IIM-A : Judgement Day...

Shaken, stirred and not just that. Pummeled to the ground and pounded till I had actually forgotten what I was doing in Bangalore in the first place. THAT – is exactly was I felt like after my hazardous Indore interview. Reality bites – and in this case reminded me of the impending Ahmedabad interview in less than 20 hours. I knew I had very little time to cover up the chinks in my by-then-massacred armour. Oh heck, might as well get a new one, I thought – as I bought myself a generous helping of Crackle-Nutties to kickstart the process of getting over the blues. Why, chocolates, of course ! Some say they work better than even… say, sex ! Hey – don’t look at me – some weirdos of course ! :)

First things first. I raided Aalap’s IIM-B hostel room and hijacked his comp long enough to get all the info about swimming pool lengths and the 2006 Grammy’s that I needed. Next, I knew I needed to beef up my old and intentionally-ignored friend – EEE courses. Back @ Koramangala, I did a lunch-dinner double-delivery of pizzas. Expensive and not too good for the middle, but frankly I couldn’t bring myself to go out and spend a couple of hours at dinner. Somehow – there suddenly seemed to be an urgency in everything I looked at… and everything that looked back at me. The slow and precise manner of filling the form, the reshuffling of the order of certificates, the pouring over Budget2006 headlines to make sure I didn’t get blindsided when it mattered most – after all, it was IIM-A. Damn it, and it sure as hell did not get any bigger than this. Come to think of it, it seemed pretty unnerving that the day had finally arrived – those 30 minutes that would carve the next 30 years of my life.

Not that I do not court them, but I hate eleventh hour doubts. In this case, it was the sudden realization of the fact that I had not checked on the recent market share of Oracle vis-à-vis SAP. SaviourSiju, to the rescue – followed by frantic calls to F1Varun…to JaaliMehul….to Manishbaba – scene shifts to GymboySudeep who’s still battling lines of code in office…. Bottomline, I got the stats I needed. What’s more amazing is this incredible network of guys who seem to be there with me – to pitch in, in anyway possible – LazyPande, Thax… and others who I’d probably mention some other time. Always there - anytime, anywhere.

March 01st, 2006 : My IIM-Ahmedabad interview @ Bangalore

Thankfully I managed to wake up pretty early – say by 6:15 or so. Surprising… but was it really? I asked myself as I glanced through the various PPTs on my VAIO. I had decided on the gray-black combo the very first time I landed up for an interview. What I had left till this morning, was ironing it. Time seemed to be in a hurry and it was almost 8:10 by the time I hit the roads. I survived a minor scare when it took me at least ten minutes to convince an auto-driver that Bannerghatta would be a better destination than what the ‘Bhayyajee-Airport road’-crooning girl next to me was suggesting. 8:45 – I’m @ the scene of the crime. T-minus-15 minutes…. and counting.

Ah – familiar faces! So things hadn’t begun in the Indore fashion, I noted. We were just about exchange hellos when this gentleman walks up and stands in front of us with a sheet of paper in his hand. Really…? Already…? I stole a glance at my Swatch and was surprised. It was still quarter-to-nine. Ooh, the process had not even started and these guys were stepping it up. Countless names were called out – and to my horror – what I thought was the Lucknow group and what on the far side, I thought was Indore group… all suddenly, congregated into an ominous group of 35+ applicants. And suddenly, I was convinced that all that I feared was coming true. Pagalguy hosted horror stories of ‘A’-case studies with 10 members in a group, with four observers judging the melee from four corners of the room.

Thankfully there seemed to be a panel in every wing and sub-wing of the corridor and our group was asked to head for the upper floor. Further divided into two – and I happily noted that one from our group of eight had decided to skip the process. Now this is the advantage of IMS/TIME faculty taking the CAT – sure they crack the test, and thankfully do not turn up for the GD/PIs :) God bless you, whoever.

Four out of the seven that remained in our panel were guys I had already been with in the Lucknow group discussion. Now, this is when I started thinking. I distinctly remembered that we’d had a short pause of 2 seconds when we had been asked to start the GD @ Lucknow. Pause = reluctance to speak first = following the established lead of the thread = opportunity for me to start. Really? Well, I had tried it at IIM-Indore and done a pretty good job of structuring the flow. Could I really do it – start the much-coveted Ahmedabad case-study discussion, and stake a claim to the kitty of points reserved for the initiator – well, provided I did it well. It was now or never – I could hear the sounds – there was an opportunity knocking – the group seemed accommodating. I decided to go for the kill…

The Godplayers.

