‘You have good grades and a passion for marketing. You are so HLL, I can see
it on your face.’
‘You have two more banks tomorrow.’
‘I want Citibank,’ I said. ‘I should have better answers than “I like the money”. I
need to lie better in interviews.’
The waiter served us. She broke a piece of the pao and fed me. ‘But that’s the
only reason why anyone would work in a bank, right?’
‘Yes, but the interviewers like to believe they are doing something meaningful.
Like they work for the Mother Teresa Foundation or something.’
‘Well you should say this – I want Citibank as I want Indians to have access to
world-class financial services. And use words like “enormous growths” and
“strategic potential”,’ she said.
‘I have to say all that without throwing up?’
‘And remember, the Citi never sleeps. So say you will work hard,’ she said.
‘I can’t lie that much,’ I said.
She laughed as she wiped a bit of bhaji off the corner of my mouth. I thought
how lucky I was to have her. She could be running HLL in a few years, but today
her priority was to wipe bhaji off my stupid face. Guilt knotted within me. She
deserved an answer about the future. Do it, loser, I told myself. Do it now. Even if
it is a makeshift pao bhaji stall in Navrangpura. I gathered the courage to sopeak.
‘What? You want to say something?’
‘Do you want more pao?’ I said.
‘You are third,’ a first-year student volunteer who assisted in placements told me.
I sat on a stool with seven other candidates outside the interview room. We
resembled patients at a dentist’s clinic, only more stressed.