My First Academic Interview.

Looked at my watch and started typing on the Skype window- “Hello Sir, want to have a chat with you”. My lead replied-“in meet. Just 2 mins”. I could not understand the meaning of ending a meeting in 2 mins. And I don’t know what the %$#$(you can put anything in here) he does in that conference room. I waited for another 15 mins and again written to him-“Sir, I want to leave for station now. My elder brother is comin. I will be back in 2 hrs”. My team lead read it and replied “ok see ya later”. I knew that if I have kept waiting for the 2 mins to over he could have taken the whole day. I started running thinking in my mind-“Man I am total blank today, what am I going to do there”. Actually today was my first academic interview. Before that I have had already three interviews. I don’t want to clutter the space with those experiences. So the station stuff was all fake, common don’t look at me like that, else who will let me go outside for an interview and that to leaving the present job in the middle. I started off 1 hour early and reached there, 30 mins before time. Throughout the way I was thinking or making up my mind to face the bitter truth-“I am totally blank”. After I reached there, the guard sitting there gave me a weird look and asked me my purpose of coming. I told him my name and hearing for the interview word, called the principal. I was little bit frowned on the guard as he was not pronouncing my name correctly. I have to shout my name once or twice to make him pronounce correctly. The guard at the gate sent a man with me to the principal’s office. What I have thought from the previous conversations with the principal, the principal might be a funny looking man or at least humorous one and friendly. When I reached there the man escorting me told me to wait outside the room. I kept waiting there for a good 30-45 mins for the great Indian laughter challenge to start. I could see people (may be professors and lecturers) gathering around and going into the room. I got confirmed that ,that will be my battle ground. After some time, they called me inside. The principal told me to seat and as usual first question-Introduce yourself. It was my all time hardest question, as I couldn’t know what they want from this. Do they want to know my academic qualification, about my family, about my extracurricular activities, about the fact that how I fit into their system etc etc. or all of them. It would be good if you could ask me please Introduce yourself citing this this and this. After I have introduced my self(not fully as I was stuck after my educational qualification :) ), they told me to give a speech about any subject. It was a moment like if you have a gun but no bullets in it and to make matter worse you are asked to fire at a tiger attacking you. I told them I am not sure about any subject , but I can say something about my project. They agreed to it. As I started off , I thought the audience is friendly and they could let me go with the presentation. But then starts the tragedy. “Can I interrupt you?”. Shouted one of the person from the panel. I don’t know his name but he started giving his views and asked questions out of the topic. Then when I told that this is not the subject of the project , he got me in one of those formulae. I could not give a satisfactory answer for it. Then others joined him in. Man, the battle was getting fierceful with the opposite side with tight volley of grenades with no protection from my side. I just kept saying them that I don’t know the answer or better one was “may be, but I haven’t used it in my proj”. Then came the toughest part of the whole interview session, as I am still repenting( even when I am writing it) for not answering that. The man in the blue shirt asked me “ Please give me the algorithm and time complexity for the binary search?”. It got me totally blind. I was getting ashamed of my self because I don’t remember that one. I told him that I forgot it and I could see the level of dissatisfaction in their faces. I could know now that I have lost it. With a heavy heart I returned back as they told me that we will let you know about their decision.
The whole way back, I kept on thinking, after completing my masters in comp science if I cant give the simple explanation for binary search, then what is the use of that degree. I have became a dumb terminal now. 8 months after joining the company I realized that I have became a dumb terminal which doesn’t have any response or intellect. I was just doing some ctrl+c and ctrl+v stuff and earning the meager amount. I just cursed my life and thought that I have killed my ingenuinity and intelligence for making up some one else rich. I am just wasting and killing my time to make somebody else business grow. What do I get from it. I never had thought about it or I can say I have always kept a blind eye towards this matter. But what I have realized today is I was no more a person who could boast about his intellect or perception towards studies. All day I kept showing off as if nothing has happened, but from inside I was all broken up or in better words SHATTERED.I was just thinking of the disaster which was on its way into my life if I will keep working in the present environment.My position was like a person starving , and has to eat the food which he knows is poison.