The Zero day of the zero week

16th December’2007 :time 1:00am
The campus looks like a total different place altogether during the placement. There are flags all around , the lights make the buildings as the separated part of the Taj Mahal , all glittering and shining . Even if talk of students they are all in their best attire atleast on the very first day. My room was not in the best of condition to fit the placement theme but yes it added to it. The study table had automatically transformed into Iron table, the five beautiful gals on the wall had suddenly become tense or was it I ….still the beer bottles on the wall had lost the order and the wall clock seemed to run faster in the morning and slowly in the night when everyone graced the room .The lobby of the hostel was perfect , with people running to shave and have shower at 5 in the morning and this continued till 8, after that everyone in their supposedly new torso used to walk to academic block with a drag or with a newspaper copy hoping that the guy in the panel had read exactly the same article from the from the same newspaper and by telepathy he or she can convey that give it as a topic for GD , unfortunately it use to happen rarely but the thing is it used to happen .
Again a supposedly good news .Have been shortlisted for YCY paints another topnotch in the campus but that was just the beginning the day started early at 7 in the morning all dressed up in my well ironed shirt , flawless hair I move on for what I can recall now as the journey of my life my whole two years compressed into 6 days. As I walk in the renovated and dressed up as a bride KAPIL MOHAN . what I see is remarkable ,a force of 360 unemployed people . I walk in with a smile and confidence surprisingly not a bit nervous but determination of being there. Good news were hard to stop shortlisted in all the possible companies (that were offering a profile in marketing /operations). So I sit for my first official placement Group discussion . It was Sodaphone, there was a panel of three again certainly not my lucky number till now the topic was ‘Ever y cloud has a silver lining’ .I spoke well and nice I knew they will remember me. There was a mutual relationship of hatered between me and a classmate of mine .it was simple he hated me and I sure hated him unfortunately he use to encounter me in each and every GD and he use to pitty himself for once he even tried to befriend me through someone. Anyways I was not concerned by any of those factors my sole aim was to perform yeah sounds stupid and clinical but that it was.
My next GD was of Motak Bahindra one of the companies I didn’t want to go but the slot 1 status made sure enough that I apply to it , the seniors in the company had mixed experience and I was not into sales of financial services all together but today I was the all sales guy . so I had all my dear friends from IB in the GD fighting it out for that elusive name on the shortlist. The topic was ‘Is the Indian growth sustainable’. Well I was surrounded by people from fin ready to shout each and every inch of statistic about the Indian economy that they have ever read , so I was ready to be quite for sometime adding to the fact that I didn’t know if I wanted to be in this company but in the middle the sense of insecurity arrived inside of me and I spoke up something bout the infrastructure shit that I believed on .well the team of two invigilator from the company made sure that the guy who summarized summarize it pretty well otherwise he will be the proud owner of some negative marks . I had gone for the bit as this was my last desperate attempt and the moment the word came out of my mouth I knew I had made it .two in arrow I was on a ball.
Meanwhile I have been shortlisted for Sodaphone and Motak interviews .My friends had a rough day urmila didn’t get shortlisted for any company , varun had a similar bad day , simon was in few GD’s , Ankit made it to agrotech interview and Akanksha was in Sab miller GD and Genpact interview but I was the toast of the group being there everywhere.
YCY paints GD , adding to the agonizing walk to the M.D.P third floor was the wait for the last person to arrive for the GD a topping to it was the person asking if we had any query .well just wished I could jump out of the window at that very moment .I betted on my favourite question “what will be our training period and what it will be comprising of ?“. the guy answered it pretty well as though I was listening why don’t they understand that we just want a nice paying and profile fucking job and that is our destination.We take life as it comes I don’t know where the fuck I’ll be 5 , 10 or may be 25yrs down the line , why is it so hard to understand.
Well the last person arrived with a status of GD killer ‘Divya Khemani ‘ I thought I should be intimidated but considering I was on a roll I thought to give her a piece of papa this time .To our surprise the guy gave us a bountiful of a topic ‘ the impact of sensex 20,000 on the social indicators by Amartya sen ‘ ok that was the worst topic that I have ever heard in a GD till date. There was butchering and fighting with a constantly irritating girl always saying 2,000 instead of 20,000 ohh that was irritating.finally the 15minutes allotted to us finished , and surprisingly divya was contrary to my expectations .The results were announced right after GD and no cookie for guessing I was through this GD too.
So, here I was riding on the wind half assured that I’m gonna be placed today and not only I thought so even some of my friends and juniors’. Urmila and my friends were all beside me throughout this. In between accompanied by brief brakes discussing the ever popular topic on what basis companies short list….that cannot be known even if u r the one who’s shortlisting .
I had my Sodaphone interview lined up these guys were waiting for like more than an hour or something I could sense the frustration from the faces of theirs . I had to go through or they had to wait for another hour or something , the questions were regular nothing much they asked me what about telecom industry excites you in my mind was they are three of them coming to campus what else?
Then was the Motak interview they asked me about financial services that I knew pretty well also they asked me to choose between two profiles one was to go out and meet client and another was banking transactional operations . I choose the former one as I had no clue what the latter one meant.i was kind of convinced that I was getting a call from them ,but was still unsure to be there or not.
The Sab miller GD was a caselet so wont be able to guide you through that .In between I had my final interview of the day with YCY paints , well went absolutely fine not an inch here and there ,It was perfect another call in the kitty ,I thought to myself.
I had my last GD of the day in the form of AVIVA little did I know if I wanted to go there or not .the topic was one of the most common topic ‘Women make better managers than men ‘ the person has done a weird thing by making the two ladies in the group go against the topic and nine guys surrounding them for the favour of the topic , it was chaos and at the end when she didn’t get any she asked us each to summarize , I thought I did pretty well but guess she didn’t like my suit .Anyways wasn’t shortlisted for that and kind of wasn’t disappointed .
The only thing I had in my mind was when Nilanjan Sir is gonna announce the names.YCY paints came my name was not there , then came Vodafone my name was not there I was sulking , a tear wanted to be there but being held by an immense hope of another result. Akanksha got through Genpact that also in laterals I was so damn happy for her she needed that job which paid a joining bonus of 1,50,000 to settle the financial position at her place , she got all that she ever wanted a lateral profile, enough money and staying home. Man I was happy for her. Tripti also got placed in Irevna and UBS , she deserved every inch of it she worked hard and we all knew that . Then we were all waiting for the results of Motak I so not wanted to be in that company but wanted my name to be there just to be of the pressure to get placed. My name was not there, I had no feeling, I was dejected by three companies in a day ,Wow!. Well I resided back to my room with shoulders running low at nearly sea level. I went to sleep as that was the only way to get away from all this tension . I woke up at around midnight ,Akanksha came to me told me how placecom was pressurizing her to sign out of the process , I asked her why she wants to sit further , she told me she can get better money in an IT firm , I said if u really need money go ahead don’t worry we are with you , I spoke for the group I always did. Again at 12:30 a.m I picked up my books and studied so not to repeat my failure of today although it was not concerned with studies but it provides you a lot of confidence if you go prepared.