Will She Be Mine (8 page)

“Have faith in your abilities,” he said in the end, unable to rationalize further. I didn’t persist in ripping apart his beliefs either. “Your interview took place for a good role in a progressive organization. If you get the job, it’ll be good for your career. Otherwise, after over two years of sitting idle at home, it might be difficult to land a respectable job.”

He had made a valid point this time. But my interview had taken place nearly a year ago, and I never heard back from the government organization after that. I’d mostly forgotten about it, aware that I had not fared too well at the interview. There had been nearly twenty interviewers on the panel and I had felt literally gang raped by the crowd. Even my ragging at college as a freshman had been milder in comparison.

Somehow I’d managed to live through the ordeal. After what I went through, I thought they owed me at least a rejection slip out of courtesy, but I got none. It was any day easier to break a wall with one's head than expect courteous behavior from some employers in this country if they rejected you. Father applied to some other jobs too, but no one else called me for interview.

It didn’t matter. The good part was that Shalini was back in Delhi. She remained friendly with me and even agreed to accompany me to eating joints on some evenings or Sundays, though she never broached the topic of marriage from her side. When I raised it, she smiled disdainfully.

“You don't give up, do you?”

“What’s wrong with marrying me?” I challenged.

“You don’t even earn, RK,” was all she commented finally. “What can I say? I do feel bad, but sometimes feel you're emotionally unstable.”

That wasn’t a good assessment for a girl to have of her beau. She’d soon give up on me as hopeless if she thought that way. My days passed by in misery. After hearing her comment about my joblessness, I felt desperate to apply to a job that paid well. The IT industry seemed alluring in that sense, but I had a degree in aeronautical engineering, with no experience in software or IT. Did one’s major matter? My first job through our college’s campus recruitment had been in marketing, not in aeronautics, though I chucked that job away. It would have been lucrative, I thought ruefully. Would they rehire me if I went back? It seemed unlikely.

Somehow I’d botched up my career prospects royally and it didn't look like I’d ever earn big in this life, while she was all set to roll in money, armed with an MBA degree from a premier management institute reputed the world over. She’d soon mingle in her own circle of similarly employed people, earning equally fabulously, and forget me completely. I had to fix the situation urgently and discussed with father about undergoing a couple of software trainings, something the market termed as certificate courses.

“Are those courses any good?” he asked doubtfully.

I had no idea. The newspapers were full of advertisements about certificate courses in software programming and networking tools, promising placements to all course participants in software companies. I needed the money and the self respect it would bring. I could always think about the appropriateness of the job later, as long as it was an honest means of earning a livelihood. Shalini’s comment about my joblessness weighed heavily on my mind. It was important to please her first. That was the top priority of the moment. Maybe she was just waiting for me to land a job before saying yes to my marriage proposal? I couldn't wait to reach the milestone.

“We like to think of the placements promised by such courses as high paying jobs in big branded companies,” father said.

I nodded eagerly. It seemed he was finally catching on and ready to look at prospects my way.

“But for all you know, they might well be insignificant jobs at unknown workplaces,” he pointed out dryly, crashing my hopes. “How can you be sure of the value of such courses?”

I frankly had no idea and looked at him hopefully.

“Anyway,” he relented finally, since his son's future at stake. “You've wasted almost three years since graduation. Let's see if such a course works out for you. Go ahead and enroll in one. I'll pay the fees.”

The institute I joined taught the C programming language to start with. The course instructor was faintly surprised to find an MSIT graduate, jobless for 3 years, seeking a paltry certificate course to bail himself out. I didn’t care what he thought as long as he delivered value and I got a job to please my Shalini. The course promised a brief training in the C++ programming language later along with a primer on networking fundamentals as well, but I never made it that far.

Well before we even started on the more advanced concepts of the C programming language, the government agency that had interviewed me over a year ago, responded. A thick letter arrived by courier one afternoon, within a month of my joining the computer programming course.

“They certainly send rejection letters in style,” I remarked disdainfully, noting the sender’s address as I grappled with the thick stapler pins to open the envelope.

Surprise! It was not a rejection slip, but my appointment letter! I’d given up the interview as a failure and my prospective employer as inefficient and discourteous, who didn't bother to keep candidates posted on the developments after subjecting them to horrendous interviews that smacked of gang rape. But somehow, magically enough, they’d woken up to their folly and remembered me! After over a year of wait, they had sent my appointment letter! It meant I had not performed that badly at the interview.

“These organizations take us for granted,” I said to mother. “After a year they assume I'm still waiting for their offer. A year is a long time. As if anyone would remain unemployed for so long.”

“Aren't you?” she pointed out archly. “You don't have a job yet.”

“But I'm doing a very good programming course,” I defended lamely. “I can any day earn higher than the salary they've offered.”

“Don't boast till you have something to show. Now, will you please call up your father and inform him about the offer?” she snorted, cutting short my daydreams. “At least he’d feel relieved and happy.”

He was. In fact, he was so delighted that he took a break from office that afternoon and rushed home to congratulate me. I wasn't sure it was anything worth celebrating. The salary was paltry and my posting would be at Bangalore, which was so far from Delhi where my Shalini had recently returned to work.

I didn't wish to leave Delhi at this juncture, so soon after her return. I had just started taking her out to eating joints on money borrowed from my parents and needed a little more time to warm her up to the idea of matrimony with me. I was certain she’d agree to my proposal this time.

She too had treated me to dinner on a couple of occasions, so it wasn’t one-sided any longer. I felt we were just beginning to cozy up to each other and needed to spend more time together. The irony was that my posting would be in Bangalore, a place she’d just vacated. Couldn't we ever be near each other for long? I felt frustrated at my selection in the government job, though it was reputed to be one of the few productive government agencies across the country engaged in imaging and research, with over five thousand employees spread across three or four locations in the country.

