Cut Copy and Paste- Resumes in Hyderabad

Cut Copy and Paste resumes........it's been quite a time I have visited this place; the last post was on 29th Nov, even I forgot where I left this blog. Some scroll down and I found that I have just landed in Hyderabad and had an eventful opening day. But now struggle to set a routine in totally new land. I was back to sqaure 1.

“Baaabu…!!!” u hear a scream at around 6.30 on a chilly Saturday morning. And would prefer to be deaf rather than dragging yourself to open the door, just to make a way for our maid “Venkatamma”. Thanks to downstairs tam aunt who introduced us to her. Venkatamma used to come only on weekends to make our place worth living. Her duty includes washing our clothes and tries to clean the living rooms.

But there was a twist in the tale, she was only familiar with Telugu. So every weekend, we used to have one round of dumb charades before she starts her duty. But unlike Mumbai’s Kamwali bai’s she was quite punctual and hard working too. Trust me she tried (and tried really hard) and one fine day she gave up. Then begun the hunt for another maid. Again the tam aunt came for our rescue.

Observation: Finding maids are lot easier in Hyderabad rather than in Mumbai, they are less arrogant, more punctual and quite cheaper.

Day 1 in HDC

Date: 22nd Nov 2005 (can't believe it's been such a long time)

My first official day in HDC and as planned we joined the batch of 20; who came from Chennai. Due to no access to our Offshore Development (??) Centeres, we used to spend most of the time in library (in mailing or spamming with other free pool guys (and gals too)) then we have been pulled to attend some pre-project video training sessions those were long, full of jargons and quite boring. Few amongst us got their project in 1st week itself. Jhadi and Senti were luckier (or unlucky) ones. But still Jhadi used to manage sometime to spend with us and ofcourse for those 3 deviyaan in library.

Soon I land up in same project with Jhadi, Techie and Senti which was related to Microsoft Windows Testing. That's it!! any more details are strickly prohibited as per Agreement. aur waise bhi kuchh baton ke baare mein jitna kam pata ho, utanahi achha hain.

I was sharing my cubicle with other 3 guys from Chennai, Initially we had 1 common system so we have distributed the browsing timings.

Observation: http://indiaglitz/ is highly popular and perhaps most browsed sites amongst south Indians. All my 3 cubmates were movie fanatics and were crazzy about their favorite actors, Basiv used to browse for all latest updates on Vijay, Alps for Ajith and Debug for all south indian actresses.

I always believed that all south indians languages are more or less similar (commonly addressed together as "Madrassi") but it took me for a while to realize that those are so different from each other. But still there is something (or someone) who can bring them together. Yeah, makers of Sivaji the Boss published some of the movie promotional pics on net (which includes Rajnikant in yet another new avatar) and the very next day almost half of my ODC had Rajni's snap on their desktop. He is truly a boss here.

It did not take me long to realize that professional life is no fun. It is boring and monotonous too. Few exceptions coffee and lunch breaks and yeah meetings too (with no reason I enjoy going to meetings, I like that dead cool environment in conference rooms and it's perfectly fine even if you don't utter a single word in an entire meeting) there wasn't much work initially and most of the time I used to stare at monitor (while others browsing through pages of indiaglitz or I used to spend some quality (heehee) time at Jhadi and Senti's desk who were right in the project(poor souls).

Back home me, Vinsa and Johny just got clicked so quickly. Thankfully we had ample options for food (including Andhra, Bangala, Panjabi and Marwadi Mess). What all we were missing was a TV or any other means of entertainment. I remember, for first week me and Vinsa used to play our mobile ringtones just to hear something different. Thankfully Radio Mirchi arrived to Hyderabad and even VividBharthi's (yeah! it still exists) 11.30 show where they play Hindi Songs came for our rescue. As most of the day was getting spend in office there was hardly any time to get homesick.