It is funny how a single letter – ‘A’, can make such a difference in the manner in which the day proceeds. You expect it – the swagger, the hype, the pride - and almost make it a resolve to discredit every bit of it. Truth is – strangely enough, they actually live up to all that – and in style. There were three of them.

One – the expressionless, thin, middle-aged guy with thinning hair. He had this owlish pair of spectacles with tear-drop shaped glasses which almost made him look very very pensive indeed. Engaged in a perennial stream of thoughts – I’ll call him the Thinker.

Two – Holy Smoke! You could almost make out a faint smile behind every word he uttered. Never looked at you straight – always at a tilt. A questioning, askance look. And to top it all – every fifteen minutes during the interviews, this guy would exit the room to light a fag. I had to call him Smokie.

Three – Incredibly well-cultured and sophisticated. Not bold enough to intimidate and not subtle enough to miss – just the right mix that makes it easy to drop one’s guard and slip into the pseudo-comfort of the moment. Just to fall prey, an easy one. He’ll be Sophistix for this one.

After an initial round of checking names, we were let inside the room in order. I was fourth out of the seven in group. My my… surprises galore. The tables had been realigned to make a ‘U’, with the observers setting their chairs at the open end of the formation. Each slot on the table had a number pinned upright – sheesh, this seemed like one of those NDTV Big Fight scenes! Now, two of us ended up with our seats right in the curve of the ‘U’. On the positive side, this gave me a 180-degree view of all the members in the panel and I could easily use that to my advantage and maintain my eye-contact with almost everybody. On the negative side, the ‘three musketeers’ also happened to fall within the 180. And in case you’re still wondering, it’s a big no-no. No matter what happens, you do not look at moderator at any time within the case-study.

Thinker sets the ball rolling.

Having collected our interview forms, he gave us three sheets – one with the case, one for the rough work and the last one where we were supposed to jot down our summary at the end of the discussion. The time was split into 5-20-5 minutes. 20 minutes and 7 guys – I geared myself up for a well-paced fight ahead.

Thinker: Alright, your time starts now.

Mortal Kombat.

There’s Madhavi – a junior software engineer in a firm who calls up her boss Mahesh at 10 in the night and wants to discuss something urgent with him. After initial reluctance, he agrees only to be audience to a complaint of sexual harassment, molestation – as proof, Madhavi even shows an year-old SMS from one of her male colleagues, which reads ‘I love you’. Also, she is the only female member in the team.
Ah… but that’s not all my friends. This is when the plot thickens. Next day, Mahesh investigates the issue to find a completely different picture waiting him. Apparently, the make colleagues had never flirted with her, but been ‘casually friendly’ and she had even enjoyed staying late and working on the project. Somebody had messed up Madhavi’s appraisal and she had not got the promotion she had been expecting. Expectedly, she was seeking revenge her own day.
And yes…. There’s more. Mahesh goes back and talks to Madhavi, who threatens to complain to higher authorities unless someone is expelled. Project deadline’s next week. What does Mahesh do ?

Yes, I still began. :) I had finished my McKinsey grid in the first three-and-half minutes and was keeping a close watch on the others. Most were busy scribbling their points. I made it a point to write my name on all the three sheets – and make an impressive mess of the rough-sheet – oh yes, one look at it and you had all the hints of a structured mind. Man, I should never be involved in crime. I love leaving evidence !!!

Start!

And I was off. Identified the key entities and stakeholders – moved onto the ‘key drivers’ that might influence the analysis of the case and then defined the problem in two different levels. I was having a brilliant run, when my first faux pas reared its ugly head. I was in the process of describing the situation as a 2-faced coin… and I ended up saying that we should look at the ‘pros and cons of the situation’. Duh! Like hell – there’s no pro is an alleged sexual-assault case, dude !

