As a child, like all children, I was a fervent believer in God; used
to pray with folded hands, worship the idols in temples, join in chorus
to the pooja along with the family during festivals, and have the holy
powders of Kumkum and Vibuthi on the forehead invariably every day
(though mostly because it was mandatory in school to have Tilak).
Then as the years passed, and I slipped into adolescence, I was slightly wavering from being the faithful to the sceptic, starting to disbelieve in God and gradually even without even I recognising, I no longer believed in Him. I was on the verge of being an atheist.
Then more recently, about 5 or 6 years ago, I started to want to believe in God. But it was out of my own compulsion that used to visit temples with the hope that somehow my faith in Providence would be revived. But I knew I was doing all this just for the sake of it, without any real conviction about the existence of God.
Then, as recently as 2 years ago, a month before I joined this wonderful organisation, came along the happening which made me really realise the presence of God with uttermost conviction, and feel His ubiquitous presence. Since then I have again been like the pious kid I was, who prayed to God with fervour and devotion. And I can strongly enter an argument about the existence of God with utmost conviction and not an iota of doubt whatsoever.
Not so coincidentally, the incident I am speaking about is connected with my campus placements, or the lack of it. It is therefore inevitable to narrate the ordeal of my campus interviews before getting to the crux of 'The Pact'.
Midway in the third year of college, came the coveted Campus Placements. It is the one thing which is spoken about by parents, teachers, counsellors, peers the day you finish school until you land up getting a job in one. It was the panacea to all the travails encountered in college. I too was so excited about the prospect of having a job in hand even before graduating.
The first company to grace our college campus was one of the top three IT companies in India (it starts with an 'I'. I don't use the names of companies as we aren't supposed to be discussing a great deal about our employers' competitors). I couldn't even get past the first round. Though a meagre 21 were selected for the second round from a 400 odd crowd, I knew I should have done better. The test had two parts - aptitude and English. The latter part was easy and I almost got all of them correct as it had questions mostly on elementary grammar. Our school's English test would have been tougher. (I owe whatever little command of the English language I have to the strong foundations laid by our wonderful school and of course, the high standards of CBSE English). But I screwed up the aptitude part, for the want of time. Thus ended my first failed shot at the to-be elusive campus placements. But I didn't have any hard feelings about not making the cut, for, there loomed the prospect of far too many companies wanting to reach our college campus.
Then, after a month or so, came the most heartbreaking trial of all. The second company (name starts with a 'V' and ends with an 'A') was quite generous in picking about more than a 100 for the second round. If I didn't get through it, probably, I never would have in any other. But I was fairly good at aptitude; in fact, I was among the top 5 or 6 in the innumerable mock tests conducted by our placement cell. I am not being any bit pompous here, but just pointing out one of the rare things I was pretty decent at. Having said that, I had the reputation, like the Indian cricket team, of doing exceedingly well in the practice tests and flopping when it really mattered, on the big stage.
Coming back to the second round, the Technical interview, I was quite fortunate to be greeted by a cheerful and amicable HR. He asked a few basic questions and threw back a 'good' for every answer I gave. And even when I said I didn't know a particular answer, he replied with a 'very good'. Tacitly I knew I had made it to the last round. Later I was told it was his first outing as an interviewer. So that was the reason I made it through.
In the final round, the general interview, the HR person was equally charming and the interview had an air of casualness and informality about it, to my pleasant surprise, quite contrary to the stereotypical peevish HR as portrayed by our placement cell in the mock interviews. So the interview went on quite well - we even discussed about my favourite cricketer - and I thought, though I had stumbled at a point or two, that I had done a decent job.
It was so late in the night that the interview process got over. Finally, after painful hours of waiting, the results were to be announced at the stroke of midnight. As we gathered to the cauldron where the results were to be declared, the power was out for a good ten minutes, adding to the anxiety of the already petrified souls. The power supply eventually resumed after what seemed like an eternity, and with it came the results. As the names were being read out, till the last name I had the hope of hearing my name. But it never came. A handful of us had been rejected; almost all of whom were on the verge of breaking into tears. As the usual clichés were being read out by the HRs, ("It was difficult to leave out a few because all of you have done brilliantly well. But we are left with no option", blah, blah, blah) there I was, staring into oblivion, recalling the interview and wondering what possibly went wrong, but not a tear welling up in my eyes, for I was optimistic of landing a job in one of the even better companies that were to follow, or at least so we were promised.
