Job-hunting-II

General Observational Expertise Pvt Ltd has temporarily outsourced its primary services to Random Funde Inc, thanks to cost-cutting necessitated by recession.
Latest report attempts to give random recruitment season gyaan and details the businesses that seem to have done considerably well in 2008. Let's have a look at the top 5:

• Law Firms: Bankruptcies, mergers, takeovers, mass pink-slips, law suites, increased stress/hate/passion crimes, cost-cutting, contract breaches and what not. Everything is in a turmoil, and the legal department is busy!
  
• Mental Health Industry: At number 4 , the people selling advice, solace and anti-depressant drugs have had a good year. Everything from rising prices to disappearing jobs to sinking stocks to rising crime and terror is driving the blood pressure up, happiness low and stress to the sky. As relationships rock, as MBAs kidnap for money, as people ask for divorce because of stock market losses, as someone loses a lifetime of saving...somebody is still making money! Sad :(
  
• News Channels and agencies: More masala than ever. A new crash, a new headline. Another bomb blast, another breaking news. More the recession, more the number of people needed to cover it. The less said the better here, for everyone knows how bad news makes better "copy" anyway!
• Politics: The runners-up, and an eternal bull of the market. The US elections and its coverage seem to have dragged on and on forever till more people across the world heard of Barack Obama than the heads of state of their own country. The world voted for a Black American president, almost. And now, India has its own political season red hot with elections in states on, and general not too far away. The pitch has been rising all year, with each party crying themselves hoarse. Madam Maya wants a bigger pie, Congress is afraid of doing too much lest something backfires to combine with anti-incumbency, and Mr Advani knows it is his last shot at the top job. It's business out there, folks, and rising prices and falling jobs, is actually good for business!
• Terror: A winner by a fair margin! Bombs have put up a consistent show all over India this year. They invented a new brand of Hindu terror to compete with the mature Islamic terror so that the brand war killed peace and logic and helped the market grow further. Special Saturdays were introduced and unprecedented production levels achieved so even 26 defused bombs in one city in a day did not mar the show. People dying was a regular efficient event capturing new markets including North-east. And now they have pulled off the mother of them all, attaching the heart and soul of India, openly firing at innocent people and forever tarnishing a city, a people and a hope. Way to go!
  

:( :( :(

Deal-breakers!

• Mayawati at Delhi rally: "We'll bring Delhi on par with UP!" !!!!!!!!!!!!! Is anyone insane enough to still vote for Madam Maya? I shudder.
• At my sister's wedding last night...Madam left, madam right, look straight, smile, hand up/down, walk slow, stand here, eat this...Be the plastic doll for 800 people enjoying the entertainment at your expense while you struggle sleep anxiety and 25 kgs on your body that took 4 hours to put on. Hello!!! I'm never getting married! At least never ever the Full Jazz way. Sheer torture!
• One painful course, a semester full of twice as much work as any other of the same weightage, a supposed emphasis on learning and sincerity, and a memory tester final exam repeated from last year that half the class just knew? Respect for the academic system, huh.
  
• 2 hours to find the dress, 20 mins to get ready(5 times normal), and the SO says: "You're not looking nice"
  

Job-hunting-I

This is the season of knocking at the door of the Job Market (mostly gloomy,empty this year :( ). With one and a half foot still firmly back in innocent and fun (slightly evil and boring this year) College-World, and half a hand still clutching at the all important and coveted Degree that will stay elusive for at least (and hopefully no more) half a year more, we beg with half a hand (with a CV in the other hand, obviously) and down on one knee (and a half too, if you wish) to get a job. Yeah, that would be ten days from now.

