Richie Rich!

Saturday afternoon. Forum Mall, Bangalore:

“Mom, I think this watch looks great on you. Do you like it?”

“Of course beta. Our son is giving us a gift with his first salary. I have to like it!”

Yes. I was a rich guy today! I woke up to a message from my bank that my salary had been credited to my account. And the first thing I could think of doing was to take my folks shopping. They had spent all these years buying me whatever I wanted. It was my turn to act all grown up now.

“Abhi, now that you have started earning for yourself, you need to be more responsible. Money can make the sanest guy go crazy. Be wise in how you spend it.”  Dad was a little concerned about me. As a kid, I used to ask for new toys every other day, and my parents used to fulfill all my demands; but as I grew older,  I began to realize the value of my dad’s hard-earned money.

“Don’t worry papa. I’ll take more care of my expenses now. You try on your new shirt! I want to see how it looks on you”. Spending a whole day with my parents after a long time was the best way to rejuvenate after a stressful week. Didi also called from the US in the morning. I had sent her a few snaps of my campus and she was totally in awe!

The weekend in Bangalore seemed to end sooner than it had arrived. I was packing some clothes into my bag before leaving for Mysore, when mom came into my room.

“How are Karan and Rohan doing beta? I haven’t heard from them after you guys joined.”

“They are doing great mom. Karan would be leaving by the evening train. He has his mock CAT today.”

“Oh is it? That’s nice. I think you too should give it a shot beta. You are intelligent and have the aptitude for it.  It would be great if you could do your MBA and carry the mantle of papa’s business in a few years from now.”

“Let me see mom. Right now I don’t have anything apart from my training in mind. I just want to pass in all the modules and hopefully get posted in Bangalore itself. I’ll think about MBA next year”, I said, just to avoid another discussion about my career and my future.

My dad had a well-established power electronics business in Bangalore for the last 30 years, with clients all over India. So there was no real worry for me in the long run. I knew that if I did not like my job, I could always join my dad’s business. It was almost like a safety net for me from a very long time; but for the time being, I really could not think beyond today. Everything beyond this moment seemed blurred.

“Okay beta. Think about it. You know what suits you best. We just want you to be successful in whatever you do”, mom said as she gave me a hug.

As I reached the railway station, I saw Dude Sarin cracking one of his trademark jokes, and the entire gang laughing out loud. Apparently, he was coming up with novel ideas of what to do with his first salary – and taking our ILI instructor Ileana out for a date seemed to top his list.

“Hey Abhi, what about you? What are you planning to do with the money?”, Sonam asked me as we boarded the train and sat next to each other.

I thought for a few seconds and replied.

“I have an idea. Lets go to the Floating Restaurant today and have a sumptuous buffet dinner. What say guys?”

“That’s a brilliant idea man! Lets do it!”, Rohan and Shanaya said in chorus.

The Floating Restaurant was located behind the main lobby, and served some of the best food in campus. Most of the high-profile guests who visited the campus used to dine here. It was surrounded by water on all sides, and hence the name. One could see a variety of exotic fish in the water. There was a small bridge that connected the lobby to the restaurant.

We all dressed in our best clothes, and reached the Floating Restaurant by 8 PM sharp. Karan was a little late, as he had just reached the campus then. Sonam and Mansi were teasing me with Vinisha. I guess she had told them about our preparation for the re-test. I really wished I could meet her right now.

We bought our dinner coupons from the counter and came to the buffet table. A tall foreigner standing a few steps ahead of me caught my attention.

“Hey, that’s Greg Chappell da! What on earth is this loser doing here?”

“Must have come for some cricket workshop. Idiot.”

There was one thing that Karan and I were really passionate about – and that was cricket. Both of us were hardcore fans of Saurav Ganguly, especially since the 2003 World Cup. Seeing Greg Chappell, the former Indian coach, who apparently was the main reason behind Ganguly’s downfall, seemed to infuriate us both.

“Hey Karan. I have a wicked plan. Just follow me!”

We walked right up to where Greg was waiting in the queue, and started talking to each other.

“Hey, I’m really disappointed with the way some people have ruined Ganguly’s career man.  He was such a great captain! Didn’t deserve this treatment.”

“I swear da! Losers. Such people should be chased away from our country. How dare they ruin Dada’s career!”

“I second that man. Anyone who messes around with Dada doesn’t deserve to be around!”

Our plan seemed to have worked. The deliberate conversation about Dada had reached the right target audience, who turned back and glared at us. We escaped from the queue towards our shell-shocked friends sitting at the table.

“That was ultimate dude! You guys have some guts!”, Dude Sarin sounded like he was about to give us a trophy for our stupid prank.