But little did I know that this was going to be effectively the last company to reach our college shores. Though there were those off campuses, which were more like a picnic given that thousands competed for jobs single digit in number, only a miracle was needed to crack those. The Campus placements in our college were virtually over.
Subsequently, I had graduated out of college, unemployed; without having experienced that wonderful feeling of getting a job before graduating.
Graduating jobless, I remained likewise for over a year. Though I had reluctantly attended the odd interview or two seeing the ads in the newspapers, they were largely fruitless, for either we had to pay for the training or there was a bond to be signed or it wasn't an IT company at all.
So, after unemployment of over a year, came the next big interview.
It was another MNC, which was conducting its off campus interviews. This was also a very popular Indian company (which shares its name with the chemical formula of an ubiquitous acid). This was not similar to the off campus interviews I was describing earlier. These were directly conducted by the companies to pick the leftovers like me from colleges not so popular for them to visit. So they would obviously pick a reasonably high number of candidates. As usual, being fairly good at aptitude, I got past the first round with a good rank. Then I was called for the interview process on the first day due to the decent rank I got in the aptitude test.
The second round was the Group Discussion. My worst fear about a GD is that I may not get a chance to speak at all because of those domineering, garrulous big mouths, who babble and babble without making a smidgen of sense. I really loathe these supercilious creatures; some who start talking even before the topic is announced. Fortunately, the panel allowed each one of us to voice our opinions, and I made mine crystal clear, in my own laconic way.
Thus once more I was one step away from the elusive job, having got through to the final round, the Technical cum General interview. I was hoping to encounter an affable HR, but things went exactly the opposite. A hot-headed, grumpy HR almost put me off at the very sight. In fact there were two of them. Double trouble, I was in for. Like Dhoni's excuse for the England test series debacle, what all could possibly go wrong went wrong. I hadn't even read about the company on Wikipedia, and to my bad luck they asked me what I knew about the company. I couldn't say anything more than that it was one of the top Indian companies. When asked why I hadn't read about it, I told them the truth that I didn't think the interview would be conducted on the same day and so I hadn't read. I just don't understand why they ask this question to a campus recruit. What, am I going to buy the company, or at least am I being interviewed for the post of CEO or what. It is of course one of the clichéd questions used by the less creative interviewers. I left the interview hall with mixed feelings, knowing I had a decent chance as everyone said the chances of rejection in the HR round were minimal. Ask me!
My worst fears were confirmed a week later, when the results were intimated through email and sms. In the week running up to that day, my mother and I used to gun for my cell phone at the beep of an sms and I used to check my email almost every hour. But I never got any. The company mailed and sms 'ed only the selected candidates. The organisation didn't even have the courtesy to intimate the not so fortunate ones of their rejection, they were bothered only about their future employees. I came to know of it through a friend of mine, whom I would describe later in course of this post, who had got the coveted mail and the sms. One more time, so near, yet so far. And my tear glands finally gave way. Not because I didn't get the job, but because my mother, instead of scolding me like she used to do on previous occasions, just gave me a consoling pat on the shoulder, saying that maybe better companies were waiting for us and that was why I haven't got selected, and that I would definitely get into one soon. You know, it doesn't hurt when your parents scold us, but it really does when they affectionately sympathise with us; and have faith in us about a thing we aren't able to fulfil.
I was shattered not because I couldn't get employed, but because I couldn't fulfil my parents' only wish out of me. It is the only thing they ever expect of us, and they are the ones who are most proud when their sons and daughters get jobs. All the things they do and have been doing for years, is centred around us, but I couldn't give them back this one source of happiness. This guilty conscience of mine was haunting me more than anything.
The next few days, if not the several months before that, were the most testing days in my life. I was down in the dumps, and hopeless, to say the least. A schoolmate and a very good friend of mine, with whom I was pretty close in high school, but not so much in touch after school, being the asocial creature that I am, happened to know of my ordeal while chatting online. Knowing me too well, he said I deserved more and that I would definitely get through next time. That sort of restored my confidence, if at all I had any, by a bit.
For in a couple of weeks, was coming probably the last chance. Cognizant Technology Solutions were conducting their off campus interviews. I had registered in their (to be our) website and was called a couple of weeks later for the written test, in the order of the aggregate marks obtained in BE.
Then came the pact this title talks of. I didn't pray to God to present me with a job, but I begged of Him, "If I am not to get the job, please reject me in the first round itself. I could no longer take the agony of going all the way to the last round only to be shown the door".
