Its a very fascinating how the internship works, you email your resume and you are hired. Neither have you seen the prof (well homepage is fine but they are usually outdated), neither has the prof seen you. Some interesting first time reactions professors gave:
Maru walking around on 2nd floor of LRI waiting for the PhD to come and unlock the card-secured doors
Prof: You must be Maru
Maru: Yes! But I don't think you're who I am looking for!
Pande and Maru coming back after keeping their luggage in Inria staff building
Prof (looking v young, wearing a skirt): I think you're looking for me.
Maru: umm .. hmm .. wondering how the hell is this the same person as shown on the webpage!
Pande: sees the lady ... sees the skirt ... and his eyes never gain the same elevation again ..
Maru and Pande are both lost at this point
Don't remember prof's expression, but she was probably thinking 'what a bunch of losers!'
Staff Member: Oh, there is Prof x
Me and Pande (regaining the ability to think): Oh yes, yes, of course!
Pande and Mittal sitting in the lab
Mittal's Prof (entering): So, which one of you is Avin ?!
And last but not the least,
Das arrived (finally!) in Prof's office
Prof: So ..., you do exist!
The month was coming to an end, and much to the relief of professors at Inria, finally Das arrived. In his own words: "After many anxious moments, many a hiccups, I finally made my way to France".
8, Rue Henri Poincare, 91120, Palaiseau. Das reached the place and was greeted by vociferous roars. Mittal, Maru, Pandey and DJ, it seemed, had left no stone unturned for a wild night ahead. Vodka and beer were consumed at an unparalleled rate amidst shouts of ‘Cheers’. In between, Das came up with a sutta tutorial for 3 new entrants in the club. Well, for the records, Das was high within 5 hrs of landing in Paris. Way to go, man!!
The show stealer was however, Pandey, with his never-ending senti as he covered topics ranging from his colony to Ioana to Prof Gumaste.
And the next day ...
And, don’t get me wrong, it was done with a foresight: the next day was a holiday, with some weird funda of working on an optional basis, your salary going to some undisclosed location. We, as chillar IITians, didn’t obviously believe in the philosophy and saved a lot of trouble by deciding to rather not work.
Pirates was released a few days back. The gang of 5, proudly calling themselves ‘Parisians’, set out in the search of a theatre. We found many, but the Parisians, couldn’t watch the movie because the offering was always made in French. What an irony!!
All this while, Das cribbed about not having a hood when all others had one, his craving satisfied eventually by an outrageously cheap piece at Carrefour. Well, now, he was truly a part of the fraternity.
One thing leads to another. Hunger led us to Pizza Hut, which, in turn led Das to a state of mental shock as he started a series of currency conversions. A true Indian that he is, he could not help complaining how expensive this country was even in this era of globalization!! Pandey, all this while, kept grinning, as he could see the advent of another soldier in the fight against unabashed spending by Maru and Mittal.
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