But what followed after that put us both in a state of worry. Greg Chappell came up to our table, gave us a long stare, and stormed out of the place.

Was he going to complain about us? Would there be some action taken against us? Why did we have to get so worked up and act so silly when it was not needed at all?

I began to sweat….

‘Testing’ Times!

Friday – July 31st, 2009:

“Don’t forget to read about stacks and linked lists da. A lot of questions had come from that in the test!”, Rohan advised me for the tenth time in the day.

Our Intermediate course had started this week, and we were already done with 2 modules – Database Management and C++.  While most of my friends got straight A’s in both, all I could manage was a C+ and a D. The re-test of my Basic course was to be held today evening.  This did not seem like fun anymore.

“Yea man, I have gone through it already. But I’m not sure if I’ll be able to remember half of what I have studied. Studying once was difficult, now I have to struggle with all these subjects AGAIN!”, I started cribbing.

“Don’t worry da. You’ll do just fine. It happens to the best of people! Come lets have breakfast now. Karan is waiting for us at FC-4!”

Best of people. Yea right. I couldn’t figure out if Rohan was trying to cheer me up, or was rubbing it in. In any case, I surely did not feel any better. Slowly, we walked past the Employee Care Center and entered FC-4, where Karan was waiting for us in the queue outside Delhi Darbar.

Our next module was to begin on Monday, but we had a special session on Organizational Ethics and Intellectual Property Rights today. Considering that it was a weekend and most of the guys wanted to go out or travel back home, one could imagine the interest levels generated towards today’s sessions. I was only worried about my re-test.

“What the hell is all this dude? They are just wasting our time!”, Dude Sarin sounded really irritated. He had a gully cricket match back home the next day, so I could imagine his eagerness to just get back home (after acing all the tests so far without having to study a thing!). I continued staring at the presentation.

After what seemed like an eternity, we were done with the sessions by lunch. The rest of the day was free, so I had some more time to prepare for my test. I was not too sure if it would help me at all though. Especially after seeing all my friends relaxing or packing their bags to go home in the evening. So I just walked back slowly to my room to get some rest before I could revise for the last time.

After some time, there was a knock on my door.

“Hey da.  I have some work in Mysore, so I’m going early to the railway station with Dude Sarin. Will book your tickets as well. All the best for your test!”, Rohan said as he locked his room and carried his travel bag on his shoulder. I just gave a faint smile and checked the time. It was 3 pm. I decided to get ready and walk towards GEC 2 to go through with some previous year papers.

It was a bright day in Mysore. The birds were singing a song I wish I could understand, and the cool breeze sounded like a musical instrument in the background. On another day, I would have stopped by to enjoy the scenic beauty and write about it in my diary; but there was work to do now.

While cycling towards GEC-2, I saw a lot of guys and girls just roaming around, their minds free of all the load they would have borne the entire week. There were a few couples sitting outside the Employee Care Center and spending a few peaceful moments together. I envied them; not only because I had nobody to spend those nice moments with, but also because I was wasting whatever free time I had now writing a stupid exam!

As I entered GEC-2, I thought of having a cup of coffee at FC-4 to refresh myself. I took my coffee and sat down at a table near the aisle, when I heard a cheerful voice from behind.

“Hey Abhishek! What brings you to GEC-2 at this hour?”

I turned back and looked straight into Vinisha. My heart skipped a beat.

“Hey Vinisha… I have this stupid re-test at 4.30. So thought of coming a little early to prepare for it. What about you?” I managed to blurt out, keeping a straight face.

“Oh alright! I have the re-test as well. Was wondering if I would find any friend to give the test with. All my college folks are planning to go to Brindavan Gardens today. Glad I found you here!”

Wow. We met only a few days back and she already considered me a ‘friend’. I tried not to smile too much.

“Oh that’s nice! I was planning to go through some old question papers. Care to join?”

“Yep. Sounds great!”, she said with a lovely smile. I thanked God for not having made me pass in the first attempt; otherwise I would have been at the railway station now, buying tickets for everyone.

For the next half an hour, we went through all the papers that we had between us.  I must admit, it is pretty tough for one to concentrate when one’s crush is sitting right beside; but its equally exciting as well!

“Alright Abhishek. I think we have seen all the concepts. All the best! Lets rock the test!”, Vinisha sounded like an enthusiastic kid who was about to go on stage for the first time, as she shook my hands and walked towards her classroom.

The test began, and I went through all the questions one by one. This paper seemed a lot easier than the first one. I guess it was because a lot of questions were from the papers we had gone through some time back. I finished the test in 15 minutes, and awaited my result to be displayed. After about 10 seconds, I saw this message on my screen:

“TOTAL PERCENTAGE: 90″
RESULT : PASS”

Phew! I finally managed to go beyond 60 in ONE test, so what if it was just a re-test! Maybe it was because of the last moment combined study. I came out and saw Vinisha standing near the corridor, all excited.

