Lucknow is not conventional.......

Times change and with it change people, cities, societies. The city of Lucknow is the middle of such a change, or so believes India Today. Got a first hand experience of this change today, through IIM Lucknow. No standard questions. No Why MBA? Why low acads? What strengths, weakness? Best of all NO ACADS. No general awareness too....... 'What the hell did they ask you then!!?' Read on. Maybe you can enlighten me to their motives. (I think I displayed my disregard for analytical skills with an unparalleled flourish, also gave practical demostrations of the foot in mouth disease)

Time management is not a strong point with me but I am proud to say that I reached a full half hour early before the GD/PI process. And on finding all seats occupied in the waiting lounge, spent my time in contemplations on the architecture of the Catering College (and why they couldn't have added more seats). At exactly 2.00, we were called to the first floor, Panel III. The exact same room where the GD/PI process of Kozhikode had taken place. Talking of coincidences, I was the third guy this time on too. There were a total of nine people (1 fellow was absent).

The GD topic was on 'The cost of living is going up and the chance of living is going down'. Had to write a 10 minute essay presenting our perspectives. Didn't write that good an essay. Mentioned customary platitudes that such a subject is likely to evoke. What we want from life and should better manage it etc. etc. Then the GD started. The discussion was not all that great. Tried entering 3-4 times but was cut down. Coincidentally 4-5 people started speaking everytime I started. Finally shouted out my point that the family structure is breaking down and the society is changing. This is causing psychological problems. Then as people were speaking of how we are suffering from technology, I brought in the point that life has improved if you consider the past 500 years. Also said later on that expectations too have increased so you may say demands on life have also increased. Final entry was reasonably good. People were converging to the point of the disparities that existed in the society, unequal and inefficient utilization of resources etc. Then I chipped in with my final comment, "What we can agree on is that to end all these disparities we need better management. As the motto of IIM Lucknow goes, "Suprabandhe Rashtra Samriddhi" meaning with better management towards a better nation. I think with better management at different levels, we can move towards a better individual, a better nation and a better society." Noise levels in the GD were high. There was no structure and no outcome. Pretty platitude heavy - with love, compassion, concern for the poor and even Maslow's heirarchy making cameo appearances. (Note to self: Keep soundbites ready for your neo-liberal arguments. 1000 word essays do not a GD make.) GD ended and they asked the guy who spoke least to summarize.

Then we moved on the interview stage. Refusing to learn anything from the IITB experience, I had not prepared acads even this time on. So, the time outside was spent dreaming about how they are going to fry/roast me? (But they did nothing of that sort; only baked me) Let me divide the interview into three parts.

Part I: Carry on Son. We are here to listen.