Days were running quite quickly as we realized that, we were in last week of December and everyone was busy in planning for new Year Bash. Like others we also planned to go Mumbai on 30th December. It was almost 6 weeks away from home. Everyone was almost desperate to go back home, Being youngest in the project we thought of finishing all our assigned work in time(sometimes even well in advance). Just to avoid any last minute mishap. we booked out Bus tickets (yeah! again Bus as Train takes longer route and it's daunting 16 hour journey with possibly oddest timings in history of Indian Railways). So here we were all set with tickets booked, Assigned work finished, all out luggage packed and more importantly with long leaves(approved by Supervisors).

The first Blow:

30th December

Time: 11 A.M.

Out 4 my cubemates 2 were already boarded in their train to chennai, one was about to start and I was waiting for clock to tick 5'. and there came show spoiler "As most of the team is on leave, could you work on this activity"

Both of us in unison "Ummm! hmm! amm!....Actually I need to catch a train in a while (the other fellow was quicker)

Show spoiler: "ohk! so can you work over it and finish it EOD?"

EOD (There are whole new business abbreviations and you never what will be thrown at you) so I was supposed to finish it End of day today. I went to Jhadi, he was even more pissed off. He had lengthier task to complete. We finished our lunch in hurry and got back to our work.

Time: 4.00 PM (Reminder)

Techie "Have you done?"

Me: "almost, what about Jhaadi"

Techie: "still Busy!"

Me: "I will finish in 10
minutes"

Time 4.15 PM (Stress)

Techie: " Done?"

Me: "5 more minutes and I am done,
Jhaadi"

Techie "not yet, we need to start at 4.30 to catch 5
PM Bus"

Time 4.30 PM (Desperation)

Me: "I am done, what about Jhaadi?"

Techie: "Not yet, he needs some more
time"

Me: "No man! it's already 4.30"

Time 4.40 PM (Panic)

"Let's move"

Jhaadi had to leave his first major task in between. We rushed to Kothaguda Junction to make it in time.

Second Blow:

Time: 5: AM

Venue: Kothaguda Junction

"Bus kab aayegi?"

"Aayegi, aayegi"

the answer came from a mouth which was as blank as
Dhoni's then from 5 to 5.40 we kept on asking this question to Dhoni in an interval of 10 minutes. Then came a bus.

"Haan! chalo yeh pick up bus hain aapko KPHB le jayegi, wahase dusri bus aa jayegi"

So after 40 minutes of wait there came our pick up bus which dropped us at another place.

"Bus kab aayegi?"

There was another Dhoni awaiting for us with the same blank face...amazing.

"Bus 6.30 baje aayegi" our Dhoni replied.

Jhaadi: "whaat!" Jhaadi literally exploded on Dhoni, on Madam who booked our tickets and whoever tried to calm him down. But even he knew that was of no use. Our much awaited 6.30 bus came just 15 minutes late and we all finally boarded in a bus at 6.45.

It was hell lot of stressful day and our bus and bus driver were taking at most care to add some more uncomfort to it. but still we were happy, relaxed. After all we were going HOME.

Cut Copy and Paste हैदराबाद में Day1

Blog no.4 and I am still writting (and can't believe that you are still reading it) it's been 60 days journey. All started when I got an email about my training and posting location. After an eventful training period in Pune, I finally reached to my posting location Hyderabad...Aur ab aage

Date: 21st Nov 2007
Time: 6.30 A.M.

Me: “विप्रो माधापुर चालोगे?” Actually, I wanted to ask him "मुम्बई चलोगे? " (not that he would have said "Yes") but I badly wanted to go back to Mumbai.
Autowala: “हा, चलो!”
Me: “कितना लोगे?” (This was Pune effect; in Mumbai you cant dare to ask this question to autowalas)
Autowala: ” मीटर पे जितना होगा उतना, और उसके उपर 10 दे देना” (This was New!)
Me: “उपर 10 क्यूं?” (Obviously, I was still on stipend)
Autowala: “अभी अभी आए हो ना हैदराबाद, हलू हलू पता चलेगा” (Wicked!)

