A Day with Santhosh.

Before reading... : > This was something i wrote for our college(MIT)'s sometimes-issued type of magazine, called Persoplus. They wanted me to keep it short. Would have gone on to a few more pages without that constraint. But as i guessed it was rejected, as the person in charge thought it contained a disturbing factor- Truth.
This is one of the few of my works i found ok and "not bad" while reading after several months.

"One Anna University please",

The lady looked at him blandly as he handed her the wrinkled five rupee note and it started its journey to the conductor. This is his sixth company, Santhosh thought with a meek smile, identifying that he had worn the same shirt for the first company too. The crowd inside the 21G was suffocating and it was a great relief as cool air gushed over him when he stepped out. The chennai sun had preferred to wrap itself inside the clouds and give him a sweat-free start for the day. Kind of an incentive for his repeated tries, he thought. Of course he had got placed in a software company. One among the thousand hundred and three, to be precise. But that was as good as nothing, Santhosh was repeatedly told. Friends,parents, friends of parents, parents of friends; His' was such an 'advisable', 'suggestion-friendly' face. So here he was. Rejected thrice in the aptitude; once in GD and once by a rude HR who was very sure that there was such a thing called JS flip-flop. 'Presently' a GATE aspirant. A few weeks before it was MBA.

Nithin, Mano,vatsan and Raji,with predictable 'full' names, were seated on the CEG canteen bund. It had become familiar for him to see them in pukka formals. Their rejection histories were similar. They were enquiring with the placement representative of their class, Kaushik, a big bulky obviously-a-9-pointer who now had a 4 point something dream job.

"Sure", he was saying.

"This time these guys will take about seven or eight from our dept. Even this one...", he said pointing to the arriving Santhosh, "can.., i think". He managed a smile.

"They want people for their new R&D in Bangalore".

The company could have never thought of setting up an R&D in Bangalore but his statement was temptingly believable. Assertiveness, Santhosh observed, makes this guy click, as Nithin once had remarked. Nithin, a surprisingly calm member of their chatter box group.

"The word "Engineer" had lost its meaning. Most of the CS or ECE students don't understand the divinity of 0s and 1s. Most automobile engineers don't realize the difference between ignition and combustion. Most …”

“Ok ok. Cut the crap. So what are you arriving at?”

“The thing is that they have no reason to do so. Companies want communication skills, confidence,assertiveness bla bla bla; not exactly rigorous parts in the curriculum of any branch.", the longest ever ‘comprehensible’ speech by him as he puffed out his Wills. But Santhosh didn't share that view, especially regarding the ignition-combustion thing. Both should indeed be the same. Tautology. He thought Nithin grossly underestimated and defied a lot of things trying to make others think he is a rebel. Only a few like him listened to what he said.

"ppt srtn n ten mnts. cum soon" was forwarded to all and the MBA auditorium was filled in minutes. As the presentation started, Santhosh involuntarily, started rehearsing for the interview. This time, the HR was apparently impressed by him and he almost saw his name in the "selected list" in the notice board when....

"Well thats it. Any questions?"

The PPT got over after a few "how"s and "why"s. (PPT-- > Pre Placement Talk; where the company guys immerse their heads in the laptop screens showing the company's growth curve which they don't understand and which the students don't care to understand. The critical moment of the PPT is when they inform about the salary,bond and estimated number of students to be shortlisted. Some companies don't bother revealing the last two.)

In a few minutes final years from several depts of Anna had started shading answers in their OA mark sheets. The results would allegedly be announced by 2:30. They "won" a table in the canteen after half-an-hour of waiting..

"They want all those damned 60 questions to be solved in 40 minutes??", Mano was raging with fury though his furies or gestures never attracted much attention from any of their group members except Raji. She was now patting his hands. An odd pair, they used to comment in their absence.

"Perhaps the "CAT"erers were able to crack them easily." Vatsan remarked moodily eyeing Santhosh.

Everyone was staring at him now. Santhosh found the term sloppy but it stayed.

"Shit! I barely attempted twenty"

They wandered around the campus; sat on the various bunds available. Time was slowly ticking by. At 2:30, a crowd had gathered around the CUIC though everyone knew the outcome. CUIC... Center for University Industry Collaboration though some suspected the last C referred to Conflicts.

"Another half-an-hour"

It was one of those rare cool,pleasant days. The trees and the roads through them presented a inviting sight to walk around. One trip to the end meeting up with the Sewage treatment plant, back to CUIC and then a round through the cooperative stores. While returning, they saw that something had sparked the crowd to gravitate toward the CUIC again but in vain.

Nithin smiled. "They are so sure about themselves. About the reason for their presence here."

After all these years with him, Santhosh knew that the "here" actually referred to the "world" or the "universe" rather. Nithin liked probabilistic entities like him and those irritating quantum particles he used to lecture for hours about.

"Then why the hell do you attend these placements?", Santhosh couldn't resist asking.

His smile didn't fade. "coz CEG girls are hot"

"Oh!"- with a tinge of sarcasm.

His grey cells never managed to pump out good counters to Nithin's replies. "Oh"s were his tongue's favorites.

Uday from Industrial joined them. 1450 in GRE defined him these days.

"I don't know whether it's enough. But dad says MS is much better than ME. You do practical researches with professors. So I've decided to join one, even if it's gonna be unaided"

Santhosh was suddenly presented with a new view of ME. Now he was "again" thrown into the well of dilemma. Two coffee visits to the canteen, bits and pieces of bund-sitting and five more rounds though the campus later the judgement moment came. It was about 6.30 in the evening. The CEG campus took on the most beautiful form around this time of the day since it's actually a secluded mini-forest lined with roads inside the bustling guindy. He envied the pleasure of the students here -as lovers,flirts, with friends, or alone too; who had the opportunity to walk around the campus in the evenings(the first category got the worst envy obviously).

The tall, bald, pragmatic CUIC official came out with a small sized paper, read out six alien names and spelled out the much feared phrase, "That's all! "

There was that expected uproar and controlled shouts of disgust as he completed his reading-out with "These people will attend the interview tomorrow..".

Santhosh recalled that the third company he got rejected in had done almost the same thing.

It was almost dark. The wind was still; as if it was also stunned and stirred. While returning to the bus stand, he got to hear wisps of conversations.

~~"I had this pen for Elixir Tech too when i got selected in the aps. but now, damn!!"~~

~~"All the six were from CEG did you note that? *unpublishable adjective*"~~

~~"Not that. The red churidhar there!"~~

And on the other side, four girls were consoling their whimpering friend. Apparently she had been aiming for months to get placed here , he thought. Amidst these, slithered out the solution for that problem he had wasted several minutes in vain. 'The length of those two trains needn't be found out.IDIOT!! Just from the value of .....'

His mobile vibrated. “Home calling.......”

"................................"

"Screw the chappathis ma! Throw everything out!", he flipped the phone shut.

He, just now realized how annoyed he had become. Annoyed with that guy following pen-sentiments, this spineless girl, the people who don't stop giving out advices and suggestions, the companies and their trains whose speeds are to found out, the entire educational system, this damned Nithin and the maddening smile of his'. No. he's annoyed with himself. His dilemmas, his tendency to go along with the flow neither analyzing the path of the flow nor himself.

And here comes the dangerously tilted 21G. It's arrival is awaited like that of the tall, bald, pragmatic official of the CUIC. Santhosh braces himself for yet another competition. Let it be the last for the day, he prays.