Sombre Snippets

Aug 12, 2008, 6:15 AM
As I begin typing this on the word tool, I have a wavy self belief, and not much else. A friend, AG, has just left for his home after spending the night (or whatever remained of it) at my room. There’s nothing I feel right now, except that my legs are paining a lot, particularly below the knees. I just saw the mirror, and I could make out, umm I couldn’t make out anything.

Aug 12, 2008, 2:20 AM
After proposing watching a film, or better – two, just an hour ago, AB has strangely taken a diametrically opposite turn. Now it’s the other two of us – AG and I who want to watch a movie, desperately. AB, though, has refused and insists on sleeping as a ‘good idea’.

Aug 11, 2008, 3:00 PM
Aptitude results are out! 60 out of 250 short-listed. The atmosphere’s frenetic, and around hundred of my colleagues are making calls to hundred other of my colleagues. A couple were counting on me too to let them know of their result as and when it comes out, in case they are not there when it does. I make a call to one, telling him he made it. I was just going to make it to another telling him he had not, but the phone battery, I see, has fished out. I thank God for that. Meanwhile, I discover, there are 5 from my class in the list, plus I.

Aug 11, 2008, 9:30 PM
A second shortlist is about to come now after gruelling hour long interviews with each one of us. All six of us are terribly tired after the unceasing interview and the unceasing waiting that followed it. Meanwhile, PG points out that Kaluwithrana sitting next to the stairs doesn’t look any tired. But why should he; with that bombshell constantly motivating him by his side. ‘Would you be tired then, AG?’, I asked. ‘No way No way’, he answered with a new-found vigour; ‘I’d rather want the interviews to go on all night’. Wait. The shortlist. Shortlist. Yes, I think it has arrived. H’m. Three of the six from my class have been eliminated. For PG especially, I can’t find any consoling words. He was here with me the day before yesterday; when we had stuck till the end before not finding ourselves in the final selections list. I remember we were wondering what keeps them interested in us till the end, and what is it about us that they tend to realise only at the end, and that makes them abhor us all of a sudden. Now as I fasten my knot for the second round, I just take his best wishes while keeping mum, even as he leaves back for the hostel.

Aug 12, 2008, 1:20 AM
‘None of us’, informs AG.
‘None’, confirms AB.
‘None?’ I protest.
None. As we sit rejected and dejected at the end of the entire process, I point out we’d have been better off kicked out after the first round of written itself. What fun is staying up this late, when they had made up their mind. My cumulative till the end of the penultimate round was ranked fourth, the placement council guys inform me. That should have seen me comfortably in; they took seventeen eventually. But no Production-guys. ‘Production sucks’, AG shouts as he kicks air. We are still there on the pavement, though not talking with each other any longer. The security guard asks if we made it, but quickly understood from our looks without us having to answer. Ten minutes later we’re still sitting there, an odd yawn breaking the gloomy silence. Suddenly the super seventeen storm out of the hall, all having their mobiles glued to their ears. A cacophony of ‘Oyeee!’, ‘I’ve got a job Dad!’, ‘(whispering giggles)’, ‘Party party’ etc are to be heard from all sides. We decide to get up and leave. Meanwhile, AB suggests we watch a movie to diverge our minds. We say yes, ok. AB has ‘Singh is Kinng’. Alright, our faces light up.