"Mr. Saraf ", that was Panelist 1 (the older goody goody guy) calling out my name.
Thoughtfully closed the door and went and took a seat.
"Good afternoon Sir", repeated 2 times for both the panelists.
"Can I have your certificates?", that was P2 (the younger I-want-to-stress-you-out-but-still cannot-fake-an-expression guy)
Handed over the certificates.
P1 :"Did you close the door?"
Me:"Yes sir"
P1: "So, Mr. Saraf, tell us something about yourself."
Me: (Went on with the usual directionless born in Bombay, first engr in family, like reading, ghazals etc.)
P1: "Who is your favourite ghazal singer?"
Me: (Arre yaar, books pooch naa)"Jagjit Singh"
P2: "Don't you think he is a bit too populist?"
Me: "You can call him populist sir but then his words are simple and when I try listening to a Mehndi Hasan or a Ghulam Ali, I am often not able to understand their ghazals."
P1: "Which is your favourite ghazal?"
Me: (suddenly forgot all about the Ghalib ghazals I had prepared for) "Woh Kagaz ki kashti, Woh baarish ka paani"
P1: "What is it about? Why do you like it?"
Me:" It's about nostalgia, the carefree childhood days. I have myself lived in a joint family and played with the kagaz ki kashti in the baarish ka paani. So I can identify with it."
P1: "So what is a ghazal?"
Me:"It emerges from Persian. The literally meaning is talking to a woman. A ghazal is one of the most structured forms of poetry. It's older than the sonnet"
P1:"So what is this structure all about?"
Me: Explained the structure though could not remember all the Urdu words but think I was able to convey the meaning.
P1:"Does anything similar exist in Hindi, along these lines?"
Me: "(Duh!) A ghazal is not specific to a language Sir. You just need to follow the rules. The Aga Khan has written ghazals in English. Many of Jagjit Singh's ghazals can be classified as Hindi ghazals."
P1: "Ok! So its language independent."
P2: (Has gone through the certificates by now) "What is Kornovian equilibrium?"
Me: (Oh my God! Electronics is so very mysterious. I didn't even know this existed.) "I have no idea Sir."
P2: "But it says you have a certificate for Game Theory. You should know about it. It's basic."
Me: "Sir, that was not a theoretical event but involved practical negotiations." Tried explaining the event but they were not interested.
P2: "Can you tell me about Prisoner's Dilemma?"
Me:(IITB kuchh to kaam aaya!!) Explained. Better than in IITB this time. Both nodded their heads
P2: "What is Catch 22?"
Me: Explained the situation as given in Joseph Heller's book. About Yossarin's Dilemma where whatever he does, he will have to fight as a pilot. He cannot run away from it.
P2: "Why is it 22. What's the exact definition?"
Me: "Sir, I think 22 is an arbitrary number. Throughout the book, the catch is not defined as such. It's only mysteriously mentioned that there's the catch-22"
P2: "So you never tried finding out why its 22?"
Me: "Sir, I searched on internet forums, dicussed with friends, relatives, No one seemed to know this." (Guys, mad as I may be, I had actually done all this. No one really knows why the Catch is Catch -22) P2 thought I was bluffing as I would have done in his place.
P2: "Have you ever faced a Catch-22 situation in your life?"
Me: (Thought a bit) "No Sir. In life, I have always had the opportunity to take my decisions which have affected my future. I did not face a case where my decision or action did not matter."
P2: "Let me give you a situation. Suppose your interview is over and you go out of this room. As you go down you see a student very secretively taking something from a lab and hiding it in his shirt. The way he is acting you think he is stealing something. What will you do about it?"
Me: "Sir I will approach him and try to strike up a conversation. I will ask him about the college and wat they do in the lab (and I think I said vagere vagere in Hindi at this point in time). During the course of the conversation, I will ask him what do you use that thing you put in your shirt for? Maybe he will get the message or give me a reason for what he was doing."
P2: "No. He is in a hurry and you do not have time for a conversation."
Me: "Then I will not go about in a long winded way. Maybe directly ask him wat is he carrying and how does he use it in the lab."
P2: "There's no time for that too. And you don't know whether he is actually stealing. You ony suspect it."
Me: "If he is rushing and I cannot reach him, I will alert a nearby guard to what I saw. My responsibility ends there then. It may be a possibility that his professor has sent him to get something in the middle of the lecture. The thing is of glass and he just kept it in his shirt for better protection. That would also explain his hurry. I cannot shout and blame anyone without being sure of it."

They seemed satisfied with this answer.


Part 2: Do you even know what analytical means?

