Interviews - Funny Things

My last few posts were all getting very similar. So with this post i am entering into a previously unchartered territory in this blog - humour.

As most of you (whatever few) will appreciate that this is a solemn moment in the history of time because this marks the begining of a new trial on Trial Run. So enjoy the read or else at least fool yourself into believing that you are enjoying it.
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The scene is of a B-school interview with Sam a veteran interviewer on one side and a young lad Judeth on the other as the interviewee. Judeth has prepared hard for the interview under the guidance of the leading tutorial for the entrance. He is currently waiting for his turn outside the interview hall while revising the main lessons that his mentors have filled him with as a part of his preparation for this interview-

-Sell yourself hard, most of us make the mistake of underselling ourselves.
-Dont let the interviewer drive the interview, instead you should be the driver.
-Mention your weaknesses but also tell them what you are doing to make them your strengths.
-Have a very optimistic outlook on things.
-The panel is looking for candidates who have a sound value-system.
-The panel looks to induct people who add to the diversity of the batch.
-You have to be spontaneous and think out of the box.
-Having a special interest is of particular importance.
-When asked why MBA??, emphasise on learning.

"Dude go in the panel is waiting for you" said the person coming out of the interview hall.

Judeth - May i come in.

Sam - Yes come in Judeth.

J (enters the hall with a carefully practised smile on his face) - Thank you and a very good morning to you sir.

S- Good morning Judeth have your seat.

J - Thank you sir.

S - Ok J i have already read your CV. Is there anything more that you would like to tell me about yourself.

("Damn writing everything on the CV was not such a good idea after all" thought J. He takes a second and then responds.)

J- Sir my CV does not tell you that i am a very spiritual person with a deep interest in philosophy.

("Bulls-eye - i have mentioned my special interest so early on in the interview and it seems like i am going drive it from here on.").

S - Thats interesting Judeth so what exactly in philosophy interests you.

J - It is the love of wisdom in general that interests me sir. Man is a rational entity and wisdom is what he should seek sir.

("Great going value system also done.")

S - Very well J. You used the word 'should' in your answer. So do you think that every man has a specific purpose.

J - Well, of-course sir, every man must actualise his true potential. Thats his purpose. I must also add that given my limited potential i have a serious competitive advantage over my peers here. As i would be able to exploit all my abilities much faster than any of my very gifted mates.

("Hard selling doesnt get any harder than this. Showed him how i can turn my weaknesses into strengths.")

S (trying to maintain his composure) - I must say you are a dire optimist J.

J - Sir, i have always believed that come what may a man should never cease to be an optimist. After all we all need to optimise ourselves.

("Whoohoo didnt expect to get optimism as free bonus.")

(S is actually amused now but he tries to keep the focus of the interview intact and hence changes the topic.)

S - Thats a very noble message Judeth. Can you tell me who is your role model in life.

(J by now is at ease with the whole setting and is now at his free flowing best.)

J - Sir Amir Khan in the Innova ad commercial says - "What role are you playing today??" and as you would know the great Shakespeare has already famously said that - "All life's a stage and we are all actors here, playing our parts on this stage".
So by the deductive analysis of the wisdom contained in these two statetements we can easily say that life is an act and our roles in it keep changing. Thus having role models is a) morally wrong as emulating role models will amount to lack of of originality and hence plagiarism; b) it also violates the idea of brand loyalty, as with changing roles one needs to keep changing the role models.
On account of these reasons i do not have any role models.

("Bravo. Seems like i am going to get a 10 on 10 in values today. I must pay attention to the other aspects of evaluation now.")

S - Judeth you sure are a very different candidate from the rest i have interviewed so far.

J - Thats good to hear sir. I hope to significantly increase the diversity of this batch with my out of the box thinking.

("Batch-Diversity, selling and out of the box thinking all in one answer u r a genius J. The check-list is almost complete now. I just wish that he ask me why MBA and i will seal it then.")

(S is completely fed up by now but doesnt know why is he still continuing with the interview.)

S - J i have one last question for you, what are your reasons for doing an MBA.

J - Mercedez Benz After this.

S - Is that your reason!!