“Abhi! Guess what? I got 94%… Yippeee .. How was your test?”

“That’s nice Vinisha! I got 90. I’m happy we both managed to ace this paper. Maybe we should do combined study more often “, I said in a teasing tone.

“Haha. Yea why not “, she said with a naughty smile, as we said good-bye and left for our hostels.

I had approximately half an hour to get ready and head to the railway station to catch my train on time. I got ready in a jiffy and cycled to the entrance, and caught an auto to the railway station, where my friends were waiting to congratulate me. I had messaged Rohan about my test results.

The train started, and I started listening to music on my ipod in shuffle mode. Sonu Nigam’s ‘Saathiya’  was the first song to play in the list.

I could imagine only one face as I closed my eyes and listened to the song…….

‘Technically’ Speaking

Come Monday, and we were to start with something I was vary about – the bridge course. It was a week-long technical module, wherein we would be brushing up some of the concepts that were taught (and not necessarily learnt!) during engineering. Our classroom was on the ground floor of the new Global Education Center (GEC-2).

GEC-2 was easily the biggest and the most beautiful monument in the campus. It gave the feel of a Roman empire established amidst a corporate jungle, standing tall and spreading across a huge area. Initially, there used to be only one classroom block (GEC-1, right next to ILI), but due to the increasing number of trainees, the company decided to boost its infrastructure and added this architectural marvel to it’s already beautiful campus.

(P.S – for those of you who are extra-curious, it is the same structure which is seen on the top of this page )

“Oh man, what a sight da… This building looks awesome!”, Rohan exclaimed as we finished breakfast and came out of FC-1. Incidentally, GEC-2 was equidistant from FC-1 and the ILI building.

“Yes it is… I wonder how the training will be from now on man. I am very apprehensive”, I replied in a pensive mood. To be honest, I did not consider myself a techie at all. 3 years back, I had changed my branch from Instrumentation to Information Science, in the hope of getting placements very easily; but ever since then, it was a struggle to ‘gulp down’ the concepts being taught in class. In short, I couldn’t code for nuts!

“Hey don’t worry da. We are from an IT background. So it should be cheap for us!”. Rohan was one of the toppers in our batch, and had also changed from Mechanical to Info Science. Being a good programmer, everything would have looked cheap for him.

“Hey guys, lets move soon. It’s already 8.55!”, Karan shouted as he ran past us towards GEC-2.

Our class G3 was big enough to seat a 100 people, and almost looked like a high-tech seminar hall. Each person had a system allocated to him or her, and had been given login credentials a couple of days back. “Yay! We finally have our official Infosys IDs!”, I remembered Sonam and Shanaya telling each other a few hours before the movie.

“Good morning everyone! I’m Mr. Ankit Bhatia, your facilitator for this bridge course”, a short fair guy spoke on the mike. “I have been working with the Education & Research department for the last two years, and I will be teaching you some of the basic fundamentals of IT, which will be very useful later in the training program”

For the next 5 days, Ankit Bhatia took us through Date Structures, Relative Database Management Systems, Operating Systems and Computer Networks.

“Alright everyone, we are done with the course. Tomorrow morning at 8.30 AM sharp, you will have your test on all the concepts covered. Your next module will begin at 9.30 AM”, he announced with a big grin on his face. Everyone looked shocked on hearing this!

“Don’t be surprised class! This is how all your modules will be covered. After the slides have been taught, you will have a computer-based test the very next day, and the following module will start after a short gap”

“Sigh, so much for academic rigour… and I thought we were done with college!”, Partha complained from behind. The rest of the day was spent in going through the slides, revising and re-revising them, and going through some previous papers. I just ‘scanned’ through all the slides once, and roamed around listening to people discussing some of the questions.

For some reason, I was not getting scared of the consequences of not studying. “It’s anyway an MCQ test. Why study so hard? As long as I remember the correct answer out of the 4 options, I’m safe”, I thought to myself; and to give me company was Dude Sarin, who was playing counter-Strike all day on his comp! We left for our rooms at midnight, with Rohan and Karan having a heated discussion about how queues are better than linked lists…

“Alright class.. your time starts now!”, Ankit Bhatia announced at 8.30 AM the next day, as we hurriedly began going through the questions on our screen. All my preconceived notions about this Multiple Choice Question paper were torn to pieces! The questions were extremely conceptual, and all answer options were very close to each other. I wished I had out in more efforts on studying the concepts well, than on depending on my photographic memory; but it was already too late. The test was done, and the result flashed in a couple of seconds…

“TOTAL PERCENTAGE: 56″
RESULT : FAIL”

I was shocked to see this! Everybody seemed to have got atleast 70%, and I managed a measly 56?!…What shocked me further was that Dude got 88%!

