Interview marathon

GAUTAM DIDN’T GO TO INTERVIEW on his first arrival day. He was too tired to go out and turn in with empty hands, he didn’t like the whole idea, so went snugging inside the room from morning until the sunset. He had propped over the straw mat without even going for the piss, you know. His friends had returned with the slim files in their hands and their dresses were smelled of salt and perspiration, their eyes were looking tired and glum as if they had gone down to pull rikshas in the city. Really they were so much exhausted. If you ask Kamesh, he would tell you the whole story in a horrific style like Ram Gopal Varma movies. There was a slow knock on the door, Gautam had put on a blue T-shirt (he had slept with white vest) and scrambled down the floor to open it and clicked the doorknob. Three haunting faces were appeared in front of him. He was bemused for a few seconds on seeing them in that wretched state. “What are you doing inside man?” Madhan asked, his voice was thick and frowning. “I just wore my T-shirt to open the door. Why anything serious?” he asked after seeing their morose and sturdy faces, queuing behind the door. “No, nothing man. Just give us some space to escape inside,” Kamesh said, as pushed him aside and went in long strides and plopped down on the floor in the living room. If he would have sat on the watermelon, it would have crushed to the ground, bleeding its syrupy red sauce. No kidding, he was really making an attempt to create seismic vibrations here. He hastily unbuttoned his pink formal shirt and threw up in the cloth-line behind the window. “C’mon tell me, what went wrong?” Gautam said, slightly pissed off after seeing their incoherent activities. Kamesh had ignored his question and asked Lawrence to get the cigar box from the low rack of the shelf. He snatched the Kings pack from him and pulled out one and flicked a lighter to ignite it. He breathed the smoke into his lungs and puffed out, nodding at him conspicuously. His shivering fingers were become normal again. No wonder, his nervous system had deeply attached with the tobacco plants in the recent days. He bellowed a sigh of relief. “What to tell. We were thrashed out again,” Kamesh said, as his thumb finger went low. The blown smoke went up in tendrils, and hovering past the main door. “That’s not surprising me at all,” Gautam said. Given the early morning discussion with them, he knew they were really going to give a flop show today as well. “What?” Madhan croaked, raising his one eyebrow up. He was feeling terrified on denouncing their capability in pursuing the job. He was almost shocked and panicked, you know. A set of deep hollow lines had formed on his forehead on hearing this depressed statement. “Hmm,” Gautam twinkled his eyelids, “the way you said about the screwing interview process, I was sure it wasn’t going to easy for you guys.” He fought hard to make their worry look smaller than they had anticipated. His answer was indeed a truth. But, he had expected at least Lawrence would have grabbed the job offer, but that didn’t happen. “Do you think we don’t have guts to clear the interview?” Madhan argued. His small chest was stretching wider as he looked at him. “No, not like that. I just felt the interview would be difficult, that’s it,” Gautam got backed himself. His face was coloring to orange as gazed them reluctantly. “Man, we were really got fucked up,” Kamesh hollered, as blew the cloud of smoke directly onto his face, Gautam had used his hands deftly to divert the flume out past him. “I think it’s good that you haven’t attended this interview,” Lawrence had plunged into the conversation. He was looking weird and hopelessly tired among them. His bristly crew-cut was messed up right now, and he felt like to pluck off the bunch of hair with a firm grip of his own hands. “What happened, you all seemed to be offended? Is something gone wrong there?” Gautam asked. He had piqued their atrocity in their eyes. He guessed there was something monstrous disaster had happened to them today, by the steamy look of Kamesh. Kamesh let a huge sigh as he held him arrested with his bulging eyes. “There was a huge crowd of freshers. I have never expected such crowd even in my dreams, you know. It’s like growing up and up like china wall, from Koramangala to Whitefield. I don’t know from where these people were popped out suddenly. We stood along the road sweating out under piercing sun throughout the day,” Kamesh said, as tapped twice at the cigar butt to drop the ash into the small steel bowl (it was an ashtray for them). Gautam’s eyes were immovable and stayed alight, “Did you guys get a chance to attend the interview or not?” Lawrence threw a C book in frustration, and it went crawling to Madhan’s feet. It was his way of gesture that he was seething with anger and frustration. “It was until 5pm, there was still a huge crowd knocking around the office premises, of course we were part of them. And finally the whistle was blown from the HR department and suddenly we were pushed out from there without a notice,” Lawrence said, as he walked down the floor in furious long strides, the reddish flame was streaming out of his small nostrils as he looked at him. “Oh, that’s really a tragic story man,” Gautam crooned after him. He also thought of the tragic days ahead of him. The mere glimpse of their frustration had made a whacking shiver run down his spine. “I am seeing hell in finding a job, guys. I feel like I have finished my life