The Interview
A short story by
Anirudh Deshpande
II
At two thirty pm the sloppy guards in the Blue Uniform of one International Shaurya Security Agency (Private) saw a white Fiat turn towards the Lal Bahadur Shastri Evening College, LBsec, as it is still called, on the Swatantra Senani Jagat Ram Marg behind the Kautilya Complex from the main road which joins the Jarnail Singh Stadium and Karnail Singh Swimming Academy in the city. The car sported clean snow white curtains and an Indian Army Sticker with ‘VETERAN’ printed below it. The man who got down from the car had long black hair and a clipped beard. He was dressed in a round neck dark grey T shirt, blue jeans and cross trainers. At thirty-two he looked twenty-six and the guards took him for a fashionable scion of a rich family. In those days peons rode bicycles and professors had scooters and any car was the equivalent of today’s SUV.
Sameer had clipped his beard and bathed for Antara. She loved him and his cartoons and placed them in the media with care. An unkempt beard irritated her for reasons which Sameer told no one.
“If you keep drawing such cartoons regularly, very soon, you will either get a permanent space in a paper or magazine or even a decent fellowship abroad to hone your skills” she had said, crushing his downy back against her breasts in his aunt’s temporarily vacant flat a few days ago making him feel good.
The cartoons and regular copy editing of content written by incompetent academics and mediocre journalists in bad English gave Sameer some money which he spent on treating Antara to wine, scented Prince Henry tobacco and an occasional present.
Sameer conceived a cartoon the ugly building of the LBsec inspired on the spot before parking the car near the main gate in a space marked ‘Visitor Parking’. The stink of human urine greeted his nostrils. He gave twenty rupees to the astonished male guard, pointed to the shinning white Fiat and walked into the illegally constructed college building. The lugubrious unhandsome yellow structure exuded decrepitude and reminded him of the PWD constructed electricity office where he paid his father’s trimmed power bill.
A motley crowd of perspiring students in tight jeans and tee shirts streamed past him towards the gate like convicts released from prison. The morning college had closed. The students spoke the colorful language of Delhi peppered with phrases like “come on yaar” “fuck man” “screw you” “waat lagi” and “Behenchod ki lag gayi”. The last endearment described a lecherous commerce teacher in the college mentioned in a case reported in the papers of the day.
“Goodness, this is worse than Kripacharya College” Sameer thought, walking up the stairs to the Evening Section. He never understood why offices of the evening colleges in the University were usually located on the first floor. Maybe this was done to add physical effort to the injury and insult you were supposed to feel as an employee in a god forsaken evening college! The safari suited section officer in Kripacharya College had offered him an explanation with a meaningful look. “He he.. we evening chaps are tenants only Bhai Saheb, not landlords who enjoy the real attractions. The crowd in the morning is much better”.
Sameer was thinking of the health problems these stairs might have caused the college fraternity, when he reached a small square faux lounge on the first floor. One end of the square started a passage which, Sameer’s experience as a failed veteran told him, led to the main building. A wall of the lounge contained a polished wooden door screaming “PRINCIPAL OFFICE” in thick white paint. It seemed the English Department of the college or its favorite painter was allergic to the apostrophe and the alphabet S.
Men in low waist polycot pants and striped and check shirts with files in their hands went in and out of the Principal Office. When the door opened a draft of air conditioning came into the lounge. Some men sat on chairs in front of a large desk behind which was the Principal, a short, fat, fair man with beady unsteady eyes.
Before Sameer could see more the door swung back on a brass door closer.
A voice from the window on another wall, above which hung a wooden name plate, called him. Manoj Kumar, P.A. to Principal, addressed him in a high pitched voice “You are coming for interview?”
“I suppose so. Yes!” replied Sameer with a smile. He awaited a “myself Bagga, your good self?” sort of introduction.
“I am seeing you are from good family. Give me your file” bald Manoj Kumar countered, showing Sameer two light brown expressionless eyes behind rectangular spectacles. He had been informed by the senior peon that this candidate had arrived in a senior Army Officer’s car. Barely literate, the high school pass Tiwari was a relative of the Principal’s sister in law. He had seen the Army insignia on the Fiat. The Principal came to college on a weather beaten Chetak scooter from his MIG flat in Janak Puri. Tiwari had never left Amroha before bagging this position mainly as the chief’s spy.
Manoj Kumar and Tiwari were veterans. One in office, another outside.
“Did you mean that people from good families are rare in this college?” Sameer said mischievously, shoving his file into the PA’s window.
“You will know if you are selected. This is the best college of the city” Manoj Kumar replied in Hindi. He reminded Sameer of a Bollywood clown he had recently seen in a TV program.
“Tiwari, take Dr. Sameer to the waiting room” the PA spoke in Hindi to the portly peon. Tiwari was engrossed in a conversation with a young class four employee who had entered the lounge from the passage. Dressed in a shiny pink salwar kameez she leaned against a wall and was whispering something to Tiwari. The peon’s thick katha stained lips were parted in a smile. After ten seconds he stared at Sameer, turned his head and shuffled towards the passage. Sameer followed the peon. On his right were the Administrative Office cubicles emitting the smell of paper, melted lac, burnt milk and fried food. He saw stacks of files on the desks and marveled at the amount of paper generated by an evening college which had no science departments.