“Don’t worry Abhi, you’ll do well in the re-test. It’s anyway just a 2-credit module. Cheer up!”, Sonam tried to make me feel better, but I was still taking time to get over it.

That night, we all went to FC-3 for dinner. Mansi came a little late, and along with her came another girl, who looked familiar. A moment later, I realized it was the same girl who sat next to me during the movie.

“Hi all! Meet my new neighbour Vinisha Apte. She is from Pune”, Mansi introduced her new friend to us. Vinisha smiled and sat with us for dinner. I don’t know why, but that smile seemed to revive my mood instantaneously! I was feeling lively again. As I talked to her, I realized that she stayed very close to my aunt’s house in Hinjewadi, and we shared a lot of common interests…

Was I beginning to like her? I did not know. But the days of excitement had just begun!

Aazmaa LUCK Aazmaa!

“Yes mom, I have confirmed with Karan… the Tipu express starts at 2 P.M sharp”, I told my mom as I started getting ready to leave for Mysore on Sunday.

“Okay son, please take care of yourself. Call home once you reach there. And don’t eat anything in the train or at the station. It’s not good for your health”, mom said, as both my parents came out to the gate to see me off.

“Sure mom, I won’t … and I’ll let you know once I’m safely inside the campus. Take care mom and dad. See you next weekend! “, I said, and took an auto to go to the city railway station. Karan and Rohan had already reached there and bought tickets for all of us. I had to just make sure that I reach on time and find a place to sit

It felt weird going back to Mysore now. The first time I went, my parents had come all the way to drop me; this time I had to bid them goodbye at home and leave on my own….and this is when I started feeling homesick for the first time, because I wanted to spend more time at home with my family.

I reached Majestic railway station on time, and the others were waiting for me. Shanaya was the only one missing, as her parents had decided to drop her by car. Being the only child can have its own advantages, I thought! But the rest of us started our journey back by the same mode of transport that had brought us home two days back…

“Hey, let’s go stand near the door da”, Rohan suggested. He seemed to be as jobless as I was, so I agreed.

It was a breath-taking experience, as we watched many small hamlets with green fields pass by. It was here that I got a glimpse of all the smaller towns of Karnataka, and started making a mental note of them; right from Bidadi upto Srirangapatna, each town seemed to have its own speciality. While Chennapatna was known for its wooden toys, Mandhya was famous for sugarcane, and Srirangapatna for its historical monuments. Before we knew it, we reached Mysore station.

“This must be the ultra fast express train da, it reached in only 2.5 hours!”, Rohan calculated as we got down.

“Yea dude…even the train knows that we have to go watch a movie tonight. So it raced across the tracks and brought us here! “, Dude said with a grin, and everyone laughed.

“So which movie is it tonight?? Short-Kut??”, Sonam asked excitedly. She was also a Hindi movie fan, just like me.

“No dudette, its LUCK …aazmaa luck aazmaa!”, Dude retorted again, and was welcomed with another round of applause.

We took 3 autos from the station and made our way to the campus. I was feeling a lot better than what I felt while resuming the journey, partly due to my cheerful friends, and partly due to the amazing sights that I got to see from the train.

“Okay people, it is 5 o’clock now. Please refresh soon and come to the multiplex in half an hour. The ticket counter at the multiplex will open at 6 pm sharp. Since there can be a big queue later on, let us assemble here a little early and wait”, Partha suggested immediately after we got into the campus. Everyone was tired and needed some freshening up, so we all left to our respective rooms without any more delay.

Half an hour later, all of us were standing in what seemed to be a serpentine queue! The only good thing that an optimist in me observed was that the queue seemed to be longer after us, so we had hopes of getting the tickets.

“Oh Lord! This looks like the queue @ Tirupathi! Will we ever get tickets in this crowd????”, Nayana shouted.

Nayana was another of my classmates who was at Infy now. She was a martial arts expert, always very hyper, and extremely talkative. I found great pleasure in tickling her though, because she used to get very irritated and start praying that I get lost somewhere

“It’s good that the multiplex has 1100 seats…. otherwise there was no chance for us to get tickets!”, Mansi exclaimed as we swiped and came out of the ticket counter, and I could not agree more with her.

“Okay dudes and dudettes, let’s go to FC1 and have a quick dinner by 7.30… we can come back to the multiplex by 8.15 and enter at 8.30″, Dude Sarin announced his plans. The way he chalked out his plans in detail always intrigued me. More so, because it is not easy to make a dozen people follow a fixed time

But that is what we did! An early dinner at FC1, which was on the hillock right next to the multiplex, and we were on our way back to watch our first ever movie @ the Campus!

