Thought Crimes

The most important thing that happened before this interview was that for the first time, I knotted my own tie. And what a knot too. The king of knotters would have been tongue-tied at its symmetry and perfection. And on that knot, er note, the details:

The Essay: The topic was "India's space progaramme is misguided ambition". 10 minutes to write. Some 29 lines to fill. I wrote about how any space programmes is always fuelled by want rather than need, metioned poverty and illiteracy as being pressing issues, slipped in Dan Brown and Deception Point and concluded with national pride. Sadly, 2 or 3 lines were left unfilled.

The interview: 2 gentlemen again- one with a moustache (M) and one without (NM). Yours truly walked in.

M: What all do you read? (I'd mentioned reading and writing as interests in my interview form)

Me: You mean novels, sir? (a nod). I generally read fiction. And a lot of it. Practically all genres. I love comedy so I read a lot of Wodehouse. I read thrillers by Dan Brown, Jeffery Archer, good storytellers like Sidney Sheldon, I've read some Frederick Forsyth. I liked Agatha Christie a lot when I was younger. I love fantasy- Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. I read practically anything I can get my hands on.

M: Which Dan Brown novels have you read?

Me: He's written 4. I've read all of them- (named them).

M: What was the controversy surrounding the Da Vinci Code?

Me: (Talked about its attacking the tenets of Christianity leading to the ban by Catholic countries. Also about the plagiarism issue. Mentioned Holy Blood Holy Grail.)

M: Who's your favourite Wodehousian character? Why?

Me: Bertie Wooster and Psmith. Explained why.

M: What do you like about Wodehouse?

Me: Talked about his genius and his way with words. How he can make you split with laughter. Then on his depiction of the English nobillity and upper classes that no other author has managed.

M: What do you write about?

Me: Mentioned my blog. He asked me how I judged myself. Talked about that.

M: What was your last post on?

Me: The L interview sir. Some questions on how the interview was. I said I was satisfied as I answered the questions to the best of my ability.

Me: Content, sir. Both as a writer and as a speaker.

M: Do you read newspapers? Which ones?

Me: HT and I subscribe to India Today. On being asked why HT: I've been reading it ever since I can remember. Started with the sports page and then went on to the rest of the newspaper. Familiar with the columnists.

M: Apart from IPL and the attack on Sri Lankan cricketers, what has been happening in sports?

Me: Champion's league round of 16. First leg over, second leg on 9th and 10th. Davis Cup against Chinese Taipei results. Some women's asia-oceania triumph in tennis.

M: There's also the Women's world cup.

Me: Yes, sir. Mentioned Mithali Raj and some Australlian allrounder of Indian origin who's considered a great player.

M: What about international affairs?

Me: Mentioned the BDR mutiny, attack on Sri Lankan players and Pakistani response, LTTE, some embezzlement going on in Taiwan, Obama removing incentives for companies outsourcing.

NM: Why did you do an internship in Genpact after 2nd year? Seems strange for a metallurgist. You could have left knowledge of finance to whenever you did an MBA?

Me: Gyaan on not wanting to do a project as I did not want to go for higher studies in metallurgy.

NM: Why didn't you go to a DoMS prof?

Me: The idea never struck me sir.

NM: What did you do in your intern at L&T? What is the role of Temperature in boilers? I can see the role of pressure but why temperature?

Me: Sir, efficiency is a function of difference of temperatures. We want higher efficiency so we want materials that can perform at such temperatures...

NM: No no. Water boils at 100 degrees. Why go above that? (When I mentioned superheated steam) Superheated steam ok. 200 degrees. Why such high temperatures?

Me: The higher the Temperature, more the energy given to steam. So it will lose more energy which will be used to do the work.

NM: Does Pressure depend on temperature in a boiler?

Me: Yes sir. On increasing the temperature, the number of collisions will increase leading to an increase in pressure.

NM: Ok. Why this Tungsten material? A new material, huh? Ok isn't it expensive? How can I know I'll get enough returns?

Me: Now we're moving towards supercritical boilers. More efficiency. So we need materials that can perform at higher temperatures. This material can perform at 50 degrees higher T.

NM: Why W?

Me: Meta meta

NM: Why not more W?

Me: Said it would decrease strength. Wrong answer. It actually decreases ductility.

Me: In superheater and reheater tubes and pipes. We don't want them to burst so we want enhanced strength.

Me: We know the range. Then we conduct experiments to see properties at different compositions.

Me: An alloy is homogenous...

NM: Whoa, I'm a layman. I don't know this homogenous. Explain properly.

Me: I'll give you an analogy. Suppose you colour a piece of paper red. Then you take some yellow paint. If you paint the whole thing yellow now, you'll get an orange shade which is same everywhere. That is alloy. If you just use the entire paint and put dots everywhere, that is composite.

NM: No but concrete is a composite and it is same everywhere.

Me: No sir. You're talking at a macrolevel. As you go deeper and deeper into the concrete, you'll see that it has different properties as different places.

NM: Ok, you live in UP? Always lived in UP, as in are you a UP-ite?

Me: No sir. I'm a Bihari. I lived in Patna till 2001 then moved to Delhi when my father got transferred.

M: Ok, that's it. Take a toffee.

Me: Taking an alpenlibe. Thank you sir.

And so ended this one. 4 down 1 to go.