Capítulo 2. La esencia y construcción de la forma
2.1 Génesis formal
Profile:
10th =90.8 12th = 87
Engineering in Computer science BE from VTU = 77 Work Experience : IBM ISL 18 months
CAT percentile :- 99.62 The big day ...
Essay to be written : Variety is the spice of life Interview:
3 Professors 1 lady prof (LP), 1 Mid age prof (MP),Old Prof (OP) and yours truly moi.
MP : Asks me to get inside the room and tells that he is going to take a break :-)
ME enters the room
Moi : Good afternoon
(OP) asks me to take my seat
(LP) Looks at me and then starts looking at my Blue form (OP) Reviewing my certificates
LP: So u do Tea - Tasting (My hobby) Moi :Yes
LP :Do you also do wine tasting ?
Moi: NO (gives me a disgusting sort of look)
LP: I will ask you about wine tasting? Tell me some type of wines ... Moi: Madam I have heard of Red wine and White Wine.
LP :No give me the name of a Brand of wine gives an example ...
Moi :Madam I have heard the name Chateau (I pronounced this in my desi style. she smiles and corrects
my pronunciation saying this is how French pronounce)
Moi : Please pardon me for my poor French
OP Chuckles and both LP and OP start laughing
LP: So you are from Darjeeling (Moi native place)Tell me how it got its name ? Moi : Spoke about King Dorjee and the way it got its name
LP: Do you follow current affairs Moi : I try to keep myself updated
LP: Tell me about Nandigram and Singur issue Moi : Blah blah
LP: You are Bengali and that is close to Bihar ? Tell me about the history of Bihar and why is it famous? (Are
ab Bihar kyon)
Moi : Nalanda university, Bodh Gaya Patliputra Chandragupta Mauraya etc LP: Did you forget Ashoka ??(Kyon baacche ke jaan le rahe ho)
Moi : Yes even he ruled around the Bihar region .
LP :Can you tell me the name of the region he ruled?(Yeh kya ho raha hai)
Moi : (Top of my head) parts of Bihar and modern day UP and Orissa mentioned somewhere Takshila ..
(LP is satisfied) (Moi relieved)
LP: Contrast Kerala and WBengal
Moi (Ab kya karoon) Kerala has higher literacy rate ...
LP:Don’t tell me about literacy. something else (ab kya sunna hai ..) Moi :(Looked at OP he is lost in my certificates folder. no help)
HMMM (pause) spoke about better governance in kerala and the fact that Kerala has better made use of its resources.
LP: (Comes at me sharply) what do you mean by that .. Kerala has made better use of resources by sending
its people to Middle east??
(OP starts laughing ...he is amused) (Closes the file and now he starts listening)
Moi : I mean tourism, spice industry.
LP: AHH... tourism what do you know about Tourism. Tell me about difference between Tourism in Kerala
and Goa . Tell me the amount of revenue each one of that gets
Moi: I do not know the data about both states but tourism is well developed in both states . GOA slightly
better
LP :You told me that you follow current affairs it was in news all over you never saw it ? Moi :Sorry madam I must have missed it ...
(LP) Gestures to OP to proceed (MP) is now on the table
(OP) gives me a function of Y in terms of X and Z and asks me to differentiate it .
I do that then goes into concepts of partial differentiation derivatives maxima minima ...asks me to get the maxima and minima for the curve in question. I do a bad job at this and then he says ok
let me make life simpler for you. He reduces Y as a function of X
ahh ...I get a new lease of life I explain him maxima minima and critical points and he asks me to certain whether a critical point is maxima or minima I tell him the wrong answer but then I asked him for a moment and calculated ...
I find that my previous answer is wrong I tell him . He says that you gave me a different answer before ..I tell him that my memory failed me but as per concept this is the answer he agrees with the answer and hands me over to MP
MP Quizzes me again on the maxima minima concept and then asks me about point of inflexion ..?? Moi : I do not know about it
MP: Can you tell me about Taylor Series ?
Moi: Sir I cannot recall it . Since we in CSE never had to use mathematics extensively It has slipped of my
head.
MP tells me about research that is done on memory and why neurons keep information and when they miss it . Tells me that if you do not exercise your neurons your brain will become dead?
Moi: I say that at work my manager insures that my neurons are always in motion
All three professors start laughing
MP: What is the best way to remember and retain information ?
Moi: I talk about anagrams and creating pattern for information and trying to remember it
(MP) : looks satisfied
LP: can you tell me what that technique is called that you described ? Moi: Anagram.
LP : Its called mnemonics anagram is a component of it (ah thanks) MP: So where do you work ?
Moi: sir...
LP: He works at IBM
Moi: Sir I work at IBM Rational
MP : so your division at IBM is Rational and other divisions are called Irrational ?
(all start laughing)
LP: One second .. In psychology you are divided as rational and emotional ...So he is rational and all
other people in IBM are emotional.
HAHAHA all start laughing (what a PJ . Even I join in the laughter are IIM ka interview hai... ganda joke hai to kya hua ..sab haanso ...)
