tragiComedy

Recession was just a stranger to me till now. Today I met it in person , and even though it haunted me while the afternoon siesta, I still find myself optimistic while writing this post ( may be the reality has not just sunk in).

I called up some 10 HR people of various companies , and some would not believe it , I could not talk to even one of them , on my first call. It was lunch time alright , but well , does one ignore a call on ones personal mobile number?

Even the number from which I was calling is so easy to remember that it seems like a corporate number. Still?

Well , though I got a treble call backs. With each one of them informing me that they are on a hiring freeze. No problems , who says we want immediate recruitments ? We are aiming for Jan 2010 , that's like a few corporate light years away.

One of the companies told me that they would first place my seniors , then our chance would come . Fair enough.

One of the guys called company A , pursued it , and things looked very optimistic. Only to know that the HR person had changed the firm, and we were talking about some other company? When the HR person realized that , he fired us left and right.

A few calls would be put forth to pacify him. His new company is even better a brand [;)].

One guy called company C , started talking in Telugu , for 10 minutes , only to inform us that it wasn't company C , rather a bar in Hyderabad.

Company D , even though we were sure of the authenticity of the phone number , would tell us that it was a wrong number . Well what about basic courtesy company D?

Recession has taken its toll. Some of the people around me have been telling me that. Seniors told me that the conversion ratio of bringing the companies to the campus to the companies contacted is a menial 5% , that too in the good times . Those were some things I could not understand.

That truth .... somehow seems to sink in now!

A new direction

Finally I have some answers to do the question asked cursorily in the previous post."Why should someone recruit us"? Today , while discussing the same question in reference to the financial , banking , investment and consulting firms , I, though quite slickly , only to keep the spirits of my fellow mates up with regards to placement ( and which gives me a sense of reassurance myself) , answered them with we having an exposure which no matter how hard a private institute tries to give to its students , would never even come close. Being in a government college , and that too of national level , the students of IIITA know the emerging markets , their need , the psychology of the people , their mores , their inhibitions , their secret pride , their understanding of things better than the rest of our peers.
We are well versed with the government machinery , the policies which it tries to push in the name of social welfare and what makes it click in that organization. The huge investment to the tune of 10 thousand crores announced by the Congress government , and the project hence which would be given out to these companies , would require them naturally to look for the aforementioned traits.
The diversity , which IIITA offers through admissions through the AIEEE examination makes us know India better than the rest.
It seems hypocrisy , the very things I condemn seem like something which could work to our advantage.
Hypocrisy or no hypocrisy , the above makes me smug , temporarily.
I think , I am learning the ways of this world , is this what people called maturity?
These apprehensions.

Random

Things have not been going on at the same pace as they should have been , I sometimes feel there is paucity of time , that has never been so , even during dire situations during exams. That is something new for me.
It was kind of some of my friends to tell me that I have forgotten everything of the past. I acknowledge that , I do not remember what I was three years ago , even two , it seems I have awoken after a long slumber , may be I have gone into one.
Though I wish I hadn't forgotten my quantitative skills , which unfortunately has been .
I was going into the 'phase' , which some people glorify , some condemn , but this time it could not acquaintance rape me off my self-esteem , self-pride , and whatever pompous words people use to define themselves. May be it was because of the paucity of time , may be because of me growing into a stoic ( which makes me wonder ) , may be .
I would never like to acknowledge to have lost the above characteristics and so would not write further on it.
Which brings me to a question which has been forcing me to think a lot recently. If someone asks me why they should hire me , and I tell them a few things that I could do , and if they append an "and" to it , what should be my answer ? For I do not see something overtly exceptional that I can do , something which not many in this world might be able to do.
While typing this , I reminisce a shot from the movie 'Pursuit of Happyness' when Will Smith goes into the interview room and is asked about his grades and to which he replies something like ' If I do not know anything , I will say I do not know , but I will find it how to do it , and I'll do it'.
Well cannot anything like the above be done by a sophomore who has access to Google? What is so special in that?
Well , may be I am reading too much into abstract , may be the Pareto Principle of the 80-20 follows up here , may be ignorance is indeed bliss. May be?
Yesterday while talking to one of my friends ,I was a fervent advocate for living a life for passion , and yet right now I am not totally convinced myself , but I find myself more and more accepting the idea in the above lines.
Day before yesterday was India's 62nd Independence Day , and my dad was not at all happy to know I did not go for the flag hoisting. In this clime of aggrandizing a leader who has canvassed herself to the top on account of her caste , where she is wasting away my dad's taxes on her larger than life statues , where freedom to education and competition of some has been compromised on an excuse of social inclusion and welfare , well not many would have envisioned a free India of such sorts. If Salman Rushdie writes another book on the lines Midnight's children about the present scenario , he would write about a man sitting in a hostel of Allahabad hallucinating ways in which the country would be free of parasites and leeches of the country.

I heard to Bob Marley today. His songs have some great lyrics. I think I like reggae.
Enough of this random rant.

The Transformers

It has been 3 years since the beginning of this college and hostel journey. But never have such turns been experienced.
Being a premier institute in IT insures us of uninterrupted power supply.
That is the only insurance that has not been backed out on.
The network is down in the boys hostels , most often. People console themselves with that being a step by the authorities to make us attend classes . The reality seems otherwise.
Twice in this week , there was no water in the loos , I had to use water from the water cooler.
Yesterday itself , water stopped coming from the shower when I was bathing , I had to , again seek rescue from the water cooler. I cannot comment much except that it was ' way -way cool '.


The water problems are not the institute's fault , rather it is a side effect of global warming . This and the refusal of the rain Gods to show mercy on parched lips and broken earth this summer makes me panicky for the need of immediate and adequate steps to be taken , even if the motive be as selfish as survival for me.
The infrastructure that I once boasted about my campus seems to have vanished in the recent months . The major transformations point to only a couple reasons .
Firstly , according to the directives of the central government on reservation, the number of students enrolled for a course have gone up by 20% , which now comprises an additional 400 student population.


The planning and the network infrastructure has fallen short of satiating the need of 1500 students . This might be a result of the administration which simply ignores the needs of the hostels. A network which was designed to serve the needs of 500 students when the institute was conceived simply is overburdened with the deficient infrastructure of only 1 router for 3 hostels. One has to brute force for an IP for an hour to get connected.
The government has been cavalier in its attitude towards quality education , for pleasing its vote bank it seems to have forgotten that only excellence would remedy development , which it blames to be the bottleneck in every issue.
Yesterday , no matter how frivolous we were , the main reason we could identify for we being attractive for placements was us being 'sasta' and 'bikao' , which I see as a manifestation of the maldirections being given to us.
It seems that , especially in the case of government institutes, that we are on the course so vividly depicted in the epic Atlas Shrugged.
IIITA was visioned as an institute of excellence , clearly we have lost that vision , in the murky fog of reservation , social altruism of the government , insufficient planning , and most of all , a compromise on quality education.