The Magnetic Pen

To read PART 1  "Click Here" To read PART 2  "Click Here" To read PART 3  "Click Here" “May I come in, Sir?” I peeked in the interview room. A man in his mid-thirties was talking on phone. Looking at me, he waved his hand asking me to wait for five minutes. Then he continued his call, walking from one end of the room to the other. The room had computers lined up in its periphery. In the centre was a partition, on either side of which there was a big table with two chairs placed facing each other. The other partition was occupied by a pair of an interviewer and a prospective candidate. ‘What if I couldn't answer a question? What if the interviewer asks me something I don’t know? What if I get rejected? What if…’, a train of thoughts had just left the platform and it’s driver had no idea where it would stop. “What happened?” Someone pulled the chain. I turned back. It was Mr. French cut. “He asked me to come after five minutes and ...

To read PART 1  "Click Here" To read PART 2  "Click Here" I resisted my desire of talking to him. ‘Focus Aisha…Focus’, I told myself,’ Focus on the interview darling’. I tried to flush my RAM and refill it with the useful technical content which I would need once in front of the interviewer. Garbage in, Garbage Out. ‘Go back to the resume’. Really! “Which year are you in?” I broke the ice. “Third year, Mechanical Engineering”, he was prompt enough to reply with a smile. A smile can do wonders. It is infectious and it infected me too. The anxiety eased out. The nervousness…err… well, what does this word mean? Does it even exist? Where was I? What was I doing there? This is what Mr. French cut’s smile was doing to me. “May I sit there beside you?” he asked me politely. “yeah…sure!” I smiled looking down on my resume.  My mind entered in a duel with itself. ’Okay, so I am good with C, C++, shell scripting….umm…let me ask him about hi...

To read PART 1 "Click Here" Ten minutes later. “Mam, It’s your turn now”, said Aditi Singh , another placement coordinator, turning towards me. Something shook me from within. "Is it necessary to start from me?” I inquired. “No, anyone can go in first. We don’t follow any order Mam”, she replied with a smile sensing my nervousness. Neha offered to go in my place. It was a relief. Phew! I was sitting on my chair, cross legged, head down, gaze fixed on the resume which was on top of the portfolio file kept on my lap. My left hand fingers were fidgeting with their right counterparts. My heartbeat pumping fast, I am sure it would be a high frequency sinusoidal curve if you plotted it against time. Neha was followed by Shikha, Rohan and Prateek. By that time, I had scanned my resume for the hundredth time, I swear. But God knows what I really read. It is a virtue of the human mind that it can go on reading the same set of words for innumerous...

It was a long corridor. I could see through the glass door. There were about twenty chairs placed against the left wall, probably one for each candidate. The right wall was adorned with colourful boards with quotes from famous people written on each. Below each board was placed carnations planted in pots painted in red. There were two rooms each on either side just before and after the area where the chairs were placed. “May I have your attention please? “, the young voice caught everyone’s attention and suddenly there was pin drop silence in the parlour where  a group of final year to-be engineering graduates were gathered for the final round of the placement in a renowned Indian IT  MNC. “All those whose names I am going to call, are requested to make a queue and occupy seats inside the corridor. Rest, kindly wait here till any further call”, said the placement coordinator; Manish Rai, his badge read. He read out a list of twenty names and instructed them to...