without earning a buck in my wallet,” Madhan said, as twirled the sides his puberty mustache with his lean and short fingers. His cheeks were turned amber as he thought about his merciless future down the path. “I too have a same feeling buddy, I wonder if I ever clear a written test in any of the interviews. Whenever I hold the question paper in my hand, I just feel like holding terrific troubles in my hand. That moment suddenly everything is collapsing down and my mind is become an empty garbage once again. I think, the positive thought of successfully clearing the written test is never written in my forehead,” Kamesh said dejected, as he drew a line across his forehead with his thumb finger while holding the cigar in between his index and middle fingers. Gautam stood there perplexed and didn’t know if he had to smile or hold a depressed face upon hearing his wretched talk. But he had chosen a wise choice by standing aloof and untainted with their emotional outrage. That was a fair decision, isn’t? “The worst part is how these English speaking nerds are ever going to accept our broken English?” Lawrence said. A mighty shiver ran on Gautam’s eyes, because he had thought that Lawrence was fluent in English. But he knows himself that he would speak worse English than anyone in the group. It’s not a pride of him, but his identity. “I thought you were speaking fairly than us. Then, think about our position man,” Madhan said in a dilapidating tone. His eyes didn’t move and stayed in fixed position like a statue. “Even if I am lucky to clear the written test, it would be impossible to sail across the technical panel. They would throw me out after hearing my butler English at first sight, you know,” Kamesh said, despite his crummy joke he had seemed unchurned. “Man, I don’t know what to do, my father is already started yelling over me for not getting a job for three months after came out of the college campus,” Lawrence said and worried. Though he was a nerdy fellow, he was always subjected to being nervous and despondent. When it comes to deal with hardcore life matters, his meager strength and confidence wasn’t enough to give him more courage to face the life challenges. That was this nerdy fellow’s flaw which needs to be corrected. “That is far better than what my parents did. My father had shredded fifty percent of the money he was giving me earlier at every month, you know. My innards are blazing in fire after I had received a slimy rupee notes in this month,” Madhan said, sneezing out loud. Kamesh prodded his hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently and said, “But don’t avoid investing the money in uplifting our spirits, okay?” Madhan was the major investor (with his parents hard earned money) in cultivating his mood and brush off the fiddling and sucking thoughts stored in his mind. “How you gonna uplift your spirits? You mean, buying great books and reading out daily?” asked Gautam in a reclusive tone. He was too immature to grasp the speculative words hovering in the world of fantasy. The three of them guffawed in an arrogant style as looked at him like a bug. “You fucking stupid. We are talking about booze. Did you ever come across the word at any time?” Kamesh said, feeling christened after his foresight of the knowledge. “No,” Gautam said blatantly. He had lived in a hostel where he had never ever drunk even a single coke or pepsi there, let alone beer or whisky. All he had done was going to college and give full attendance and come back to the hostel and read the books. Though he was a dull student, he studied hard only to earn at least two backlogs per semester. He always had a bad reputation with the professors for scoring low marks and being or acting like a nerdy. But what this poor fellow can do when the books hadn’t enraptured him? “You have to grow up man. You are still being like a kiddo you know,” Lawrence said and punched at his arm. The pain was shot up to Gautam’s head, as he stood virile and confounded. “If you stay here like this, even a witch won’t fuck you,” Kamesh laughed out, “So be careful and know all worldly things from geniuses like us.” Gautam’s face was trembled suddenly, and a humungous frightens shot up to his brain in a frantic way. He thought he was going to live here like a pleasant bird which comes to nestle in the lakes in the winter season, but he realized with a dreadful gut feeling that his friends would never going to offer such cocoon for him. “Okay, buddies. What can we do now then?” Madhan said, exclamation stood on his eyes. “What else we do when we were failed in interviews. Not to say, today it was something horrible due to the hectic schedule we had in the outdoors. I mean, we should pour down litres of booze into our pit of stomachs,” Kamesh said and smiled smugly. “C’mon, we will go and cheer up,” Lawrence prompted them briskly. * Gautam had woke up at 6.30am, and read a few programs from the C book written by Yashavant Kanetkar. He liked to read it because the programs were written in simple style and the description was easy to understand, so he was immersed himself in this process. But still it was hard for him to go beyond the structures to the pointers or data structures. He studied for continuous three hours in stretch to complete hardly a three small programs, but he was proud of the effort he had wielded for it. The black round clock nailed down on the wall was ticked to nine, and he stood up stretching his hands up and yawned. He was getting hungry, his stomach