CHAPTER 4 - Arinvan’s Interview at Satyam

Arindam Moulick

I arrived at the Tessar Towers for the interview scheduled at the once-famous IT company Satyam Computer Services Ltd. I got the idea of the location of the building from Ram Narayan Sangwani, my dear friend, philosopher, and HR guide earlier on over the phone, and so it wasn’t overly difficult to drive my way through to Raj Bhavan Road. The skies were bluish with pockets of cottony clouds scattered everywhere and there was a cool breeze wafting through the city; riding on a bike in such a pleasant atmosphere makes for a great feeling. I parked my red Honda bike under the great peepul tree (it still stands today in all its glory on the right side parking lot of the unforgettable Tessar Towers) and got into a lift and reached the 5th-floor landing. I signed in the interview register, mentioned entry time as 10.00am, and enquired at the reception for Pavan Bommaraju, the guy from the HR department I am supposed to meet. 

Minutes later a glass door swivelled and a jovially young person who I reckoned as Pavan stepped out. I had a good feeling about him: just by looking at him coming to me with a sunny smile on his pleasant face. Dressed in a manly combination of white cotton shirt and matching dark-gray trousers, he filled the entrance hall with the warmth and glow of a professional hard at work and yet not forgetting to smile. I immediately extended my hand towards him and shook it confidently.

“Hi, are you Arinvan Maliek?” asked Pavan, the smile still in its place.

“Yes, I am,” I replied.

“I am Pavan. How do you do, Arinvan?” said Pavan.

“Hi, Pavan. I am doing well. How do you do?” I said.

“I am doing good, thank you,” said he and added “Arinvan, would you please be kind to wait for some time? It will not take much time before I come back to you”.

“Ah! No problem, Pavan. At your convenience. Please take your time. I can wait,” I said.

I bide time for a little more than 15 minutes before he showed up again. I could see that he interviewed several people before me and almost all of them, on average, spent 7 to 8 minutes in the process with him before they were asked to leave, apparently. Only one of them did spend 20 full minutes in the cabin with Pavan and he looked a bright candidate to me, probably a fit for some other job position. There were still 2 others left when I was finally summoned inside.

A Charming Persona

Pavan Bommaraju has a charming persona. It radiates, exudes liveliness even, as if it flows out of him, literally, in fluid slow-mo that at once is nice to behold, not to mention its sheer joviality! His thin black-framed spectacles sat on his sleek aquiline nose like a class monitor! That’s a deceptive thing in its own way if you ask me; a pair of black-balled eyes, with big eye-lashes, gazing at you from behind the façade of his gleaming glasses is what I am talking about. They sure have the power to cajole you into something unexpected, persuade you into something beautiful, and above all they gleam at you like as if entreating you with: “don’t worry, be happy” or “no worries mate, I am here to help you” or “I’ll take care of it”. Just within an instance after taking you into confidence those very pairs of eyes explode with dazzling pragmatic purposeful energy – all this is bound to make you unquestioningly smile at him and get rest assured that things are going to be all fine, courtesy: Pavan, the effervescent HR guy. Absolutely no worries mate.

Although, it’s a given fact that normally an HR guy keeps the interviewee engaged and enthusiastic by asking some like-minded questions, which promptly “opens up” the interviewee concerned so that a valuable conversation takes off from an even keel of give-and-take association. You take, I give. You give, I take. Feeling’s mutual. That’s the kind of art of interviewing that Pavan Bommaraju excelled in, and it showed and how. I reckoned that his brilliant smile was almost always a great redeemer if at all he happens to find himself in a situation, maybe not entirely of his making, he managed to wiggle out of it good-naturedly; not to mention of his well-learned professional ethics coming into play during the many interviews he undertook at Satyam Computers’ Tesser Tower branch.

In my personal opinion, an HR official should in all circumstances be cool and formal in the interview process because the objective of an interview is to converse and not just make it a boring question-and-answer session! He/she should be ably equipped to precisely know what he/she wants from the interviewees. For all you know, some HR people, professionals all right, do end up being self-opinionated Jacks and Jills, look only for ready-made answers what their untrained minds are attuned to hear. Most often than not, they, on account of being critically inert on their part, wind up wrongly ‘discontented’ and ‘discouraged’ with the interviewers. My point here is not to hand out any kitschy gyaan, but to try to make a valid point or two. Young HR executives seem easily prone to make instant, not properly concluded decisions regarding candidates who might have had erred due to some undeniable reason, but that doesn’t mean that you had to get rid of him/her. I sat there in my chair thinking. Half-baked ideas like these were taking shape in my stressed-up mind even as I wanted to stay calm and cool but it was not entirely possible.

But Pavan Bommaraju seemed thorough, right on dot, and was known for his, I came to know of it later, innate professionalism at Satyam. He chose his candidates wisely for his interviews and took great pleasure interviewing them; taking meticulous care at the same time not to disappoint his upper-level managers when it was their turn to interview the candidates selected by him. No doubt he was conscientious, precise, and diligent, and of course, never forgetting to smile his good-natured sociable smile that naturally played on his bright face.

