This is an essay that you have to write if you are applying at Google India. Good thing is you have to write it from home. So, basically a screening test. I wrote the following for one of my friends. She cleared the screening round, at least. So here it goes:
Slavery has always been a very clear, extreme and no-confusions-about-it concept for me. In fact, almost for everyone. Historically, the British carried off the South Asians to their plantations and mines across the world. These people were driven away from their homes, ill-clothed and hungry, clueless on alien ships, across the seas, all tied up, and taken to lands they had no idea of.
Clear, definite slavery. Cruel. Brutal.
Now, now there was another sub-human race known as the blacks. And a super-human race known as whites. The blacks were born to be servants, factory workers, replaced mules in farms and were shot to death across half of the world when they tried to be seen as humans. By the way, they also served as currency in barter trades among the whites for all of 19th century. The struggle, though sedated, is still on.
Clear, definite slavery. Inhuman.
Then there were the Egyptians, the Indian Maharajas and the Arab Amirs. That was slavery with some substance. Now we are talking about being slaves to refrigerators, air conditioners, automobiles, the cute little iPod.
What’s their fault? The Frankensteinish air conditioners keep us insulated from the rising heat of the planet, turning us into sensitive pumpkins, turnips, couch-rotten-potatoes. The air conditioners and iPods are taking over the world. This is supposed to be a worse nightmare than the rise of the machines, a more sinister coup of the collective unconscious.
I should be scared, trembling in my own skin; we should all jump off the technology boat into the watery abyss, just like the Indian slaves did.
But I am not scared. If this is slavery, it’s the best one to happen to mankind. If you still persist, I will rather switch off the A.C. but I love my iPod, don’t even think about it.