was already humming inside to feed it, and he looked at his friends who were still snuggled under the blankets and rattling their mouths with an unshakable sleep. “Madhan get up, I am feeling hungry man, let’s cook something for breakfast,” Gautam said, as shook his body with all his might. But he was completely dozed after having strong booze on last night. He had drowned two beers in two single shots that was the highest achievement he had done so far after coming down to Bangalore from Chennai. Gautam continued to try churning him with his long hands, but it was no use. He finally gasped in frantic sight. He then nodded at Kamesh who was bellowing the air through his mouth in a heavy blow. The mere sight of him had caused mental tremor in Gautam’s head. He knew it was impossible to seduce him to wake up, he had to give up this idea immediately, and there were no alternate thoughts about it. He then, scurried behind Lawrence and shook off his hand. His body was rippled suddenly, but he went rolling down to the side position and hugged the pillow as if it was his wife, and buried his face in it (the instant relief was that he didn’t kiss it). Gautam was stupefied and smacked his hand on his head and stood up with drained heart and feeble hands. His stomach was groaning and biting at him to feed it. He scrambled down to the kitchen with heavy heart and scrunched his eyebrows upon seeing the messy gas stove. The remnants of white rice were turned reddish in the cooker, thanks to the chicken gravy Madhan had prepared last night. They didn’t have applied delicate method to handle the food, all the stainless silver spoons and cradles were dipped into every vessels to satiate their hunger in hunting the chicken legs and omlets. You could see the stains of gravy were littered all around the gas stove. He didn’t know how to cook, let alone doing a creative cooking. He snatched all the vessels and dumped into the sink, opened the faucet and let the water soaking the stained vessels. He started bleaching the plates and cooker and pan with the vim yellow liquid. His thoughts went back to his house, where his mom would prepare hot kitchadi, idli and ghee dosa, for his breakfast. He had never stopped by the kitchen sink to clean the empty utensils but here, he had to do himself. His mom was a best cook he had known so far, and he was going to miss the healthy home food for at least a couple of months in Bangalore. Immediately a nostalgic mania had swept on his head. He could have stayed in his home, if there were more opportunities than in Bangalore. He had asked her mom to stay there and do the job hunting (going down to Coimbatore or Madurai), but she knew he wasn’t going to sincerely do it from home. Besides, she couldn’t monitor him on how effectively he was studying and attending the interviews to get a job. She was uneducated but she was aware of her inability in steering her son. And his father was working as a bus conductor in Tamil Nadu government transport services, he had to work in shifts and financially struggled to educate his son as an engineer, but in the end he was proud of this feat. However, he would be happy only when he hears that his son had received a software job in one of the multination companies in Bangalore (or in Chennai?). That would give his father a moral strength to share with his colleagues in the transport department that his son had become a software engineer and earning a huge salary than him. These all thoughts were flowing in the corner of Gautam’s mind like the natural falls had been pouring water down from the heightened mountains. The more alone he felt, the more clamorous thoughts were rushed into his mind in jolting speed. I just wanted to kill this aloneness, he thought. It took him thirty minutes to clean all the messiness in the kitchen. The utensils were cleaned and kept down in the black granite slabs shelved in the right corner of the kitchen, and a few drops of water had been trickling down from it. And he used the waste cloth to wipe off the remnants of gooeyness spread on the gas stove, and heaved a big gasping and huffing after he finished this mighty job. His stomach was now filled with the gas, there was no rumbling heard anymore, it was stopped in the middle of this cleaning process. But still the giddiness was lingering in his eyes and head, he wanted to beat it out with some immediate breakfast. There was no use of waiting for his friends to come and help him to do this tedious activity. He wondered if they would wake up at least in the afternoon (for lunch). He would still hear the snoring comes from the hall, it was impossible to wake the hunk Kamesh even if he had possibility to wake up the other two idiots. There was no doubt about it. Hence he started rummaging through the kitchen shelves to get semia or upma powder packets, but it was his bad luck there was nothing kept inside. All he had got was empty vessels covered with lids on top of it. He was almost fed up and wanted to quit his searching mission, when his finger had fumbled upon a packet, which was rustled and it was magically a maggi noodles packet. His breath had come back to his lungs again. His eyes were flashed with an effervescent glow, as he grabbed the packet with a delicious style. If there were no instant made maggi noodles available in the market, 25% of the bachelors would die of starvation, you know. Don’t you think so? God knows if it is true or not? Within five minutes it was ready and he had come back to