Moi: tell them about rational and that IBM acquired it MP :was it a local acquisition or global ?
moi: Global
MP tell me about few local acquisition of IBM moi: Cognos, Daksh
MP: Any other acquisition by IBM moi: cannot remember
MP :have u heard of a company called netsol ? moi: no sir
MP :so what are your hobbies ?
moi :Sir tea tasting and social computing LP :Sir he is a tea taster ....
MP :Tell me a few tea gardens names around Darjeeling ... moi : blah blah
MP :what type of tea is grown there ? moi: blah blah .
MP :What is Cooch behar famous for ? (Cooch behar is a place close to my home town) moi : Not sure but yes Maharani gayatri devi is from cooch behar
MP :Whom did Maharani Gaytri devi marry ?
moi: Do not remember the name Sir, but some prince in Rajasthan
OP: Is Maharani Gaytri devi from Cooch Behar I thought she is from Jammu ? moi :No sir she is from cooch behar
MP :Why do these princesses always marry prince ?
moi :I guess that is more to do with royalty and heritage and they want to be associated with family of royal
birth
(MP Sort of satisfied)
MP :That’s it Thanks
Interview experience of: Rohit.Sinha
My IIMA experience: Date:26 Feb, 9:00
Topic: Conquer Himalayas
I wrote about figurative and literal meaning. Then I wrote about Helen Keller, Mahatma Gandhi and Tenzing Norgay-Edmund Hillary in 3 different paras. Then concluded.
Interview
P2: So you are from Patna. Patna to Surat to Bangalore. Now Ahmedabad! Me: Smiling
P2: So you really want to come to Ahmedabad Me:Yes sir! Very much!
P3: So what's your salary! Me: some big number. P2: What do you exactly do!
Me:I work in storage. There is 4 terabytes data in the world and somebody has to store it, retrieve it and back
it up. We are those guys. I work on the network part of the link between host-network-storage.
P2: So you are a maintenance guy!
Me: No sir! I write the code which maintenance guys use. P2: Looks like you look down on maintenance!
Me: I am just explaining my job sir! I don't look down upon them. In my company they are treated on the
equal footing.
P2: No I think It is what you think!
Me: I insist sir that I was just trying to explain my job nature, not pulling others down. P2: So define and draw a network.
Me: Network is a mesh of nodes. (drew (host-switch-router-gateway-tcp/ip-storage)and explained!) P2: looks like incomplete. All of them are not connected.
Me: drew a square and made all the sides and the diagonals. P2: good! What is the degree of the node?
Me: Nodes it is connected to!
P2: Give me a generic statement for the nodes with odd degree? Me: They will always be even in number.
P2: Prove it.
Me: I will use induction. (Proved.)
P2: I am not satisfied. Why are you using only 1 node Use multiple nodes.
Me: Sir! This is induction and if I have proven it for n+1 I have proven it for n+2 also. P2: keeps on arguing!
Me: (accepts defeat graciously.)
(And then my mobile phone rings and they all scoff at me)
Me:I am sorry sir. I just wanted to keep track of the time. P1:so what language do you use!
Me:erl sir!
P1: Tell me some other scripting languages! Me: Rose, Python sir!
Me: Yes sir! We can use grep,awk and sed. But I don't remember it. P1: How many types of shell are there?
Me:Ksh,Bash
P1:What are their full forms!
Me: I don't know sir but I can tell you the implementation difference. P1: What is the difference between Windows and Unix?
Me: Windows is a not open source and Unix is. P1: Is Unix open source or Linux?
Me: Sorry sir! Its Linux. P1: What else!
Me: Windows are more desktop friendly, unix is more client server. Windows use APIs which are not
exposed to the user but in unix is all file based and user can customize it according to himself. (Security-not convincing).
P3: So have you seen anything negative in your work?
Me: There are cases where you have to make a choice between your personal life and your professional life
but you make a judgment on the importance of the issue.
P3: you are evading the question. Confront it.
Me: I had IIM-I interview in the evening and the same day I had a release so I went to the office in the suit
and fixed all my bugs and went for the interview.
P3: that’s not negative.
Me: Then I have not faced anything negative in my work sir. P3: So your life has been all rosy!
Me: Oh no sir! I have a 2 year drop after my +2. I had a severe family crisis and had to mentor my brother to
a good career. Then I got a second division in my engineering but the very fact that I failed there I succeeded later.
P1: What are the strikes going on in the country? Me: Truckers, Movies and Doctor’s strike. P1: Which one is national!!
Me: Trucker's strike.
P3: Is it right way to express your grievances?
Me: No sir! But if the grievances are genuine then it has to be brought forth. But there are other ways. (Gave
them example of Japan when union only produced left foot shoe.)
P3: But it was 40 years back! Me: Indeed it was sir!
(All smile)
You can go and take a toffee!
Me: I am sorry for my mobile going off sirs! It was mistake! I saw P1 sir scoffing at me. P1: you would have done the same thing.
P3: What is past is past.
I leave and see P1 still looking at me admiringly (god knows for what reason) and hear P2 saying "nice chap".