A year at job - the journey

On 30th June, i completed a year at my job. It has been a long long journey to now. Heck, i feel like making a movie out of it (without Aamir Khan in the role of schoolboy please!).
It feels like only yesterday, I had passed the 10th exams. I have always been decent at studies, i was appreciated at my school too. There were instances when the whole class was beaten up but I was spared, when the whole class was derided for its performance but i was applauded. Yes, in a way i was a spoiled brat at my school. I guess that ended with 10th exams ( all good things have to come to an end, right?).
As my native town had very few opportunities to learn after 10th, i moved to Ranchi.My father always wanted me to take up biology, and I did get admission into bio section. But the day he caught the return train, I changed my section to Computer Science! Upon reflecting now, i realize, how small actions/decisions change our life tremendously, how different life would have been had i chosen to pursue biology.
Yes, the two years of life in Ranchi were hectic. The class, the coaching schedules and the pressure. The boy who was always in the eyes of his teachers felt lost in the competition. Peer pressure was simply overwhelming. I must admit those were the two most difficult years. To draw an analogy, it's like trying to get in an overcrowded train with a lot of luggage. You don't have much of support/help but you must make it and make it fast.There were days of frustration and futile attempts at understanding things. However, what ends good is good. Some life long friends were made ( Prasoon, Prince, Laxmi). The board and most importantly, entrance exams were finally over. I got into decent college into a stream of my choice.

Thus began the four most crazy, happy, tension-free years of my life at NIT Jamshedpur. There wasn't much to do(though not entirely by choice!) with loads of free time and a large circle of friends(Ranjan, Kunal, Sharad, Ajit, Saha, Jaiswal and Aayush). Memories of bunking classes every Friday to watch movies ( and shit! movies like Darling, Traffic Signal, RGV ki Aag, Cash, how could i possibly watch them?) , dinner @ Blooms, coffee after drinks, day long arguments, birthday parties, Shyam da, Jha ji, Nimboo pani, post dinner walks, Kolkata trip, Bhubaneshwar trip, the Hyderabad trip, no one of us can possibly ever forget those. Fast forward to last year, and placements loomed. There were everlasting deliberations about companies, jobs and salaries. Days of despair with sparks of hope. Anyways, to say the least, all of us were placed. The placement parties were legendary except for those of us who were still unplaced at that point of time. The college ended with loads of bitter and sweet memories and lots of lessons learnt ( this warrants an another post!).

And now the professional part of the story. There was always a hidden desire to prove myself(I had got campus placement at TCS), that resulted in lot of off campus trials and total of four job offers. Well i took up the one with the largest company and my luck, it turned out to be good one too ( work culture, policies, work-life balance and blah blah..). The free food, parties, helping colleagues, not-so-scary bosses, competitions with finals in Germany, all rock. In short, I am enjoying my job, at least as of now.

Some parting thoughts - there was a time, when I traveled, i never thought beyond the 2nd class, I literally could feel that my father didn't want me to get the unaffordable AC tickets, now is the time, i never think of 2nd class (hell! no AC III/II/I tickets?, how do i or my family travel?). Times change, don't they? Sometimes they change for good and at other times for bad. This is what life is!

Gurgaon - the city of dreams

mmm... May be, may be not, depends, actually depends on how much you earn!

Note: These accounts are largely from the M.G Road stretch of Gurgaon.

It's one kind of an experience to live in the millennium city of India. Everything is at your fingertips - literally. Just reach out for a phone, hunt for the proper number and remember your address, be assured that the damn thing/service will be delivered/picked-up from your doorsteps. Quite a few things in the city are enthralling, the express-way,office of the MNCs, the metro, malls, pubs, highrise apartments, showrooms of premiere brands  and the fairer sex ;).

