Diary, you should have been there. It was my finest hour. Ever. A performance of a lifetime.

I was on my way back to the increasingly emptying student pool when I was diverted to the Dufresne rooms for my second interview. The ‘partner interview’.

I had no idea who the partner from Dufresne was but I was sure that Swami would have given him a heads-up. After my Goldman performance I was running on high confidence levels.

Swami was waiting outside the room when I arrived. He said he was genuinely happy to see me, and that finally he had someone to show his partner for an interview. I reminded him that few people approached consulting with the focus and seriousness that I did. And that in spite of my spectacular Goldman interview I was really looking forward to Dufresne.

He immediately ushered me into the room. Inside, a man sat behind the desk with his feet up on the table. Swami pointed at the chair and walked out after giving me a big thumbs-up.

The partner looked asleep, to be perfectly honest, and I didn’t know whether to wake him up or wait till he woke up on his own. But he wasn’t snoring or anything. He could have been meditating, for all I knew. So I decided to wait.

After ten minutes I walked over to him and put my finger below his nostrils to see if he was breathing or not. He was.

Just as I sat back down to wait some more, I heard the remixed version of Kajra re play in the room. As if controlled by remote control, the man on the other side of the table sat up in a flash, picked up the phone and began speaking. He didn’t even pause to think or wake up or rub his eyes.

I was astonished. How long would it take me to become a super-efficient consulting professional like that? Ready to go at a moment’s notice?

Two years? Three? Five? Surely not more than five years?

But then I reminded myself that this question was irrelevant as Goldman was clearly busy drawing up my offer letter as I sat here wasting time with Dufresne.

While he spoke on the phone, to a client by the sound of it, he smiled at me and then indicated that I get him a glass of water. I did so quietly so as not to interrupt his call. And then he gestured for me to note down some numbers which the guy on the phone was telling him.

I noted down each one in clean block letters, one number per line, in my little notepad. I have no idea what they were but they were all in the low millions.

Finally, ten minutes later, he hung up, swung his feet off the table and asked me for my sheet of paper. I pushed it across in a suitably professional manner.

He skimmed through it for a minute and then looked up at me.