The passage ended in a long corridor. Tiwari turned right, walked twenty paces and entered a room which had an open cracked wooden door. This painted light green door was made of sturdy saal wood and belonged to a class room. The extreme back of this room was crammed with damaged chairs and desks. A large obsolete broken black board hung on one wall and on the wall opposite the entry were vacant metal window frames which had seen better days. Most of the rickety chairs and benches, to which long bench like desks were attached with metal strips, were occupied by male and female candidates whose mean age was around forty. Many looked old, embarrassed, wasted and anxious. These were the ad-hoc ‘backbone’ teachers of the university whose hopes of tenure had risen and fallen twice a year over decades.
The room was humming with conversations. The men sat to the left and women on the right mimicking the zenana-mardana staff room seating in the university. Sometimes a man walked to the females to exchange news with a fellow traveler.
Sameer recognized a couple of old MA class mates and sat with them. Copper Rajeev Bansal and freckled Mahesh Rawat were M.Phil pass, around thirty and partially employed as guest teachers in peripheral colleges. Though Bansal belonged to a trading family and Rawat’s elder brother ran a successful civil service coaching center both wanted permanent jobs. They were permanent fixtures in all university interviews. Both had failed the civil service exams many times but their knowledge of history trivia, thanks to Rawat Coaching Center, was admirable.
It was rumored that selection committees were tired of them.
Once a Professor had asked Rawat “Till when will come to these interviews?”
“Till you make me permanent” the doughty highlander had shot back with a straight face.
“This job is fixed for an ad-hoc bhenchod. This Naman Mishra gandu is only MA high second class. He cannot speak a sentence in English” Rajeev whispered to Sameer. Anywhere else, the friends would have sniggered loudly.
“Whose cock did he suck for this honor?” Sameer rejoined in Hindi.
Rajeev broke into a broad smile and Mahesh banged the desk in glee. Many candidates stared at them.
“You won’t change” Rajeev said in admiration. And added, “he is a swollen testicle of the HOD.”
“Anybody’s guess who got the blow job. Caste matters! Today’s post is obviously by roster. There is another ad-hoc contender – a rich Thakur from Chapra. Does not stand a chance, despite the gifts distributed to the Department Faculty bought from the Bihar Emporium for years” Rajeev informed Sameer.
“I guess sex also matters!” Sameer said with a wink.
“You mean enjoying it or of the candidate” Mahesh joined in, and the three friends laughed loudly. The reference was to a position bagged by a female known for her proximity to a professor a few months ago.
A grey haired plump female candidate sitting in the aisle next to Rajiv, overheard Sameer. She whispered something to her neighbor in a dark green head scarf who pretended to look scandalized.
“Rajeev, Professor Sudhir Mishra, the head of department, has brought a handpicked selection committee comprising Dube and Murthy” the matron from the flanks informed Sameer indirectly. Sameer nodded at her in acknowledgement. This head loved students touching his feet.
Suddenly the room became quiet and the heavy air of jealousy descended on the candidates.
Everyone, including the visually challenged, stared at a man who had entered the room with Tiwari. The two were discussing the immobile ceiling fans in the rear which tortured the candidates in the stifling July humidity. The thin semi-bald swarthy intruder stood barely five feet four inches tall. In his right hand was a magenta file. An unlit cigarette hung from the thin fingers which clutched the thick file. His voice was high pitched and lips red with pan juice. He walked liked Pablo Escobar, avoiding the glares of the sweating candidates, to the switch board. He checked the dysfunctional switch board, turned on his heels and said “Ladka log sab tod diya hai” loudly to no one and left the room.
“He’s the one” said Rajeev. Sameer imagined a group of hooligans practice kicking skills on the switch board. He barely heard his friend.
“Want a drink in the evening after meeting the cardinals?” Mahesh asked Sameer and Rajeev.
Sameer barely said “Not today, some other time” when Tiwari entered the room.
The peon shouted his name. Sameer walked towards the door conscious of the people staring at him. Not everyone was privy to Rajeev’s information and some thought Sameer might succeed because of his looks!
Usually Sameer was the first candidate in every interview because he had a PhD and a few research papers in peer reviewed international journals. But these achievements had increased the number of interviews he faced annually. He enjoyed them as a distraction from journalistic work and Antara three years after submitting his thesis to an easy going guide fond of classical music and literature. For his unwise monthly newspaper columns, this man had never been promoted to full professor.
It was believed some of his articles had caused one Vice Chancellor a massive heart attack. The guidelines for the composition of job selection committees were promptly changed ten years ago as soon as the VC was fit to conduct an Executive Council meeting. The columns had also criticized the ‘reformist’ Education Minister, a close friend and former class mate of the VC.
The new rules debarred Associate Professors from these committees and sealed the fate of numerous candidates like Sameer.
*****
