Because Shit Happened Page 8

  Almost fifteen days before Judgement Day, shortlists started arriving. BCG, Bain and Company, Booz and Co, and my name was on none. From the shortlist, it seemed that only 8+ pointers had any chance of making it through.

  ‘Son, did any shortlists arrive?’ said my father during a phone conversation.

  ‘No,’ I hesitantly lied. It hurt me to lie to them.

  ‘Not even for McKinsey?’

  ‘No, it will arrive in three days.’

  I was really sad. More than my own rejection, it was the names of Shantanu and Preeti being shortlisted with whom I had practised several cases that became the cause of my anguish. Five other companies released their shortlists for interviews over the next three days. My disappointment climbed the charts as I made it to none of them. My self worth stooped to the nadir. To add to my misery, Preeti made it in all of them and she called me every time to ask about my shortlist, despite knowing that I hadn’t made it. I could not face anyone. I was so agonized that I started staying aloof, away from sympathy and pity.

  Like always, I was playing click-back-refresh on the placement portal of IIT Delhi. My eyes fell on a particular announcement. It was a list of shortlisted candidates for McKinsey & Company and my name was on it! I decided to update my Facebook status.

  McKinsey & Co.—I love you.

  Half an hour later, my cellphone started buzzing.

  ‘I have been shortlisted for McKinsey, Mom,’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Jai Sainath. Jai Sainath,’ she said thanking her favourite God. I checked my status again. It had crossed 20 likes and a dozen of congratulatory messages.

  I called Preeti next. To my surprise, she hadn’t made it. I expressed my fake sadness and sported a wide grin. I, a 7 pointer, could crack something that Preeti, a 9 pointer, couldn’t. After ten days of despair, I could walk with my chest swollen with pride.

  I didn’t yet tell Priya about it. It had been almost a month since we had last met. She had been very considerate and strengthened my confidence every step of the way. It was time to gift my beloved my time: the only thing that she would appreciate before my credit cards came into existence.

  I chose to skip my case practice and go to North Campus to see Priya. Later, I found out from Shantanu that the practice had been called off for Preeti was not in the right mood owing to her rejection; I suspected the reason to be jealousy borne from my getting shortlisted in the best company on campus.

  ‘Hi girlfriend,’ I said to Priya on the phone. I was standing right outside her PG and had decided to surprise her with my unexpected arrival.

  ‘Wow, somebody seems to be happy.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be? After all, I have a girlfriend like…Yu…kta!’

  ‘Jerk. Who’s Yukta?’

  ‘Miss World 1999.’

  ‘Oh. I thought there seriously was a girl.’

  ‘What for? A threesome?’

  ‘No dumbass—for finally getting rid of you.’

  ‘How can you get rid of me when I’m standing just outside your PG?’

  ‘Wait. You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  She peered down her window, saw me standing on the opposite side of the road in the winter sun, and screamed, ‘Oh my God. Wait there. I hate you for surprising me. I’m coming. Where are my jeans?’

  ‘Were you not wearing anything at home?’ I asked only to find that the call had been disconnected.

  She came running, with a wide beautiful smile that just did it for me. Her eyes were fixated on mine as she ran across the road, missing collision with a bicycle by inches, which made my heart skip a beat. She pounced on me and hugged me like a child.

  We were meeting after a month and I couldn’t convey in words how delighted I was too finally behold her in my sight.

  ‘How come you turned up all the way to this side of the gdobe?’ she said breaking from the embrace.

  ‘It’s love that has brought me here, my love,’ I said turning cheesy.

  ‘This can’t happen. You can’t be so nice. Wait a minute…oh my God, you got shortlisted for McKinsey, didn’t you?’

  What followed was a version of bhangra on the road. To save myself from humiliation in front of the crowd watching us, I stopped her.

  ‘Are you happy for me or the credit cards?’ I interrogated.

  ‘Of course, you…r credit cards,’ she winked.

  We walked our way to the Kamla Nagar market, talking about things that made us smile and imagining my future as a McKinsey employee with a big fat package. The future appeared spectacular.