So this is what is the graduating class of '09, IITD, can be found doing these days:

• Curse your luck for graduating in a recession
• Wonder why your GPA isn't better
• Curse the toppers for existing with better CVs than yours
• Wonder what the professor taught in your fundamentals class in Second year about your engineering discipline and how you reached final year without knowing that
  
• Curse Training and Placement cell for posting yet another "Company XXX will not be visiting this year" notice
• Wonder why do I want to join this company
• Curse inflation for the heavy bill of your Interview-Day gear: Blazer, shirts, shoes, folder, accessories, perfume, bathing soap...
• Wonder why people who tell me to be honest in interviews frown at me when I tell them my biggest weaknesses are chocolate, sleeping, dislike for bathing and sheer inability to work without a deadline hanging over at my head
  
• Curse companies with GPA cutoffs
• Wonder how the hell to tell someone "about yourself"
• Curse companies that did not shortlist you, every single time after that initial cray buzz goes in the campus whenever one is out
  
• Wonder just what is my greatest strength
  
• Curse your department, your profs, your project guide
  
• Wonder why do we need to know how to estimates the number of tissue papers thrown in dustbins every year and the number of lamp-posts in Stockholm
• Curse seniors who did not tell you in first year that you still needed to slog out after clearing JEE and getting into IIT
• Wonder how to put together that brilliant crisp, polite, true answer for every question that gets you a tick on Creativity, Leadership, Team-work, Communication, Analytical abilities, Relationship building, Fun-loving, Impact, Substance.............
  
• Curse all the TV series, movies and LAN gaming you did
• Wonder just how did that senior of mine manage that job last year
• Curse everytime a company has a huge 8 page form to be filled up in addition to the CV that says When did you put Mind over Matter and One weakness that you have overcome and how
  
• Wonder how did that person get that shortlist this year
  
• Curse yourself for not giving CAT seriously
  
• Wonder if going for a PhD is an option
  
• Curse
• Wonder
  
• ...
• ...

Sach ya jhoot

Benaqab na karo yoon har labz ko mere

Main darti hoon kahin sach jhalak na jaye

Na kuredo mere sookhe hue zakhmon ko koi

Kahin patthar se paani chhalak na jaye

 

Sau-sau tukde kar ke har sach ke

Har jhooth mein ek tukda chhupaya hai

Na roshni itni dalo ki jhooth badal le rang apna

Ye tukde duniya ki nazar mein khatak na jaye

This and that

Life is in a funny phase. (Even though it's not so obviously funny, I'm so sure it will be in hindsight a few months from now, I might as well put the adjective already!) So, as I was saying, life is in this phase, which sorta resembles funny, vaguely. It's incredibly lazy for one, and the laziness is incredibly comfortable two, and three, even when things happen, it mostly doesn't feel "real". (Oh! Did that happen or was it a part of my 12 hour long dream?) So all in all, confusions not withstanding, and painful emotional trials kinda-withstanding, "good" sounds like a good word.

So, why should I blog about this? Isn't it like boring? Sure as hell, which is what I will use an excuse to whoever hasn't already slept off reading this, as to why I don't blog often these days. (I do read my regular basket ful, though) Or why do I write "short sweet quickies" more often than not, as a friend calls them. (I can't understand his objection though, short is easy on the eye, sweet is good for non-diabetics, and who minds a quickie anyway?!) Anyhow, the update is that placements start December 1, and so in kinda 2.5 weeks from now, I can start practising shots at jobs like darts in the dark. Or in semi-darkness. Going as the only 4 shortlists I have in hand thus far are on Dec 1, and doing some complicated maths ( probability! IITD ->best engg school, awesome analytical skills blah blah blah) there is a 50% probabiltiy (Approx) that I can get a job that day and become a elitist, self-obsessed and suspiciously retarded consultant like L, Doc, Sparki, Laura and so so so many others around me. (and they thought advice was for free...hmph!) Good thing? No! It means I must break my slumber daily (peacefully established by 5th-yr extra dose of inertia + lack of interest in classes + lack of real work) to go and practice "thinking and talking(more or less, hopefully both coordinated)" with other hapless souls.

