Those 48 hours...

Part 1: Then…

Once, a king and his small army were fleeing away from the enemy. So they decided to hide in this dark cave.. it had lots of these really sharp things that kept hurting the soldiers… nobody had a clue what it was…. One of them approached the king and asked him,

“Sire, what is this shit? Hurts my bum real bad…….” Okay, I don’t remember the exact words… I wasn’t there… but this was the gist of what he said anyway…..

The king replied, “Am not gonna tell u dude, u havta figure that out urself….but whether u take it with you or not, yer gonna feel lousy later on…”

So some people picked up a little out of curiosity, others just ignored it….

At night, these people get out of the cave and continue their journey… at dawn, when the soldiers took out the sharp things from their pockets, they had in their palm some of the most beautiful diamonds ever!!!

Part 2: Now…

The case of our protagonist, the 22 year old MBA, is not very different… to the outsider, placement day is one of the most glamorous things that can happen to a 22 year old… six figure salaries, foreign postings, ibanking jobs…. The world is your oyster… but the ramifications of his emotions during those 2 days is too tumultuous to comprehend….If he doesn’t get shortlisted by companies, he is sad that nobody gives a damn about him…. If on the other hand he gets shortlisted, he is either sad that he could have got more or that he has to put up with all those GDs and how hez gonna convert them…. The feeling just gets worse as the day progresses…..

Day 0… 6 am…. You ask yourself, “will I get that seven figure offer?” 180 candidates in suits…. One by one, the GDs happen…. The offers trickle in…. slowly, as dusk sets in, you take a breather and look around and what do you see? Over half of them are back in shorts…. Laughing and cracking jokes…. This is like one of the biggest ironies you can imagine… just a few hours ago, the bastard was asking me for solace and gyaan when he screwed up his GD… one good interview and BAM! He is in his shorts, mocking at us lesser mortals!!!!! Then the frustration sets in and you wonder, “will I get placed tonight itself?”

The poor guy in shorts wud be thinking… shit man, this sucks… my friend is so talented, still the bastards are not picking him up… even though I am placed, I should be with him throughout and give him company when he is down in the dumps….A lot happens involuntarily… the guy who is placed just cant hide his joy that for the rest of the day, he is talking loudly trying to infuse some of his optimism into the others still in process…. This in turn gives them the impression that he is showing off and pisses them off!

Really bizarre incidents have happened…. A senior was feeling really bad for a junior who had to go through some unusually long interviews… he made the capital mistake of consoling her…. “are u okay?” the retort came out in a flash! “don’t try to strike up a conversation with me!!!” well, the senior is also smart enough to study in her same college “I just hope u had something more constructive to say in your interviews!!!!”

Day 1... 6 am....The whole thing can be described in one single word…. Pandemonium!!! Sometimes the whole world around you is moving so fast that you think everything is in a standstill…. Beyond a point, everything seems irrelevant… innumerable shortlists later, you are not even bothered which company is being announced…. Your lines in the interviews start sounding cliché…..you start recollecting the exact same words you used for the six interviews you used before this one…. Irrespective of whether it is coke or pepsi, p&g or hll, u feed them the same reasons about why you think a career in sales is interesting and challenging…. The women have an added headache… in addition to some distastefully drooling interviewers, they also have to negotiate with their 6 foot long sarees which just refuse to listen. Things just don’t get better when there are enemies in your own camp! By this time, leave alone seven figure salaries and placement in a day 0 company, you begin to wonder whether you will get placed at all…. As the results of yet another company are announced and you find your name missing as usual, your jaw and your confidence drop down like the sensex on black Monday!

It can also be really awkward to the guy who is placed… what do you tell your friend when he asks you, “da, why am I not getting any shortlists?” You have interacted with him for two years; you know he is made of real stuff….. how do you handle the delicate conflict between the role of a friend and the role of a competitor who beats him to his favorite job? In many weird ways, I have felt the concept of friendship evolving over time… from primary school…. To boarding school…. To engineering college…. And to bschool…. Was it for better or for worse? I don’t know……..