By the time the IIM A date came, I felt reasonably confident and felt I was, in cricketing terms, "peaking at the right time". I had a reasonably good GD, which was a case discussion on the Indian education system. However, oblivious to the concept of "stress interview", I was slaughtered like a lamb by the 3 interviewers. I was asked questions like the breadth of a railway track (narrow gauge and broad gauge) and full forms of obscure abbreviations (at least I had never heard of DMPOT, no matter how shocked they seemed at my ignorance) while one of the professors kept blatantly ridiculing me as a worthless piece of trash irrespective of what I said. I fell for the obvious trap and went on the defensive. From there on, it became an India-Zimbabwe ODI where a rampaging Tendulkar, in the avatar of the aggressive professor, hammered the hapless Henry Olonga, represented by me, into submission.

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The tired PGP 1s got their first glimpse of the esteemed Placecom in a bunch - they were a group of 8 guys, all very serious looking. Their leader - the one who addressed us, nicknamed Crazy Panther - was a terror in tone and in appearance. He was about 6 feet, skinny and bearded. He wore black glasses and had a chipped tooth, and seemed very, very angry. Without greeting us, he shouted "Can't you get settled? Stop that shuffling!" There was a deadly silence as everyone, including me, froze at the point they were standing. "Your behaviour at the presentation was pathetic! I was approached by the GM after the presentation and he was absolutely disgusted with all the whispering and yawning! Where have you guys come from?! Next time onwards, if we notice anyone so much as moving their lips during a presentation or yawning, we will take action, including, but not restricted to, barring them from placements!" I felt guilty, having yawned a couple of times during the presentation, and like the rest, was embarrassed at the disrepute we had caused to our institute. Crazy Panther continued, "And the resumes you guys have submitted! Trust me; I have never seen worse resumes! You guys can't do simple formatting! There is someone here who has mentioned his contact email as naughtyboy123!" Despite the humour in the email id, nobody laughed. "Am I expected to send such resumes to companies?!" Considering this was the first resume I, and presumably many others, had submitted in our lives, I had expected some more compassion. "I will not stand here telling you how to make resumes. I have here a list of people who thought they were too good to ask their mentors for help," he yelled, waving a sheet of paper for emphasis, "all those in the list will come to the Placement Committee Room at 1 tonight. For the rest, collect your resumes from the Place Room tomorrow at 7 pm and rectify the mistakes we have highlighted. You will submit them Friday morning, 7 am in the mess."

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I got down at Station Road, Moradabad and felt completely despondent. It was 8:30 in the night, raining heavily, and Moradabad's "commercial centre" wore a deserted look as most of the shops were closed. Faint light bulbs hung outside a few closed shutters providing the only illumination. I wondered where I could find the "good hotels" alluded to by the UP ASM. I walked down what seemed to be the only 'main road' in the area and after walking around 100 meters I saw a roadside dhaba that was still open. I was already soaking wet and asked the dhaba owner where I could find a hotel. He motioned in the direction of some hotels but took another look at me and realized I was a first timer from the sheher (city). He then said "Saahab, aap Kamal Hotel mein chale jaaiye, badiya hai, woh saamne jo board chamak raha hai uske peeche hai (Sir, you should go to Kamal Hotel, it's good, behind the illuminated board over there)" indicating the location of the hotel behind a flashing neon signboard.

I reached Hotel Kamal and asked for a single room. The receptionist, a middle-aged man, gleefully informed me that there was only one room available and I was fortunate enough to get it. I felt like whacking him across the face. I was wet, cold and frustrated and here he was telling me that I was lucky to be spending a night in a Hotel Kamal in Moradabad. But as he showed me the guest book to sign, I realized I was indeed lucky to get a room there. In rows right above the empty row where I entered my particulars, there were 3 names who, in the "Official Address" column, had written the names GSK, Gillette and Nestle. I realized that this was the fate of all FMCG guys and offered silent prayers for those beleaguered souls. God bless FMCG.

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Professor Goswami asked us to introduce ourselves, and describe our lives so far in terms of an object. As an example, he told us he would describe himself as a bucket half-full of water. "The bucket is me," he told us, "and the water is my experience." It was with a huge effort that Chummi, Champak and I restrained ourselves from laughing.

