Of Mirrors, Ghajini Effect & Viagra!

There are instances where I can imagine God with a bored face and trying to find out which one of us can He use for a bit of entertainment. No hard feelings, He is the creator after all and He too needs a break once in a while...

So, in one of God's recent stints of entertaining Himself, I would like to describe this incident which happened to me. Read on for more!

I went to an interview. The company was one of India's reputed PR agencies which has an expertise in handling clientèle from the IT sector. So I, went for the interview basking in full fledged confidence, having handled an IT client herself for the past 1.5 years. (Those who know which client it is, shut up. Even if negligibly small, it still IS an IT client).

PHASE 1: THE MIRROR CRASHES!

Before I start...are you guys aware of the situation when you hear a big mirror crashing somewhere in your head, the moment you realize something miserable or horrible about yourself? Well, this interview was a "Mirror Crash" marathon for me.

I sat down, and I was looked upon as if they made a huge mistake by calling me. I was asked, "So what client do you handle in your current job?" And I played my winning card! I told them the IT client I have worked on for more than a year. And she looked at me with a raised eye brow, saying: "That's it, that's the only IT client you have handled?" CRASH!

I was then asked questions like "What's the stock price for Infosys?" "What is the latest on Wipro & TCS Quarterly Results?" "What do you think Cloud Computing is?" "What do they mean by Wave 3 in Indian IT?" CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! & yet another CRASH!

PHASE 2: THE 'GHAJINI' EFFECT

By this time, I'd already realized that I have entered the fight with a small kitchen knife and I have an entire Army in front of me! However, that army decided to torment me instead of going the "mercy killing" way! Hopelessly waiting for my death and meekly trying to regain my ground, I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. However, I might have inhaled something weird in that 'Deep Breath' because I remember things only in bits and pieces from there on. And yes, I suffered from short term memory loss or more commonly known as the "Ghajini" state of mind.

They wanted to check my knowledge in other sectors like Retail, Telecom and Pharma. They simply asked me which are the existing groups in Telecom sector in India. And TRUST ME, I could only say: (after much contemplation that is) 'Airtel?????' Yes the Question marks are apt because that was truly the tone I had! She gave me that "who the fuck called you here" look and then asked,"I just want to know which groups these service providers belong to". I said, "I don't know, I guess Bharti...ummmm...I can't recall right now"!

Then she asked me, what do I know about the Pharma Industry and if I can name a few players...And I just had one name in mind...'Pfizer'. She asked who ARE the competitors and I could only come up with Glenmark. And the worst part was, while dealing with one question after the other, I was still thinking how come I got stuck with the 'Telecom' question. And then, all of a sudden, from nowhere, Vodafone- Essar, Idea- Aditya Birla, Reliance - Dhirubhai Ambani et al started cropping up. So now, I guess, while she asking me questions about Pharma, I was answering her questions about Telecom in my head and wondering how the hell did I forget this basic info in the first place.

PHASE 3: THE ONE WITH VIAGRA IN THE END

Well, seeing my lost look, she must have felt some pity towards me. She tried to give me something I can talk on, so she went back and said, "So, you mentioned Pfizer. You can talk about it. Can you name some products by the brand Pfizer?" And all of a sudden, I, who got overwhelmed seeing her pity towards me, again got lost and tried to remember her question. I remember the voices in my head again going, "Product?" "Pfizer?" "How could you forget Vodafone Essar"? Then all of a sudden, I again took a deep breath (Big mistake, again!) and tried to deal with the present question.

Well, I started thinking. And I almost jumped off my seat because I KNEW the answer! Well almost. I couldn't remember the name. And the Ghajini struggle started. "Come on Suruchi, you know this" ... "Abey tereko pata hai...the one which enhances sexual stamina...what is that drug called?"

Yeah. I remembered the function of that drug but didn't remember the name! I thought of telling the HR that I know the answer but am unable to recall the name. But what would I tell her? The drug that stimulates your hormones and takes care of cases with erectile dysfunction? DAMN! Another answer, which I had to let go despite being so close!

This time she yawned, and asked me what do you know about the retail industry? And I of course didn't hear the question because I was still trying to imagine what the earlier product was. So I hopelessly mumbled something about Pantaloons and Wills Lifestyle. At that very moment, something struck me! "VIAGRA! YOU LOSER HOW COULD YOU FORGET VIAGRA?" Well, Kudos to my memory, I remembered the answer but it was too late, the HR was on the question related to Retail! And things would have really been beautiful had I not yelled "VIAGRA" at the top of my voice the moment it struck me. YES! She asked me something about Retail and I answered VIAGRA!!!

I don't remember what happened after that. It must have been the air of that room which I inhaled. Everything after that is just a blur!

Anyway, the best part of that interview was, I realized where I stand in this fiercely competitive world (Rock Bottom perhaps) and how much I need to work to become one of the knowledgeable ones in the industry. The "Overconfident attitude" was brought back to "New at work, keen to learn" attitude and I haven't stopped thanking GOD for choosing me as His Bakra for that day!

So at the end, I have a few tips for those planning to appear for an interview.

1. PREPARE WELL

2. DON'T OVERESTIMATE YOURSELF

3. DON'T INHALE TOO MUCH OF AIR!

Situational Friends!