So two weeks later, I took the fairly easy aptitude test and had done pretty well. The results were to be announced via email that night. And the interview was to be held the next day at the Mepz office. Though I was fairly confident of making it to the next round, I didn't quite feel like preparing for the possible technical interview the next day. The philosopher in me took shape, realising that Luck is the one thing needed to get through the campus interviews (of course you need to know a bit of stuff, but luck is the deciding factor). After all, I had become a seasoned campaigner having gained loads of experience in the innumerable interviews that I had attended. Then at around 8 pm, even when positive result did come, I didn't bother to pore through those technical books as I couldn't quite focus on reading.
Having cleared the first round, and remembering 'The Pact', I had a bit of confidence going that my ordeal was finally going to come to an end. I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I could barely sleep that night but with whatever little shuteye I could muster, got up the next day and went (or came) to CTS Mepz along with a school mate who stays near my home. While I had left it all to fate without cramming on those technical stuff at the last minute, there he was, asking me if I had read about Swing, Servlet, and blah, blah blah. I was fuming on the inside. I hadn't even seen these terms in a book, and my area of interest was Java. All this, despite he already being employed in an MNC software company and having an offer letter of another (the previous company I had failed). You guessed it right, he is the very person I was talking about earlier, the fortunate one who got the coveted sms from the acid company.
He said he would choose from the companies after seeing which one paid more and also depending on the location. If I was allowed to fully express my true feelings, I would have probably slapped him so hard he would shut his mouth at least until we reached the interview. Instead I snapped back that I was okay to work for a however meagre sum paid and in a location as far as Kashmir (in fact, I would have loved to work in the heaven in India that Jammu & Kashmir is).
When we reached the very office I am writing this from, I was intimidated by the sheer size of these gigantic buildings. As if that was not enough to ruffle my mind, there were about 1000 candidates flocking outside the gate. As I was standing in one of the infinitely long queues, I could overhear folks already discussing about the possible salary. They had, two or more job offers in hand, and just like my irksome friend, wanted to see if they could get a better pay cheque (I too could recognise many of the faces I had seen in the numerous previous interviews). On the other hand, people like me were struggling desperately to get their only job. I can assure you it is not the best feeling in the world, and how excruciating it can be. Greed of some depriving others of their livelihood. It is probably one of the main reasons of unemployment of youth in our country.
Also one thing I forgot to mention was the change in shirt. To all my previous interviews I used to wear my 'interview shirt', the one I kept aside exclusively for interviews. Since it didn't work at all, my mother asked me to wear another shirt to see if it brought any change in luck.
Entering this colosseum (it even had an amphitheatre), I was again finding myself praying to God for a genial HR, and fortunately got presented with one. He had a pleasant face brimming with a smile that greeted me. Exactly the kind I was longing for to encounter in an interview. And the Technical interview went on ever so calmly, he even asked me how much I had expected to score in the aptitude test and was pleasantly surprised to find I had predicted correctly. And there were questions obviously from my area of interest, object oriented programming (more specifically, Java) and I had to explain about my project which I did with an aura of confidence that I gained by the very sight of the cheerful interviewer.
Within minutes, I was told to wait for the final round, the general interview. Yes, I had made it to the last round yet again.
The HR interview, which was more of a formality for others, but a nightmare for me. But again I was lucky to be greeted by a couple of amiable ladies as the interviewers. As usual I spoke my mind, and by the time it was over, had a reasonable peace of mind. I enquired them as to when the results would be out to learn that they would be in a week; and left the place feeling quite confident.
The next set of days were maybe the most anxious days of my petty life. Checking my email 10 times a day with angst became my routine. Finally, on the day after Ugadi (the Telugu New Year's day), the email arrived. And I had to read it twice to believe that the word was indeed Selected and not Rejected. (The change of shirts worked! One more trivial thing I discovered during my enduring ordeal is that both these words have the same keys on a cell phone. Do try it if you hadn't already known). That was probably one moment of happiness I could present to my family. It is the only thing I could give back to them after decades of endless care they have bestowed upon me with. For, to our parents, we were are the only source of joy, and we are the world to them, and everything they do is keeping us in mind. Feeling of happiness and joy filled my home the next few days, and after a week I found myself again back to this gigantic office, signing my offer letter.
God had indeed answered my prayers. He had signed my pact and I could realise the joy of employment. I knew since that I would till I live on this planet, be a strong believer in God, and be eternally grateful to this organisation for virtually taking me off the road and providing the refuge called employment.
