The interview!!

Finally got some time to put this here.
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We entered the GD Room where we were made to sit sequentially in the order of our roll no. We were then handed over the printed sheet which was supposed to be the topic for the GD. The GD was about a catering service company with some workers who were dissatisfied with work. We were provided with two statistics – one pertaining to the level at which the dispute with the worker was solved i.e. at a junior supervisor level or senior manager level etc. and the other one spoke about the kinds of dispute e.g. overtime, payment etc. The GD was the usual Indian parliament with every one with the loud voice getting some airtime. The variety of points discussed was not great. In the midst of the brouhaha I thought I was not being heard and this being my first b-school GD experience in my whole life (I did not take any GD/PI coaching either). This made me be more aggressive while making my points. Finally the GD ended and I felt it was too soon till I realized that it was already 20 mins. We ventured out of the room to wait for our interview turn. Outside I was told by the fellow candidates that I got the maximum airtime, was shouting at the top of my voice and was not letting others speak. Man and I had thought I was the one who was least noticed.
Outside the interview room I got hold of a student and started chatofying him about everything related to the college. The placements, the teachers, the students, the facility etc. Meanwhile students called before me were coming back after a tidy grill. I got to know that lots of questions were asked about statistics and technical subjects. I had managed to go through some part of statistics but was wondering if I would be able to answer academic technical questions after 2.5 yrs of passing out of my college and add to that the pseudo technical work at my Indian IT company. Anyways I remembered my friend ‘Pocha’s’ principle of jhoota self confidence (false self confidence). Before each horrifying examination he used to convince himself that he is fully prepared to top the exam. And this sense of self confidence had made him crack a lot of exams. I too decided to rely on it this time.
I was soon called and I walked into the room like a king smiling with my certificate file in my hands. I greeted the panelists and flashed a colgate smile. They returned the greetings and asked me for my certificates and gestured me to sit down. I had gathered outside that the three profs in the panel say M1, F1, F2 (M for male and F for female) taught international business, finance and technology management respectively. I sat there like William’s son with apple of self esteem on my head and these three guys kept on shooting arrows at it one by one.
M1 – Showed me a diagram which he had prepared before my entering the room. Asked me which line best represents the points.
Moi – None.(Lucky me I had just gone through correlation and variance the night before. It cant get better than this. But I managed to keep the “on the spot thinking” look with lots of ummmmms and ‘I think’ before answering. This continued through out till the statistics was there on the table)
M1 – Why?
Moi – Not all points will be represented by any of the lines. Some of the points will be far away. Again after another ‘on the spot thinking’ look I said “I think you are asking about correlation and regression. Since the points are randomly distributed I think that no line is correlated with the points.” I made sure that I gave the impression that I am recollecting all this from the subjects I read in the college.
M1 – How would you find the equation of the line which best represents a given set of points?
Moi – (hmmm curve fitting) Another pondering look and then slowly as if just formulated the idea and making sure that I don’t use any technical words I slowly proceeded saying that we can probably find the distance of the points from the curve and add them up. M1 now brings a smile to his now straight face. I am relieved
F2 – What is SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)
Moi – How I wished I had read software engg well in the college!! Aneways took out a paper and wrote what ever seemed logical to me. I later confirmed outside that I was 95% correct in whatever I had written.
F3 – What is Nagpur famous for?(I had done my engg from Nagpur Univ.)
Moi – Oranges
F3 – And?
Moi – Zero Mile(the official centre of India)
F3 – A sideways Shake of head and then “And?”
Moi – Lot of coal mines and spices grown in vidharba.
F3 – Not satisfied yet “And?”
Moi – Told about cricket stadium, RSS founded there etc. etc. but none satisfied her
F3 – Is it famous for something related to railways?
Moi – I capitulated and confessed “I don’t know mam”. She now seemed to be happy.
F3 – You stay in Bangalore. What states will you pass from if you go from Chennai to Kolkata in train?
Moi – Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.
F3 – Ok now tell me the breadth of India?
Moi – Flabbergasted , the apple of self esteem had finally been hit with such a ridiculous question. And I could see them jeering at me like Mr Murdstone at David Copperfield.
F3 – Ok give me a range.
Moi – Smiling happily 0 – 10000 Km. Laugher all around felt a bit relaxed now.
I took one min to see if I can logically derive it and the started thinking aloud – Distance from Kolkata to Bombay is 1600 Km as the crow flies. So I guess the breadth of India should be 1600 x 2 i.e. 3200 KM.
F3 – Again a negative nod but said – “ I like the way you derived it.”
Moi – Finally I think I m getting there.
M1 – What’s the difference between GMT and IST.
Moi – 5:30 hrs.
F2 – What is the longitude at which IST is calculated?
Moi – Calculated 4 mins per longitude so 330 mins / 4 = 82.5 degrees. I responded 82.5 East.
F2 – Smile on her face too. Asked how did you calculate?
Moi – Explained.
M1 – What do you think about Microsoft way of doing things and Linux way? With respect to the fact that Microsoft way a limited no. of people review the code in linux the whole world is a development thing.
Moi – protested – MS vs. Linux is a whole lot of debate.
M1 – Ok tell me then whether less no. of people reviewing is better or more no. of people reviewing the code is better.
Moi – Gas this time. Told them that there is no directly proportional relation between no. of people reviewing code and the quality of the code because as the no. of people increased the increase in quality will stagnate(I made sure I dint give them a chance by using diminishing marginal utility). But surely 5 people reviewing is better than 2 people reviewing.
F2 – What is knowledge management?
Moi – Gas lot of gas.
F3 – How does my company implement knowledge management?
Moi – Gas again and cooked up some false example to show them the usefulness of knowledge management. Told about the international awards won by my company for its knowledge management practices.
F3 – What is difference between technology and engineering?
Moi – Well engineering uses technology to create something useful for the society. Threw in an example – MPEG is a technology and engineering guys realize it into a player, say, which can be used by the people to enjoy music.

Panelists – Thanks and send the next guy in.
Finally came out alive. With lot of arrows passing right beside my apple of self esteem but finally it was intact though a bit scratched.
Met my school senior who was a student there and got a chance to look at the hostel. The hostel were single seater with 1 Gbps LAN (one of the fastest in India) and 24 hrs broadband connectivity. The furniture was rubberwood and looked good though the rooms were smaller for my liking.
Got back to Gaurav’s room and then left for my flight to Bengalooru.