J - God, no sir. This is the reason why any average guy does an MBA today. Clearly these guys are lost souls with misplaced priorities. I as you have already noted am very different from the rest. My purpose of doing an MBA is pure learning. As a man can get enlightened only through learning . I thus seek spiritual solace and hope to reach God through lessons in management accounting.

("God is great. I am done with all that i had to say. Take me in and let me go now.")

S - That is all i had ask Judeth you can leave now and send in the next average guy on your way out.

J - Sure i'll do that sir.Thanks a lot sir.

Get Real Ain't My Line.

There are times when i feel high
No this feelin aint wine
These are times when i realize what a friggin genius am i
Curse the mornins for stealin the feelin
I just want to be a king in my dreams
For Get Real ain't my line.

Livin a fantasy’s such a fantastic idea
And not havin a fantastic temperament’s such a pain
But what the heck n why do i care
I’ll just curse the world
n live in this blissful bubble
that i just created for myself.

I love vacuums where theres so much space n nothin at all
I think for some time i’ll just sit here n relax
I’m tired of thinking
I think i’ll just be for sometime.

Marvelling at the thoughts provoked by
this induced thoughtlessness is so unnerving
the silence here is so soothing
I think i can hear what this silence’s sayin to me
It says when you feel low you can come to me
Coz i know you for who you are.

I always knew theres sanity somewhere out there
I think i just discovered it right now
It exists where nothin else does
I love vacuums where theres so much space n nothin at all
I just want to be a king in my dreams
For Get Real ain't my line.

A Flight in a Moment of Freedom

All this time i've done as i was told
Oh how can you not see i've lived by your rules
But for this moment let the rule be mine

I've wasted enough time just hanging on
But now i want to fly

All this time i've lived according to what you thought was practical
Oh how can you not see
How this practicality is practically choking me
But for this moment i want to breathe
If only for a moment let insanity be my oxygen

I've wasted enough time just hanging on
But now i want to fly

All this time you've trained me to ace this rat race
Oh how can you not see i had dreams to chase
Steady but restrained is the story of my life
But for this moment i refuse to walk the line

I've wasted enough time just hanging on
But now i want to fly

All this time you made me worship stability as the highest virtue
Oh how can you not see i am stuck not stable
For this moment let me risk it all
If only for a moment set me free

Oh how can you not see
I've wasted enough time just hanging on
But now i want to fly

I've wasted enough time just hanging on
But now i want to fly.

To Change or Just Be

For a lot of time now i have been caught in this riddle -
whether to be the person i am or make changes to suit the image of my ideal-self.
This post is an attempt to put the pieces of this riddle together.

Somehow to me it has always felt right to be my instinctive self. After all ' i am what i am' sounds so cool. But then there have been umpteen number of occasions when i have felt a sense of discontent with myself for not being what i want to be. For instance poise is one quality that has always intrigued me and i on a number of times end up acting very crude thus creating a gap between my actual-self and my ideal-self. And this is just one example there are several other such instances.

Having given a serious thought to this problem i figured that this discontent roots from not having a clear sense of what my ideal-self actually is. But then again defining my ideal-self in very clear terms is one thing and sticking to it is quite another, as there always will be a tendency to go back to my natural self. So the choice really is between training myself against my natural tendencies on one end and living with the discontent on the other.

So should i strive towards the first alternative or simply just be the way i am?

I don't think i still really have a sure answer to this question but after putting in some thought i have arrived at a tentative solution. The rest of the post discusses just that.

Ever since i came across a certain Mr. Howard Roark i have always been very fascinated towards this fictitious soul. When i say fascinated i mean fascinated only. The way a Harry Potter fascinates a 13-year-old. I mean here was one person who believed (or rather lived) that man is here to create and he creates for only one reason which is his own happiness. Now, if a batman or a superman can fascinate then Roark, most certainly can. Don't you agree. Heck, for the purpose of this post i'll assume that you do.

Now i took a look back at my recently completed 22-years of existence on planet earth. And tried to recount those moments when i felt a stark sense of happiness. I did this so that i could understand what exactly is it that makes me happy. Two things came out of this.

Firstly, i couldn't recount too many such moments, which i think is a shame considering the fact that i have now finished a quarter or may be more of my life-span. Just in case i am painting a very sorry picture of myself i must clarify that there have been plenty of times when i felt a great sense of elation, but those moments of elation do not give me any great joy now when i think about them.

