‘The Bad Girl’ at the interview

They were just about to let me go when, may be for lightening up the mood, the epidemiologist in the interview panel asked me “What are your hobbies?”. True to my soul, I replied “I read a lot and I love quizzing”’. 

Suddenly she asked, “Tell me the name of the last book you read”. 

 I wracked my brains for 5 seconds and stammered the only name which came to my mind at that point of time, “The Bad girl”, I told. 

“Who is the author?”, she persisted. 

I was in the dilemma of my life now. I told,  “Mario…(Vera? Varga? My brain hit the search mode with no luck)…...ehh, um,... I’m not getting the rest of his name”. 

Pause. 

Not one to give so easily, I blabbered, “He is Argentinian, He’s a Nobel laureate too. He’s actually a contemporary of Gabriel Garcia Marquez… I’m sorry, I don’t remember the rest of his name”. 

The bibliophile in me would never pardon me if I got his name wrong, so I could not and would not lie about it; that would be blasphemy. But I would not back down without a fight, so I thought it better to give pointers about who the author may be by mentioning his whereabouts. May be the interview board would have thought that I would go on with his biography if they din’t stop me right there and then. So they told me politely, “You can go now.”

I came out. I took two steps in a disoriented fashion. I had let myself down by not remembering the name of the author. I was a shame to the quizzer community of the world. Screw the rest of the interview.

Suddenly, in a flash, it came to me, “Llosa. Vargas Llosa. Mario Vargas Llosa ”. “Yippee…!!” my mind did a small somersault to itself. I turned back to go to the interview room. I had to redeem my pride, I had to tell them that I knew. 

Just then, one of the panel members emerged from the room. He din’t look like he cared. He hadn’t blinked when I mentioned the book’s name. There was no flicker of recognition when I mentioned Argentina or Nobel prize or even Marquez… For him and the others in the room, The Bad Girl could have been just another Mills & Boons book for all they knew, as the title seemed to suggest.

But for me, it mattered that I could remember, that I did not forget. I had redeemed myself in my eyes. I walked out feeling good, thinking of the actual Bad Girl that Llosa wrote about, about Marquez, One hundred years of Solitude and Love in the times of Cholera….




PS:It also didn't matter that later Llosa turned out to be a Peruvian and not from Argentina as I had claimed!