I should have probably named this post 'The ordeal of my campus interviews' for that is what almost the whole of the post brags about. Anyway I would want to bring this awfully long post to an end and would like to thank you rare readers for possessing the patience to go through this boring, never-ending rhetoric.
Then as the years passed, and I slipped into adolescence, I was slightly wavering from being the faithful to the sceptic, starting to disbelieve in God and gradually even without even I recognising, I no longer believed in Him. I was on the verge of being an atheist.
Then more recently, about 5 or 6 years ago, I started to want to believe in God. But it was out of my own compulsion that used to visit temples with the hope that somehow my faith in Providence would be revived. But I knew I was doing all this just for the sake of it, without any real conviction about the existence of God.
Then, as recently as 2 years ago, a month before I joined this wonderful organisation, came along the happening which made me really realise the presence of God with uttermost conviction, and feel His ubiquitous presence. Since then I have again been like the pious kid I was, who prayed to God with fervour and devotion. And I can strongly enter an argument about the existence of God with utmost conviction and not an iota of doubt whatsoever.
Not so coincidentally, the incident I am speaking about is connected with my campus placements, or the lack of it. It is therefore inevitable to narrate the ordeal of my campus interviews before getting to the crux of 'The Pact'.
Midway in the third year of college, came the coveted Campus Placements. It is the one thing which is spoken about by parents, teachers, counsellors, peers the day you finish school until you land up getting a job in one. It was the panacea to all the travails encountered in college. I too was so excited about the prospect of having a job in hand even before graduating.
The first company to grace our college campus was one of the top three IT companies in India (it starts with an 'I'. I don't use the names of companies as we aren't supposed to be discussing a great deal about our employers' competitors). I couldn't even get past the first round. Though a meagre 21 were selected for the second round from a 400 odd crowd, I knew I should have done better. The test had two parts - aptitude and English. The latter part was easy and I almost got all of them correct as it had questions mostly on elementary grammar. Our school's English test would have been tougher. (I owe whatever little command of the English language I have to the strong foundations laid by our wonderful school and of course, the high standards of CBSE English). But I screwed up the aptitude part, for the want of time. Thus ended my first failed shot at the to-be elusive campus placements. But I didn't have any hard feelings about not making the cut, for, there loomed the prospect of far too many companies wanting to reach our college campus.
Then, after a month or so, came the most heartbreaking trial of all. The second company (name starts with a 'V' and ends with an 'A') was quite generous in picking about more than a 100 for the second round. If I didn't get through it, probably, I never would have in any other. But I was fairly good at aptitude; in fact, I was among the top 5 or 6 in the innumerable mock tests conducted by our placement cell. I am not being any bit pompous here, but just pointing out one of the rare things I was pretty decent at. Having said that, I had the reputation, like the Indian cricket team, of doing exceedingly well in the practice tests and flopping when it really mattered, on the big stage.
Coming back to the second round, the Technical interview, I was quite fortunate to be greeted by a cheerful and amicable HR. He asked a few basic questions and threw back a 'good' for every answer I gave. And even when I said I didn't know a particular answer, he replied with a 'very good'. Tacitly I knew I had made it to the last round. Later I was told it was his first outing as an interviewer. So that was the reason I made it through.
In the final round, the general interview, the HR person was equally charming and the interview had an air of casualness and informality about it, to my pleasant surprise, quite contrary to the stereotypical peevish HR as portrayed by our placement cell in the mock interviews. So the interview went on quite well - we even discussed about my favourite cricketer - and I thought, though I had stumbled at a point or two, that I had done a decent job.
It was so late in the night that the interview process got over. Finally, after painful hours of waiting, the results were to be announced at the stroke of midnight. As we gathered to the cauldron where the results were to be declared, the power was out for a good ten minutes, adding to the anxiety of the already petrified souls. The power supply eventually resumed after what seemed like an eternity, and with it came the results. As the names were being read out, till the last name I had the hope of hearing my name. But it never came. A handful of us had been rejected; almost all of whom were on the verge of breaking into tears. As the usual clichés were being read out by the HRs, ("It was difficult to leave out a few because all of you have done brilliantly well. But we are left with no option", blah, blah, blah) there I was, staring into oblivion, recalling the interview and wondering what possibly went wrong, but not a tear welling up in my eyes, for I was optimistic of landing a job in one of the even better companies that were to follow, or at least so we were promised.
But little did I know that this was going to be effectively the last company to reach our college shores. Though there were those off campuses, which were more like a picnic given that thousands competed for jobs single digit in number, only a miracle was needed to crack those. The Campus placements in our college were virtually over.