  I returned late at night, checked the placement portal to reaffirm myself that I’d actually made it, and slept peacefully for the last time in my life.

  The next few days I completely immersed myself in the preparations. Rishabh, seeing me so focussed about the placement process, took care of the start-up in my absence. Not that he was toiling day and night, as we had nothing spectacular to toil for, but yes, he totally dealt with the T-shirt manufacturers, college orders, and respected my seriousness about McKinsey. Nevertheless, I was still managing the social media of the start-up, which was helping us in the outreach.

  Rishabh was not very keen about preparing for placements. He was brainwashed by seniors that students with a low GPA couldn’t clear shortlists of reputed companies and therefore didn’t apply for many Day 1 companies. With the approaching date, the weather also took a turn for the worse.

  December 1

  For the first time in my four years of engineering I took a bath so early in the morning. Other than occasional shivers, slight panting, and a feeble I-can-do-it feeling, I experienced numbness all over. My interview with McKinsey & Company was scheduled for 8 o’ clock that morning. Bitten by the cold weather, I rushed to the interview room in my new pinstriped suit.

  Other interviewees, some of them my batchmates, were waiting before me already. My interviewer was a Sardarji. He seemed quite scary judging by his walk. He advanced towards me as if he was going to head butt me. I reluctantly advanced towards him. He anticipated the rhythm and that led to a firm handshake. Firmer from my side, just to let him know that I was not scared. Or rather to let me know that I wasn’t.

  ‘Hello, I’m Amol.’

  ‘Hi,’ I said, waiting for him to continue while we advanced towards the slaughter house.

  ‘Your good name please?’ I asked.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he said. That’s all.

  At this point of time, three separate thoughts swayed in my head at the same time.

  1.

  Either he had not heard my question.

  2.

  He could have forgotten his name and was trying to recollect it.

  3.

  He didn’t like me asking his good name.

  I was lost in his hmmm, when he opened the door to the slaughter house. When I saw the insides, my mind went blank. All three thoughts merged into each other.

  ‘Amol, have a seat,’ Hmmm said. I was glad to know that he could actually frame sentences.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ I grabbed the opposite chair, the cold seat freezing my bottom.

  ‘So, you’re?’ Hmmm shot the trigger straightaway. I was startled.

  ‘I am… I am Amol Sabharwal, student of Engineering Physics, 4th year…’

  ‘No, no, stop. I just forgot your name. So Amol, what do you like?’ he asked.

  Definitely not a creepy guy in the chilly morning! I thought.

  ‘Hmmm…’ I said and began thinking in a similar manner to Hmmm. Despite my liking for him, he didn’t seem pleased. I continued, ‘I like writing. I like business. And, I like people.’

  ‘What’s the order of liking?’ he asked.

  ‘The reverse. People, business, and writing,’ I said. The first big mistake.

  ‘When it’s your first choice, why did it come last?’

  ‘I saved the best for the last,’ I tried to please him with my wit. He didn’t know appreciation.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he said
. I thought he liked his name too much. His eyes were deadly. ‘Okay, so tell me about this YourQuote.com that you’ve mentioned in your resume?’

  ‘So, YourQuote is my start-up, which I co-founded around six months ago. It caters to people who are good with one liners. As a writer, I realized that there was no platform which promotes the common man’s basic creativity of crafting quotable one liners and there was also no way to gain incentives at the grassroot level of creativity that every common man possesses…In this…’

  ‘As I can read here in your CV, you’re a novelist too. Interesting!’ Hmmm developed some interest. ‘Tell me, why are you interested in consulting?’

  ‘Hmmm, consulting is a field which would offer me great insight into the field of business and people, which I’m really passionate about. It would give me a chance to…,’ I continued with my best prepared speech.

  He looked convinced. Boot-licking, who doesn’t like that? That too at the start of the day?

  ‘You’re a writer as well as an entrepreneur. And as I can see from your resume, you’re making good money too from your venture and I can guess you’re getting decent royalties from your book as well. If I’d been at your place, I would have pursued the venture full time. Why don’t you?’

