The Interview.
Chennai, 1st June 2017
"Chose your battles wisely and chose the ones you can fight alone". When you are a grown adult, you realise blaming your past can do no good for not achieving in your present. I am the person who did that until a week ago. Some trips are worth the realisation. So precisely, I am a struggling BMM graduate who is currently on the border fence of a job or Post graduation. Achieving neither. My first blog might prove me as a sadistic loser, but at this point of life I cannot care less. Two days ago I travelled all the way from Mumbai to Chennai to give one of the most important interviews of my life. I applied for ACJ about a month ago and got through the first two rounds of filtering. To the outside world peeping through the peephole will consider this awesome. But nobody cares about the crushing pressure.
1st June, I landed in Chennai around 9 30 in the morning. Trying to personify all the vice in my head, I was talking to myself. Turns out most of me wanted to turn around and run the other way. Morning 10 am the results of Xaviers was supposed to be out and fuckers didn't delay it a second. It was a pleasure to find out that I didn't get through. The pressure cooker had reached its limit. My parents continuously repeated the phrase "If not one then the other". It gave me chills each time I thought about them referring to the ACJ interview. I love the people who are close to me and they have always there for me but well before this interview I managed to distance from every single one of them. A part of me knew it was not on purpose, and a part of me really needed that. For a guy who had such a big interview the next day I was really chill. Listened to songs all day long. Didn't even make any efforts to get out of the house because its freaking 40 degree Celsius. Read a few experiences of the people who already gave the interview and read the daily current affairs. All through the day I managed to keep the fear out of my head. But the next day, it kicked back. Like a tsunami of negative thoughts I had shivery hands and a really bad stomach. The interview was scheduled at 1 in the afternoon. We booked an Ola well before. It was hardly a half an hour drive from our house.
The most happiest people after seeing the college were my parents. I very well knew at the back of my head that this is the last time I am visiting this college. My mom saw the nervousness in me, shivery hands and biting nails, who cannot figure that out? She asked me to take a walk around the college. So I decided to have a look at the competition. To my surprise I was the youngest of them all. Each candidate that had come there had been graduated 3 or more years ago and were already working journalists. Which, was lot less than a flying kick to the balls. I was in the best of my attire. Probably something that made me confident. We all were taken to a class where the registrar gave us a brief introduction of why the interview is important and how much it matters.
Out of the three panellists I git the second one. The interview started with me being the first one. I was asked to go to the second floor room no 10. Lets just say that was the moment of black out.
The interview turned out to be a disaster. The knowledge I gained in the past few weeks was useless in front of those 4 intimidating panellists.
I came out of the interview, thinking what did I just do? How could be that interview be so awful?. I came down after the verification of my certificates and the smile that my Mom had was saddening. I admitted it was difficult. Raising her expectation beyond this point would have only made me feel guilty.
Just after the interview I actually started thinking about myself. All this time this doubt came into my mind, this one question that made me stand there and think "Am I being too hard on myself?". Just in that moment I thought maybe this time's preparation was not enough. But what happened in the past, me clearing the test and filling out that application form wasn't just a coincidence. And I would be only hating myself if I believed that. Just for this once I actually credited myself. Rather than blaming me. It felt good. You see these are the moments in your life when you realise that if we could go back to all the times when we actually regretted being ourselves and just reverse it. All the fight would have felt so much worth in the end. Before something goes wrong, the first thing we manage to do is pity ourselves. It is always too late when we realise our mistake. Now I exactly know what the results are going to be. The fact that I am not getting in that college has already sunk in me. So at the end of the day I can either cry about it or feel happy for getting this far. Sometimes without even us realising it, our failures opens doors that we didn't even thought existed. Now that I know the road for PG is blocked I can actually devote all my energy in finding a job for me. All our lives we have been incubated under the lie that giving up is easy. Not knowing that it is the other way round. Giving up is difficult. If you thought that it is something worth fighting for, if you think that all the pain is worth then giving up is the most difficult thing you can think of.
All through this stressful time, I failed to realise that the only pressure I have on me is the pressure I am putting on myself. The reason I managed it to blame on my parents and every other person is because I was too much of a coward to blame myself. Maybe the whole crux lied there and I never saw it. I distanced everyone who were willing to help me. People who loved me. I regret doing that so much. People should always learn Pride and Fear does not work well together. It only leads to your destruction.
I am very glad for everyone to know that I am over that test not going the way I wanted to. I could try again next year but I won't be wasting so much time on that again. Me getting into that college would be a flashpoint for me. So instead of just screwing up everything I have, I can work towards what I can have.
