Yeah, sounds ridiculous, but, well, I don't know, maybe it's on purpose… Like to get a feeling of how able is that person of communicating with his colleagues and explaining code without appropriate media at hand or whatever. It's debatable if this is really what interviewee should be tested for, but ideas about the best interviewing strategy and "what the team needs" diverge drastically, so I guess it's his business.
One more possible scenario: some manager thinks your team absolutely needs more people. You don't think so, because there's some limit on how many people are needed to change a light bulb. So you, in fact, actually aren't that interested in the candidate unless you see that he is perfect fit, somebody you just cannot lose only because you don't need more people right now. And I cannot judge you, it's, well, _OK_ to not to hire someone. Yeah, in the perfect world everybody is always polite and sincerely interested in others and so on, but c'mon, lets just allow people do their job and keep them away from all these political bullshit.
One more possible scenario: some manager thinks your team absolutely needs more people. You don't think so, because there's some limit on how many people are needed to change a light bulb. So you, in fact, actually aren't that interested in the candidate unless you see that he is perfect fit, somebody you just cannot lose only because you don't need more people right now. And I cannot judge you, it's, well, _OK_ to not to hire someone. Yeah, in the perfect world everybody is always polite and sincerely interested in others and so on, but c'mon, lets just allow people do their job and keep them away from all these political bullshit.