And while on L, since he drove me out of his room (ha! his room...more like a store of unopened suitcases and cartons (since months) and empty shelves where he somehow managed to sleep) which I was trying to convince him to clean so it looked like someone lived there (even if it was L! (I partically succeeded, for the record)). On top of it, he asked me not to come to his (actually, theirs...Doc Psycho and (Respectably L's) Shakti live there too) home because I drive him out of his laziness (and threaten to confiscate his phone) DESPITE the fact that I cooked him (all of them, for the record) Aloo Paranthas for dinner less than an hour ago! On top of even that, he called me tez, Fast, Shrewd and Manipulative! To cut a long story short, if I die before the next time I visit their place, you know who cursed! :D

Blabber apart, India beat Oz 2-0 not too long ago and I wanted to write a few things, but I'd let you imagine yourself. Insert something senti for Kumble, bravely appreciative for Ganguly, defence for Rahul Dravid, deference for Sachin, indifference to Dhoni's luck, one pat for Watson, one unkind remark for Ponting and an afterthought of a sigh for VVS and some others. You get the picture, right?

And oh, wish me luck. Exams presentations jobs and all the usual... :)
Take care (if you're still reading (just in case (yes, I love brackets today)))

The web in the head

...and the infinite questions crawling around

Normal, right?

Fallback ;)

A moment of agony, then a sigh of relief
A whiff of doubt, then a breeze of belief
A seizure of fright, then a touch that calms
A sniff of plight, and then I run to your arms! :)

Being a kid is goooood.You're allowed to need love.

The hour before dusk

There is something magical, as well, about that familiar hour before dusk. A different kind of a magic than dawn, subtler and often unnoticed. A magic that's lost too often in the fatigue of late afternoons, in the deceptive tubelight of a closed room, in the anticipation of the evening or in the hurry of wrapping up the day. Remember that William Davies poem titled "Leisure" that everyone probably read sometime in school?
What is this life if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare

Those lines come back to mind sometimes, and sometimes give birth to beautiful moments on a relatively hustle-free afternoon like today. So, I was in CP for lunch with an old friend who's in India for a few days. Final year of college, despite a few specific stresses, comes with a luxury of being able to take an afternoon off for whatever you want, for practically doing nothing practically whenever you want. So I called it an early weekend in the afternoon, and went to CP, met my friend, chatted and ate and finally said goodbye and started to walk back. What started as a walk around the inner circle slowly changed into a brisk one around half the outer circle, and a leisurely one along Janpath. It felt so good, that I did not feel like stopping or hailing a bus or auto just yet.

And so I walked, keenly watching everyone around. People shopping, people talking, people in a hurry, tired people, angry people, a stray smile, a beautiful admiring gaze, people nodding their heads to the music in their car, cyclists guiding themselves through a swarming crowd of pedestrians, mobile phone ringtones, the melody of noisy BlueLine bus conductors' bangs, the napping security guard, the child holding her mother's suit walking behind her so as to not get lost, yet lost already in a world far, far away, the wailing hungry child, the tense conversation on the phone, the rush to run, the slow walk of old age, the 2 ruppee peanuts, the sleepy shopkeepers. I watched em all, and I walked. At one point, I wanted to take pictures, but then, not everything should be constricted to a 2-dimensional image. The memory, albeit decaying with time, serves well alongwith my imagination that can do a new job every time I come back to these posts and read these words. :)

The weather is brilliant these days, the slight chill warming up a smile to every heart. That walk felt so fulfilling, with random thoughts straying in and out of mind, and leaving behind peace. The thrill of stopping to buy a raw guava and enjoy it slowly, the thrill to watch the world go by even as time stops mattering. There was no hurry to reach anywhere, no work urgently awaiting me, and lots of talking I needed to do with myself, so even after walking a few kms I just sat down at a bus stop watching the sun and the trees, not looking at the buses stopping by, until finally the silence was satisfactory and it was time to come back.

At some level there was nothing spectacular about the hour, or what I did. The day continued to be good with some other friends turning up even after I was back. But at yet another, that hour was sublime. Not with an envelope of darkness dissolving the dirt, but with a radiance of life making it feel good anyway. Healing not with the antidote, but with the smile. Beautiful.

A magic, sadly, lost way too often.