“The movie is gonna suck da… seriously!”, Rohan commented. According to him, any movie that does not have SRK, sucks to the core; but this time, I was inclined towards believing what he said.

“Hmm lets see… All I care about is having a good time and watching Shruti Hasan…she looked damn cute in the trailers “, I replied.

We all sat on our respective seats in the M row. It was right at the centre, so everyone had a good view. I was the first person from our gang in M row, and the 5 seats to the left of me were vacant for the first 5 minutes… The movie started with the title track…

“Hey jaldi aao na, movie shuru ho gaya hai!”, I heard a voice calling out to her friends. A gang of girls followed her footsteps. They seemed to be heading towards our row, and towards the empty seats next to me. The screen suddenly turned bright, and I saw the girl’s pretty face….and she gave back a long stare…. it was like lightning hitting my heart out of nowhere! She was thin, fair, had long hair and deep eyes, that seemed to have a piercing effect. I don’t know much about Sanjay Dutt, but my LUCK knew no bounds when she came and sat next to me

For the next 2.5 hours, I tried my best to concentrate on the movie; but all I could think of was the pretty girl who was at a positional increment of 1 now. Even after the movie concluded, I seemed to have a smile on my face…

I saw the pretty girl again, going towards the departmental store with her friends….

“What da, liked Shruti Hasan so much eh?? Look at him smiling! “, Rohan retorted, and everyone started laughing. Nayana came and hit me hard on my back.

The pretty girl turned back as she heard Rohan’s comment, and gave me a friendly smile…

Was this the beginning of a new story in my life? Well, all I can say is….
Aazmaa LUCK Aazmaa

Home-coming!

After a rather eventful Friday afternoon, all of us set out towards the railway station on our way to Bangalore for the weekend. All my friends went to their respective rooms to get their bags, as many of them wanted to take their clothes home and wash it there. Dude and I, on the other hand, had nothing much to take home… not until we got our first salaries atleast …so we decided to head to the railway station first and buy tickets for the entire lot.

“Dude, we better hurry up… otherwise we may not get to reserve seats for all!”, Dude Sarin exclaimed in a rather animated tone.

“Relax man, its not the end of Dasshera that people will be flocking back to Bangalore! We’ll get seats don’t worry…”. Frankly, I had no idea about any train. It was the first time I was going to travel by train without my parents, and I did not have a clue as to how much a normal ticket to Bangalore might cost and how crowded the evening train will be. It was just the excitement of going back home that made me sound like the Eternal Optimist at the moment

“There are 10 people in all who have confirmed that they’ll be coming dude…and the ticket costs 42 bucks…so we have to pay 420″, Dude started calculating as we stood in the queue. Luckily, we had enough money between the two of us to buy all the 10 tickets.

“Hey while you stand in the queue, let me go get something to eat on the way…”

I came to the small bakery adjacent to platform 1, and bought a few chips and cold drinks for all of us to have on the way. Dude bought the tickets and came towards the platform.

“Hey dude Abhi, lets call them and see where they are man…its 5.45 already…the train will be here any moment” …and as he spoke, we could see the train arriving from a distance.

“There it comes!”, I exclaimed as I started calling Rohan to ask them where they were… It turned out that they were at the entrance of the railway station, so we decided to find a relatively empty compartment and reserve 10 seats.

“Hey dude keep those Lay’s packets and the bottles on the seats man… that way we can reserve all 10 seats.” Good idea, I thought. Anyway, it was only a matter of 2 or 3 minutes. So there was no danger of a wandering passenger flicking any of the items.

“Come to bogie 12″, I messaged Rohan. They had hired two autos so that they could reach as early as possible. Within a couple of minutes, Rohan, Karan, Sonam, Mansi, Natasha and Kannan occupied the seats that we had reserved for them.

“Hey! Where are Shanaya and Partha?” I had not noticed Shanaya after the last ILI session. She looked a little angry as she darted out of the classroom, and I was in a hurry to come to the station.

“Dunno. She said she was packing her clothes. But I think I saw her crying while she was walking towards her room. Partha must have gone to pacify her”, Sonam explained.

“What!! Crying?? Why cry for such a small issue? And why miss your first train back home?! This girl has gone nuts”, Rohan said, as he munched on the Lay’s. Karan was busy playing some game on his phone to say anything.

“Hmmmmm….so does he like her? “, Mansi said, sounding very excited.

“I have no idea. Maybe. Maybe not. In any case, I hope he pays me the 84 bucks for the tickets”, I said, looking at my watch for the Nth time. We tried calling up Partha and Shanaya, but strangely, none of our phones had network in the train.