What a start! I dumped my 2 bags at the back and sat just at the centre of auto. I was literally shivering with cold; my auto was racing through empty roads of Hyderabad. I saw a few ladies sweeping the roads (which was already pretty much clean), I have never seen that before in Mumbai( I mean both, clean roads and cleaning of roads).
He dropped me near one handsome building and just next to that Hyderabad’s famous Cyber tower [building as prominent as Charminar is]. Cyber Tower is landmark and an indication that I was in Hitech city. I was bit let down to see Madhapur office, especially after watching striking buildings of Oracle, Dell and Satyam. I tried to enter.

Security: ”Sir, $%&#*^&!@#@%?” (he spoke something in Telugu)
Me: “तेलुगू नही आती”

“Telugu radu” .my first sentence in Telugu; means ‘I don’t understand Telugu’.
I was supposed to report Mr. M; Madhapur office was no less than a 3 star hotel and there was water fountain at the centre of the buiding and just next to that was a food court. I had my coffee and went to the reception and there I saw Hanuman, my training mate and then after my project mate too. The super enthusiastic Hanuman had a great history behind him, just the way Hanumanji split his chest to show Ram and Seeta he once opened office lift’s inner door; causing lift for emergency stop in between 3rd and 2nd floor. We were scared to death(BhachaO!!); the only option left with us was hitting the alarm button and we did exzactly that. Security rushed in and they escorted us from the menace. So that's Hanuman and me standing in front of Mr. M and waiting to hear what he has decided for us. He handed over one small chit with phone no. of Mr. MM and asked us to meet him in Manikonda campus. Yes, you heard it right it’s Manikonda.
Our office shuttle took us to Manikonda(as Sujaku rightly describes it as the blessed land lay between Rwanda and Uganda). A 4 times bigger campus than PDC but majority of part still under construction; the surrounding giving us SAHARA like feel. A rocky(not rocking) place with full of under constructions sites all around. But the campus was accompanied by some of the biggies like Microsoft, Infy and ISB.

High on adrenaline Hanuman literally jumped over the security rod to enter Microsoft ODC. The security personnel almost shouted, stopped and asked us to wait till he call up Mr. MM. My First project, first Manager and first client; Microsoft (Well, that’s sounds cool). And then came MM; at first glance he seemed a pleasing personality. He briefed us about the project, expectations and opportunities (like he does for everyone else, good enough to impress us on day 1) and then he moved to some informal talking.

Mr. MM: “So everything is settled?” (As if?)
Hanuman: “Yes”(Great he is settled; already ??)
Mr. MM: "And, you?"
Me: “No, not yet”
I was confused, what does he mean by settled?... I dont have place to stay, I haven't made a call back home yet, I am extremely tired after 14 hrs journey and so damn hungry too.
Mr. MM: "A team of 20 will join you tomorrow , they are coming fromChennai."
He brough my attention to his talking.
It was 12.30 and he left us for lunch break. At last at lunch I spotted few familiar faces; there was Techie, Senti and Jhaadi (my Pune training mates... detailed intro later) but meanwhile Jhaadi told me that he spotted 3 beautiful girls in library [he called them 3 deviyan].

अपनी थाली:

I was fascinated with PDC cafeteria so was equally curious about this one, however it was quite disappointing; first setback No TV!!
But the menu list was interesting; there were two meals to be serve ‘North Indian Thali’ for Rs.28/- [with chapathi] and ‘South Indian Thali’ for Rs.26/- [of course without chapathi] which soon they merged and made it ‘Apni Thali’ [how homely and clever too ;-)]
Food was equally good or bad, you can get in any other companies food court.
But currently my biggest concern was accommodation. Finally I found Johny and Vinsa, my roomies for Hyderabad. I asked Johny “So, what’s the plan?”

