We all dream of a big picture of how life will be in future. We then map out short term goals on the road to achieving that one dream and leave no stone unturned to make it happen. For some people, despite pushing hard, sometimes all that sweat doesn’t bring the desired results. All one gets is emptiness in the air, when stretching one’s palm to catch hold of those short term goals.
Lanco Infratech Limited was one of the many short term goals I had beheld in my eyes. I was confident of being hired by them upon graduating with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. The company’s hiring team was scheduled to visit our (shoddy) campus on October 14, 2011. Being one among the select few hired by the company seemed quite achievable at that time. I had prepared well for it. However, for the mechanical engineering batch of 2012, getting hired by Lanco was similar to being given a coveted seat at the Royal Albert Hall. Hence, the entire batch of students was very well prepared.
It is 11:50 pm on the night of October 13, 2011. I am revising my concepts from the notes I have been preparing since the first semester of engineering school in Fall 2008. I am one part drowsy and one part bored of revisiting my notes from Thermodynamics classes as I have already gone through them a few times in the past 2-3 days. The excitement of what will happen tomorrow is making my heart pound faster. At the stroke of midnight, my Nokia 3310 mobile phone charging on the bedside table (also my study table, dressing table and snack table) shows the date to be October 14. I call up Rishab, my best friend. It is his birthday. “Hey, Happy Birthday!”, I scream with excitement. “Oh, it is 14th already, I didn’t even realize”, he replied. Our typical one-night-before-a-job-interview-conversation followed. “Are you done with the prep?”, “I can’t take it anymore, I can’t re-revise one more time”, “Let’s chat on Facebook”. I discovered Facebook when I had just finished high school and was preparing to go to college in the Fall of 2008. Since Facebook is still new and exciting for us in 2011, I make sure I avail every opportunity to use it. “Happy birthday, Rishab, wish you get what the entire 2012 batch of mechanical engineers desires to get today: your first job at Lanco.” I wrote on his Facebook wall. Likes and comments followed soon but the repartee was short lived. I had to wake up at 4 o’clock to board the first bus from Panipat, the city where my parents live to go to Faridabad, where I now live for college. It is 1 am, we bid goodnight and good luck to each other and go to sleep, at least I do.
It is 8:22 am by my watch when I get off the rickety bus and enter the college premises. It is calm as if the entire campus is a sleeping baby. Nobody but the gatekeepers and sweepers can be seen. I was the first one to reach. I call Rishab up again. “Where have you reached. How long will it take for you to arrive? Let me know when you are in the parking lot, I have to keep my bag in your car”, I hit him with a series of questions, a result of my anxiety. Students and faculty members have now started coming in. The usual, necessary and inevitable greetings follow. Exchange of smiles; smiles that are fake most of the times, and sometimes a tool to avoid any conversation. Professor Raina, incharge of placements at the mechanical engineering department, who also teaches us ‘Strength of Materials’ is being dramatic as usual, one of the many ways his idiosyncrasies manifest themselves. We finally begin with presentation by the company officials.
I feel less anxious after the presentation. Power generation has always excited me. One summer, I did an internship at the Panipat Thermal Power Station, where my father also works. The hands-on experience I gained that summer reinvigorates my confidence. The presentation paints a grand image of the company, its practices and its head office in Chennai, making me “want this job, no matter what”! The result of the initial screening test is positive for Rishab and I and has reinforced my faith in achieving this short term goal. The two of us are excited. As soon as the schedule of face-to-face interviews is announced, I put on my brand new Navy blue Cantabil tie that I have been waiting and wanting to wear for a long time. We had thought of getting new display pictures (with a beaming smile) for our Facebook profiles and we are waiting eagerly for that moment to arrive. “We are going to get in, I can feel it”, Rishab exclaims, being an optimist that he is. However, destiny has something else in store for us.
Rishab is now done with his interview. As soon as he comes out, I hit him with another set of questions, “How did it go? What questions did they ask you?”, a result of my not-so-calm mind. His smile has lost its sheen now. He is not emanating the energy of an optimist that he is. “Gosh, I couldn’t remember the types of welding joints”, he answers with a sad face. “It will be alright, don’t lose hope yet”, I reply. My turn is up soon. I keep asking each and every one who has gone in so far. I keep on sub-vocalising my answers to questions including “Tell us about yourself”, “What is your favourite subject?”, “You have no problem going far away from your family?” I keep on re-revising the answers in my mind. Minutes before the interview I have stopped thinking about any questions or answers. I am relaxing in the company of Preeti and Siddhartha, two of my two juniors from the 2013 batch. Then, my name is called and a shiver runs down my spine. I jump out of my seat and walk toward the interview panel.
I find out from the student coordinator at the door that I have been called before my scheduled number on the list. As I enter the interview room, I greet the interviewer with a smile and he replies back with one. There was sort of an assurance in his smile, the kind that tells you not to worry, that they have come to hire us. On the contrary, I am a bit nervous. “So you’re Piyush Gupta, tell me about yourself”, he asks. From his smile, I conclude he is impressed with my resume. However, instead of the detailed profile that I have prepared for an answer, I speak only about my family. He is still smiling, and I, still nervous and gloomy, don’t know why! He asks me about my favourite subjects. What had begun on a positive and confident note soon transforms into a cricket match with he throwing questions at me in form of a googly and I struggling to answer. At the end he remarks, “Alright then, that should be all” and I realize that I’m not going get this job, the dream job. The day progresses as usual and Rishab and I are waiting for a miracle to happen, blindly oblivious of the fact that our fate has already been sealed. I hear the crowd shouting with ecstacy at Professor Raina’s announcement of the results. I now know neither of us belong to the group of students cherry picked by Lanco.
I am fast asleep in my seat when we arrive at Rishab’s home in Gurgaon, now Gurugram, another suburb of the New Delhi National Capital Region. It took me a while to understand what is happening. It is 8:22 pm on October 14, 2011. Rishab’s parents, his aunt and his cousin are waiting outside his house with his birthday cake. This is the first time I will be celebrating at a time I wasn’t happy, and then I shake it all off, because my best friend’s birthday is a reason enough to celebrate. By this time, sadness has given way to confidence and positivity that there will be a next time when “victory” will be ours. The whole episode has filled me with immense strength. I had a great time with the Sinhas, The Family On Wheels as I call them because of they are always traveling to new places. I even played with Rishab’s young cousin a game we have devised. I was not disappointed for not having made it today. Instead, I have emerged more confident and positive. With a smile on his face, Rishab says, “Maybe you and I are destined to be hired by the same company” and I grin with a spark in my eyes. The mere idea of being in the company of my best friend fills me with happiness. With this very thought in mind, I end an eventful and enervating day with this realization: Success is a function of time. Things you genuinely strive for will happen for you tomorrow, if not today.
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