Frustu's Guest Post

We in IIT live a carefree life. And when we feel too lazy to write a new post for our webpage, we flatter a friend for his excellent writing skills and asks him to write a guest post for thoughtspot. I think it was the IIT faculty and the guest lectures that gave me this idea. But then asking a guy who writes sci fi; to write a post for thoughtspot can be a bit risky. Why, for that you'll have to read the post.

This is Frustu's version of the job and CV preparation season in IIT . After reading it, I loved it so much that I too have decided to write my own version of this CV making festival of IIT Delhi, which I'll be posting in next two days as a homeage to all those guys who died preparing the balance sheets of their screwed up life in IIT Delhi. So here is what Frustu writes..

The cold dark wind was beating against the glass windows with a mournful thump. That dull thud was the only sound breaking the hour-long silence that had blanketed the room for the last hour and a half. Inside the room, four young men with the red-shifted glimmer1 of receding hope in their eyes sat looking at a computer screen which seemed to loom much larger than its 17” diagonal justified. Their sharp minds, honed for years for calculation and optimization, were on the verge of giving up; going cuckoo seemed like such a pleasant escape. On the plus side, no one was worried about the minor’s coming up in three days.

Finally, Yuma found the courage to say something.

“What’s the point staring at it? We all knew this was gonna happen some day.”

He had spoken what was on everyone’s mind. Perhaps that was the reason for the dirty looks everyone gave him. But Yuma had never cared for such stares, the only kind of stares he had ever cared about were the ones he got in his childhood dreams in which he found himself standing in the middle of the school, stark naked. And even those stares had developed a positive side once puberty hit.

“Come on people, just try your best. You don’t need to fill up every column. And not every company cares about this stuff you know.”

Of course, that was only partially true. But like most humans, the people in that room lacked the courage to accept so quickly that they would have to settle for second, or even third, best. Yumo wasn’t a very brave man himself, but deep philosophical discussions over cheap whisky, aided by the occasional celebratory joint, had taught him to accept life as it came. Besides, there was this girl who had lately been exchanging scraps with him on orkut…

In another five minutes Yumo had given up trying to cheer the miserable bunch and was wondering if he could light his after-dinner smoke. That’s when Moddy spoke.

“Isn’t there some finance exam you can give in like a couple of days or so? I bet that would look good on our resumes.”

“Chhod na yaar, sab de rahe honge. Noone would care about it. Even champu junta has given three or four of those. Who would care about one lousy exam? And besides, do you really want them to ask finance questions in the interview?”

Of course he didn’t

“Till when can we give the GRE?”
Now Moddy had never touched alcohol, nor ever snorted toluene2 in the lab, so everyone was quite surprised to hear him suddenly talk about going for higher studies. Moddy was probably the most hardworking of them all, but his interest in research was about as non-existent as the PORs on his resume. Anyway, more dirty looks.

“Do we look like the kind of people who can go for a Phd?”
They didn’t, so Moddy shut up and decided to ask someone else about it. Maybe Rodo, the big nehli of the batch. He should know.

“What about CAT yaar…It’s not that tough you know.”
That was Dron, still reeling from a high 99s percentile in the last mock CAT. Well, it is tough. Especially when you have only two odd months left to prepare. Even tougher if you had not even applied for it, like Moddy. As a result, dirtiest looks ever. That is the problem with trying to cheer up intelligent people: they are too intelligent to believe in anything remotely optimistic.

“Maybe we can try off-campus, remember how Biju got into E&Y last year? And how Sakku got that amazing videogame making job?”
Now that, for a change, was true. Biju had been his roommate in first year, and not a very good one. That E&Y job had been very hard to digest for Liku.

The party seemed to cheer up a little. However, they weren’t the kind of people to know anyone placed in E&Y, or anywhere good for that matter. But intelligence had finally given up; it was optimism’s turn.

“Abey haan, seriously, that’s what we should do yaar. There were fifty seniors who passed out last year, and thirty-forty of our batchmates this year. I am sure one of them can get us an interview. That’s all we need yaar, just one interview….aage to dekh hi lenge.”

There were enthusiastic nods all around, even hints of smiles…and looks of deep contemplation as all of them tried to remember who was where, and how good their ‘scene’ was.

“Chal yaar, chill hai. We’ll find someone.”

“Ya sure, we will. We know so many people. ”

“Now, does anyone wants to see that Sparta spoof movie?”





1. Refer to the Doppler Effect.
2. Toluene snorting can reportedly give you a pretty good high. And it can be found abundantly in Chemical engineering and Biochem. Engineering labs. Of course, it is probably a carcinogen