“Ok dudes, let us wait till they come. The train has one more minute before it leaves, and they might still…”

“Hey there they come da! Near the ticket counter”, Karan interrupted Dude and ran out towards the door, and waved. The train had just started.

What followed was a mini DDLJ scene, the only difference being there were two people who were in Kajol’s place now

“Run faster da!”, Karan shouted.

After a few seconds of excitement, Shanaya and Partha managed to board the train, and were welcomed with a big round of applause.

“Where were you people?? We were so worried!”, Natasha and Sonam seemed to echo at the same time.

“Well, its a long story guys. Someone was in a bad mood and took sometime to come back to normal”, Partha said, looking at Shanaya. She gave a sheepish smile.

“Okay guys! Time to sit back and relax. Have some snacks now. We are finally on our way back home!”, I shouted, much to the annoyance of the fellow passengers.

“Yay! Lets play dumb charades. That way we can spend the next 3 hours well”, Mansi suggested.

And thats what we did. Right from famous personalities, to not so famous Bollywood and Kannada movies ( ), we spent the next 3 hours pulling each others’ legs, mocking each others’ acting and guessing capabilities, and just having loads of fun. We never realized how we passed by all those mini towns and districts on the way, and reached the big city called BANGALORE!

The train started slowing down a few metres away from the railway station, and we finally stopped playing. Everyone who had got their bags started taking them in their hands and getting ready to alight, as this was a transitionary stop, and more passengers would barge into the train at the Bangalore station.

“Next time I’ll get my UNO cards. We can have a lot more fun then “, I suggested, and it was greeted with a lot of applause again.

As we got down, I met some of the girls’ parents who had come to pick them up. Dude, Karan and I started walking towards the back entrance, as that was closer to where we stayed. I called up mom and told her that I’m finally back home! People around me would have wondered why I was acting like SRK from K3G, but I did not bother!

“Hey! I forgot to ask… When do we head back to Mysore on Sunday?”, I asked, after finishing my call.

“We’ll go by the 2 PM train, Dude Abhi. We can go watch the night show at the multiplex that way! “

Ah yes! The MOVIE @ the MULTIPLEX ….

Speak up…its ILI!

“Thank you so much uncle! You have made my day … my debit card and driving license were inside my wallet”, a relieved Natasha told the security guard outside the ECC parking lot, who had noticed the wallet and kept it with him to prevent it from getting lost.

“No problem ma’am … but please be careful in the future… it’s not a safe world outside “, the guard replied with a smile.

Natasha was so happy that she treated us to ice-cream in Baskin Robbins after dinner.

“Hey…do you have any idea about this ILI thing that we’ll have from tomorrow till Friday?”, Sonam asked me.

“The only thing I know is that it stands for Infosys Leadership Institute and we’ll have some kind of soft skills training. So lets hope its fun!”

Well, fun or not, the next 3 days turned out to be very exciting and eventful. Come Wednesday morning, and all of us assembled at the Bhagat Singh classroom in the ILI building. It was a huge classroom, well-lit and perfect for classes on Personality Development. There were 4 people standing on the small dias, waiting for all of us to settle down. One of them was a pretty lady who started the day’s proceedings.

“Welcome to ILI! And congrats for being the selected ones to make it to this company. My name is Ileana D’Cruz, and this is my team – Abdul Kabir, Dinoop Shekhar and P M Krishnaraj , alsk known as PMK. We will take you through the next three days, which will be filled with a lot of fun and activities, and a lot of learning as well “

We all clapped as our new ‘teachers’ introduced themselves. Ileana looked like a South heroine, and spoke with an accent. Abdul Kabir was a fair guy, very witty, and the center of attention of all the girls. Dinoop Shekhar was a Tamilian who had just come back from the US, and sported a French beard. But the most interesting of all was PMK. He was a short, plump guy, with thick specs, and an attitude to match. He reminded me of my File Structures lecturer in college.

“Now that we have introduced ourselves, we want all of you to tell us about you as well; but in a different way. Each one will prefix their names with an adjective which begins with the same letter as their names! “, Abdul said as he grinned at everyone.

And thus started a riotous session of introductions!

“Hi, I’m Killer Kannan!”

“Hi…I’m sizzling Sonam “

“Hey all…I’m adorable Abhishek “. As expected, a lot of Oooooooohs followed my intro

But the best of all was Dude Sarin’s intro.

“Hello everyone. This is Sarin. Dude Sarin. Deadly Dude Sarin. Dangerous and Deadly Dude Sarin ” . Rohan, who was till moments ago sitting next to me, was now rolling on the floor laughing!