New room New roommates

When I saw Johny firsttime, I thought he is our trainer in PDC [Just like Munnabhai], but his comments and remarks from backbench proved that he is nowhere near to be a prof. and the only interaction with Vinsa I remember was in PDC, where he allowed me to take the only chicken samosa left in the tuk shop.
Johny:” First you see the place and then we will decide.”
I cant believe this. Both of them were here from last 2 days, looking out for accommodation, calling agents and meeting house owners and now when they fetched one good place just 5 KM away from the campus and still they were waiting for my approval.
I was in no mood to say NO and there was’t any reason to do so. The place was good; quiet and quite isolated from the city but really near to campus [Just like my pune place]. There was one tam aunt downstairs who was taking care of rents, maintenance and all other jhamelas. Electricity, water supply everything was there, but earlier tenant took maximum precautions to leave nothing ( I mean absolutely nothing) behind. So we were left with the job of buying all the mandatory stuff for living(including tubelight and ceiling fan). So we had miles to go before we sleep. There was long list of tasks pending for us.

Task1: Collecting my bags from Wipro Madhapur and dropping it at my new place in Telecom Nagar
Task2: Buying all MUST things en route' to Telecom Nagar.
Task3: Even Pappa and Vinsa have to pick their baggage from Johny's relative's place in Secunderabad. And trust me it was quite a distance. Navigating roads in out and out new city was a daunting task and twist in the tale was Pappa mistakenly got down at place much before our destination. Catching another auto which will take us to Tarnaka and back home was real test. But finally we managed well.

After collecting bags from Tarnaka, coming all the way to Cyberabad again...it took us more than 3 hours. When auto rickshaw dropped us at Telecom Nagar it was already half past eleven; including all late night half return auto fare it was something Rs. 190. We offered him the exact.

Autowala: "साब और १० रुपये "

I knew it, We handed over 200 bucks and reached home. I was really really tired. Thankfully Hyderabad chill didn't make us realise the need of ceiling fan. We yet to buy all the bedding but as of now who cares? My all task were completed successfully.
Tommorrow there would be new place, new team and new work but tonight let me sleepzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Cut Copy and Paste: END OF PART I

In spite of many reminders from my friends I was not getting the time (Oh really???)and tempo to write part 3. but yesterday saw Om Shanti Om and realised ke "kahani to abhi baki hain"

“Jindagi badi honi chahiye Dost, lambi nahi” One of the best dialogues on Indian celluloid, where Anand explains his philosophy to Babumoshay but here; my training period was getting stretched day by day. All this later part of training was giving me sense of good ol' engineering days. And why not? I was one amongst thousands of engineers who come straight out of Mumbai Uni. to test their skills (??) and luck in certified world who have no idea what in stored for them ahead.

16th November “D” day
Time 9 a.m.

I unflagged all the flagged questions and answered them with best of my knowledge (haa!!) and hit the FINISH TEST. There was pause on screen for couple of second. It felt like an hour to me and there flashed the SUCCESS window. First sign of success in my professional life. Arghh!!! But not the way I thought of. I screamed like every other human being in that panic room and rushed out. All my gang was outside, waiting; may be more anxious than me. That day I was wearing Sumit’s lucky shirt and his lucky locket in my pocket especially he gave me for this exam. I called back home and cracked the news. Ohh it was such a relief.
And now, it was celebration time, the whole batch of 75 got through to the assessment and all gathered at Tamanna executive, the only renowned food court in Rajiv Gandhi IT Park. For the last time we all were together because here after everyone will lead to there destination. We went for a movie that evening. Next day was my last day in PDC.

Date: 17 November
Time: 6.00 P.M.

I was boarding in shuttle no. 15 for the last time. I still wish I would have carry a pen and notepad that day; I had so many things to tell to PDC. How about writing one letter?

