Chapter 22: Most Respected Individual…

My cousin brother was the first to get a job; my cousin sister and I were still stalking prospective ones. She had MBA campus placements to her aid, I was on my own.

I had taken up Cable internet while I was unemployed under the pretext of job hunting, but it was primarily used for downloading software and reverse engineering them. I did send in a few resumes to some companies and chatted with my friends, but the majority of bandwidth was spent in accessing MIRC chatbots and taking up reverse engineering lessons.

An Ad in the recruitment section of a leading newspaper indicated that Infosys was hiring, and I sent in my resume.

I got a call the very next day (it seems that they were desperate to recruit then too); the written test was scheduled in the following weekend in JJ school of Arts in Mumbai.

I downloaded a few sample test papers, breezed through Shakuntala Devi puzzles and brought my self up in terms with the mental level required for the test.

The test did not last half as long as the pre test form filling process, and for me it was all over in a matter of few hours. We were informed that the test results would be out in 3 weeks time and in case we did not get any responses, we could try again after another 9 months; the DDay fell incidentally on the last day of My current internet validity.

I was not that confident on bagging Infosys, I had done well on few questions and had goofed up on a few, but I was confident on the English test, I am passionate about the language and it never lets me down.

Days were spent sending more resumes to software companies, honing my RE skills, and playing SIMS.

On the penultimate day of my internet validity I casually checked my mail hoping for some letter from Infosys, at least a rejection letter, but I was let down yet once again… there was 5 more hours left on my internet package and I planned to utilize it the following day early morning (I used to get download speeds ranging upto 512KBPS in the wee hours of morning) to download and RE a fresh batch of software, I shut down my PC and went to sleep.

I woke up at 4:00 am, much to the dissatisfaction of my dad and started my download accelerator. After setting it to download a few desired softwares, I started my mail box to mail my friends that I would be no longer online from now ( My dad had somehow gotten the whiff that I was not using the Net as it was intended to be used and hence he cut down my Net allowance) and that was when I saw the mail from C&B@infosys.com (I was later informed that C&B stood for compensation and benefits) which was wrongly delivered to the junk mail folder.

The mail confirmed my selection into Infosys “The most respected Indian IT company” and the pay package that I started out with was 14700 INR/month. I woke my parents up and they were speechless, my required relocation to Bhubaneshwar to take up the job was partly the cause of it, but mostly because I had shown it once again that I had something in me.

I called up my sister (not my cousin) and let her in on the news at 5:30 am… got a string of abuses along with congratulations, but I was happy as she was the first person I wanted to share my happiness with.

My dad later called on his brother and broke the news, another series of Congratulations… I was later informed that my cousin sister also managed to get into TCS and she was to head for Trivandrum for her training. Her package was equally impressive, with an MBA degree it ought to be.

As for my cousin brother, he cleared the TCS aptitude and had an offer from them, but since he had signed a bond (so dumb was he that he had submitted his original marksheets to the company) for two years the company was not willing to let go of him. He had to pay around a Lakh INR plus the salary he had earned till date to term the bond null legally, which he did; he did not even fight for an experience letter after shelling out.

He joined TCS 4 months after I joined Infosys and my cousin sister joined TCS. We did meet sporadically, but we never spoke in this regard, I was the most respected sibling who did make it big.