Airtel Scholar Hunt: My Interview, Day 1

Warning: This post is **HUGE**. Patience and courage needed.
Warning 2: Most of this might sound like fiction, but you can ask any other participant to "attest" this.

Slept for 5 hours in the train... I turned off the alarm in my mobile, after learning a lesson from my last trip :) One surprising thing was that the train had actually arrived BEFORE time, at 5:54am. Good for me :) We immediately headed for, guess!!!, Rail Yatri :D Got a room there. We were on a tight schedule.

We had to reach Laxmi Video Studio, in Filmcity Noida. Noida itself was about 1 hour away from the railway station. So it was decided that we'll leave at 7:30. My father and I just had some coffee, "fruitcafe" and biscuits. I didn't want to be late there... or else the waiting list people would take my place.

Once in the auto, I again started "revising" my "speech", thinking that that would be the only part I'd have to speak in front of the camera. I also thought of some possible questions, and their answers.

We reached Noida quite quickly. We were at the gates of the studio in 40 minutes!! We were at the studio at 8:10am, much earlier than the reporting time (8:45am).

But we hadn't thought of this - shootings are never on time. In this case (the interviews), never ever.

We sat at the studio. They had setup a weird, narrow place for participants to sit. No fans, ACs, etc (remember, no fans, ACs etc, this is important for later events). When we arrived, there were just 4 participants. Slowly, by 9:15am all 10 participants were present at the studio, but *sigh* shootings.

A friend had earlier described these shooting as a "media circus". I'll have to agree. It was a completely chaotic circus of camera men, lights, "lightmen", and directors.

The directors for the were Ian and a Kolkata person (don't rememebr the name). Both of them great! But *sigh* :)

Both of them introduced themselves, and told us, "Please cooperate with us. If theres no show, theres no scholarship". True. But if theres no show, u'll be fired :P They also told us to have "better emotions" and not "cold ones".

I saw a British person enter the studio. I wasnt sure if he'd be a judge. And then came in the host of the show, Arun Thapar. For those who don't know who he is, Arun Thapar was the host of "Chuppa Rustam".

And the circus began. Lights started coming. HUGE lights, with HUGE plugs. And then thermocol boards started coming, they were to be used as reflectors. And then there was "glare" the banners of the scholarship... so "glarecutters" came in. And places where they wouldn't place the reflectors, they "bounced the light" using the walls. It was a complete circus. Enjoyed watching it.

The lights were finally setup and were switched on. These 1200Wx3 lights were too hot. We were all sweating. It was 10:30am by now. Nothing major had happened. Not even the registration, which was supposed to happen at 8:45am.

While sitting in the waiting area, I got a few glimpses of the set. It was great!! Hexagons, with TV screens, and nice looking lights :) But we were still sweating. The lights were just too intense, and no fans or ACs.

And then the "pre pre-interviews" started. Again, the "media circus". A camera person, a boom mic person and a director. All three would corner you, and ask you _the_ _most_ __obvious__ questions, like "How are you feeling right now", "What have you done to prepare for this", etc. I thought the Media was much more creative... :-\ But I guess these are some standard questions written in the "Book Of Reality Show Questions".

I was the second one to face the camera during this "pre preinterview" session. The super hairy mic was placed right below me, next to my feet. The camera was focussed on me. It feels really strange when you look at the lens of a camera when it is being zoomed. I was instructed to look at the director, who was standing next to the camera. I'm still thinking, why not look into the camera itself.

Anyway, the question/answer session started. And I answered him. Once that was done, the person next to me was about to be prepreinterviewed. But something happened and he wasnt interviewed, atleast not in front of me. So we were again sitting there, with the bright lights sweating us with no fans or ACs.

Got bored again. And then they started interviewing the parents.

Throughout this act of the circus, if someone said something... he'd be shouted at by Ian... "SILENCE!!!!!" :)

And then again, we were prepreinterviewed. :-\ Again the same questions. And, they made me do one really dumb thing. I just hope they don't telecast it :((((((((((

After all this circusiry, registrations started. Finally. At around _12 noon_. Registrations were finally over. And the actual interviews started. The first candidate, a sardarji (umm...), was preinterviewed. I was sure the questions must have been the same __obvious__ questions. "You are just about to go in, what are your feelings", etc.

And then he went in and came out after about 10 minutes, and was postinterviewed. This time, I think, some good enough questions were asked (not the __obvious__ ones :) ).