My selectors were villains and spoilsports, I thought fuming. We had lengthy discussions at home why I shouldn’t go to Bangalore versus why I should go and join immediately. I wasn’t able to put up a sound defense and lost the case. Left with little choice, I packed my bags reluctantly. The sad part was that Shalini was traveling at that time and father felt I shouldn’t risk postponing my joining date at my new job, lest they move on to the next candidate in queue and drop me. I was unlikely to get another good job in this life if I didn’t take up this one on time.

So I reached Bangalore to join my first job. I couldn't meet Shalini before leaving, though I managed to convey my departure schedule to her over phone. She didn't sound in any way concerned or perturbed about my going away. I tried to reason with myself that she cared about me but was too busy to show it. Had she not had a soft corner for me, why would she have accompanied me occasionally to the eating joints after her office hours wehen she was in town?

I felt pretty homesick at Bangalore chiefly on account of missing her. This was my first job after a long barren patch of time and I was supposed to feel enthusiastic, but I hardly felt the part. Morosely, I took up a small room at a lodge near the railway station. During my first week at the workplace, I learned the secret behind my selection and the reason for the delay in sending me the offer. It seemed there had been some kind of hiring freeze due to which they were unable to make the offer earlier. There was another secret and this second one left me feeling proud.

The head of the interview panel, Ananthkrishnan, had favored me strongly owing to my MSIT credentials. He’d forcefully spoken in favor of recruiting me despite my joblessness of close to three years. He wanted to give a bright fresher a chance and several panel members had supported him. Since the position I was interviewed for fell in his department, as the head of the interview panel he overruled the few who objected, and hired me, albeit in a lower role, in a post unrecognized in any government gazette due to my inexperience, with the provision that I’d be promoted within a year to a post listed in a gazette, as per the organization’s processes- if I performed well. My subsequent promotions would come at four years or more, as per the existing government norms at that time.

It was the beginning of some heady years of job life for me. A degree from MSIT was the passport to success in this country. It seemed everyone wanted an MSITian on their rolls those days. An education at MSIT was still a struggle for the majority. Only a brainy few managed to qualify for it and I was one of those. The world recognized it and wanted to reward me.

Our professors had pampered us with this mindset while we were in college. At that time I had felt they were exaggerating pompously. Like scratching each others back to feel mutually good. However, I was wrong. Apparently, they had spoken with sound reason. The world seemed to lap up MSITians.

My office room, where I’d been provided a desk to sit, was located a little away from the common computer terminal room where I spent most of my time. My boss was a person named Indra Dwapayanan. He was a friendly guy willing to sit by my side patiently as I programmed at the computer terminal in FORTRAN, a language I picked up on the job.

The computer course I’d joined in Delhi did not teach FORTRAN, so I’d joined my first job as a literal novice in computer programming, since the programming language used by most scientists in this defence organization was exclusively FORTRAN.

In my first week at the office my boss took me to pay a courtesy visit to the head of the department, Ananthkrishnan, who had headed the interview panel that selected me. The guy looked gentle and kind, but I later learned I’d hardly ever interact with him for my day-to-day activities.

What I initially took as Dwapayanan's helpful patience to sit by my side for hours as I hammered the computer keys, turned out to be an irritant gradually. The guy was simply keeping an eye on me to make sure I didn't shirk work. He might as well have perched on my shoulder to see what I was up to. Didn’t the guy have any other work?

“Don't worry, you'll get used to it,” one of the developers sharing my office room said. His name was Shenoy, a year my senior. There were two others in the room besides him. In this way, four of us shared a dingy office room, without air conditioning. I was the junior most among them. We all reported to the same boss.

Dwapayanan was lavish in his praise as he found me exceeding his expectations within no time. In the initial days he usually set me targets to complete in two or three days, but I always managed to deliver my work well before that.

“Take it easy, RK,” Shenoy cautioned one day. “This is the time you and your boss are getting to know each other. Each is testing the other’s boundaries. The more eagerness you display in delivering large workloads in a short period of time, the more he'll saddle you with extra work. This is the time to set expectations. Show him a lower limit than you’re capable of, or you'll have a tough time ahead.”

“What do you mean?”

“Start setting his expectations,” he explained, adding in clearer terms, “For example, if you can complete a task in two days, do it in four instead.”

“How can I knowingly mislead him? That would be cheating.”

Shenoy laughed and glanced at the others in the room. “How do you know who’s cheating whom?” he smiled. “I hope you learn before it’s too late- before he starts saddling you with everything that others leave behind. Presently, he’s cheating you by extracting more work than you get paid for. Do you think public sector or government jobs remunerate employees sufficiently? We’re the ones always cheated. So if you slow down, you wouldn’t be cheating anyone. You'd still justify the salary packet they pay you.”

His words did seem to make sense. I’ve always been amazed and impressed by the strong rationales accompanying the actions of both the wrongdoers as well as the righteous people. Each held their ground to justify actions, whether right or wrong.

“In return they'd still give you promotions after four years like the rest of us,” Shenoy continued, mistaking my silence for acquiescence. “On the other hand, if you work extra hard, you'd get no additional incentives or perks for your extra labor. You’d only be blamed for delays and be singled out for failures, besides spoiling your own work-life balance.”

“Shenoy is right, RK,” another occupant in the room, Natarajan, chipped in. “This is not the private sector. Here over zealousness and sincerity are the recipes for self destruction. Nothing is gained in this industry by proving you're bright and intelligent. People don't appreciate. They either exploit you or feel jealous and try to run you down. Either ways you lose. Why should you work extra, for no added incentive? You might as well give that time to your family and personal pursuits.”