In the last few weeks, most of his colleagues in the company have been fired, too. “I was one of the last to be shown the door because I was one of the better performers,” he says.

The slowdown in India’s outsourcing industry, the mainstay of Bangalore’s economy, is showing up in unexpected ways. The city’s restaurants and drinking lounges are reporting a 30 to 50 per cent dip in revenues. A publicly-listed real estate firm has slashed prices of apartments. Others have introduced low-end options. Rush-hour commuters are even talking of de-clogging in the roads during peak times as outsourcing workers prefer taking the company bus or riding a two-wheeler to driving their cars.

In the last week, Jadhav has been frantically surfing the internet and scouring the newspapers in search of a job. He has dispatched his resume to a dozen companies unsolicited. He has fired it off to several placement consultants. He has attended three interviews so far but he has had no luck.

Jadhav may not yet have a job offer but he has a plan. “At the next interview, I am going to say to the company, give me a job, don’t give me a salary. Pay me only after I prove myself. I’m ready to go to that level.”

Jadhav’s wife Debadrita quit her job as a content editor at Yahoo when she became pregnant last year. The couple now has an eight-month old son. Jadhav has crossed the overdraft limit on his two credit cards and has run himself into a Rs-70,000 credit card debt. As he describes, “I am quite a spendthrift”. If he does not land a job in the next one month, Jadhav cannot pay his credit card dues and the card company will “come knocking to my door.”

... contd.