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November 2013...
Amit Verma was exasperated. In his comfort wear of black shorts and a blue t-shirt that fitted his lean body nicely, he was following his daily routine—of scanning through the appointment pages in the three newspapers he subscribed to. Amit had been trying to look for a job as a corporate lawyer but there were just no announcements anywhere.
In Amit’s flat in Jor Bagh, South Delhi, Jeff, his Black English Labrador, was sleeping, nicely curled up, on a rug covering the white tiled floor. Sensing Amit’s frustration instinctively Jeff would moan occasionally in sympathy. That would force Amit to bend down to pat Jeff and assuage that things were probably not as bad as they appeared.
The harsh summer days were gone. The cool breeze through the windows touched Amit’s cheeks and hinted at the sweetness of the onset of the mild Delhi winters. His room had a J&K Tourism calendar which depicted the picturesque landscape of Kashmir. The sight of the majestic fir trees, snow covered mountain tops and the frothing sky blue river soothed his soul.
There was a laptop and a Wi-Fi broadband router on his desk. His room was cluttered with newspaper clippings full of job interview tips. Amit had been studying a lot on how to impress his employers and land his “dream job”.
Most of those interview tips were written by the so-called industry experts who claimed to know how exactly to impress an interviewer. “Shake hands correctly,” was the advice dispensed often. If the grip is too soft, you will be seen as lacking in confidence. On the other hand, if the grip be too firm, the interviewer may view you as arrogant.
“Be yourself,” was the other advice which was frequently offered. Don’t talk too much or too little. If you speak too little, you will be seen as too diffident. Talk too much and you may give an impression to your employer that you are a braggart who can’t be trusted with secrets. So measure every word that you utter.
“Be honest,” all industry experts agreed. That created a problem.
When asked why you wanted a change, should you tell your prospective employer that you had problems with your former boss or should you just say that you were looking for some newer experience?
If you mention that you have had problems with your boss, you will be telling the truth. But that’s a big NO, NO.
This is one situation where your prospective employer should not be hearing the “honest” answer. Your “truthfulness” will be seen as backbiting and will make your prospective employer wonder whether you will in due course do the same to him as well.
On the other hand, when you say you were simply looking for newer experiences, you would not be “honest” with yourself. But this line somehow tends to make your prospective employers slightly more comfortable.
But then the interviewer will wonder that if you were paid a high salary, if you had a comfortable position, and if you also had such a lovey-dovey relationship with your boss, why are you risking all that up? Can you then admit that you left your previous job some time back with nothing in hand so far? That will seriously undermine your credentials!
So much for the prescription of “Be yourself”, “Be honest”, Amit fumed.
The mostly contradicting interview tips made Amit cringe. He had been trying to make sense of what the recruitment consultants were advising but beneath the surface he was ready to explode.
“You just want a goddamn job and why can’t the employers appreciate that?”
“I just want to be myself. I am sick and tired of pleasing others; telling prospective employers that I am the best fit for them...”
“I really hate answering the question ‘why should we hire you?’ Walk like this, talk like this. Don’t ask for a cup of tea. Smile. Be a pleasant person. Talk to the secretary nicely when you enter. They are judging you all the time. Also engage in small talk with your interviewers...ALL OF THEM CAN GO TO HELL....” he muttered under his breath.
Heart of heart, Amit was sometimes relieved that he did not have a job. Now, he did not need to be someone else, he could just be himself. Be the whole day in his comfort wear of shorts and T-shirt. He didn’t need to try to talk through ‘situations’.
Amit didn’t think he was the kind of person who corporates were looking for and hiring.
But he needed a job desperately. Without a job, how else do you make a living? You have to put food on the table. You have to pay for the rent, water and electricity.
Plus you need to have a career. What are you going to tell if people asked what do you do for a living? Will anyone marry you? Will you be happy? If yes, for how long will your stupor last?
You have to be realistic. There is no way out. The choice is between money and independence.
You need money to sustain yourself in the real world. But you need independence to sustain your soul. It is admittedly a hard choice.
Amit took a deep breath and went back to researching prospective law firms on the internet. He came across the website of the law firm “SRS & Associates”.
The firm looked like a decent middle sized law firm. Not very high brow, but may just be the right choice for him. As usual, the website did not mention any contact details, except a phone number.
This was another peculiarity of the Indian legal system. Most law firms were not allowed to have a website by the Bar Council of India. And even if they had, they could not mention any contact details of any senior lawyer.
This was so because having a website was seen as “marketing and solicitation”, activities that the members of such a noble profession should not be seen indulging in. Lawyers were supposed to be defenders of justice and NOT mere marketers and advertisers.
Some law firms were smart enough to circumvent the regulation by “sharing their knowledge base” on their websites. In that case, they could have as jazzy a website as possessed by any other regular law firm in the world. These were generally the bigger fish in the Indian legal pond. They had well established connections in the Legal industry and knew how to get past the law, if ever questioned.
However, small firms like SRS & Associates did not have that kind of a clout and so they didn’t dare share their contact details freely on the internet.
Amit remembered that he had bumped into a partner of SRS & Associates during a seminar and had saved his number on his Blackberry Torch Smartphone. But he couldn’t recall the name of the partner readily.
So he picked up his phone, slid the keyboard down to open the contact details and started browsing alphabetically.
Nothing could jog his memory till the alphabet “M”. And then on “N”, he came across the entry for “Naina Karnad”.
His heart missed a beat. He appeared to have not dialled this number for almost a year.
“So where is Naina?”
“How is she?”
“What has she been doing?”
Amit was always plagued with these questions. He thought about Naina frequently but never had the courage to call her in recent times.
He remembered that moonlit night when they had held hands together for the first time. That night was the best moment in his life. They were enjoying the sounds of nature, the chirping of crickets, the rustling of the breeze through the trees, and were finding happiness in small things in life. They were sharing their joys and sorrows together and were willing to even discuss their dreams.
Amit was surprised to find that Naina disliked something that he too detested. She wanted to become something in life which he too wished for.
In a flash, Amit also recalled his first awkward meeting with her, and a smile creased his lips. Naina didn’t come with any “warning signs”, a language Amit had seen so often in warehouse agreements that lawyers like him used to draft. She was “highly inflammable” and had to be handled with care, as Amit’s colleagues told him.
Little did Amit think then that in due course the advice was going to stand him in good stead.