After everyone introduced themselves, we had a session on the values that Infy followed, with some very good examples from real life. In the afternoon session, we were told about the different business aspects, like the different domains that were present in the company, the revenue for the previous quarter, the number of employees presently working, and why such soft skills sessions are important to freshers like us.

“A lot of our customers are very happy with the technical expertise of our employees, but they feel that we are very laid back in general, and we don’t know how to say ‘No’. This is why our on site employees get a low rating from clients, and this is why we are investing so much on developing the skills of every fresher who steps into the company…so that you learn to SPEAK UP!”, PMK explained, in a very philosophical tone.

We all clapped at the end of his talk, and it happened to be the end of the day as well.

The next day’s session was about Effective Communication. We were split into four groups, and each group was given scenarios and told to come up with emails, and about ideas to talk and convince people.

However, the last day’s session was the most eventful.
“Hi guys! Today is the last day of your ILI sessions”, Ileana chirped enthusiastically. The other 3 facilitators were not present today.

“Today, we’ll have a competition here. Its called The Sinking Ship!”

There was a loud applause on hearing this. Ileana waited for sometime before continuing.

“You all will again be split into 4 groups, and each person in a group has to enact a personality. Now, the scenario is that one group is travelling in a ship, and it is sinking. And each one of you ‘personalities’ have to justify why your life is important and why you have to be saved…the winner from each group will get his name published in their respective E-Dockets…so guys, save yourselves from sinking! “

There was a lot of commotion again. We were randomly split into 4 groups. My group had Shanaya, Partha, and a northie gang whom all of us ignored in college, as they were always upto no good. Partha, however, was a very friendly guy who had the gift of striking a conversation with anyone.

There were 3 groups that went before us, and I got to see a lot of famous personalities arguing about why they are so important to the world. Rohan was Barack Obama, Karan became Manmohan Singh, Dude Sarin was King Leonidas from the movie 300 (trust him to create a laugh riot wherever he goes! ) and Sonam enacted Ekta Kapoor! It was really funny to see people coming up with so many ideas… However, I had still not decided whom I should enact.

“Hey, have you decided who you’ll be on stage?”, I asked Shanaya.

“Yeah man! Me Sudha Murthy! Can’t think of anyone else!”, she replied, in her usually over-enthusiastic tone.

“That was good. Can we have the last group on the stage now please?”, Ileana shouted, as she escorted the 3rd batch from the dias. I suddenly got an idea of whom i should enact….

“Okay people, your time starts now!”

And I started….

“Ha ha ha ha…GURUUUUUU…Chak De phatte nap de Gilli, subah Jalandar shaam Dilli ! …ha ha ha ha ha ….”

The classroom literally became a riot. I was in no mood to stop now. Forget getting saved from drowning, I felt the others in my group will kill Navjot Sidhu for starting off here again

“As you know Guruuuu, laughter is the best medicine. And if I’m there, laughter will be there. So save me guruuu, and I’ll make sure you keep laughing like me….ha ha ha ha ha!”

The others in my group started defending themselves. Sudha Murthy talked about her service to society. Partha aka Roger Federer wanted to win the highest number of Grand slams. However, when Narendra Modi started speaking, it started a spat between him and Sudha Murthy, which became very nasty.

Namit Kapoor (Narendra Modi) was the leader of the northie gang. Known for his notorious activities, nobody liked to talk to him.

“What social service are you talking about madam??? All of you are losers! If anyone here has to be saved, it is me… If I’m saved, my state and the whole of India will be saved! Otherwise the opposition party and losers like you will totally destroy our country!”, he shouted in an animated tone.

“Whom are you calling a loser, you fool??! You are a big loser! It’s because of you that so many people were killed! Why should anyone save you?!”, Shanaya was now on her feet and shouting at the top of her voice.

“Chillax, babes ….don’t get so worked up, or you may fall on me and I don’t want your social service”, Namit replied with an evilish grin on his face.

Shanaya quietly sat down on her seat, not knowing how to react to that comment. There was an uncomfortable silence that followed; and it was broken by Shanaya herself.

“That’s it…I’m done with this ‘game’ ……. “

Well, so much for ‘speaking up’. ILI ended on a bitter note….

Induction

The next morning, I woke up feeling very fresh and excited, because we were finally getting to enter the multiplex for our formal induction! The induction sessions were planned to be held over a period of 2 days, covering all the company policies and the different facilities available in the campus. I quickly freshened up, got ready and took a cycle from the stand below my building. The whole gang was waiting for me at the entrance.

“What took you so long man?”

“Hey you know me man…I was always the first among the late-comers in college also. Okay lets rush in now!”