In the office hours, while the roads are full to the bream, the metro 'flies' merrily(and mockingly?) overhead. If you are an autocar fan, you could just drool over the Audi's, BMW's, Mercedes' and so on (no, don't droll over the Honda's, I have always maintained that they are public-transport here), while waiting for crossing the road(God help you and don't forget to thank God every time you succeed). Aficionado of bikes? you can endlessly peer through the showrooms of Kawasaki, Yamaha, Ducati etc. As for me, the e-zone, the electronics store, the mobile store, mac  store, croma are good 'time-pass'. Not to mention the crowd too.

Gurgaon is home to CEOs, MDs, entrepreneurs and of course the lesser mortals. There are colonies where you can get bungalows only by invitation (it doesn't matter if you have bags of money). It boasts of world-class offices, apartments and schoools. People manage their business in US, UK from their office in here. Several expats and foreigners have a spare home here(Gurgaon is close to IGI airport).People in 20s driving BMW is a common sight.

Wouldn't it be so nice if I could stretch my hand and get a real feel of all these. Sometimes the heart yearns to be in that office, to be sitting in that car and to be riding that bike. The feeling is enticing and heady at the same time.

I am lucky

I recently joined one of the largest companies making enterprise software in ERP domain. Last few months have been like a revelation. I have traveled a lot for paperwork,interviews etc, spoken to a lot of people.

To be frank, I come from humble background. However of late, I have traveled largely in AC, shopped in malls and stayed in guest-house (largely on my employer's money). So there are people like me who know ye 'sab moh-maya hai' but are trying to learn the new ways, at the same time knowing, they might not be able to afford all this immediately on their own, but when they are able to afford it, they don't get labeled as newcomers( as the ones with new money in Titanic movie). Then there are people who can easily afford and are well versed with the 'high' life and are a part-and-parcel of the mall culture. And then there are people who are the backbone of the malls, the high-rise apartments: the drivers, security-personnels and other service-providers who don't dare to be a part of this culture even in their dreams.


So while I sit in AC bus, the driver's cabin is non-AC. While I travel in AC coach, there are 2 AC coaches and around 16 sleeper/general coaches in the same train. I work inside a nice swanky, air cooled office, the guard stands at the main gate in the sun and insurance agents are giving away their cards,under the sun. It feels bad when a person much elder than me calls me 'Sir'.

This makes for an interesting telling. In our office we have a large lobby. People after taking their lunch, take a post-lunch walk there because they can't go out in the sun. Now while people(including me) walk to-and-fro in the lobby, the sweeper keeps sweeping the floor from the opposite end. It feels bad and amusing at the same time. And he works with such a devotion!

I don't say that it is their's or somebody else's fault. Everybody's life has so many variables that I don't think any one or group of individuals can entirely determine the course of one's life (one of my learnings from my life!). Someone has rightly said, every work is important work.

Change is the order of life!

It has been a long time (almost two months!) since my last blog.

A lot has changed in past two months. From a college student, I have now transformed into an office going professional. Gone are the days of doing nothing the whole day and yet having a lot to do! The care-free attitude (sona, khana aur mast rehna). You are reminded of your responsibilities at the job from the day one, every now and then.

Yet, was this not what I always wanted? A good job, my own money to spend as per my own whims and fancies, for which I studied till now (at least for getting into a good college!). Man is never satisfied with what he has and I guess it holds for me too. There is so much out there to do, so much to achieve and so many gadgets to buy(yummy!).

This is my first long-time venture into one of metros. Not that Ranchi and Jamshedpur where I have done my studies were not big, but Delhi NCR is of another scale. All the cars,brands which I fancied are now in front of me (I am yet to reach to them but still), all the big companies which intrigued me are now around my office. Well, it's a new experience all-together. I am excited about my job, my future but to be true,sometimes the crowd seems overwhelming. All the bhashan one heard of cut-throat competition, of break-neck speed suddenly seems could have been true. Though I believe, it is fact of life. 

So, best of luck to me and my friends who are joining the industry. There is so much we have done and there is so much to be done!