  I realized one of the gravest mistakes I’d committed while preparing my CV was mentioning the exaggerated turnover of our start-up—7 lakhs in six months’ time. What I thought would be the spike in my CV actually became a spike in my ass. 7 lakhs in six months for an online venture with T-shirts as the only product with a profit margin of 30-40 percent meant that soon I would be earning a lot from my venture.

  ‘Sir, as I said that I want to gain experience of the business world,’ I uttered, irritably.

  ‘Nothing would give you the experience of the business world more than entrepreneurship. I myself want to be an entrepreneur, but am severely trapped in the job cycle. You are making decent money with the venture. Go ahead.’

  I was baffled. I couldn’t convince myself. Especially when I had told everyone that McKinsey was my dream company. I couldn’t say that what my CV stated was only half the truth, our turnover had zero profit, as whatever we had earned was spent in overheads. There were also those 700 T-shirts lying in my room that had blocked our 1.5 lakh rupees completely.

  I had to fight back. Anyhow.

  ‘Sir, I still think joining McKinsey would be more beneficial for me as currently I lack the experience.’

  ‘Amol, we are not looking for candidates who take value from McKinsey. We are looking for someone who can add value to it instead.’

  Why are you making it difficult for me? Damn, I can’t think of anything.

  ‘I think I can add value. I have the necessary skill set and experience to understand the business intricacies, be a team leader, and solve business problems.’

  ‘Amol, you are contradicting yourself. You just mentioned that you lack experience.’

  Damn! It’s a stress interview now.

  ‘Anyway, let’s do a case,’ he said and made sure that he broke down my three months of hard work by giving me his life’s most challenging case that required application of game theory and probability which was way beyond my knowledge. Being nervous, I could not come up with anything intelligent in the next few minutes to break the awkward lull between us.

  ‘What would you do if you don’t make it in this interview?’

  ‘I’ll go full time with my start-up,’ I said in an impulse.

  ‘That’s what I thought. Thanks for the interview. Wish you all the best with YourQuote.co,’ he said.

  ‘Hmmm,’ I said in a contemplative tone. I stood up and said, ‘It’s yourquote.in, not .com,’ and came out of the interview room.

  I had left the slaughter house, disappointing the executioner. As soon as I came out of the interview room, I found Priya waiting anxiously for me. I had never felt as bad as I did that moment. My cheeks were wet. It was the first time that she had seen me crying. She wrapped me in her arms and broke into sobs. She was crying with me. For me.

  We didn’t speak at all. I was told by the volunteers there that in case McKinsey wishes to call me for the next round of interview, I would receive a call. Meanwhile, a loud shriek pierced through my ears. One of my batchmates had been given a spot offer in the first round itself. She was jumping with joy. Had I stayed at that place for one more moment, I would have jumped off the third floor balcony. The lull prevailed as I walked till the market just outside the IIT campus and grabbed a seat in a coffee house. I loosened the tie which seemed like a suicide rope tied to my neck.

  ‘Why are you so disappointed? They said they would call you,’ Priya said softly.

  ‘Amol, they said…’ Priya uttered.

  ‘Will you please shut up?’ I screamed, so loudly that the people who were seated nearby turned around to look at what was happening.

  ‘What? What are you looking at?’ I screamed irritably at the onlookers.

  Priya started sobbing. Her tears did the magic trick. I couldn’t stand seeing her cry. I held her hands and apologized.

  ‘If you don’t stop crying, I’ll start crying too and you know how bad I look when I cry.’ Her sobs stopped and a mild smile appeared in its place.

  ‘They have rejected me. Damn the start-up, it screwed me up totally. I should not have mentioned the turnover. It worked against me. It’s over.’

  ‘Think positive. They might call you.’

  ‘Priya, I have been rejected fair and square. The partner at the firm himself told me during the interview.’

  Just then a call from a random number appeared on my screen. My heartbeat stopped for a while.

  ‘Amol, pick up the phone. It’s them,’ Priya yelled, ‘Amol! Are you listening to me?’