Dear PDC
We have been known each other for just 40 days, but let me tell you it’s been a great association. Being with you was a continuous learning process. Just to sum up what all I have learned, and then it includes C, C++, Scripting languages, Java, Software Development Life Cycle, Bug Life Cycle but no the list is far beyond that. The friendly environment here made things really cozy for me. Most importantly I received my first salary here, the cash I used to get before was either a scholarship or the friendly rewards from relatives. But this one was my own earned one. I bought my first cell phone here, got all new bunches of interesting people, your delicious pantry items still keep my mouth watering.

Staying away from home was a challenge specially when you have a nerd house owner and you need to convince him for placing syntex water tank without raising a penny in house rent or to ask for a lift if you miss your daily shuttle? What to do when your maid is on unnoticed leave for a whole week? What if, you forget your pair of keys at home? How to take care of yourself when you are not well? And what to do; when you are all alone at your place on Deewali night? I learned all this and many more things here. The list is endless and trust me it was fun.
Thanks for being there with me in all ups and down. Hoping to see you soon.

Yours Sincerely
Employee No. 11!&*#

Next day I was at my home, I had still 5 days to go before reporting at Hyderabad Development Center, it was perfect Saturday eve I was with my old (so now they are old friends) buddies, freaking out just the way we used to do some time back. We all started our professional life more or less at the same time, each one of us were sharing their unique experiences, some talking about there tight training schedules, some about facilities there company providing , some about their campus and almost everyone about the HR girls. We all were going through very interesting phase of our lives, spending most of the time away from home and learning how to deal with the situations by our own. Sometimes I was finding it difficult to cope up with these changes in early stage of my life. I wonder how difficult it was for my parents in there late 50’s. After all their only son was staying away from them.

When all this was happening at front end, somewhere back of my mind I was preparing myself for yet another Cut paste, yes my pasting I mean posting location Hyderabad.

Day: 20th November 2005
Time: 4.30 P.M.
Place: Dadar Bus Station; Mumbai

Baba:” Bus for Hyderabad?”
Booking wala:”5 vajata yeil”

It was Level 1, 30 more minutes and I am heading towards the next level. Pune was the place where I have been even before Wipro happened to me, it was just 3 hours away from Mumbai. But Hyderabad, its different thing, 700+ Kms from Mumbai, “Hyderabad is the capital city of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Hyderabad has an estimated metropolitan population of 6.1 million (61 lakh), making it India's sixth-largest metropolitan area.” (As per Wikipedia) and that’s all I knew about it.

At 5 bus came, it was Garuda from APSRTC, I got quite comfortable seat. I hugged Aai, Baba, promising them to return in a month. At least that was the initial plan; once in month trip to Mumbai.
I always fantasized myself in place of Saif from HumTum or Amir in Dil Chahta hain. But seems destiny has different plans for me. Till date, I have traveled 100 times alone with all kind of transportation modes. But No! No HumTum for me. I remember the ol' college annual days, where losers like me awaiting outside the ballroom dancing room, seeking for the partners, but no luck and jinx still continues. Sridhar from Hyderabad was next to me, it was his first trip to Mumbai and was amazed with the speed on which this city runs.

Sridhar:” You will find Hyderabad really slow man;”

First tip of city where I am going to be for god knows how many days. Chalo yeh bhi dekh lete hain. The movie in bus was Kachhe Dhage, I was in no mood to spoil my sleep, I told conductor to wake me up at Hitek City.

Now again I was at ground zero; the hunt for accommodation will begin all over again. Jonny and Vinay were already there and started looking for the place. I was supposed to report on Monday morning and then need to join them for the hunt.

Day: 21th November 2005
Time: 6.30 A.M.
Place: Miyapur Junction, Hyderabad

“Chalo Hitek, Madhapur, Gachibowli”….condutor shouted, loud enough to break my sleep. It was quite chill in the air. Bus dropped me near auto rickshaw stand. I spotted one and asked “Wipro Madhapur chaloge?”