Next it was me. Someone came and put a collar microphone on me. This too was shot. I don't know why they shot that part... :-\

The Kolkata director person asked me to reach the "green carpet" which led to the door. He straight away asked me... "You are just going to go in". And I thought... won't I be preinterviewed? So I just turned and started moving towards the door... And he repeated, "You are just going to go in... what are your feelings?". I thought, "Oh no not again...". Gave a few answers, don't remember much about that.

Once that was over, I finaly opened the first door towards Studio A. There were two doors in front of me. The front one led into some kind of "control room". The door to the left led to the actual set. The "indoor director", "briefed" me about what I had to do. And throughout the briefing process, he was talking to someone else too... over his headphones. Most probably some person in the control room. He asked them to increase the cooling!!!

The director told me that I had to stand next to the third "Airtel Scholar Hunt" banner, at the end of a "ramp" that led to the actual interview place. And he told that he would do a motion with his hands (a really strange one... really...), and that would be the cue for me to walk down the ramp. I understood everything, and stood next to the third banner. Then I was instructed to step up on the ramp. Umm u'd have to be there to understand what I mean.

Again the media circusry started. Arun Thapar (the host) said... "This is the Airtel Schollaaaar Hunt, Destination UUUUkkkkkkkaaaaaayyyyy. And this is interview time. The candidates have already faced two examinations, one was an online exam and the other was at their respective centers. And now we meet them face to face. Our interview panel consists of Mr. Story, the Computer science professor of Warwick, and name-not-remembered, an alumnus of Warwick." He forgot his lines many times, and did the thing about 3-4 times.

All this while, I was looking at the set. There were hundreds of lights on the ceiling.. literally. About 10-15 were directed towards the interview panel. I'm not sure but 5 must have been towards me. And there were red and blue moving type lights too... just like in KBC. There was also a group of blue lights just above and left of the ramp. The control room could be seen through the glass. There were three cameras. One was directed at the interviewee's seat, another at the interviewers, and the third was on a moveable track. Each of them was controlled by someone, who continuously looked into the camera even though nothing was being shot!!

While looking at all this, i lost track of the cue. When I suddenly looked at the director again, he was already doing it. So I walked down the ramp, with the red and blue KBC lights lighting up the ramp, and took my seat.

The interview started. I was a lot less nervous than the last interview I had faced. Especially with all the cameras and lights!

The interview started, went on, etc, etc. You watch all that on the TV. :P

During the interview, while I was answering a question, Mr. Thapar... took out his handkerchief and started wiping his face!!! I "laughed" at that! :P The NDTV people have no useable footage for that part of the interview... the host is wiping his face, and the interviewee is smiling like a fanatic!! Lets see how they edit that part!!

Finally the interview ended. Walked down the ramp, to the third-airtel-scholar-hunt-banner. This time, I noticed that the ramp itself had lots of lights. They were small lights... must have been around 50 lights. 8-| Lots of electricity was being consumed :)

Once off the ramp, the collar mic I was wearing was immediately removed, for the next candidate. And walked into the "common area" with the three doors. There, the Kolkata person was waiting for me... and he told me that he'd give me the signal to come out through the door, only then will I have to come.

Waited for the signal. I watched through the small glass "window" on the door as he setup the camera and the mic.

He did a motion similar to that of the indoor director. I came out, and was post interviewed. The questions weren't obvious this time. So I could have answered them well. But I felt I had been brainwashed inside... didn't remember a thing at that moment. I was asked several questions about the interview, but I just answered them... most of them weren't even correct (I think...).

Finally it was over.

I had been shot enough for the day :)

A friend and I of mine just roamed about the entire studio. We found a "store room" for the studio too. But I'm sure they use it as a set too. It was HUGE room, with lots of HUGE streetlight-type-lights. Even then the room was dark. At first sight, you would think that this room was used for sight scenes :) We explored the entire room and found some really strange things in there... HUGE tablas, lots of broken CDs, and some "religious" things (The studio was of T-series... and there were photos of a "religious singer"). There were lots of pillars too!!! I'm sure they shoot those religious songs in that area!! There were even some banners of Cardiff University. We also found a few boxes of the lights that were being used at the set. I checked its power rating... it was (as usual) HUGE... 1200W/light. And they had so many lights... their meter must have been running like a space craft. 8-|

Got bored of all this... so my father and I left. We tried the "amma ki rasoi" canteen at the studio... but didnt like it :)

Then a bit of photography.

And we left the studio.

Spent a lot of time at the Centrestage mall. Its very near to Laxmi Video Studio.

And, returned to Rail Yatri Niwas at night :)

Day one over. Slept nicely that day... was very tired.