I decided to put it past me and immediately buried it in a pool of factual data form the case. The next twenty minutes were rich with content, and almost all of us had good content and tried proposing various hypotheses to suit things in the short-term and the long. I pitched forth quite a few uncommon yet critical angles, such as ‘the benefit of doubt – chance of complaint being pre-meditated – the time lag of 1 year’. What probably left me satisfied at the end of it was that, time and again I had quite few people agreeing with me when I made my points and structured the flow of the discussion. Its quite an ego-booster when you lay down the framework and the rest of the group follows that.

Of course, I did have another mini-blooper in the middle. Sometime in the fifteenth minute, I was so engrossed in the proceedings I actually said ‘acha! Okay..’ when I agreed to the validity of another group-member’s point. Yes, sad but true. And spontaneous, as that might have sounded – the vernacular was surely no way to go.

Thinker: Okay, that’ll be it. Please start with your summary. You have five minutes.

I barely managed one, though. Mentioned the short term (role/responsibility separation of Madhavi and the others - can of worms opened) and long-term : (employee orientation talks - more healthy male-female ratio). And before I knew it, we were outside. Awaiting our turn in the lion’s den.

Dodgeballing the Godplayers.

Thankfully, these guys followed the earlier order and fourth was not a long while away. So this was it! I thought to myself. 10 minutes… 20…. then 45….. time dragged on. Smokie came out a couple of times. I flipped through the TOI analysis of the 2006 budget. First guy done… Maths questions… Second done…. NSS queries… Third… and before long, it was definitely positively my turn. No escape.

I waited outside the door. Suddenly the door opened and Sophistix came out.

Sophistix: Kaushik ?

I nodded a Yessir in agreement.

Sophistix: Please go in – I’ll be with you in a minute.

And with my heart in my throat, I managed a confident-looking walk into the room.

Now, there’s something I always do at exactly this specific point in any interview. Once inside, I usually draw the attention of the panel again with a polite ‘Sir, may I come in ?’ Yes, some of the old-things never really go out of fashion. Follow their nod to approach the table – wait for the slightest pause ever on reaching the table – till they notice that you haven’t really grabbed that chair and made your posterior very comfortable. ‘Please take a seat, Kaushik’. Hmmmm…. So far so food.

I was half-way in the process of seating myself, when Smokie lets a smile slip. He’s in the middle seat – clearly at the helm of things. Oh, and for this one, I’m well, ‘me’ ! KISS, they say – Keep it simple straight.

Smokie: So Kaushik… how is Oracle ? Do you have any certificates that you would like us to have a look at?
Me: Hell yeah – I’d sell myself with any certificate that I could lay my hands on! It’s a very nice place to work, Sir. Ah – a confident beginning to the interview.

Smokie: Really? but I've heard its a very taxing, very strenuous job ?
Me: I was half-expecting a ‘then why don’t you stay there’ answer !!!. Sir, it actually depends on which team you are in. For me, I was in a team which had ample scope for development, which made sure I learnt a lot while on the job.

Now this is when I really started throwing baits left, right and centre. It started off as involuntary, but in retrospect – pretty much guided the conversation that ensued. The answer started off on one note and ended on ‘learning’ and I was banking on them to ask me about that.

Smokie: Really, okay - what have you learnt in your job ?
Me: Bingo! Sir - our product Oracle Loyalty was initially conceptualized as competition for Siebel Loyalty - I was initiated into this team at its formative stages - so I saw the entire phase of interacting with the clients to gather their requirements, was a part of the team that made the functional and technical documents of it. Last eight months were when we developed the product and parts of it are already in the testing phase.

At this point, Sophistix walks in, hears the last bit of the conversation and sits down to the right. This is when I think I played one of my cards really really right. Rare, I know. As soon as he sat down, I finished off with the sentence. The other two were looking at my interview form and I stole a few seconds to turn to Sophistix – ‘Sir, I was just telling them about my job experience’

He nodded an approval. Remember, me telling you earlier in another post about the little things that might just set the tone for the things to come. One of those, for sure. And best of all, it was completely pre-meditated.


Smokie: So what exactly is your product ?
Me: Sir, it’s a frequent-flyer program for airlines.

