a few days, your boss no longer remains the same person. The demands grow and you wonder whether that honeymoon could have lasted a few more days. Social life comes to an abrupt ends and rest of your evenings are confined in office. Very tough time, it is like a triplet is born and you have to toggle yourself between all of them efficiently unless you do not want yourself under a load of piss and shit.

My First Day @gym

My first day in gym

I felt like a frail stick in an iron and steel mill

Everywhere muscles flexed and shone

On my scrawny body even the basic ones are gone.

I felt really ridiculous standing amid Arnolds

Until I saw one puny body taking stroll

He came around and looked at me

I felt at some ease and I bet he was as glad to see me.

He was doing warm-up

Sit-up and sit-down

I joined him in push-ups

After I did five, I went down.

He urged me to get up, and run on the tread mill

I asked him why to cut unnecessary electricity bill

I tried explaining I will famish, running

He insisted I should stop begging.

I perched myself on that floor in motion

While everyone stopped and stared at me with varied emotions

Probably they were thinking what I was doing

As I ignored their glances and took off like a Boeing.

I ran for a few minutes before getting down

While they disbursed with a little frown

They were waiting for some magic, for my thin frame to fade

But I stood there like a swine, sweating heavily, and swayed.

My little friend asked me to sit down and relax

I wanted to tell him it was enough for the day, thanks

But as if reading my mind he picked up a weight

It gave me instant motivation to stay and wait.

After I relaxed for more time than the earth took to revolve round its orbit

He shouted, “Come on, work out and don’t just sit!”

I dragged myself by the collar and stood up

There I was again amid bulldogs, terrified like a pup.

He brought me near the bench press

And asked me to stretch myself on the recline

He helped me to hold the rod above my head at a certain line

I was cautioned to breathe correctly or I myself would pay the fine.

I was breathless as I counted ten

My chest was heaving like those of women

A two minute rest was suggested by my little friend

Only if those two minutes I could have extend!

But time runs away when you want it to be with you

And soon my buddy returned and whew!

He brought two weights and gave them to me

Since my school bags I had never felt so much mass on me.

I did one complete set, which was some achievement

But he decided to be hard on me, “Do two sets more”, and went

Like intermittent torrential rains I somehow did the job in parts

Instead of two sets I did many albeit with a few farts.

Music was loud and no one heard my ass

But my buddy was relentlessly watching me and he won’t let me pass

As I tried to sneak out to the door, he came running

Chided me for being such a lethargic being!

I was put to inaction again, a two minute rest

He showed me around the machines for building biceps, triceps and chest

As we moved to the shoulder press, I saw it coming

He asked me to take position and pull the string.

In light of my need of some stimulation, music was not right

So I pulled the weight down with all my poetic might

Swiftly and slowly I pulled it against gravitation

But the other way, it took me up with a sudden motion

Body-builders around me burst into laugh while I was grim

Grins, sneers and cheers filled up the gym

Music stopped and everyone rushed in to devour the scene

And the public went hysterical and more mean.

Gradually the assembly melted away

And I saw myself walking out clearing the way

It had been enough of a day at kill

That was my first experience at the muscle minting mill.

By the way, I guess GYM stands for 'Get Yourself Muscles'

How to buy books?

I bought Richard Branson’s autobiography Losing My Virginity. Then I remembered I already had that book on my shelf in Delhi. Before you ask me how can I be so forgetful, I queried myself why? The last time I had seen this book in the Sunday book market in Daryaganj, Delhi, I was tantalized by the title itself. I bought the book without haggling over the price. But since the title was so bold I couldn’t gather enough courage to read it at home. The book is also very thick that I can’t read it hidden within another book. So I shoved that book at the back of a swelling bookshelf and gradually the memories worn out.

This time I found it again in Higginbotham, Chennai, albeit under a different cover. For a second time, the title appealed the virgin inside me and I bought it instantly without any second thought. But as I came to my desk, I was in doubts. The thought of spending money on something I already had and had again and that I haven’t read it the first time and probably might not read it the second time too made me restless until I fished Amazon for the book. The book appeared in its old cover and left me doubtless.