Secondly, the only commonality that i could observe in all my hazy recollections of these past moments of elation was that i felt happy in these moments because somebody (usually my family members) felt happy for me in these moments. And also perhaps i had some kind of recognition (no matter howsoever microscopic it may be) in these moments. So as i observe my own happiness itself is dependent on others. And this is where Howard Roark becomes a fantasy. The easiest way for me to verify the validity of this observation was to imagine myself all alone on an island. I don't think that any of my actions will have any meaning in such a scenario and i also don't think that i will have any reason or motivation to continue existing then.

So now going back to the original problem. If being the way i am is causing some discontent it is because i am not able to bring out the desired responses to my actions from others. I think it's safe to draw such a conclusion now, as i have established that my contentment itself is dependent on others. However, i must be very carefully sure about the people i want to impress through my actions. Otherwise i will never have a clear sense of my ideal-self.

But going against my natural instinctive self is tough. So is it worth the trouble?

My answer right now is yes it is. A validation for this answer comes from the swimming lessons that i am taking these days. As i can observe now, almost all the movements that came naturally or instinctively to me in the swimming pool were all technically incorrect. Now is it worth learning the right technique is anybody's guess. Though i must add that there is a sizable fraction of swimmers who swim sufficiently well for their rquirements with partially correct technique. But then again i don't think they themselves did not want to learn the right way to swim. It was just that they stopped trying at some point.

Thus to conclude, my answer to the riddle is to strive towards my ideal-self. The caution here is that the ideal-self which i seek to strive towards should be reasonable, well-defined and attainable.

High on Mustafa's round kicks

Caution: A long post ahead so don't rush through it instead read slowly because i wrote it slowly. And please be kind enough to leave comments.

The clock strikes the zero hour. Trance music mixed with tonnes of smoke fills the entire space of this hall jammed with hundreds of 20- somethings. Scores of hands go up in the air every second and an equal number of them come down simultaneously. A small space at the corner of the hall houses a small table with some 100 grams of white powder on it. These 20-somethings periodically come to this space, snort some coke and return to the to the trance zone in a state of trance. Another corner houses a bar-counter with an arrangement of some stools on the outside. On two of these stools sit Alex and Issac who are in fact the only two people who are inside the trance zone while outside the state of trance. They are here with Mark and Steve who are currently floating in space outside the milky way on their space shuttle- marijuana.

The bar tender pours orange juice and lemonade into two crystal clear stem glasses, cuts a thin slice of an orange and a lemon and garnishes the two drinks. He then places two crooked straws in the two drinks and serves them to the only sober men in this rave party. Alex picks up the orange juice while Issac sips the lemonade.

Alex to Issac: Why on earth did we have to come here, i mean i am feeling totally out of place here. I should have had this juice at a place where people were actually into juices.

Issac(while sucking in the lemonade through the crooked straw): But then this juice won't have tasted half as good as it does now. Just relax and you will be fine. Sip the juice, listen to the music and simply soak in the atmosphere.

Alex slowly sips the juice and does what Issac told him to do. After a while he begins to relax and feels a lot more at ease.

Alex(trying to start a conversation): You come to such places quite often don't you?

Issac(casually): Yeah, i kinda like to observe such stuff. Man these guys are capable of pulling off some real weird stuff when they're on moon.

Alex: So you never get high yourself?

Issac(playfully):I get about as high as this lemonade and this crazy decibel level can get me. And believe me thats very high for me.

Alex(smiles): Well, don't you ever feel like getting high?

Issac(is somewhat drawn in now): Do you?

Alex: Well, earlier i never gave a thought to these things, but right now looking at these people i feel like doing it myself.

Issac(looking very interested now): Really, you do. Ok tell me what exactly about these people draws you to them?

Alex(trying hard to find words to express his feelings): I don't know, it's just that they look so free.

