March 28 happens to be quite a memorable day in my life. A little background is required for you to completely appreciate and understand the gravity of the situation. So here goes the background:
Name: Kulpreeth Singh
Strengths: Able to connect to people easily , very creative and good at event management , if he wants he can do anything in life (“IF he wants” is a very important clause there , please note ).
Dream No. 1 : To get a good rank in the CEED 2011 ( Common Entrance Exam for Design).
Status: SHATTERED .
Dream No. 2: To be able to complete the final semester project successfully and get to learn good amount of stuff from the project.
Status : WORK IN PROGRESS .
Dream No. 3: To make parents happy and proud.
Status: SHATTERED (partially) but still scope to be upgraded to WORK IN PROGRESS.
Background Ends here! Back to reality now.
March 25, was the day where Dream No. 1 could become reality , but the result of the CEED exam came like a boulder and hit hard on the crystal castle that I had build for my future ( I also heard crashing sounds in my mind when I saw the result ) . I was completely still for a few seconds , I waited for tears to come but they refused to come out. I went to drink some water and as soon as the H2O entered my throat , flood gates were opened from the eyes. I was happy that I was crying and soon I would be over it. Crying stopped after some time. Then Mr. Empty mind of mine brought in a tsunami of thoughts that opened the flood gates from the eyes again (thinking about it now, I wonder how this empty brainless mind of mine could think of all those things). Failure, disappointment, suicide (I feel like slapping myself to death for thinking this) , loss, all of these came like war horses to attack my untouched consciousness and I felt contraction like never before. I could not meet my own eyes. I wanted to avoid the closest of people around me, their care and concern would deepen my misery. After about 3 hours I gathered my shattered self together and told myself all the encouraging philosophical phrases like “Something better is waiting ” , “this is not the end of life ” etc . Also I had to prepare for this placement company IBM which was coming on March 27. I saw this as an opportunity for Dream No. 3 to go into the FULFILLED category ( Parents want their son (i.e. me) to get a job ).
Sticking quick fix to my shattered castle, I got ready once again, this time little less confident about the dream coming true. The first round of selection process was group discussion and then there were two sets of interviews. This was the company which tested only communication skills without any minimum percentage criteria of eligibility (means anyone could attend the placement exam). As the year was almost ending people who had still got no job were quite desperate for this job. As I entered the hall I saw 400 unemployed souls awaiting their turn for the Group Discussion, most of them were of the opinion that as the company has no minimum percentage criteria and no written exam round, they will take most of the people who appear. The GD started and people were filtered, we just had to express our opinion in the GD and we were through, I got through the GD round and next day were the two rounds of interviews. Glad that at least I cleared something, I walked out of the hall. They had not told us what we had to do in the interview next day. Anxious parents were made happy by the result, my mom was recounting all the prayers and chanting that she did for me all throughout the day, happiness was evident in her voice. Somewhere I saw a ray of hope that my Dream No. 3 might get fulfilled tomorrow. This reinforced my castle and I got ready for the next day. Mr. Mind tried to deepen the cracks in the castle and shatter it but I applied double coating of quick fix and went for the interview next day.
The interview was scheduled for 9:00 am, dressed in borrowed formal clothes, I reached the place. Everyone in the hall was well groomed and was looking the best that they could manage. But their face showed something exactly opposite. Inside, everyone of us were going through a lot of things, almost all of us wanted the job really badly hence fear of rejection was clearly shown on everyone’s face. I chose not to look at anyone and closed my eyes and started breathing long and deep, hoping that I will fall asleep or go into meditation. Finally the wait ended at 2: 00 pm when I was called inside in the waiting room to wait for my turn for the interview.
Only three things happened in this waiting room:
1. One stern looking person came and called people inside for the interview and also told people if they were selected or not. If people were selected he loudly announced” You have cleared all the rounds of the interview , please go to the next room and fill the company form” and if people were not selected he announced ” Mr.XYZ you can leave for the day” (somehow this felt louder ).
2. Some candidates waiting for the interview had extreme anxiety and fear on their face. They would not look anywhere else except the floor and remain absolutely still or be extremely shaky. I felt like comforting them and smiled at few of the candidates in that room.
3. The people who had finished their interview and were waiting for result were the ones I saw in total surrender and prayer, they would not say or do anything until their result was announced. Prayer was so evident on their face.
As I sat in the waiting room, slowly the anxiety around started to get on me, it was like quick sand. I did lot of slow and deep breathing to cool myself down , but whenever the announcement man would come out and tell “you have cleared all the rounds ” or “you are done for the day” to someone , I would drown in anxiety again. After waiting for an hour in the waiting room I started feeling dizzy ( I guess it was because I had not eaten anything since morning). People who were rejected had the same shattered expression on their face which I felt two days back. I deeply felt for the people who got rejected as they left the waiting room. Some of them left expressionless, some of them left without expression but with red eyes, for some of them the feeling of rejection was clearly shown. When my turn came I went inside the interview room, the questions were simple and I answered them, then I had to come to the waiting room again to await my result. The horrible announcement boy came and announced my name, he said ” Kulpreeth Singh you have cleared the first round and you need to go for the second round” . Happiness with anxiety happened within when I waited for my second round. The second round happened, it was a “speech and pronunciation round” . After this round I was sent again to the devilish waiting room. For 50 seconds I prayed so hard that my name comes in the “you have cleared the round category”. After those 50 seconds Mr.Announcement man came and said” Kulpreeth Singh you can leave for the day”.
This time no shattering noise came, mind did not bring up any nonsense thoughts, no tears came … all that remained was silence …
Kulpreeth Singh
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