Jobless People Sit for Placements

“Did I just hear someone knock on my door?” I ask myself. My old speakers and especially the subwoofer jar and cause my door to vibrate. But once again I am able to feebly hear the knock on my door. Thank God, paralysis hasn’t paralyzed me but I am unable to move an inch. You see, I don’t have the time for it; it takes at least 15 seconds to open the door and answer the person, that is too much of a time to loose. I am an IITian. 15 seconds count a lot for us. That can be the difference between a frag or a no frag. Or even worse, that can be the difference between half life or no life. When the onus of combating terrorism is on our shoulders, how can we act so irresponsibly? On top of it right now, my brain is performing abnormally. The verbal part of my brain has taken priority status 1 … different words, kaba, baka, baki, back … ya b a c k (1 point) … are streaming through my mind and my reasoning is expected to be very poor now. Yes, I am on weboggle and yes, on the other end is the formidable tuk. The knock repeats itself, but nonetheless not any louder than before. I do a quick pattern recognition test for the knock … BD knock (tuk-tuk-tuk), Ajith knock (tuk-tuk), Vallabha knocks and calls, “BK irrukiya?”, … but this one returns “No Matches Found”. 3 .. 2… 1 … generating scores …. Damn … I put 10 points less than tuk. I open the door.

It doesn’t take a PhD to recognize a freshie, you can feel it in your bones. I looked straight into his eyes and he looks down at the earth. A sorry to begin with and end his statement. “Sorry to disturb you, but can you please tell me where the sac is?, … sorry”; I tell him politely that sac is not open all the while and that right now it is closed. The time is 7:30 pm; “So, soon pained with mess food uh?” … I ask. For years, I have never doubted the fact that the sac is a place you rush to and grab a cup of mug noodles, when the hostel speakers jar “Junta sac is open”, but now after many years, a freshie reminds me that the sac contains other things like graph sheets, notebooks, etc also … he wants to buy graph sheets, it seems.

“So you are from … ?” I ask, … somehow, I am not in for ragging freshers. “From Trichy” comes the reply, another Tam in the campus. “Which branch?” … “Mechanical Engineering” … any non freshie would have said “mech”. Yet another mechanical engineer in the making; for mech@iitm, I doubt does not follow the demand and supply curve. He had the nerve of asking me my branch, and I had the compliance to answer “me in mech too”. The conversation builds on, and he makes more inroads into my seniority. “How is the placement for mech?”, comes the next one. I have done the same thing too, I have had the nerve to knock revered seniors’ doors and ask them about the placement scenario that year, but mercilessly had got the same reply from everyone : “machan, you are just in the first year da, don’t bother”. Two kinds of names sound equally crazy: 1.the horses’ names on that sports column in newspaper, like say “onnu onnu onnu wins the race” 2^nd. Company names that I got to read on notice boards: Goldman, Ittiam, zazu, deshaw, schlumberger … “oh my god! Even I can think of better names”. Obviously, this freshie, wont understand when I tell him that Lehman Brothers is coming this time for recruitment. Unwilling to treat him like how I was, and at the same time, unsure of the right way of answering, I tell him, “It is bad”.

Bad it is, by sheer number of companies that go to IIT B or IIT D. But is it really? What about the fact that, if I had got, say 5 marks lesser in the JEE, by now, I would have been at Satyabama, more than happy with my TCS placement. Being at IITM, placement is assured for every one … man there is 100% placement. I recall our drivers’ first remark at my getting through JEE … “ah, Bharath is in IIT? Then he will definitely get a job”. For the billions, getting a job is their dream and here, I am being offered some of the best. Am I putting peter? Raja Rao would say “Man evolved from a monkey, but the monkey traits are intact”, is my monkey brain unsatisfied with what I get and make me ask for more? Or else, why did I say that the placement scenario was bad?

I clearly remember the day I entered IIT, with apprehensions about my skills. My mama had told me to tell myself ‘a stupid is a stupid does’. One fine day, I had this book in hand and was sitting on this chair, and for noparticularreason I started mugging. I thought, I have mugged up to the end of this chapter, why not mug one more, and when I got there, why not finish the book. And so I mugged, and when I reached the end of a book, I stopped, turned around and opened another. When I felt like eating, I ate, when I felt like sleeping, I slept, and when I felt like mugging, I just mugged. People found it hard to believe that someone would do all that mugging for noparticularreason. ‘Placement’ the sweetest sound on earth. I have been growing up since schoolhood with that on my mind. And placement at IITM is just so wonderful. There is this slum company or something, that pays 23 lakhs! My god that is … ! I wonder why for noparticularreason nobody finally takes up that nice little company. And then there are these compsci companies that take all the nice gentlemen from compsci. And we have this cigarette company or something, that offers you free fags. And there is this hell company or something, that throws 0.5 kgs vim bars at its audience, man! Freebies! Not for noparticularreason you find the faces on the testimonial pages of company websites all smiling radiantly at you. And not for noparticularreason do people tell their interviewers, “the day I was born, I intended to join your company”.

No wonder why people take up placements seriously. When it is placement season at IITM, there is not a single soul who is not talking about it, just like there is no CG list that hasn’t been tampered with. Junta who once discussed the Wachowski brothers are now discussing Lehman brothers. Resumes being written, placement fundaes being circulated, man … it is time to sell yourself to the companies. Writing resumes gives me the same guilty feelings I get while going unprepared for an exam. , like how I curse myself for not having attended classes … or why didn’t you pay more attention in class … I curse myself for not having done things in life. Everybody is convinced beyond doubt that they haven’t performed to their potential. The urge for the need for a second chance is high and many a future plans are laid, only to be broken.

So as advised by the McKinsey workshop which I attended, I start listing down my expectations for a job. I need a reasonable amount of moolah, of course. Then, I expect some amount of work life balance, that is leisure time after work to sink into my couch reading Grisham and of course, I need some scope for personality development. I need to build contacts, for a senior has told me that later in life, contees really do count. I expect a reasonably respectful job too, for man is a social animal and needs to earn his respect in the society. Then, there must be a limited amount of travel involved, for I want to see the globe. I want to handle a lot of responsibility but at the same time I don’t want high work pressure. I guess, that’s it. Does it sound unreasonable? No, definitely not. I know that the Governor of Tamil nadu has a similar work profile. (look at the attached pics). Look how he is building his contacts smiling with Natalie. Look how he is flanked by security men. He holds a very respectful job. Not for nothing do Kutchipudi dancers dance for his amusement, every other day. And not for nothing do the tax payers shell out their money so that the governor can improve his personality. Look! That painting is from his easel. That speaks of his work life balance as well, for it would take years of leisure time to make one of those. Of course the Governor has the ‘work pressure’ of having to sign documents two hours every day. I am just waiting for campus selection for the position of the Governor.

“Can I take this book?” … the freshie asks, bringing me back to reality. “Hey man, you can take it but please return it back … it is not mine” I say. He continues to ask one more question “will it be enough if I wake up at 4:00 every morning and study till 11:00 in the night to survive at IIT?” I am speechless.