Subsequently, I had graduated out of college, unemployed; without having experienced that wonderful feeling of getting a job before graduating.
Graduating jobless, I remained likewise for over a year. Though I had reluctantly attended the odd interview or two seeing the ads in the newspapers, they were largely fruitless, for either we had to pay for the training or there was a bond to be signed or it wasn't an IT company at all.
So, after unemployment of over a year, came the next big interview.
It was another MNC, which was conducting its off campus interviews. This was also a very popular Indian company (which shares its name with the chemical formula of an ubiquitous acid). This was not similar to the off campus interviews I was describing earlier. These were directly conducted by the companies to pick the leftovers like me from colleges not so popular for them to visit. So they would obviously pick a reasonably high number of candidates. As usual, being fairly good at aptitude, I got past the first round with a good rank. Then I was called for the interview process on the first day due to the decent rank I got in the aptitude test.
The second round was the Group Discussion. My worst fear about a GD is that I may not get a chance to speak at all because of those domineering, garrulous big mouths, who babble and babble without making a smidgen of sense. I really loathe these supercilious creatures; some who start talking even before the topic is announced. Fortunately, the panel allowed each one of us to voice our opinions, and I made mine crystal clear, in my own laconic way.
Thus once more I was one step away from the elusive job, having got through to the final round, the Technical cum General interview. I was hoping to encounter an affable HR, but things went exactly the opposite. A hot-headed, grumpy HR almost put me off at the very sight. In fact there were two of them. Double trouble, I was in for. Like Dhoni's excuse for the England test series debacle, what all could possibly go wrong went wrong. I hadn't even read about the company on Wikipedia, and to my bad luck they asked me what I knew about the company. I couldn't say anything more than that it was one of the top Indian companies. When asked why I hadn't read about it, I told them the truth that I didn't think the interview would be conducted on the same day and so I hadn't read. I just don't understand why they ask this question to a campus recruit. What, am I going to buy the company, or at least am I being interviewed for the post of CEO or what. It is of course one of the clichéd questions used by the less creative interviewers. I left the interview hall with mixed feelings, knowing I had a decent chance as everyone said the chances of rejection in the HR round were minimal. Ask me!
My worst fears were confirmed a week later, when the results were intimated through email and sms. In the week running up to that day, my mother and I used to gun for my cell phone at the beep of an sms and I used to check my email almost every hour. But I never got any. The company mailed and sms 'ed only the selected candidates. The organisation didn't even have the courtesy to intimate the not so fortunate ones of their rejection, they were bothered only about their future employees. I came to know of it through a friend of mine, whom I would describe later in course of this post, who had got the coveted mail and the sms. One more time, so near, yet so far. And my tear glands finally gave way. Not because I didn't get the job, but because my mother, instead of scolding me like she used to do on previous occasions, just gave me a consoling pat on the shoulder, saying that maybe better companies were waiting for us and that was why I haven't got selected, and that I would definitely get into one soon. You know, it doesn't hurt when your parents scold us, but it really does when they affectionately sympathise with us; and have faith in us about a thing we aren't able to fulfil.
I was shattered not because I couldn't get employed, but because I couldn't fulfil my parents' only wish out of me. It is the only thing they ever expect of us, and they are the ones who are most proud when their sons and daughters get jobs. All the things they do and have been doing for years, is centred around us, but I couldn't give them back this one source of happiness. This guilty conscience of mine was haunting me more than anything.
The next few days, if not the several months before that, were the most testing days in my life. I was down in the dumps, and hopeless, to say the least. A schoolmate and a very good friend of mine, with whom I was pretty close in high school, but not so much in touch after school, being the asocial creature that I am, happened to know of my ordeal while chatting online. Knowing me too well, he said I deserved more and that I would definitely get through next time. That sort of restored my confidence, if at all I had any, by a bit.
For in a couple of weeks, was coming probably the last chance. Cognizant Technology Solutions were conducting their off campus interviews. I had registered in their (to be our) website and was called a couple of weeks later for the written test, in the order of the aggregate marks obtained in BE.
Then came the pact this title talks of. I didn't pray to God to present me with a job, but I begged of Him, "If I am not to get the job, please reject me in the first round itself. I could no longer take the agony of going all the way to the last round only to be shown the door".