Issac: You know, when i was very young, my friend William once took me to a video game shop. William was very fond of a game whose protagonist was a character called Mustafa. He then took control of the machine. I was really intrigued by the adeptness with which he handled the controls. He used only his left index finger to control the joystick and his right index finger to press any of the four buttons. I stood by his side watching Mustafa kill all the enemies one by one and finally achieving the mission by completing all four stages of the game.
Then i got to lay my hands on the machine. I tried to emulate William in my handling of the controls but had no skill to go with it, so Mustafa was getting brazenly beaten and gradually lost all his life. I inserted a new coin in the machine but this time i left all the elegance aside and pounced on to the controls pressing all the buttons simultaneously. As a result Mustafa was now delivering flying round kicks to the enemies. I was overjoyed. But after a few such kicks Mustafa died himself without at all getting beaten by the enemy. I inserted two more coins played the same way and got the same result. William then told me that each time i pressed all the four buttons together Mustafa lost some of his life while delivering the round kick. If the game was only about pressing the four buttons together then it won't be much of a game, he added.

So you see while Mustafa looked very free jumping in the air delivering those acrobatic flying round kicks, he was actually wearing out, getting weaker with each kick.

Alex(amused): Man i should have believed you when you said that you can get high on lemonade. So are you saying that what we are seeing in front us right now are hundreds of such high flying Mustafas.

Issac: Yeah, you've hit it. (Pause)...
See, God gave us a consciousness with five senses to go with it.Through these senses we interface with the world and experience a whole gamut of emotions through our consciousness. Using drugs is like pressing all the four buttons together. Everytime you do it, Mustafa will fly and deliver a round kick to the unpleasurable sensory inputs by by-passing the consciousness but this is not without a cost. It is not and can not be a replacement for skill. Like William said it won't be much of a game otherwise. The crux of the game lies in your level of skill with the controls and using your perishable resources frugally like William did to clear all four stages of the game to achieve the missison.

Alex(nods in agreement then shrugs): Yeah, may be you're right. But what the heck it's fun anyways.

Issac(playful again): Totally true. Sobriety sucks! Do you see that guy at the center, man he always dances the same way when he's high, with one hand in his back pocket the other one in the air and his chin glued to his chest. And that guy at the back......

So it ends here..how do u feel

Alex: ...so, last few days left in college, don't you feel that it should last forever.

Issac: U insane?! The whole thing has already become such a drag. Finally life's going to get moving again.

Alex: That's strange. Perhaps you don't realise, but this is the best time we'll ever have, living life on our own terms without having to give any answers.

Issac: I guess most people say that because the romantic ideal of college life is supposed to be that way.Yes, i know that we've had some really good times here, but don't you think it's getting too repetitive now. I mean the late night hangouts, booze parties, frivolous banters etc. were fun earlier but now i am crying change.

Alex: So, you are saying that you are glad that it's getting over.

Issac: Well almost, but yes there is some faint part of me that feels the way you do, though i really don't know why. Guess it's inertia more than anything else.

Alex: Let six months pass and you will long for these days all over again.

Issac: May be i will. If not after six months after six years most certainly i will be longing for these days. But then these days will no longer be a routine like they've become now.
It's the mundaneness of it all that's killing me. After all too much chocolate can also make you pretty sick.

Alex: It's funny isn't it. All this while you were yearning for some free time so that you can enjoy yourself. Now when you actually have that time, you want to get busy again.

Issac(chuckles): Funny it is! But i guess i won't be getting so bored if i was meeting new people, travelling to new places, learning new stuff n all that.
Right now the concept of fun is a bit too cliched, very static very stale.

Alex: Ok now i get it. So let's go say hi to Sunita Williams and her crew tomorrow; new people, new place, tonnes of new learning n all that..eh?

Issac(smiling): That sounds like real fun. Let's do the dew.

Alex(also smiling): Alright we will. Good night.

Issac(signing-off): Good night.

Faces speak and so do i

After writing a post that expressed the intended expression behind my first poem
'Is it about reaching out or connecting within' i am now writing this post to convey the intended expression behind my second poem 'Theres a story behind each line'. So here i go..

Unlike my first poem this poem was not an abstract piece and i had a clear message here which i wanted the reader to receive.
Wrinkles in this poem were symbolic of the physical wear and tear that happens to the human body with age.
A lot of people find it hard to come to terms with these changes as they age and hence fight with these changes artificially to remain physically young and beautiful.
Through the poem i was trying to express that these changes happen for a reason. These changes are nature's way of letting one know how much he has learnt and how has he fared in his life.
That is why wrinkled faces speak so much for the kind of life a person has led. If a person has led a life of satisfaction his face expresses relief(think Mother Teresa) if throughout his life he had felt that life has dealt him a raw deal then his face expresses discontent or if he has led a life of utter recklessness which he now repents then his face expresses sorrow or remorse
( thus the line in the poem then drew lines of sorrow remorse or relief).
Faces can tell a life of ignorance from a life of enlightenment(think Abraham Lincoln).
Fighting with these wrinkles is to ignore what nature has to say and the artificial beauty attained is plastic (think Simi Garewal or Michael Jackson).
It is like using make-up to cure chicken-pox.