Smokie: Who is your client ?
Me: Now this took me by surprise – aren’t we like supposed to be subtle about it? Oh to hell with it. Qantas airlines, Australia. We are modeling our product on their requirements and a lot of other airlines are in the pipeline.

Smokie: Oh, Qantas airlines recently partnered with an Indian airline, do you know which one was it ?
Me: Sir, it was Jet airlines.

Now, honestly I do not read the Economic Times everyday – but one of the day – at least three months back – in one of the centre pages, I thought I remembered seeing this. Didn’t remember the context, though - thought of protecting it with an 'I think so' but something inside me simply said - screw it! You know you read that bit of news !

Even as I was thinking, I noticed Smokie giving me a suspicious glance. Somehow I suddenly felt pretty adamant about the situation and decided against giving up on my answer. I stuck to my answer. And thankfully, for good cause !
http://www.qantas.com.au/fflyer/dyn/newsOffers/news/2005/nov/PartnerAirlineUpdate

Yay ! Meanwhile, Thinker decides to make his debut. Little did I know that it was gonna be a long long one.

Thinker: So how many people in your team - you've said 30 in the form- isn't that too big ? Do you have people reporting to you?
Me: Explained the split between the technical and the functional wings - the splitting of the development team into apps engineers, senior apps engineers, dev manager, senior dev manager director... Explained that I didn’t have people under me - but have, in the past been given the responsibility of initiating new inductees into the team. We were the first to join - hence the newcomers had to be guided through the product.

Thinker: Wouldn’t let me go this easy. All this in one team...
Me: Yes Sir… our director wears another hat - he's the leader of the manufacturing team as well - so barring him and the VP - 20 ppl - 2 managers - 18 split into 8 and 10 !??!? (trust me – my team’s gonna throw me out if they hear such a shoddy depiction of the team number)

Precisely, at this time – Smokie decides to get his 15-seconds-of-making-fun !

Smokie: Oh…and how many hats do you wear, Kaushik ?
Me: Completely nonplussed. Ummmm.. Sir, that was just figurative :)

Smoke: Not about to let go of this easily. Figurative.. yes of course - but dont you think this teaching new entrants - you're like the ******* of the team?

No, its not what you think it is. He surely did not address me with expletives – at least not yet. He uttered a word which completely escaped my grasp. Oh well, I decided to play along.

Me: Sir, that’s something I've done in my spare time apart from the primary work - so it didn't really...trailed off…

Thinker: Oracle CRM - So what do you do in your job ?
Me: You know – you should try waking me up from my sleep and asking me the same question. I think I might sleep-mumble my way into the Guinness Book of World Records by the end of all the interviews. Explained in detail – customer value assessment of a membership in any frequent flyer program.

Thinker: So how different is CRM from ERP? Is it the same?
Me: No, Sir – it is not the same as CRM deals very specifically with software applications that can be used to enhance various aspects from service to power of a customer – it is very customer-centric. ERP is a much bigger suite which has many different applications to help an enterprise run its daily chores, such as finance, hr, etc. Spoke mostly about the difference in scope.

Thinker: Can I use your loyalty product as an ERP product? say SAP what do they do ?
Me: SAP - ERP market share leaders. After the Peoplesoft and Siebel acquisition, Oracle is second in the market. S.A.P uses different technology so Oracle Loyalty would not be directly compatible. Our Loyalty product is not an ERP solution, as ERP contains many more aspects of managing a business - ours however could be integrated as a part of another ERP application.

2 things here. Firstly I tried baiting them with the market-share statistic. I was so ready to throw the stats at them. Damn, they missed this one. Secondly, Thinker said ‘Sap’ and in my answer I started with a very explicit ‘Ess-Ay-Pee’. Drat! If he thinks I was trying to correct him and show off – Nooooooooooooo !!!!

Sophistix, meanwhile decides to join the party.

Sophistix: Qantas - did you find their requirements any different ?
Me: Sir, it is their sheer functional depth, and some very Qantas specific requirements, such as the forecasting model. Apparently, I was putting my Indore-takeaways to some good use here. Hooray!

Sophistix: Grins to himself. So you can predict when the customer will fly and when the customer wont fly?
Me: No Sir, the way we our program works is different. Mentioned… actually showed off in detail about this one feature called the ‘upcoming tier downgrade assessment’ – how it checks customers from being downgraded – tries their 2-yr average and 3-yr average balances and implicitly make them accrue points to preserve their tier. All in all – he seemed pretty satisfied. Fingers crossed.

