Tete-a-tete

EXCERPTS from my interview.

As I enetered the room, I saw three IIMA profs on their chairs eagerly waiting for me and two other on a couch. I wished all of them good morning instinctively, then realized the two on the couch were sleeping.
"Mohit, ur college is MALAVIYA what?"
"National Institute of Technology, Sir"
"Who was this Malaviya?"
"He fouded the collge, sir" He did not. "He also founded IIT delhi I think" He did not.
"You know he founded an INTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY in UTTAR PRADESH. You should be able to give the name. I repeat it was an INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY."
"Sorry, sir" It is IT-BHU.
"Is Malaviya still alive?"
"He must be dead, sir. But i can not be sure." He died way back in 1963.
"Another such person u can not be sure of?"
"Netaji Subash Bose, Sir"
"When was he last sighted?"
"some 50 yrs back" It is 63 years.
"Ok, tell us the adjoining states of karnataka"
"Tamil Nadu, A.P., Orissa..." Orissa, ofcourse, isn't.
"Orissa, very good. Can u tell where Karanataka is here?" He gave me a selfdrawn map. I drew it. "Also tell us a city of karnataka which touches the sea shore"
"Sorry sir, I don't know."
"What is the current water dispute between TN and Karnataka?"
"I don't know"
"Ok tell us a river of bangladesh other than Brhamaputra"
"I don't know"
"Hmm. what is ur final year project?"
"Shape Recognition using Fourier Descriptors"
"what do you tranform in the image?"
"One minute sir." I pretended to think. " I don't know Sir"
"Just tell me how u use fourier transform?"
"Matlab does it for us, sir"
"Haha. So u r just using the software. Explain me what actually u do. Start from the begining."
I tried. I stammered. I really had no idea "I have got confused sir"
They looked at each other. "Hahaha. so he has got confused. You don't know ur FYP!"
"Sir I have three other partners. They are doing much of the work actually"
"Thats good management. But the guy before u said a good manager must have the exact ideas of whats going around in his team. You don't seem to believe in that."
I searched for sth to say, couldn't find anything.
"Which book did u recently read?"
"Lila by Robert Pirsig, Sir."
"The author makes some notes in the start of his journey. What is it metaphor of?"
It was a metaphor???"I don't really know what it was a metaphor of, sir."
"U seem to be very active in school what did u do in ur college?" One of them was browsing through my certis.
"I was head of electronica society."
"Here it says u were only a part of organizing Committee"
CAUGHT! "Ofcourse I wasn't the biggest Head; i was only in second year. but i held some important post. I have forgotten the name of the post."
They looked at each other. "Hahaha, he has forgotten the post." They looked at me now, "OK thank you Mohit"
"thank you, sir" I said to them and then looked at the couch. There was only one prof now...snoring loudly. The mysterious absence of the other prof made me so confused that I also thanked the one who was sleeping.