Cut Copy and Paste-Continues

This part is really close to my heart, perhaps thats why it is so candid.

Blue Tag:

Change is inevitable, I don’t know who said that but for sure it was depicting in my life. My routine was settling, I used to get up at 7.15 for catching up my 7.55 bus to reach at 8.15. 15 minutes for breakfast with my gang [gang…we will come to that later]
4 training sessions, 2 coffee and 1 lunch break; one blue tag (My company ID tag) was bringing all this changes in my life. Tag of employee no 11***1, afterall I wasn’t just Abhijit anymore, now, I was a human resource for my company.
Life away from home was an experience on every single day, the first lesson I learned “There are no free lunches in this world”, not free but we had perhaps the cheapest house anyone could have imagined in Pune, but our house owner cleverly forgot to put * and skipped to mention the “Conditions Apply”.
“Aasa kay? asel thoda panyacha problem” he shamelessly replied when we complained about our NO WATER situation from last couple of days. “Motor bighadali asnar khalun aana ki pani” he has got answer for everything, suggesting us to bring water from ground floor water tank, we were on 4th floor and there was no lift. 30 more minutes were added in my daily schedule just to bring 2 buckets of water from ground floor.
It was mid monsoon and Pune is the place to be in this season, lush green lawns, stylish brown colored towers, cafeteria full of vibrant engineers, in the evening bit of drizzles were making PDC even more likable, I must mention about all the beautiful Wipro BPO girls who were adding special colors to its rainbow. I was having a blast with best of the people around.
Staying late for extra study, chomping chicken samosa and veggie puff at tuck shop, chatting with training mates while enjoying chaat at cafeteria. It was amazing to see 75 dazzling minds with all the dreams in their eyes trying hard to make their first professional step really impressive.


Mumbai to Pune:

Pune to Mumbai by train: Rs. 54
Pune to Mumbai by Non A\C bus: Rs: 90
Pune to Mumbai by Private Volvo: Rs. 160
Pune to Mumbai by Govt. Volvo: Rs. 240
I can still recall this fare table. 40 days,6 weekends and 6 trips to back home Mumbai. Pune’s Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park is located at Mumbai-Pune highway. The two and half hour journey is full of scenic places such as Lonawala and Khandala, in Volvo its been even better with movies. Waiting for bus at Wakad junction, occasionally asking for lift (though I never got any), bargaining with bus conductor for cutting down the bus fare and munching double roti at Expressway food court. I was doing everything that every software professional from Pune does. After all, now, I was one of them.

Pune Gang: Ekade Tikade

Shabnam mausi, Salma pe dil aa gaya, Patal Bhairavi all these movies, actresses named Sheeba, Kahekasha and heroes like Ravi Behl and Ronit Roy entered in my life with game named BOLLYWOOD. It was the first thing I learned in PDC. A film based game taught by my gang in Pune, which I learned and then conquered in no time. I discovered a bunch of great people as my Pune group, we were popularly (??) known as “Ekade Tikade” (Here n’ There). A cluster of 5 beautiful girls with all the brain in the world and two of us, me and Nil. PDC introduced me many fascinating characters. Nil, an avid civil engineer, seasoned flirt, my first buddy and partner in crime. “Looks can be deceiving” and he proves it to the core, spent half of his training period staring at monitor screen and rest at girls, Ankita, a 24 hour query shooter and still if you got any doubt, well she is first person you would like to be with, my questions about EXCEPTION HANDLING, she handled exceptionally well, Madhavi, a fine artiste; what with her great artistic skills on MS Paint and equally good in applying company resources to chat with her boyfriend, A blissful English poet Opoorva who can stump you on any given day with her mono line replies , Tamed and tiny Pranjali with loads of brain and patience to abide my silly doubts, Totally outspoken and compulsive Harry Potter fan Sharmila, sharing many of my areas of interests, Amit(chacha) and his mobile Phone both were totally dedicated to his girlfriend, Tushar, Jonny, Vinay and Mukul my co-traveler in company bus. Surprisingly, but I started enjoying my training days with all those heated discussions during lunch time, birthday bashes in Cafeteria, Ethnic day celebration at Deewali, playing dumb charades and Antakshari in company bus while en route’ back home.
Our Platinum was haunted with such and many other interesting groups. From the soundless 3 Deviyan to vociferous BWB, from recursive laughter of Monal to husky voiced Ashlesha’s “Mala mumbaila jaychey!!” we had it all. All of us were slogging for one thing. The climax was getting closer and now there was only one aim, Assessment Test.

