THE AMRITA DEBACLE…

Date: 24th February ’08
Venue: Amrita Viswavidyalaya,
Taratala, Kolkata
Time: 9:00 A.M.
I reached the venue an hour before (as always). I met some guys there and they didn’t regard Amrita that highly. Anyways came to know that there was no Group Discussion, only an interview. I was relieved but a part of me (a very small part) was disappointed because a GD would’ve given me some more experience. The venue, which was a primary school, was still under construction with workers, piles of sand, bricks, etc lying here and there.
The process began with the verification of documents and they grilled me right there. The woman even calculated that 1/3rd of my course was passed through back papers, which was an understatement (to be frank), but anyways hardly the kind of impression I’d have wanted to get things started. The second part of the process consisted of a long speech by the same people who scrutinized our documents (I was beginning to fear whether they would be taking our interviews too…). The speech was more about the great achievements of ‘Amma’ and her ‘benevolence’ (something I wouldn’t mind receiving at that time), but barely things you’d be even distantly interested in before an interview with your nerves all messed up. After the painfully long ‘presentation’ made even longer by my smart ass competitors pretending to be genuinely interested and asking questions. The next part of the process consisted of a test of writing skills wherein we were asked to write on any one of the 3 topics (Budget 2008, Business and Ethics and something). I choose ‘Budget 2008’ and started quite enthusiastically but, if you ask me, I’d say it was a below par performance. The final part of my process was the Interview itself and it was almost 12:00 P.M. by then. As luck would have it, I was the third last person to be called. And, yes, the same two people were taking the interviews as well. They were running a two man show on an under-construction building with the sounds of hammering and cutting making up the ambience of the interview (in a classroom).
THE INTERVIEW…
P1: An HR professor.
P2: A Finance professor, the one who calculated my back paper percentage.
(Both Females)
M: Me
P1: Tell me something about yourself?
M: Blah! Blah! (Thinking this is so predictable)
P1: Why MBA after Philosophy?
M: Blah! Blah! (All prepared stuff, you know). P2, meanwhile, is looking at me with a bewildered look on her face, as if she’s shocked by whatever it is that I’m saying. She was freaking me out alright.
P2: I didn’t quite understand about the back paper stuff. Why did you have so many of them?
M: (Not that please…!!!) Gave a lame duck excuse like language problem (medium of lecture was Bengali) and stuff like sickness and showed them my improvement in the last year. Not very convincing overall.
P2: (The I’m not convinced look.)
P1: What is P***** ???? (Don’t even remember it)
M: (A bewildered look, much like the one P2 was sporting) "I don’t remember having come across that". (Which was really the truth.)
P1: What about Teleological and De-Ontological Theory?
M: (Ok, that I remember coming across, JUST COMING ACROSS…nothing else) I’m sorry, I seem to have forgotten.
P1: What do you think is more important for you, the end’s or the means?
M: Quote something from the Bhagavad Gita. Even say stuff like, "Krishna told Arjun that if the end was justified than there was no harm in even killing someone". Something like that. Basically spoke on Duty.
P2: Is that what Lord Krishna told Arjun?
M: Not in that way but something like that.
P2: That’s a very crude way of saying it. (The look on her face fast changing from bewildered to horrified.)
M: I’m sorry Madam’.
P1: Ok. We’ll give you a topic to speak on and you’ll have to speak on it for about a minute. Your topic is "Tourism is destroying our beaches".
M: (Nervous as hell because I felt I’d fucked up my interview) Talked about a middle path by spreading awareness in tourists and basically the same thing with a different set of words. And in the end concluded by saying something about how people should make a habit of leaving a place little better than it was before they came.
*P2 seemed quite happy with that last bit of info. But she was still holding that bewildered look on her face (maybe it was a permanent look).
P2: What are your hobbies?
M: Reading, Trekking, Football, Cricket, etc.
P2: Trekking?
M: Told about my treks to Sandakphu and Tinjurey.
P2: What was the altitude of the place you went to?
M: (%$#&^%!!!) I think it was 18000 ft. (I really wasn’t sure, although I think I had seen a signboard when I was there stating the height)
P2: "18000 ft"! ! ! …she said seemingly shocked (Ok now I could make out she was enjoying this).
M: (feeling really tense, I hope I hadn’t seen the 18000 ft in my Geography text book, beside the Mt.Everest.).
P1: Would you like to ask us something?
M: What are your HR and marketing placements?
P1: Said something…but I don’t remember because I asked so that I wouldn’t look like a fool.
P1: Anything else.
M: No. (Hell NO…!!)..
P1: Thank You.
M: (Glad its over…)
I didn’t expect much from this and frankly speaking I wasn’t really looking forward to study in Amrita looking at the unprofessional way they conducted their Interview Process. Think I sound like sore loser, couldn’t care less man.
By the way, the place I trekked was 16000 ft. which was not very far from 18000 ft.