Airtel Scholar Hunt: Before the Interview

So, I was at Kanpur... Thinking what would happen over the next two days. I had no idea about the interview, how the shooting would go about, etc. No one had appeared for it earlier. I spent the day, trying to mug up the speech. I had been thinking that we'd have to speak it out in front of a camera, and then the interview would go on as normal. But that was what I -thought-. NDTV had planned something very different for the Airtel Scholar Hunt.

Time that day passed very quickly. Learning and getting the documents. The NDTV people also wanted that we get the documents attested. Now... to me it seems illogical... to ask for BOTH, the original and an attested copy. Why not check it themselves if the photocopy is legitimate.

Another document the NDTV people asked for was the "Call Letter" for the interview. On their website, it said that "the letters are being dispatched individually to the contestants by courier". But I had not yet received it, and tomorrow was my interview. :S So I sent an email to them, asking what to do, hoping they'd reply in an hour or so. And they did :) They instructed me to get a printout of the "email call letter" and bring that. I converted the emails to PDFs and gave the CDRW to my father... and he left to get it printed.

But strangely, he returned after 2-3 mins, with the call letter in his hand. He told us that on his way down, he asked a "resident" if some courierperson had come... the "resident" suddenly shouted, "Oye oye idhar aao"... and the courierperson came... with the ndtv call letter for the interview round. :) And this happened at 6:30pm... quite close to the actual interview itself. :)

So, finally.. I had the whole speech learned up. We packed up, documents, "formal" clothes, and whatever else we could think of. Finally we boarded the train at around 11:30pm. It was supposed to reach Delhi at 6am. And we had to reach the venue at 8:45am the next day. I just hoped that this -Indian- train would not be late :((((

We reached our seats and the blankets came. One old person in our group-of-8-seats-in-the-train spread the sheet on his upper berth and displayed to us his atheletic skills. You'd should have been there to see it :P

There was another interesting person on the train... He spoke "Raadhe Raadhe" after each sentence. :-w It was strange.

Finally, the train moved. And I somehow managed to sleep at 12:30am. After all, I had an interview the next day.. umm... the same day.