  I came back to my senses and picked up the call with wishful anticipation.

  ‘Hi Amol! Preeti this side, I cracked BCG. They just gave me a spot-offer. Also, Shantanu cracked Goldman Sachs. What about you? How did McKinsey go?’ I was bereft of hope. Nothing could have been worse than that.

  ‘Congratulations.’ It took me immense efforts to fabricate every syllable of that word. I couldn’t talk anymore and broke down, so Priya grabbed my phone and uttered, ‘Hi Preeti, Amol will talk later. He’s not well,’ and saved me from the misery.

  No phone calls came until dusk. The thought of calling my parents who had been desperately waiting to hear from me killed every piece alive within me. I SMSed my father: ‘Sorry Dad, I couldn’t make it. I’ll call you at night,’ and they were considerate enough to not call me and prod. Though Priya didn’t want to leave me alone at that critical juncture, I asked her to leave. I made my way back to the hostel. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to be caged in a shell. I switched off my cellphone and dropped deep down into a sea of depression.

  The priorities poster with McKinsey at number 1 was still stuck on my wall and it seemed to mock me. In a fit of rage, I tore it down to pieces and cried like a child.

  The walls of Facebook were full of jubilations and felicitations. A record 62 people, most of them from my friend list, had been placed on Day 1, with the maximum package being around 25 lakhs. I closed the website in disgust and retired to sleep, which I knew was not going to come easily that day.

  Going Solo

  I woke up at 6 o’clock the next morning. I had no companies for the next four days. The early morning sun prompted me to come face to face with the reality of the previous day. As I walked, wrapped in a shawl that was my father’s, I observed everything around me. Nothing had changed. The hostel had the same guard, the ground had the same grass, the dogs had the same howl, the sun had the same brightness. It seemed that nobody was even a little bit perturbed by my sorrow. They didn’t seem to care at all.

  I was too small for them. I was nobody for the world. I was nobody for McKinsey. I was nobody for any of the other companies. Except one that was my own. yourquote.in.

  I rushed back to my hostel, opened my laptop, and a
t exactly 6.30 am, updated my status:

  Cracked Day 2: placed at yourquote.in, my dream company

  The amount of satisfaction it brought to me was out of this world. I felt enlightened, inspired, and most importantly, happy. I decided to call my parents. When I found my cellphone, I cursed myself. I had forgotten to switch it on. There were three missed calls from my Dad, two from my Mom, and a dozen from Priya.

  I called my Mom and woke her up in the process.

  ‘Son, I have been waiting to speak to you. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine Mom. Sorry for switching off the phone yesterday.’

  ‘Yes, I got really nervous, thinking whether you had done anything. But then your Dad told me that you had talked to him.’

  I hadn’t talked to my Dad the day before, but thanked his presence of mind for taking care of my mother’s anxiety.

  ‘Oh yes. I had talked to Dad.’

  ‘Son, don’t feel sad about McKinsey. Everything happens for a reason. There would be a better company waiting for you,’ she counseled me.

  ‘Yes Mom, that’s why I called you. I have found a better company.’

  ‘Did you already get placed?’

  ‘Yes mother.’

  ‘Oh God. Jai sainath. Which one is that?’ she asked, excitedly.

  ‘My own. YourQuote,’ I said ecstatically.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she asked, concerned.

  ‘Yes Mom. I have decided to go full time with my start-up.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind? You are leaving the certain for the uncertain. You know nobody has ever done business in our family before. Do you know how risky is it? What’s his name—your partner…’

  ‘Rishabh…’

  ‘Yes, definitely Rishabh—your partner had brainwashed you.’

  ‘Mom, Rishabh doesn’t even know about it. And, he’s probably going for a job.’

  ‘See how shrewd he is? He wants you to go full time with the start-up while he would benefit from working at two places at the same time.’

  ‘Mom, stop it. He is very nice and supportive. He has not influenced my decision. I want to take my company to greater heights. Think about next year, when I would be coming to recruit students from IIT. How wonderful would that be?’