Now this is exactly when Thinker started a barrage of graph psycho-babble. He actually pushed a pad towards me and went off on a tangent.

Thinker: Okay Kaushik… now I am going to ask you to draw a couple of graphs for me. Firstly, please plot ‘ variance of performance, i.e. return time to customer’ on the (y)-axis with ‘no. of members’ on the (x)-axis.

Took my time to think. Clarified a doubt and sketched a decent graph with a very conspicuous break-point where the downward curve became a straight line. I was baiting him for all I was worth.

Thinker: What is that point there?
Me: Yeah!!! Explained in detail about how with the beauty of batch processing, after a threshold limit our concurrent program would spawn individual child processed and treat each one of them as individual processes. Thereby improving efficiency, in every run.

Thinker: You have ‘partners’...what are they ?
Me: Sir – women and well mostly, straight !!! Lol ! Sir, they are companies with whom an airline company might have a collaboration such that frequent flyer points are redeemable at the partner company outlets. Gave the example of Hilton hotel and Hertz rent-a-car services. He was hanging on to every little word I was saying – very very intently.

What really surprised me that these guys were actually speaking our team lingo – partners/ accruals/ redemptions/ assessments – they seemed to know it all. At that time, things were too critical to be mindblown – but I knew I was waking a tightrope and there was no scope for error.

Thinker: Okay, now plot the ‘variance of performance’ on the (y)-axis and the ‘no. of partners’ on the x-axis.
Me: Drew a slightly different graph and explained the different steps involved in dealing with partners. Waiting for partners to send in their accruals – so lesser partners would mean less partners to wait for. Some more batch processing fundae.

It is not as if I was having a ball of time, but Thinker simply would not let me go.

Thinker: Kaushik… now draw on the same graph ‘performance of the system’ on the (y)-axis with the ‘variety of partners’ on the x-axis.
Me: Now this is when going through other’s code comes in handy. I had flipped through Ritto’s partner accrual code and explained in detail about the partner records being stored in the same table.

Thinker: Apparently, he was allergic to tables. No back end details, please explain in layman's terms.
Me: Trudged along about how every stage where the partner is interfaced with depends on the parameter ‘partner type’ - outbound communication and accrual records processing, depend on setup and variety would not matter as long as the parameters are defined properly. Oh heck… I told myself – I surely knew more about this than him !

Smokie: Glances up from my certificates. Your district swimming certificate – is there a timing discrepancy? 32 seconds for 50m and 1m 30 seconds for 100m ? Was it not recorded properly ?
Me: The answer that naturally came to me was that I was better a short, fast bursts of speed than prolonged stamina-sucking feats. But then I think I knew a few of ‘em who would disagree. ;) I switched tracks by explaining somersaults – how we lose 5 seconds in turning at the ends - 25m pool – would mean 1 somersault in a 50m race and 3 times in a 100 m race. From the looks on his face, it was evident that he hadn’t seen this angle of it – and he accepted the theory. Although, I willed them to ask me the international pool size – another bait – hyyuck, they didn’t.

Thinker: So what are you favourite subjects ? Did you have any in EEE ?
Me: Sir, Overall my favourite subjects where few of the software courses I did in my final year – Object Oriented Programming and Data Programming. I was determined not to go down the Indore route here.

Thinker: So from EEE to software. Did you had a backing even before you joined college?
Me: Told them about my having Comps as a subject in my XII. Pilani admissions - first preference being Comp.Sci, 2nd – EEE. How I had used the electives to my advantage.

Sophistix: BITS, Pilani - which part of Rajasthan is it ?
Me: Sir, 210 kms from Delhi on the border of Rajasthan - almost equidistant from Jaipur as well – they make a triangle.

