Day Zero

He  looked immaculate in his grey suit. His otherwise ruffled hair was combed neatly. He looked focused, confident and above all determined. It  was the day zero – his placement day. The biggest group of the country  was here to recruit the brightest and the most intellectual minds from  the campus. All 440 students of IILS were to compete with each other.  The process comprised of seven rounds and every round was an elimination  round. And at the end of it all, 30 deserving people were to be hired.

The first round was essay writing. He topped the entire batch. He was  equally awesome in the debate round. He was good in quantitative  analysis paper. The technical interview was as perfect as it could get.  He knew all concepts by heart and he had a real life example for  justification every single time. At the end of the fourth round he was  already in the elite group of 70 selected participants. The remaining  rounds were tougher. The students were given a break.

He  discussed with other participants. He went through the complex  principles and glanced through his notes. He was soon called for the  next round. This was the speech round. He had to give a speech on  country’s economic conditions. He was nervous at the onset but he soon  gained his momentum and then he was unstoppable. He involved the  audience like no one else ever did. He even asked a few questions from  the audience and the audience was mesmerized.

He had a tough  interview. The interviewer was a shrewd man who asked justifications for  everything. He made him analyse different scenarios. He gave him case  study exercises from historical events, from the third world war, the  2018 riots in Delhi, The 2013 economic slowdown, the 2015 Indo-China  war. He was good in some and was excellent in most. No prizes for  guessing that he was hired.

He walked out of the interview room  happy and satisfied. He was reminded of his engineer father who died  last year. He remembered how desperately he used to say “There were no  IILS’s in our times or I would have done something big, people in my  time were crazy only about IITs and IIMs”. He got a text from his  girlfriend who got through as well. He smiled more. He was one of the  thirty bright individuals of the 2040 batch who cracked all the rounds.  The five year course at “Indian Institute of Leadership and  Statesmanship” finally bore him sweet fruits. He was the latest employee  of “National Democratic Party” the biggest political party of India.

Picture Courtesy:- http://www.localis.org.uk