So don't fight with age instead age gracefully and beautifully while doing your deeds.
This was the intended expression.

Alex in Solace Lane

Alarm goes off. Its 7 in the morning Alex wakes up and rushes to the bathroom. After having finished the usual morning rituals he flips through the pages of today's newspaper while hurriedly chewing a sandwich and sipping that nescafe in his hand (how he manages all these things together with two hands is quite interesting in its own way). He takes a quick look in the mirror sets his hair and rushes to his workplace (he works in a kpo).

11 hrs of back breaking work of sitting in front of the computer screen, forgetting to blink for hours and only having the odd coffee in the name of straightening that bent back. The only words he hears are- client presentation, database, google, deliverable and yes the most dreaded of them all deadline (someone very wisely defined it as a long line at the end of which u r dead). Alex had now understood in its entirety what the phrase 'mechanical existence' meant.

After a long day he returns to his room and like a nomad has to now go looking for dinner. So he splashes some water on his face, changes to an old pair of jeans and a thin t-shirt and out he goes to find some food. Through with dinner and feeling somewhat reluctant to go back to his dingy room Alex then decides to take a stroll down the long and winding road called the Solace Lane. It’s a huge stretch of road with a plethora of shops and eateries on both sides and at this hour it’s always buzzing with frenetic activity with people of all ages and all kinds coming here to shop, walk, eat or simply hangout. With a gentle breeze against his face Alex walks observing people while reflecting on the various events in the day. As he recalls these events he is slightly saddened by the thought that today was no different than yesterday and tomorrow is going to be no different either. But he feels relieved right now almost happy with his hair fluttering in the air in this starry moonlit night and life in all forms all around him.

While walking on the Solace Lane he saw an old man joyously giving in to the tantrums of his grandson. He walked further and saw a bunch of college guys shouting swear words at each other and having a hearty laugh, a smile broke out on Alex’s face as he remembered his own life a couple of months back. He walked further still and saw a man wearing a trouser, shirt and a necktie the smile on Alex’s face got broader when he saw this man, as he could see the transition that his life had undergone over the past 2 months in a matter of 2 steps.

For sometime now he had forgotten all the frenzy of his own life and was enjoying observing life from the outside feeling a sense of revelry in this new found objectivity towards his life. At this point he remembered a science class from his school days where his teacher was explaining to the students

" the universe is the vast expansive space that engulfs
everything that exists;
in this universe there are millions of
galaxies;

each galaxy has millions of stars;

sun is a star of one such galaxy called the milky way;

earth is one of the sun’s nine planets;

you are one of the 6 billion (6000000000) people who inhabit
this planet. "

‘one of the 6 billion people’ Alex repeated to himself and felt amused at the importance he associated with an insignificant deadline, felt amused at how he let
this and thousands of other such trivialities affect him each day. The thought was humbling and he felt much lighter. He was glad that he came out for a walk tonight.

He bought an ice-cream and started walking back towards his room enjoying every bit of that ice-cream before it could melt. He slept in bliss that night.

Next day.
Alarm goes off. Its 7 in the morning Alex wakes up and rushes to the bathroom...

Feeling abstract

Recently my friend Ashutosh visited this blog and left the following comment for my poem

'Is it about reaching out or connecting within'

"all i can say is that to me it looks like a collection of contrasting sentences and if that is poetry all the best buddy"

Now the poem is an abstract piece and thus different people do see it differently (beauty in the beholder's eye all over again) but this comment prompted me to express what i was feeling when i wrote the poem. So read on..

Through the poem i was trying to express the awe that one experiences when one takes a break from the monotone of a mechanical existence to experience life.
It was life in its various vagaries that every line of the poem expressed.