Then it got weirder. Arpita started describing herself as a "green field with lots of lush grass and a solitary tree on which children play". The three of us could barely just control our laughter, but the others seemed to be listening very intently. A guy called Manjeet then went on to describe himself as a "guitar with a broken string", I assumed it was because of his love for music. But when another girl closed her eyes, and with a very intense, hushed voice, started describing herself as a "very old, weathered tree that sees all and learns from all…," I could control it no longer. I burst out laughing, and the whole circle stared at me. I could see Chummi and Champak trying to control their laughs, while most of the rest, including the broken guitar, were smiling. Only the Professor, Arpita and the weathered tree looked unimpressed. By the time I managed to stop, I had tears in my eyes. I guess Prof. Goswami was the only professor at IIMB who would stand for such behaviour, and he politely asked me if I wanted to excuse myself for a while. I shook my head and apologized to him, as the next person carried on his description. Chummi described himself as a fast car, and Champak described himself as a rock and when it was finally my turn, I started off describing myself as a mirror, but half way through, my eye caught Champak's smile, and I burst out laughing again. This time, there was no way I could stay in the room, and I uttered a barely understandable "excuse me" as I clutched my stomach and laughed my way out of the room. I guess my laughter could be heard inside the room too, because someone got up to close the door after I had gone out.

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She looked at Champak and asked "Good morning. Tell us something about yourself". Champak began "Ma'am, I actually feel like telling you everything about myself rather than just something. Please just sit back and be all ears as I introduce myself. I was born in Midnapur, a small town in West Bengal, and did my schooling there. When I was 7, a moment of awakening happened that went on to define my life. I was watching a Hindi blockbuster starring Mithunda. In a show of superhuman strength, Mithunda beat up 5 villains trying to rape the heroine and in the next shot went on to have an intimate rain dance with the object of their impure desire."

"When the sequence ended, I realized what a blot on mankind I was. Not only did I not have the steely wrists that would send a 70 kg man flying 50 meters in the air, I also lacked the infra-red insemination infrastructure through which Mithunda, through a fully clothed rain-dance, had made the heroine coyly confess her pregnancy. This realization of my wimp-like existence made me take a vow - I'd be a Bollywood star! But ma'am, like a born genius, I knew that practice makes a man perfect. Hence, I started practicing my romantic skills over the girl students in my schools and rehearsed rain dance sequences in the shower choosing the bucket as a companion for lack of options. But ma'am, destiny had something else in store for me. One of India's leading media channels broke the casting couch story through a sting operation. And that, to be candid, was a stinging reality check. I had much better tastes than being alone in a hotel room with Shakti Saab chasing me shouting Lolita. Consequently, here I am today in all my glory right in front of you. And yes, I am completely untouched by hand."

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The interviewer was a very polite gentleman, of about 40-45, wearing a navy blue suit and gold rimmed spectacles. He started off by introducing himself as Aditya, and asked me for a quick introduction. I told him my name and a bit about my background. "So why do you want to do consulting Shekhar?" I told him I wanted exposure to a wide variety of businesses and loved to work in team environments and travel etc. "Right. Are you comfortable? Have you had any other interviews till now?" I nodded, and told him I had had a banking interview. "That's good. So Shekhar, here's how it'll work - I'm going to ask you to estimate the number of passengers who use Bangalore Airport every year. You can ask me questions that you think might help you arrive at the answer, but I have the liberty to decide whether or not to answer them, depending on how helpful I think the answers will be for you. My aim will be to help you. Please start." I made notes on the paper I had brought in my resume file. About 10 seconds after Aditya ended his question, I went completely blank. I could not think of anything to ask him, or how to proceed in the question. A logical route might have been to start by assuming the number of planes that can take off or land at Bangalore airport on a given day, or any other logical question or assumption but all I could think of was to give Aditya an answer like "I think it should be 200,000." After a few more seconds, Aditya helped me on by telling me to think of the traffic handling capacity of Bangalore Airport. Still blank, I asked him if I could assume that mostly it was IT professionals who used airplanes at Bangalore Airport. "How will that help you?" I could not answer that question, and by now all I could think of was to get out of the room. I suppose Aditya saw my misery and decided to take pity. "So Shekhar, your resume mentions that you are a philatelist as well?" He listened politely as I told him about my stamp collection, and then ended the interview with a "Thank you Shekhar, all the best for your remaining interviews." In just half an hour, I had blown two of my interviews.

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