So I went to the bookstore downstairs and took this chap with me. There I got to know about a whole new perspective on buying books. I have told him that to replace the book would be a difficult chore as books appeal my mood and I never go to a bookshop with a book in my mind. He gave me a discourse on how to get value for my money as we roamed around the book store, checking each and every book. Here are the pearls of wisdom:

• Cover should be attractive. First impression is the last impression – this is what he believes in.
• Books should have a lot of pictures. Probably a comic book would be just fine. If you can’t understand the language, you can probably get the story watching pictures.
• Pages should be smooth and glossy. Should not be wooden and rough.
• Buy a thick book, and not a thin one. This saves money in two ways. First it is cost effective. Like each page should cost less than one Re per page. Cheaper is good. Secondly, a thick enough book would take more time to read and finish. Thus in a span of time in which two or three books would be bought, you end up consuming only one thus saving further bucks.
• Book should be by a prominent author. Even if you don’t get intelligent by reading the book, it will make others feel that you are intelligent by occupying a prominent place on your books shelf.
• You can go for a heavy book or a light one. Heavy ones will serve to press envelopes and light ones you can carry around while travelling. People with books often get respect in social circles.

Thankfully, I was in no mood to pay any heed to his suggestions, and another long search brought me to this book – Go Kiss the World by Subroto Bagchi. I had the book in my possession now, but the titles I have bought today made me smile. Check them, aren’t you amused?

Blooming Poets

So here I am back in my room. This old college friend (friend is young, friendship is old) of mine is still buried among books and laptop. And I guess he is in the same state since morning. He had taken a leave from his office today to study and how jealous I felt to see him yawn as he had woken up but kept lying leisurely in peace on his bed and saw me getting ready and leaving for office. And the view of him poking his nose into books and concentrating hard enough to ignore the only door of that room open and close become the inspiration behind these two splendid lines:

Itna mat padh,
Ki har kitaab se teri boo aane lage.

(Don’t study so much, that every book will start reeking of your smell)

So these beautiful lines marked the entry of a new poet in the market. Or so I thought, until later in the night he craned his neck out of the books and replied with these other two significant lines with deep meaning and a whole history and career hidden behind them.

padhna hamari majboori hai,
aadat to kabhi ban hi nahin payi.

(I am compelled to study; it was never a habit anyways)

So two new poets find themselves burgeon in this sultry Chennai heat. Never did we know so much poetic talent had lied burying within us. Instead of searching Google for those romantic lines to throw at our female friends and girl friends (I am told these two words have a significant difference and one should never be taken for another, so applying caution here), if we had looked inside ourselves, we would had found much more marvelous and original results. And I am also told that throwing original lines at female friends turn them into your girl friends. So I will soon return to you with a few more of our poetic talents.

penwallah

Guess what most of the typical software engineers (I don’t know about the nerds and the geeks) are constantly looking out for? I know the answers would be something like – some place to hide their ass off when an important report is late and boss is sniffing them all around, some time to search Google to get that new code which their boss is not smart enough to have searched himself, a corner to talk to their girl friend (or say any girl), searching for a moment of isolation with that never before seen girl in that weekend pub.

But what I have found from personal experience is that what they look out for most is a PEN while in office. Yeah, though it might sound very stupid, and none of us would accept it or may not have even given a thought to it, the fact is that the moment you put a new pen on display on the desk, someone will come to you asking for one. And the most interesting part is that no one bothers to get a pen from the service desk guys. They will always search for it when they knew exactly where to get it from. Typical engineers you know! If something can be done easily, create so many hurdles that the task would assume unassuming dimensions (whatever that means).

I had so many pens registered in my name that service desk guys have started thinking that I must be making quite some money selling them off in the buses I took to commute to office, HR thinks that I am adding to my CTC (cost to company) by doing these tricks, while my colleagues have penned a new name for me – penwallah. Why shouldn’t this post sound like frustration?

I have worked for three companies now in my career and whatever has changed in the environment, work culture or whatever, this habit has been similar everywhere. Sirens sounded for a meeting, and these guys will check out every nook and corner of the office to find a pen. Someone has an idea and needs paper to explain it, the search for a pen would start. You can pull the paper out of the printer, but the pen is not found anywhere. And by the time, you get one; a few bits from that idea have fallen apart. Now you have a pen, but not the idea!

So all those pen manufacturers, your biggest customers are we software engineers. Though we will keep saying we haven’t put pen to paper for years, we keep letting your products sell in wholesale in our own nifty ways like those little nifty code tricks we keep inventing all the time.

red chilly vs alien

Probably I am watching a lot of Alien flicks, but a second ago this thought just crawled into my mind (I was coding some JavaScript) - while fighting an alien creature with creepy & cruel eyes why don't our protagonist try to blind the alien by throwing some red chilly powder in those hollows. Anyways, they don't know to overpower the ET, so may be this trick can also get a chance on theaters. Any script-writers reading ... ?