"Chose your battles wisely and chose the ones you can fight alone". When you are a grown adult, you realise blaming your past can do no good for not achieving in your present. I am the person who did that until a week ago. Some trips are worth the realisation. So precisely, I am a struggling BMM graduate who is currently on the border fence of a job or Post graduation. Achieving neither. My first blog might prove me as a sadistic loser, but at this point of life I cannot care less. Two days ago I travelled all the way from Mumbai to Chennai to give one of the most important interviews of my life. I applied for ACJ about a month ago and got through the first two rounds of filtering. To the outside world peeping through the peephole will consider this awesome. But nobody cares about the crushing pressure.
1st June, I landed in Chennai around 9 30 in the morning. Trying to personify all the vice in my head, I was talking to myself. Turns out most of me wanted to turn around and run the other way. Morning 10 am the results of Xaviers was supposed to be out and fuckers didn't delay it a second. It was a pleasure to find out that I didn't get through. The pressure cooker had reached its limit. My parents continuously repeated the phrase "If not one then the other". It gave me chills each time I thought about them referring to the ACJ interview. I love the people who are close to me and they have always there for me but well before this interview I managed to distance from every single one of them. A part of me knew it was not on purpose, and a part of me really needed that. For a guy who had such a big interview the next day I was really chill. Listened to songs all day long. Didn't even make any efforts to get out of the house because its freaking 40 degree Celsius. Read a few experiences of the people who already gave the interview and read the daily current affairs. All through the day I managed to keep the fear out of my head. But the next day, it kicked back. Like a tsunami of negative thoughts I had shivery hands and a really bad stomach. The interview was scheduled at 1 in the afternoon. We booked an Ola well before. It was hardly a half an hour drive from our house.
The most happiest people after seeing the college were my parents. I very well knew at the back of my head that this is the last time I am visiting this college. My mom saw the nervousness in me, shivery hands and biting nails, who cannot figure that out? She asked me to take a walk around the college. So I decided to have a look at the competition. To my surprise I was the youngest of them all. Each candidate that had come there had been graduated 3 or more years ago and were already working journalists. Which, was lot less than a flying kick to the balls. I was in the best of my attire. Probably something that made me confident. We all were taken to a class where the registrar gave us a brief introduction of why the interview is important and how much it matters.
Out of the three panellists I git the second one. The interview started with me being the first one. I was asked to go to the second floor room no 10. Lets just say that was the moment of black out.
The interview turned out to be a disaster. The knowledge I gained in the past few weeks was useless in front of those 4 intimidating panellists.
I came out of the interview, thinking what did I just do? How could be that interview be so awful?. I came down after the verification of my certificates and the smile that my Mom had was saddening. I admitted it was difficult. Raising her expectation beyond this point would have only made me feel guilty.
Just after the interview I actually started thinking about myself. All this time this doubt came into my mind, this one question that made me stand there and think "Am I being too hard on myself?". Just in that moment I thought maybe this time's preparation was not enough. But what happened in the past, me clearing the test and filling out that application form wasn't just a coincidence. And I would be only hating myself if I believed that. Just for this once I actually credited myself. Rather than blaming me. It felt good. You see these are the moments in your life when you realise that if we could go back to all the times when we actually regretted being ourselves and just reverse it. All the fight would have felt so much worth in the end. Before something goes wrong, the first thing we manage to do is pity ourselves. It is always too late when we realise our mistake. Now I exactly know what the results are going to be. The fact that I am not getting in that college has already sunk in me. So at the end of the day I can either cry about it or feel happy for getting this far. Sometimes without even us realising it, our failures opens doors that we didn't even thought existed. Now that I know the road for PG is blocked I can actually devote all my energy in finding a job for me. All our lives we have been incubated under the lie that giving up is easy. Not knowing that it is the other way round. Giving up is difficult. If you thought that it is something worth fighting for, if you think that all the pain is worth then giving up is the most difficult thing you can think of.
All through this stressful time, I failed to realise that the only pressure I have on me is the pressure I am putting on myself. The reason I managed it to blame on my parents and every other person is because I was too much of a coward to blame myself. Maybe the whole crux lied there and I never saw it. I distanced everyone who were willing to help me. People who loved me. I regret doing that so much. People should always learn Pride and Fear does not work well together. It only leads to your destruction.
I am very glad for everyone to know that I am over that test not going the way I wanted to. I could try again next year but I won't be wasting so much time on that again. Me getting into that college would be a flashpoint for me. So instead of just screwing up everything I have, I can work towards what I can have.
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