(Later, when I had joined Satyam at the advent of the Monsoons in the pleasant rain-washed month of August ‘98, I had come in acquaintance with other HR folks such as Sahiraam and his ‘we-are-just-friends-only’ co-star…err….partner Tanya Bhatroy, a demure Lakshmi Brihaspati, and a fine young woman with witty looks I remember now only by her surname Ms. Thyagarajan.)

~~~

“Arinvan, we now come to the last question. I am sure you are aware of Iridium. We might as well talk about Iridium. So can you tell me something about the new sensation that has stormed into the world of mobile satellite connection? And just tell me why does it sound so BIG when Iridium is in the scenario of mobile roaming operations? Why is it so talked about these days? What’s interesting about Iridium?” asked Pavan, the cheerful HR professional from Satyam Computer Services Ltd.

My eyes blinked a tad too long on encountering the name ‘Iridium’ which at once sounded intriguingly familiar to me. I instantly knew that answering this particular question requires me to scavenge through the preferential details I had read about previously somewhere. I was only too prepared to answer it as best as I could. I also found Pavan only too eager to listen to it. Then not forgetting to put on a flashy smile on my face, I began slowly with a small description of the potential of such a business in the following terms: “…storming the world with new ways of satellite communication and revolutionizing the way we know communication is which is, in my opinion, still in its state of infancy. Without a doubt, it is going to change the world’s communication dynamics forever; the world as we know it”.

Our overall conversation bordered on a strong dash of compelling humour and agreeable yet persuasive commonalities that we happened to share. Feeling luckier than usual that day, I burst on all cylinders to ‘impress’ and ‘win him over’ to the maximum effect possible with my answers. Thankfully all of it worked well in favour of me and he smiled approvingly.

Pavan Bommaraju looked visibly impressed and my hopes rose a little bit higher. He then immediately escorted me for a ‘technical round’ of discussion to a burly man and his junior member of the staff who were presently seated inside a distant, important-looking, suitably side-panelled with wood and see-through glass, the cabin at the far right corner of the sprawling hall.

He said excitedly: “I think you should meet GG. Please come along”.

“Sure. Thank you,” I said.

“Most welcome!” said Pavan. And we walked towards the cabin of the person he called as ‘GG’, with me in tow.

I still remember this: Pavan breathed out in satisfaction after he finished interviewing me and became visibly relieved; as if a great weight has been lifted off his chest. As far as my own thoughts were concerned they were more akin to my desire to come up trumps with them and make a good impression, and just now I’ve moved on to the next rung of the Interview process. Taking Pavan’s relief as a cue I became a little more confident and was willing to take on yet another fresh round of questions. While we walked towards the Boss’s cabin, I figured that Pavan’s expectations corresponding to my potential as a right candidate was in complement with each other and that’s the first half the battle won. And that was a positive sign indeed.

But nothing when I assessed while walking with Pavan, the word “GG” within my mind could give away its meaning or could really make a head or tail of it. GG…? What GG? If GG is a human being…of course, he is! Then why have a two-syllable description for a person who’s spearheading a business division? Was it so fashionable? Did I miss something on my way here? Nope, I couldn’t possibly bother Pavan with my child-like chinwag. ‘GG’, ‘ZZ’ or ‘Crazy’…who cares! I should rather concentrate on the questions that could be asked by him and answer them as best as I can. Drop that fear-inducing word ‘GG’ and move on. But just then I realized: “Oh! Bingo! His name in initials maybe!” Not at all a brainer, I know.

While I trailed Pavan to the cabin where the ensuing ‘technical round’ was supposed to take place, my pragmatic sense of observation took a new high at that moment. Obviously, I observed that a gang of girls, Heavens-be-praised! All good-looking with fervently perceptive looks on their upbeat faces and resplendent in smart attires, glued over their individual computer screens, were at work. I reckoned that almost all of them were HR personnel. Lucky Pavan!

~~~

One among them, a well-turned-out slender something, urgently rose up from her seat and went and sat atop the desk of her girly neighbour and began a sensibly-muted discussion with her. I instantly recognized the lady in tailor-stitched block-printed Patiala Salwar as I knew her well from my college days. She goes by the name: Neetu Scootywali; a chic uptown girl more famous for her repelling aloofness from everything that matters keeping any social contact or friendly association with known friends or acquaintances coming from the same town or city they lived in. Not one to bother her or anyone out of the blue, I just didn’t bother to say a ‘Hi’ or a ‘Hello’ to her because I kind of figured she’d not be exactly thrilled to see me there at Satyam. I’ll explain that later. Besides, it’ll be of no use at all to see her face twist into... 'What’s he doing here?' Without much ado, I just looked ahead and went my way cursing myself with: not to my liking.

~~~

Not one given to easy distractions even when there was so much well-groomed, grand slam beauty around to marvel at and feel proud that you belong to Planet Earth, I turned my gaze away from the carnival of presiding beauties and calmly shuffled along to keep my mind focused on the business that I had come to attend to. The ‘Day of Judgment’ is well-neigh near!

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick

- The above article (in a slightly different version and with a different title as 'An Interview at Satyam') has been featured in the prestigious articles publishing website EzineArticles.com. Click here to view the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Arindams-Interview-at-Satyam&id=9209750

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. All incidences, places, and characters portrayed in the story are fictional and entirely imaginary. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. No similarity to any person either living or dead is intended or should be inferred.