Sophistix: Where in Rajasthan is Pilani ? which part ? There are many parts of Rajasthan, you know. Aargh – that smile.
Me: Sir, its in the Jhunjhunu district - about 30 kms from the desert... I'm not sure what exact area you are referring to…Ummmm.. Rann of Kutch… (cardinal mistake)

Sophistix: Rann of Kutch is in Rajasthan?
Me: And I could literally see my Geogo-teacher mum disowning me at that instant.No sir… I’m sorry, Its in Gujarat. (Hastily)

Sophistix: What is Jhunjhunu famous for ?
Me: Now what? Ummmm...Sir, I’m sorry it doesn’t seem to strike a chord – That area was mostly famous for the institute.

Sophistix: Havelis..
Me: Shell-shocked. For the second, where I thought he was talking about some Devdas-ishtyle Kotha-haveli !!! But wait.. I thought a bit – textiles ? Sir, I’m really not sure what is being referred to here. Damn… apparently Birla havelis were what he was referring to and even after telling me, I had no clue. Jeez – where in Pilani were they ?!

Smokie: Kaushik…your grades... go down… down…. and then 6th semester is when you made your first three D's and then of course....you later make other D’s. 6th semester – Electromagnetic forces… Communication systems… Telecommunications… what happened ?
Thinker: Pitches in with some support. But he had jaundice...I think he mentioned.
Smokie: He had jaundice in his 5th sem - but 6th grade...
Me: I knew this was where I had to make an impressive show. Sir in the months after I recovered from jaundice, the schedule was very tight - and frankly, I had overloaded my course simply to make sure I didn't have to skip a semester. You would notice W’s in the fifth semester in the courses which I had to forced to withdraw from. That made the oncoming semesters a little difficult.

Thinker: Diverts the topic with a different question. God bless him, seriously. Okay – what was your final semester project.

Again, this was another one of those turning points in the interview. Technically, I should have mentioned my lacklustre lab-oriented projects I did on-campus, but the story was about to take a wild swing.

Me: Sir, I did a six-month internship at DaimlerChrysler,Bangalore and was a part of the team that built a Knowledge Management Tool for Airbus, France on the J2EE framework.

Thinker: Oh.. your PS-2 ? Meaning practice-school 2…
Me: Woah – he seemed to know the ins and outs of my story. Yessir - Knowledge Management Tool – concept of reusing lessons learnt - no reinventing the wheel… saving time…

Thinker: Cutting me short. What did you do?
Me: Sir, I developed the front end pages using JSPs, CSS, Javascript - got a working knowledge of J2EE the framework on which the product was engineered. First hands-on experience of seeing the various concepts in use in a live project. Left before the completion of the project - have been in touch with the team - and the project is up and operational.

Smokie: You’ve mentioned about the entrepreneurial streak in you - what is there in BITS Pilani....something related – do you know anything about it.
Me: Bang on, baby! Sir, I think you are referring to C.E.L – the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership - started in my 3rd yr – during Apogee, they invite business ideas- top 10 go to present their ideas at the fest - my friends won the 2nd prize over there, this year. Hooray Sassy !

Sophistix: Have you heard of Nikhil Banerjee ?
Me: Little did I know that Mum would end up being pretty disappointed about this one answer I ventured. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. No Sir....the name does not ring a bell.

Sophistix: You mentioned playing the sitar as your hobby ?
Me: I decided to switch to the ‘Oh…yes… now I know’ routine I had practiced over the past 23 years..lol. Sir – ah!... Yes – now it does, it does strike a chord.

Sophistix: Really? So Sitar or santoor? What does he play?

In a flash I knew that I was on the verge of teetering off the edge. I had obviously underestimated him, and now he was looking at me – watching every shade on the palette of my face. I decided to come clean. And that, in hindsight – was definitely one of the best decisions I took during the interview.

Me: Sir… actually to be honest, when you mentioned the name in the context of me playing the sitar – it struck me as familiar. However, I would be making a guess if you asked me the instrument. I haven’t heard him live.

Sophistix: So who do you listen to ? and don't tell me Ravi Shankar or Anoushka.
Me: Sir…apart from them I’ve heard Ustad Vilayat Khan. Ravi Shankar and Anoushka - I've seen them live - but in general I do not restrict myself to the sitar - I've attended shows of various other artists.

This was my second mention of the word 'live'. One question on live and I could mention other artists and more importantly Vishwa Mohan Bhatt – he plays one of the most uncommon instruments ever – the Mohan Veena – that could surely be used as a line of leading them on. Especially since post-Indore, I knew my facts well.