Contrast was used to highlight the astonishing sense of beauty which is simulataneously present in things which are as disparate as a green jungle and a dead autumn leaf (and of course all other such examples used in the poem).
The questioning tone of the poem was used to express the inquisitiveness that is an inherent part of any human being.

And the last line which is also the title of the poem was a reiteration of the fact that it is the activity of the element of life within us that springs into action every time we see nature in its most unadulterated form causing a deep sense of awe somewhere within us.

After reading this i will request Ashu and all others who shared the same feelings as his when they read the poem to revisit the poem, may be this time it will convey something more than what it did when you read it the last time.

My next post also expresses similar feelings but in a very different way.
And yes the medium this time will be prose and not verse.

So please do read the story of Alex coming up very soon.

Theres a story behind each line

I used an anti-ageing cream
slowly though the little wrinkle still crept in

Lord intended my face to be an open book
but i used surgery to overlook

I then began to realize
there's a story behind each line

God evaluated my deeds
then drew lines of sorrow remorse or relief

Wrinkles are symptoms not the disease
botox only an option to hide than reveal

I grew old with each day spent
nature sketched while i slept

Each passing day presented a new hindrance
result then displayed on my countenance

Karma is the only way to pass this test
let the artist take care of rest.

Is it about reaching out or connecting within

Is it the calm of an endless ocean
or the solitude of that cloud in the sky

Is it the sound of a river
or the lightning in the sky

Is it the droplet on a petal
or the wings of a butterfly

Is it the yellowness of the first ray through that tree
or the pinkness of the twilight sky

Is it the wetness of the snow that clads the mountain
or the thirst of the desert sand

Is it the lushness of a green jungle
or the crumble of an autumn leaf

Is it the first cry of a new life
or the relief on the wrinkled face about to say goodbye

Is it the begining of a new era
or the end of an age

Is it about reaching out
or connecting within.

Dont run its a trap

Three fests are on in the college still no activity in the campus.
God, I'm getting bored!
No action in my life, nothing specific to work on, no event to participate, i'd never imagined that killing time can also be so boring.
Hope things change with the debate in the evening.

Time 4 pm. I'm with P convincing him hard not to go back home and make my life still more miserable. The fella obliges after 3 hrs of obnoxious begging.
He's one sane dude, who somehow always acquiesces to all my unjustifiable 'requests' (not sure if that's the right word).
So now we periodically (the period being a 2 hr long 1/2 hour) shuttle back n forth from the hostel to the college trying to dodge that godawful feeling-God, I'm getting bored!

Time 7 pm. Damn, no debate today, and suddenly 11 pm seemed 4 aeons away. I'm oh so fed up with those lousy golgappas which i never eat, that much romanticised baba chai which i never drink and those endless chat sessions that always leave me with an empty feeling the next morning . My life so totally sucks. Boy, do i need a break, but how??
Possible answers
-work on fitness
-read more books
-increase general awareness
Sounds like a whole lot of work this but the trouble is the moment i start working on any of these that same old feeling hits me with the fierceness of a Rocky Balboa punch-God I'm getting bored!

It's time i should go home says my inner voice, i bet it's time to go home.
So next morning i prematurely start off on that awful 31/2 hr excursion that i forcibly undertake on each weekend,
the road (thats best when) less travelled.

Time 1 pm. After those adventurous 31/2 hrs
( consisting of - a roller coaster RTV ride, an hour long serene wait for a cab and those princely shared autos)
i'm finally back home.
Those 4 measly butter toasts i had for breakfast are long dead n gone. I desperately need to curb that rising hydrochloric acid in my tummy. 'Dahi,parnthe and sabzi' after 4 days of mess food, not bad at all .
After that sumptuous lunch i hit that cozy bed with a book in hand and off i go to that blissful 'blinking sleep mode' (with avg time of blinking being 15 min). Alas, life's not so bad.

Time 5 pm. I'm pacing back n forth in my room trying to find some means to busy myself.
Switch on the computer and connect to the internet.
15 min of helpless surfing and the innervoice says -naaah this ain't working find something else.
Switch on the TV. Nothing in it either.
Try lawn tennis. Damn, the court is full.
Come back home, eat again and back on the bed but this i am time wide awake.
Suddenly i sense something.
Something coming slowly from behind.
Deja vu.
It's that godawful feeling again-God, I'm getting bored!