Friendship - Have read, heard and probably talked so much about this in life, that perhaps this post might just be a lame attempt in discussing something new. Nonetheless, I can give my share of "gyaan" to this world and torture everyone for a while.

Whenever I have read about "Friendship", the word "Beautiful" & "God Sent" have always tagged along as adjectives. I don't negate them, but I don't agree completely.

Friendship, once again, as per one of the most bromidic phrases used, is the only relation that you make by your choice. And I always lived in the same world, where friendships are supposed to last for life, bring memorable moments to be cherished throughout your life and what not! Honestly, life was really good when I still could stand by these notions regarding friendship.

Today, friends can be categorized in so many different ways.

There are the ones who are there for you "ALWAYS" and would expect you to be there "ALWAYS"! And yes, even a moody and 'I need my space' person like me has a few friends like these. And now I am wondering why!

Then comes the variety of friends who never wants to stay in touch. I mean, not exactly never, because they will turn up exactly at the time they need you. Do expect a phone call or a text message saying, "Hi, how is life?" from them a day or an hour right before they call you or show up at your door asking for help and you are stuck because you can't even blame these jerks for not keeping in touch all this while. (They called you yesterday...remember?)

The next variety: The "Forward" friends. You will always see emails or Sms forwards daily in your inbox. Most of the times, you read the PJs or bugging "shayris" or "Forward this to 150 people and a you will get laid tonight" mails from them. In bulk. Thrice a day. Every time I look at them and try to remember the faces these friends had, I almost never succeed. And yet again I wonder, why are they my friends and what am I doing in their friends list. Not forgetting cursing myself for being such a loser, big enough to open these mails and messages!

The next type is very common. We all have dealt with them at one point or the other in our lives. They are your friends, always with you, committing yourself to you till death tears you apart! However, before death another tragedy strikes them. They fall in love. And then, the object of all the commitment and togetherness and 'Will be there for you till death tears us apart' promises changes. You are just left behind calculating what went wrong and where and by that time, they are already happily married and probably planning kids. (You never come to know what exactly happened to them, they never sent you a wedding invitation.)

The next friendship is the one-sided love. You just can't stand these folks. You know you don't want to be with them or talk to them. But then, just because you never could be very rude to these ones, you have to put up with them. And no, it's NOT that easy. You try to ignore them, but they ignore the fact that you are ignoring them. Pathetically optimistic about their importance in your life, they stay and stay and they STAY!

Then of course, we have the "Whiners"!Describing them, they are really typical when it comes to this trait. Well, first of all, they simply are in love with themselves. I mean, I how else do I explain the super duper obsession towards whining and crying about how life has been unfair to 'THEM'. This category has all the "Why me?" and "Enough is enough" "Life has always been cruel to me" slogan holders. They are so self obsessed and busy crying around, they even ignore the solution to their problems which might be lying in front of them since the time the problem surfaced. And yes, in extreme cases, they tend to refuse finding out a solution, because according to them, they are too unique and important to ever have a solution. In these cases, they chose the problems, the problems don't chose them. And they feel comfortable only when they have issues to whine about. Give them a reason to smile and they will be lost and don't know what to do. I have a handful of these "Friends". I think I came into their super important life thinking they need help. Apparently, it's the other way round now. It's better to leave them alone. Problems are their only partners, friends, lovers...etc.

There are loads of other categories. The flaunting ones for example. They don't flaunt themselves, they flaunt you. They love being seen with you or being associated with you because you might be one of less moronic idiots in their circle of otherwise chronic ones.

Then we have the obliging ones. They tend to ignore you completely when in a group. But they behave as if they are your soul mates when meeting you alone. Yeah, you feel you are important all over again, while all they want out of you is to be a good listener to them because none of the sensible ones could put up with their bragging.

We also have the birthday friends. The ones who remember you on your birthday, promptly wishing you exactly at 12:00 am and of course expecting you to wish them on theirs. Miss one of their birthdays and the trail ends. It's a give and take relationship after all. The same thing applies to all your facebook and orkut friends also. They will "Like" your comments if you "Like" theirs and scrap you back if you scrap them. Again the trail will end the moment you miss it once.

Well, writing this post, I have taken a big risk. I know you all are currently categorizing me in all of the options above. And I know I alone can give rise to at least 50 newer categories. But then, what the hell, this is my post. You can write about me in yours! :D

I can still go on with this never ending journey of categorizing my friends. But I have to stop and come to the last category. I would like to call this - 'The ones who can't be categorized'. I am extremely lucky to have a few of these people in my life whom I would never be able to put a label on in any way possible.

They are rare and precious. They are the ones who really matter to me. The ones whom I can be an utter nuisance to and still expect to be there. The ones whom I can be every trait I mentioned in my post above and still expect to put up with me. I won't name them, but I somehow know they realize what they mean to me.

They are also the ones whom I expect to read this blog till the end for sure and hence mentioning them in the last line... I LOVE YOU GUYS! :) :*

P.S. The entire work here is pure work of part bored and part sleepy mind. Any resemblance to any person in my close and far off circle might be a coincidental and exaggerated form of my opinion about them. ;)