So two weeks later, I took the fairly easy aptitude test and had done pretty well. The results were to be announced via email that night. And the interview was to be held the next day at the Mepz office. Though I was fairly confident of making it to the next round, I didn't quite feel like preparing for the possible technical interview the next day. The philosopher in me took shape, realising that Luck is the one thing needed to get through the campus interviews (of course you need to know a bit of stuff, but luck is the deciding factor). After all, I had become a seasoned campaigner having gained loads of experience in the innumerable interviews that I had attended. Then at around 8 pm, even when positive result did come, I didn't bother to pore through those technical books as I couldn't quite focus on reading.
Having cleared the first round, and remembering 'The Pact', I had a bit of confidence going that my ordeal was finally going to come to an end. I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I could barely sleep that night but with whatever little shuteye I could muster, got up the next day and went (or came) to CTS Mepz along with a school mate who stays near my home. While I had left it all to fate without cramming on those technical stuff at the last minute, there he was, asking me if I had read about Swing, Servlet, and blah, blah blah. I was fuming on the inside. I hadn't even seen these terms in a book, and my area of interest was Java. All this, despite he already being employed in an MNC software company and having an offer letter of another (the previous company I had failed). You guessed it right, he is the very person I was talking about earlier, the fortunate one who got the coveted sms from the acid company.
He said he would choose from the companies after seeing which one paid more and also depending on the location. If I was allowed to fully express my true feelings, I would have probably slapped him so hard he would shut his mouth at least until we reached the interview. Instead I snapped back that I was okay to work for a however meagre sum paid and in a location as far as Kashmir (in fact, I would have loved to work in the heaven in India that Jammu & Kashmir is).
When we reached the very office I am writing this from, I was intimidated by the sheer size of these gigantic buildings. As if that was not enough to ruffle my mind, there were about 1000 candidates flocking outside the gate. As I was standing in one of the infinitely long queues, I could overhear folks already discussing about the possible salary. They had, two or more job offers in hand, and just like my irksome friend, wanted to see if they could get a better pay cheque (I too could recognise many of the faces I had seen in the numerous previous interviews). On the other hand, people like me were struggling desperately to get their only job. I can assure you it is not the best feeling in the world, and how excruciating it can be. Greed of some depriving others of their livelihood. It is probably one of the main reasons of unemployment of youth in our country.
Also one thing I forgot to mention was the change in shirt. To all my previous interviews I used to wear my 'interview shirt', the one I kept aside exclusively for interviews. Since it didn't work at all, my mother asked me to wear another shirt to see if it brought any change in luck.
Entering this colosseum (it even had an amphitheatre), I was again finding myself praying to God for a genial HR, and fortunately got presented with one. He had a pleasant face brimming with a smile that greeted me. Exactly the kind I was longing for to encounter in an interview. And the Technical interview went on ever so calmly, he even asked me how much I had expected to score in the aptitude test and was pleasantly surprised to find I had predicted correctly. And there were questions obviously from my area of interest, object oriented programming (more specifically, Java) and I had to explain about my project which I did with an aura of confidence that I gained by the very sight of the cheerful interviewer.
Within minutes, I was told to wait for the final round, the general interview. Yes, I had made it to the last round yet again.
The HR interview, which was more of a formality for others, but a nightmare for me. But again I was lucky to be greeted by a couple of amiable ladies as the interviewers. As usual I spoke my mind, and by the time it was over, had a reasonable peace of mind. I enquired them as to when the results would be out to learn that they would be in a week; and left the place feeling quite confident.
The next set of days were maybe the most anxious days of my petty life. Checking my email 10 times a day with angst became my routine. Finally, on the day after Ugadi (the Telugu New Year's day), the email arrived. And I had to read it twice to believe that the word was indeed Selected and not Rejected. (The change of shirts worked! One more trivial thing I discovered during my enduring ordeal is that both these words have the same keys on a cell phone. Do try it if you hadn't already known). That was probably one moment of happiness I could present to my family. It is the only thing I could give back to them after decades of endless care they have bestowed upon me with. For, to our parents, we were are the only source of joy, and we are the world to them, and everything they do is keeping us in mind. Feeling of happiness and joy filled my home the next few days, and after a week I found myself again back to this gigantic office, signing my offer letter.
God had indeed answered my prayers. He had signed my pact and I could realise the joy of employment. I knew since that I would till I live on this planet, be a strong believer in God, and be eternally grateful to this organisation for virtually taking me off the road and providing the refuge called employment.
I should have probably named this post 'The ordeal of my campus interviews' for that is what almost the whole of the post brags about. Anyway I would want to bring this awfully long post to an end and would like to thank you rare readers for possessing the patience to go through this boring, never-ending rhetoric.