We took a long set of stairs to go to hall 4 where our induction was supposed to be held. Hall 4 was the largest among all 4 halls in the multiplex, having a seating capacity of 1050. We just entered, and Shanaya exclaimed, “Wooooow!!! This is brilliant! Just have a look at the huge screen!” I couldn’t agree with her more. It would have been lovely to watch a movie on that huge screen on the first day, but we had other more ‘professional’ things to do for the time being …

“…This is MY Innnnfyyyy, this is YOUR Innnnfyyyy….” The official Infosys was song was being played in the background.

“Sooper song duuude! Neatness!”, Pankaj shouted as he stood up and clapped after the song got over. Pankaj Sarin was a very lively character, and he never failed to entertain wherever he went. According to him, the world was filled with ‘dudes’ and ‘dudettes’, and he addressed everyone that way. This was why he had earned the nickname “Dude Sarin”. Next to him was Natasha, a thin girl with thick specs, who was everyone’s soft target when it came to teasing and irritating.

“Shut up, dude….its just a song. Don’t over-react so much!”, Natasha said.

“Hehe…you won’t understand the beauty of music, dudette. You go read some book in your room “

And a mini-fight followed, which was broken by a dynamic voice speaking on the stage.

“Hello everyone. Welcome to Infosys! I’m Nadeem Shravan, the head of HR, and your host for this induction program. Over the next two days, you’ll get to know everything that you wanted to know about Infy! Right from the training program, to all the facilities and foodcourts, everything will be covered”. Nadeem was a short man with a surprisingly powerful voice. No wonder he must have been made the host. I felt he did not even need the mike.

“First of all, we’ll have a session by the EnR and ILI, which are your primary training centres”. EnR stood for Education and Research, and ILI stood for Infosys Leadership Institute, we learnt in a few moments. It was only much later that we would realize how contrasting our experiences in both of them were to be!

“Dude, this is getting boring man. They are going on and on about the same stuff. Do this, don’t do that. Pass in 65% of this, get A in 25% of that. Lets do something fun dudes and dudettes!”, Sarin suggested. He was the expert fun planner in our group.

“Okay! How about playing a game??”, Shanaya shouted, only to be hushed by a group of serious students (oops, sorry. Professionals) sitting in the front row.

“Game?? Here?! No way…I prefer sleeping”, I commented.

“You always want to sleep da. If we listen to this boring lecture for some more time, we’ll all be heard snoring!”, Rohan contributed to the discussion.

“Hey! How about playing mobile antakshari?? It’ll be fun, and we won’t get caught either. Each one can type out a song and send it to the person sitting next to them, and the game can go on that way”, Sonam said enthusiastically.

“That’s a great idea dudette! Lets start “

Well, till lunch break, we made great use of our first induction session inside the huge multiplex hall. Post lunch, there were sessions about how to use fire extinguishers, and how to access the intranet, etc. We were about to go into a deep state of meditation, when another loud beaming voice woke us up; and this time, it was a female.

“Awake and arise, my friends! Lets have some fun!” The speaker was an old lady with white hair, and was wearing a saffron kurta.

“My name is Maya, and I am going to speak to you about mind games and relaxation. Now first of all, I want all of you to let go of all your inhibitions and laugh loudly. Just laugh as if you heard the greatest joke ever, and see how contagious it is and how it destresses you in seconds…” And when everyone DID start laughing, it felt awesome….1000 people sharing a common invisible joke was the most amusing thing I had ever experienced. After that rib-tickling experience and a few more relaxation techniques, the host Nadeem called it a day.

The whole of next day went in signing various documents and other joining formalities. We were also given forms to open our bank accounts, which was the most exciting part of what was otherwise a dull affair.

“We’ll get to spend money from our own pockets man! Think about how much power we’ll have “, Karan said, sounding the most excited of us all.

“Yea, and we’ll have to pay taxes too”, I said, the pessimist in me seeming to be in great form.

After signing on atleast 60 forms, we were allowed to leave the multiplex hall at 7 pm. Rohan suggested that we go bowling, since there was still time for dinner. All of us agreed and marched towards the bowling alley, which was in the Employee Care Centre (ECC for short)

“Today was the longest day of my life after the Infy recruitment day!”, Mansi exclaimed, looking relieved that finally all the joining formalities were over. Mansi was a short, bubbly girl, and Sonam’s best friend. We often used to refer to them as twins.

“Well, get used to it dear. You’ll have to face a lot of long days here “, Sonam responded to her. I smiled, observing the rhyme in her sentence.

The bowling alley looked fabulous, and luckily, one of the lanes was free for us to occupy. We all had a good game, and decided to go to FC-5 for dinner.

Just as we came out of the ECC and headed towards the cycle parking lot, Natasha shouted, “Oh no! I lost my wallet!!! I had kept it in the cycle when we went for lunch”………..