P1: "From when have you been living in Mumbai?"
Me: (a bit proudly) "I was born and brought up here. I have lived here all the 21 years of my life."
P1: "Okay! So supposing you want to make Mumbai clean like say Singapore. So suggest a scheme to the muncipal council. Make it point wise. Give a three point program."
Me: (Shocked. Nervous. Don't wat to speak but still want to do something) "Sir what we can do is involve college students in cleanliness drives in their localities. Help spread awareness."
P2: (Bacche aaj pakad liya tujhe. But I am a vegetarian, isliye khaoonga nahi, keval pakaoonga.)
"Don't you think it is very cliched. Once in two-three years they clean their college and everything goes back to the same from day 2. What's the use of the whole exercise?"
Me: "Sir, I disagree with this fact. It can be very effective. We had Thadomal Shahani students monitoring Bandra station and collecting fines. It worked there. So students can be part of the implementation process."
P2: "S0 studies are not important. All you want to do is make students waste time."
Me: "I think studies can go on with these kind of actvities. We can make it voluntary too. The government can also give the students certificates or even some monetary compensation."
P2: "So all the rowdy people will come in then. You will encourage such people"
Me: Was at a loss for words. Kept quiet for around 1 second.
P1: "I am surprised you directly started with the program. You did not analyze the problem. Why didn't you do that?"
Me: "Sir my mistake. Let me do that now. " (still at a loss for words. Brain not working.)
P1: "Ok. Carry on."
Me: "Sir there is the problem of garbage segregation, garbage collection and disposal... (I know its irrelevant but that's all that came to my mind at that time)"
P1: (Yaar paka mat, I asked you to analyze not give me gas) After giving me a strange look. "Lets start by with the definition of cleanliness."
Me: (Mar gaya yaar! The only thing that came to my mind was 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness.' Somehow avoided saying that. Hemmed..... hawed, fumbled but finally something came out.) "We can say it's absence of unwanted and unpolluting substances."
P1: "Unwanted AND polluting or Unwanted OR polluting ?"
Me: (demonstrating a remarkably impervious brain) "AND"
P2: "There are so many things that are not polluting but unwanted. Take paper. Spittle of paan. So even if these are there, can you say its clean?"
Me: (Tried smiling) "You can maybe call it visual pollution. A paan spittle does not look that good. The aesthetic effect goes away."
(Both give me a look saying don't give us such sad answers yaar.)
P2: "So you can have kitchen waste. Paper. Biodegradable. "
Me: "When it degrades, the microrganisms will spread diseases and all. But I think we can remove the polluting part and keep with only the unwanted part"
P2: "So the beggar on the street has built a house on the pavement. It is not good to look at. So that fellow is unwanted. Should we throw him out?"
Me: "That is entirely another problem. We can say an unwanted thing. There's a difference between a human being and a thing."
P2: "So the pavement dweller is ok, but his hutment and his belongings are not ok? What are you trying to say?"
Me: "I believe we are mixing two things here. Sum dwellers is a different problem altogether."
P1: (Senses I am cornered and nervous and this is going nowhere.) "Leave all this. Come back to the original three point programme."
Me: (relieved) " first point is include students for awareness. Secondly, implement the fines that you have put in place. Thirdly, create facilities for collection, put dustbins on all roadsides. It a person wants to spit or throw a banana peel, he should have a place to throw it. Even if after this people do not follow the law, punish the offenders."
P1:"You know of any city that became clean overnight."
Me:"I do not know of any city that became clean overnight. But I have heard the case of T Chandrashekhar."
P1: Nodding "Yes, Thane."
Me: "Yes. I did not go to personally see it but heard from a lot of people that it has become very clean. It won the cleanest city award. Also the same with Nagpur. This shows that if there is beauracratic will, political will, cities can be cleaned. It can happen."

End of Part 2.
I was very nervous and fumbling through the whole thing. Did not know what to do or say. To quip, "Vaat lag gayi. Unhone ghumaya aur hum ghoom gaye." Plus P2 had this very fake I-am-so-stern look which he was not able to carry off. Didn't know what to make of it.

Part 3: Good shot! That directly hit your foot!

P1: "What do you think is the future of the steel industry in India?" (I had mentioned that my father is into steel trading)
Me: "I think the future is very bright with consumption increasing as the ecomony grows."
P1: "But the demand from China has gone down. So the market has actually gone down."
Me: "Sir India is developing and growing. This growth will be sustainable only with growth in infrastructure like roads and buildings. The infrastructure spending has been increased in the present budget. For this, steel is required. Also as manufacturing sector grows, we will require steel for making machines. So, in the long-term the future for the industry looks good but in the short term, yes I agree with you that its gone down with the demand from China."

P2: "What is your college famous for?"
Me: (My college is famous?!?!?) "Ours was the fourth engineering college to be established in the city. It's very old and has a very good brand name. It has one of the largest campuses in Mumbai University. Also, if you see building area, we have one of the largest. We have excellent faculty with excellent resources. (Even Yudhishtra had to say 'Asvatthaama Hathmaya")"
P2: "You really think any college is famous because of labs and infrastructure? A college is famous because of its alumni. People remember the alumni and the college. Name some famous alumni of your college."
Me: (Abey mar daala yaar!! My mind started searching for alumni frantically, didn't remember anything. I had been searching the net for the past two days on SPCE and had seen the name of only one alumni. Guess who? Shefali Zariwala. And a nervous mind doesn't think twice. Proceeded to shoot myself in the foot) Smiled. "Well Sir, I can recall one alumni by name but she is not famous because of engineering - Shefali Zariwala"

(They did not respond. Probably did not know who she was - woh hua toh achha hai.)

Me: (contd... now with a straight face) "SPCE has had its students, year after year, entering the IIMs and getting into the best Universities in the United States. We have had our alumni excelling in their careers but I cannot recall any particular name as of now."

P1 and P2: "Thank you Ankur."

As is the rule, everyone gheraoed me after I was outside. P2 came outside and called the fourth guy in. The fellow went in but P2 kept looking outside. Then addressed me and gave a smile for the first time "You are done naa?"

Me: (Big smile) "Yes sir!"