Deja vu

People are sitting around taking tea breaks every 5 mins or chatting away on the phone or reading through old study material/reports or simply doing nothing. Basically, no one is working as there is no work.

Some seats where your friends used to sit are vacant and that does not make you miss them. Rather, you think they are out trying to take away the opportunity that is yours. You hope to hit the road soon.

People are keeping their ears open for new pieces of information filtering in through the grapevine of friends and foes.

You end up charging your phone twice a day. Not because you are playing iSolitaire but because you are fielding calls from friends, relatives and Aisa vaisa bank for the personal loan you will surely need in a couple of months. Some call out of concern, some call out of curiousity. Some call to offer help while others call to take an update. Mostly, you end up giving an explanation about how you are taking it fine, make a stupid joke at which you laugh yourself and try and get off the phone asap.

Time and again, someone senior in the value chain comes in and tries to perk you up with pep talk about how the world is not coming to an end and we have more options coming up. Rhetorical questions are asked and the same are answered hypothetically. Not because they dont want to, they simply cant.

No, I am not talking about the students waiting room during the pressure cooker placement season at the coveted B-schools. Rather, this is rather the financial crisis of the century which has managed to reach India after a substantial enough number of home owners managed to NOT pay their EMI's and started the wave that took down 3 bulge bracket investment banks and threatens to claim more.

While the setting has shifted from the classroom to a swanky office - feelings of uncertainty about future, about my own self belief, about proving your self worth are the same. Optimists say - this too shall pass.

I ask - When?!