the living room with a plate full of hot maggi noodles. The earthworm size noodles went down his throat as his mouth gaped fully to swallow it in bunches. His long struggle to smack down something was fulfilled and his aching stomach was eased now. Boy, this was not an easiest job to stay single and do our own things. There is a lot of hidden things should be found out before we are heading into our life journey. Finally, there was a ripple in the bed, and it was unbelievable moment that Kamesh had stirred first from the inside of his blanket. He threw aside the blanket and opened his eyes very slowly as if it had been plastered. His huge eyes were staring at Gautam in wonder and amusement. “What are you doing man in the very early morning?” Kamesh asked, as if he had woken up at 3am. Gautam was startled a minute and looked up at the wall clock which had nailed down in the opposite wall, its hands were jointly crawling to show eleven o’clock, “It is eleven o’clock man. Do you think it is very early, eh?” He was literally amazed and stupefied with this question. “Of course it is. Tell me now, what business are you going to run if you wake up early on,” Kamesh said, as his eyelids were peeled out sharply. Gautam had blinked for a second as if his mind had blown up its fuse. Immediately the guiltiness had surfaced over his head, and the noodles he was eating was choked in the middle of his throat. “I thought of studying at early morning to prepare for the interview in the coming week,” Gautam said with an innocent face. “You don’t fucking dream to get a job sooner, it is very difficult man. Whatever circus you do, the old fellows in the MNCs are going to screw up and reject you at the first screening itself. See, good English speaking Lawrence himself having a trouble to get a job. Then how are you going to? Please drop that shitty idea man,” Kamesh said and laughed as his bumpy cheeks were jiggled up and down. “But, if we are technically good we can clear the interview, no?” Gautam said. Again the same innocence flashed on his face, but with perturbed mindset. “Harey, you don’t day dream like that. It is really tough to clear the interview without knowing the proper English,” Kamesh said. He formed O symbol with his big thumb and index fingers to indicate the excellence (or outstanding) required in the interviews. Gautam’s little bit of confidence was ruined now. His eyes were twitched in agitation and the noodles had tasted sour and bitter now. “I don’t believe it. I have known thousands of people who received good jobs here,” Gautam said, his words were almost choking up. The upper lip had rippled in crouching fear, but he was making a desperate attempt to comfort himself. “What’s their school background, man? I know they all had studied in English medium in big and branded private schools, isn’t?” Kamesh said, he shook his hand in front him as if he was going to slap him for getting into this hostile confrontation. Gautam brooded about it for a while, but it was disgusting to know that most of the fellows who had earned jobs were coming from the private schools, “Don’t discourage me. I am sure I get a job,” he still put a brave face, though it was a mask he was trying to wear to absolve his rousing fears. “C’mon buddy, I am happy too if you get a job. But look at the reality and the statistics, so it was impossible for a fellow like you to get a good job here,” Kamesh said. “If I won’t, then you can’t as well, do you agree?” Gautam said with little frustration streaking through his eyes. Kamesh face was squeaked while he looked at him intensively, “How can you say that. I am come from English medium background. If once I clear the written test,” he placed his hand above his head and swam it in the air, “I will through the Technical and HR discussion to have a job in my packet.” “You mean, Tamil background students won’t get placed in MNC, eh?” Gautam said innocently. His dream was already flying towards the graveyard, he looked dismayed and in absolute confusion. Yes, he had studied in government public school but had scored good marks in tenth and twelfth exams. He was topper until his schoolings, after that he turned out to be a meager student in the college days. It was hard battle for him to learn the English from there, though he had strived to learn it good it was always eluded him. He knew how important the English language was, sometimes he had cussed himself for not able to speak fluently. It was much embarrassing even after he had finished his college degree, and he was being like a kid to learn this language. “Here it is, learn to talk in English first,” Kamesh threw thirty days English speaking book on his face, Gautam was fumbled to catch it, “If you first know how to get introduce yourself in front of the technical panel, then that will be a great thing. I mean you will have a chance to sail through the technical discussion.” The sticky and hot noodles were already caked and became dry. Kamesh had kept his huge eyes on it, “Man, don’t eat noodles. It will create insects in your stomach.” He warned at him. His main intention was to stop him from eating the noodles which he had brought two days back from the nearest provision store. It was his luxury item and he had fought with other guys to buy it. He had to say something ridiculous to make him stop eating, that what his primary concern now. “Is it?” Gautam was befuddled and already he was making some arduous effort to retch out the half-baked maggi from his stomach, and