Sophistix: Live shows…. like ?
Me: Oh yes.. it was actually happening. Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Amjad Ali Khan… BANG! I was interrupted…

Thinker: Vishwamohan Bhatt - plays the guitar right ?
Me: Mission accomplished. Sir, it’s actually the Mohan Veena – he is the sole proponent – modified guitar, an added string - seven others below for resonance - shot to fame 1994 – only Indian to win the Grammy awards.

Sophistix: So where does he stay ?
Me: Shucks… this was too much. He was actually trying me to check if I had theoretically mugged up stuff. Sir, I’m sorry I don’t have a clear idea.

Smokie: So you sitar...drum... dance also? Gives a very disbelieving look.
Me: Sir, I did them in different phases of my college and office. In college, I learnt and taught dance. Dance Workshop is a semester-long course where I taught four batches of students.

Smokie: What kind of dance ?
Me: I was having a ball. Sir, in college it is almost customary to start with an eastern dance and then, over time progress to western. I picked up ballroom dances in my second year – and taught ballroom dances like jive, waltz to students.

Sophistix: So what kind of songs do you sing ?
Me: Man... they were right up my alley. Sir, Western and LIM (Light Indian Music) both - told them about the February Oracle party where the band performed Jal, Junoon, Metallica, Roadhouse blues. Mentioned a couple of other bands and said - - I think I sing songs which I can identify myself with, better.

Sophistix: There was this sly smile spreading on his face as he said the words…and what songs to do identify with?
Me: Uh-oh… Sir, Aadat – a song from the movie Kalyug by the band Jal is one of the songs that has struck a chord of late.

Smokie: Suddenly jumping in. Okay… what are the first four lines of the Jal song ?
Me: Flummoxed. And then I actually did it. Didn’t sing – but started reciting the lines.. ‘ Najaane kabse ummeede kyun baaki hain, mujhe phir bhi teri yaad kyun aati hain – najaane kab se’ …Sir, there’s a pause – then the guitar ‘kicks’ in [:o]…… ‘ Dur jitna bhi tu mujhse paas tere main… Ab to aadat si hain mujhko aise jeene ke liye’

Believe it or not! There I was in my IIM-Ahmedabad interview- the most precious of all the interviews I have appeared for till date and THIS… is exactly what I was doing. In the middle I forgot a few words – and actually humm-sang a song quietly to remember the words… Lol !

Sophistix: So who is the lyricist of this song ?
Me: Sir… this song was formed in the band’s initial stages. A group of college students came up with the tune. I think it was the lead singer who came up with the lyrics – they didn't go by the formal professional way of getting a lyricist to pen the song for them.

Smokie: Okay Kaushik, thank you. Please take a toffee from the bowl before you leave.

Curtains. And that… was exactly how it went. Twenty long-drawn minutes. Remember the time you visited your doctor for your shots? A painful injection – and then the toffee to make good a bad. Not-so-fond memories, if you ask me. This seemed a little different. Almost everybody came out glowing in his/her own 'feel-good' aura - humph! so much for drawing inferences.

In retrospect

It is very important for a man to conduct himself as it befits his company. The Ahmedabad experience promised to be different from the very outset – and it did not by any means disappoint. There are very few people who have managed to floor me enough to leave an impression in a short span of twenty minutes. But irrespective of whether I make it through this one or not, the truth that remains is that this was a panel with a difference. You could see it in the way they willingly took my baits and allowed me to believe that I had succeeded in baiting them. You could see it in the times they arrogantly chose to side-step my leads to pitch in a few stunners from their artillery. And most importantly, you could see it when you look at them and offer an answer to their question – and in return, see them looking right through you – judging every muscle in your body.

Four done. Four to go. Next up comes the week-long trip of Chennai-Delhi-Bangalore i.e. XLRI-FMS-IIMC, between the 8th and the 14th. For all the action, keep checking this page.

Sing for the moment

You're a light to yourself...

You're a Shadow of the Whip.

So much covered in misery...

Yeah but we all know, well that's not it.

- Shadow of the Whip, Harry Manx.

Verdict: Selected for the PGP batch of 2006-2008.