Chapter -2 : Dream Project No. 2..to be shelved soon

Timeline: July 2002
Cast: Me, Sid, Andy
Supporting Cast: Mr. X, Secy
Spl. Appearance: Nimit


Our dream project was shelved. No sweat though, we always knew we were incapable of doing that D/L thingy. So, then we managed to go the conventional way for the final year project. It was such a big thing for us. We ( as in Me Sid and Andy) managed to get some contacts at LTITL through my dad, and were on board for our 1st meeting with Mr. X at the Mahape office.
You must be wondering where our optimistic guru Nimit is, and y a spl appearance for him. If you remember in his intro he has one foot in the USA. This time, both his feet were in USA.

Scene: Outside Mr. X office

Secy: Oh , so you guys are here to see Mr. X
Sid: (in his peculiar terrible voice) yes
Secy: Sorry
Sid: YES
Finally he is heard.
Secy: okie, keep your resumes ready.

Me: Andy, resumes laaya na tu
Andy: huh! resume
Me: Nimit ne last time tujhe diya tha na xerox karwaake
Andy: Diya to tha, but yaad nahi kidhar hai
Sid: Saala tum log ko pehle hi bola tha, sab docs mere paas rakho, time pe rahega
Andy: Ghanta tere paas, khud to milta nahi tu, resume khaak milega.
Sid: mereko maalum tha terese kuch na kuch gakti hoga...isliye main...sab karta hun barabar...
aur main aata nhi kyuki Swaminarayan ka temple main jaane rehta hai re. Tu nahi samjhega.

Atlee: Fir se shuru hogaya tu
Sid: Tu to bol hi mat, naastik saala.
Andy: Par ab kya karen, resumes nahi hai
Sid: Dont worry dost..main floppy laaya hun

Remember there existed something like floppy disks in those days...all of 1.44 MB.

The secy stopped our near altercation and ushered us inside.

Mr. X: Please have a seat.
We tried to locate the most distant chair from Mr. X, I end up being the person straight in front of him, which eventually means I have to answer his questions.

Mr.X: Would you like to have something to drink, tea or coffee?
Decline! Almost as if rehearsed

Mr. X: Yes, go on, tell me about your requirements.
Atlee: (Always the first to speak and put his foot in his mouth). We have a one year internship as part of the engineering curriculum where we would be working on industry specific projects.

Mr. X: Can I have a look at your resumes?
Suddenly the wrath of the entire mankind is shifting its gaze towards Andy.
Andy tries to look elsewhere, manages to open his mouth.

Andy: Sir, we unfortunately didnt get our resumes, but we do have a soft copy. Sid, err..
Sid: Yes, sir ( inaudible as usual)
Mr. X: Okie, one of you can just transfer it on my system there.

In order to avoid being part of any technical discussion which would have ensued, Atlee stands up and volunteers to copy the files. However, as limited as his technical skills, amusing are his skills of handling technical stuff. He reaches the CPU, searches for the disk drive, suddenly confused which side to insert in. Finds the arrow mark, heaves a sigh of relief...and in she goes.

Siddus floppiies, usually bought from one of the sidey Vasai shops, were always dangerous to use.
It took the computer a minute to recognize the files and the icon would just not open.
And then a message pops up: Virus alert!

Oh fuck! Atlee manages to Ok all the alert boxes without gathering attention and copies the files onto the computer. God save his PC.

Back to the desk and the chair, where indeed there is some technical discussion going on.
Atlee: "The risk was worth it"

Mr. X: Which language do u wanna work in?
Sid: Jaava and Oracle DB would be the best...
Andy: (cutting Sid halfway) ASP (since Nimit before going to USA mentioned ASP is easy in one of our highly emotional meetings).

Rule No. 1 of any interview will tell you that do not talk about anything that you do not know. And we said 3 words in the same breadth. (Java, ASP, Oracle) Im sure 3 out of 4 people in that room didnt know the fullform of ASP. The odd man being Mr. X Fortunately for us, Mr. X believed in the conviction with which the 3 magical words came out, and didnt ask anything about it.

Mr. X: We do have a requirement in ASP but its a complex and a huge one it will involve almost 16k lines of code.
Sid: No problem, sir we are used to coding programs of that magnitude.

Surprise Surprise!!
Surprise No. 1: From where did Sid use the word magnitude!! GRE main M tak pahuch gaya
Surprise No. 2: Aaj tak 16 line ka code nahi likh paaye hain

Mr. X: He asked so how well versed are you with Access

Andy(choosing his words carefully): Well, as of now, we are still in the learning mode and have got a good grasp of the basics....however, we arestill coping up with the intricacies of the code

Atlee (whispers to Sid: intricacies) iska bhi I tak ho gaya hai.

Atlee was getting uncomfortable with this techie discussion interrupts
Atlee: Sir, could you throw some light on the project.

He went on to explain the project, which was about inventory management of L&T and tracking and dynamically updating inventory records for each month etc.

Our faces were half blank and half sank. Blank coz we cudnt understand half of the terms he used, sank because this was real difficult, imagine hearing 10 different variants of the word objects and databases in the last 60 secs.

But we maintained our composure and calm inspite of our entire engg. curriculum being swept away from our feet.

The Project Manager, as he turned out to be, seemed happy. I will give you a call , he said.
We came out, satisfied, as if we had won a multi million dollar acquisition or something.

Until we realised, we never heard from him ever again.

Although Im still bothered if his PC is in good shape.