I nodded at him solemnly and walked back out closing the door behind me.

And then I tried to completely erase the previous seven seconds from my life.

A moment or two later the door opened and the gentleman stepped out and asked me if I was Robin Varghese. I nodded. He walked up to me and extended his hand. I shook it, and made a mental note: HANDWASH.

‘Hi Robin. I am Swami. Great to meet you. Why don’t you go through this material while I prepare for our interview, eh? It will help and won’t take more than ten minutes. Okay?’

I nodded. He walked away. I vigorously rubbed my palm on the seat of my trousers and then opened the file Swami had given me. I immediately felt much better.

Dufresne had prepared individualized material for each candidate and the file had my name emblazoned in bold letters across the top of each page:

ROBIN WERE GEESE—WIMWI

Swami popped his head out of the door. ‘Come on in, Robin!’ he said with a flick of his head.

When I entered the room and did not see the tube of ointment on the table, I let out a quite audible sigh of relief

‘Don’t be nervous, Robin. We are all nice people here at Dufresne. Relax. Sit down and chill, won’t you?’

I sat in the remarkably uncomfortable chairs the placement office had hired for placement week and tried to forget all about JP Morgan. I tried to focus on Dufresne. To relax, I quickly visualized the Friends episode with Chandler, and the Pac Man machine and the claw.

‘So what’s your dorm name, Robin? They still have dorm names here at WIMWI, don’t they?’

‘Of course they do, Swami. They call me Einstein. Are you from here?’

‘Yes, I am. Batch of 2001. Einstein? What’s the funda there? I hope it’s not one of those ironical dorm names!’ He laughed loudly as if expecting me to join in.

My dorm seniors had never really told me why they called me Einstein. I am sure they had some reason. Surely, it can’t be an ‘irony’ nickname, no, Diary?

I reassured Swami, with some gesticulating to convey authenticity, that there was a very interesting rationale behind my dorm name and it was in no small part due to my keen interest in my namesake’s famous Theory of Relative Gravity of Everything. Swami nodded solemnly, buying my deft feigning completely.

When I asked him he told me that his dorm name on campus had been ‘Khujli’. I did not ask him why.

Swami spent the next five minutes reading something on his laptop. No doubt he was going through every single printed line in my résumé.

It is not uncommon for consulting firms, especially ones like Dufresne, to study a potential employee’s CV in excruciating detail. Then, in a high pressure interview setting, they grill the applicant on every single point to not only ensure authenticity but also to get a highly detailed and revealing profile. After all each person recruited by a consulting firm is, when you think about it, a potential partner in the firm.