his eyes were become thicker as he nodded him with his anxious brain. “This time is okay, don’t take it next time, eh?” Kamesh said, as he stood up and walked down to him and bowed low and grabbed the small bowl from him and put his fat hand inside and scooped the bunch of noodles and pushed it into his large mouth and started smacking it like a heavy blackest devil was chewing something as shown in the thriller movies. Gautam’s heart beat was skipped inside for a second and the beat went raising and falling in a nonlinear fashion. The dull and cowardly anger was sprouting up in him, but he was generous to not oppose him from eating it. “See, I am taking the unhealthy food of yours, because I want you to live long,” Kamesh said, his voice was muffled and indiscernible and foolish. Madhan was stirred now, and he slowly stretched his arms towards the sidewall from the straw mat. His body was still covered with the brown woolen blanket which he had bought from the bazaar especially to handle the heavy winter season in Bangalore. He snapped open his eyelids and saw that the pillar boy Kamesh was already smacking something inside his mouth. “What the fuck are you eating in the early morning, eh?” Madhan said, as he yawned uncontrollably. His eye sight was still not clear, perhaps, the heavy booze he had drowned last night was still lingering in his upper head. He wanted to clear this messiness first, otherwise his thoughts flow won’t be fresh at all. “Nothing man. This poor fellow woke up at 4am to do some software programs,” Kamesh said, pointing his finger at Gautam, who sat quivering next to him. Madhan was chuckling hard as his left hand was placed on his chest and shook his head in mockery. “What are you going to do? Don’t ruin your body man. See, how happily we are drowsing and leading our life here. Just learn from us and be a good fellow like us. It’s not a hostel like in the college. You can be free and do anything you want. I mean, if you have gut, bring a girl to this flat too. We don’t have any stopping plan to beat you down. What do you say, Kami,” Madhan said, as winked at him through the fringe of his sharp eyelid. “Exactly man. I love you man,” Kamesh said, and threw a flying kiss at his friend. Madhan smiled mercilessly while looking at Gautam, who was already sat like a beaten egg for a half-boil. He had lost the residue of confidence in gaining a job here, let alone handling these humbugs in this house. For a second he thought if he had come to a wrong place, but what to do, he had to stay here, otherwise he had to sleep in the platform. He was aware of his position better than anyone. All he can do now was to shut up his mouth and ass, and linger in the corner of this flat to grab any wicked job would be thrown at his disposal. “You know one thing, he had cleaned the vessels and prepared breakfast,” Kamesh said, as held up the bowl towards him. His eyes were smiling indignantly as looked at Gautam, who was still numbed and speechless after seeing these fellows’ chaotic involvement. Madhan guffawed, covering his mouth like a girl, “on seeing your sincerity, I feel like going to fall down at the feet of CEO of Microsoft to get a job offer for you. But who is gonna respect us man. They will throw us like a mosquitos after squeezing in between their fingers,” he said, flipping a derisive smile. “Of course, you are right man. That’s why I gave him the English speaking book to learn and deliver good English in front of the coat suit officers. What do you say?” Kamesh said as cocked his head at Madhan. “Yeah, that’s right. Let him learn the English first. See, being from the English background schools, we are still struggling here to get a meager offer, then think about your situation man,” Madhan said. Gautam swallowed a thick lump down his throat. His eyes were already started aching, he felt like flying back to his home again. He tried to control this terrible thought, however, it was kept banging on his head at every second. It turned even worse at times, when his friends were shrouded behind him with deadliest suggestions with frantic realistic theories. He had already envisioned a gloomy future ahead of him, after hearing their assaulting comments on him. “You better stop waking up in the morning. At least we would save the maggi, you know,” Kamesh said, as his left eyebrow raised above touching the brim of his forehead. His broad teeth were flashed into sniveling grin. “Good catch,” Madhan snapped his fingers, “better be like our champ Lawrence, see he is still sleeping like Kumbhakarna. I think he knew very well about our financial situation, though he is a nerdy fellow.” Kamesh laughed while kicking his one leg at Lawrence’s back, who rolled down on the other side and stopped. But his sleepiness was still smoothly sailing into his deepest dreams. Probably, he was dreaming about working in IBM or something. What else this geeky fellow would be capable of doing than this? Gautam’s all hard work, his patience and his learning, had found no reason to cherish at the moment. He was literally heart broken and myriad of wicked thoughts were flowing thickly in his groggy mind. His mere existence here was questioned now, first he had to stabilize and learn quickly about things which mattered most. He didn’t know if he had to learn English or programs or how to deal with his maniacal friends. But he was sure of one thing. That to gather more strength and confidence he had to survive in the hardest storm would pass across him. *