Assessment: Ultimate nightmare

Any KT in 4 years of engineering? “No”………Good
Overall engineering grade? ” 1st class”………better
“In fact last year Distinction” ………..Oh Great, but all this is not enough to crack Wipro training assessment in first go!
There are times in your life when you can’t figure out what is going wrong and in my case I was totally screwed. I completed my lessons in time, done with the hands on sessions and was able to understand mini project [honestly that was crap] but still
Have I totally lost it? Yes, it was my company assessment test and I was screwing it Bigtime.

15th November 2005
Time: 11.00 p.m.

10 hours away from my last encounter, this is it. Do or Bye. Bye bye to Wipro, perhaps they will kick me out, before starting my first project.
No No No Way!!!! Me, Vijaykumar and Amit were dead silent in that 8/8 study room, Vijaykumar was topper of his class and at this point equally bewildered. This was first time I was studying 5 hours in stretch. I decided to spend some more time in studying and skipping my snooze tonight. But Amit insisted to drop by at his hostel and having 2-3 hours nap. We agreed.

16th November “D” day
Time 9 a.m.

I was thinking so much, I was reading so much. C++, PERL, TCL, TK all these things will decide my career now.
I hit the “Start Test” button. It was more or less the same questions I answered in my previous test, I knew the answers, I checked the answers and submitted the answer.
And I clicked………………………….. “Finish Test”

Coming up ahead:
Journey so faar
Journey ahead

Cut Copy and Paste

“You never care for the things that comes to you so easily”
Is that true? 1st July 2004, I got placed in one of the largest IT firm in India. The aptitude test was piece of cake and the interviews were cake walk, quite easy rather unbelievable that I was employed before even starting my last year of engineering.

Jay Ho Campus recruitment! Jay Ho SPCE (My College)! Jay Ho Mumbai University!
It was so easy and I so was happy, what followed after that was not exactly comes into a category of happy or easy. It says that we s\w professionals use Copy, Cut , Paste operations very often. I learned that even before joining the office, when I was Cltr X-ed(cut) from my home town and Ctrl V-ed (pasted) on various locations. My first attempt to write a blog, just to speak out the places I happened to visit on my professional journey.

Attention:
All the characters in this blogs are real. Any resemblance between you and the character is not coincidental. I may have met you sometime and I generally don’t forget that person. My 24 months journey started from Pune, then to Hyderabad and all the way to Seattle In this ride I met so many people some made their appearance here and some are still in my heart. We will start with Pune first

Day: 8th August 2005
Location: Mumbai Amit’s (My schoolmate) house

And the journey begins…..

Some mails can change your life. Wipro campus manager dropped a mail in my inbox stating that my training will be in Pune for 40 days and then will get posted to Hyderabad.
Hyderabad???? I literally screamed. What’s wrong? What is there in Hyderabad apart from two Mirzas [Sania and Diya] .Why they want me to work there and that too after completing my training in Pune?
“No way!!!!” I reacted rather overreacted when I read that mail. Amit bursts into laughter imagining me in lungi and gobbling Biryani. [That was our first impression about Hyderabad]. Soon I cracked the news at home. Aai Baba reacted exactly the way I thought of. Aai came up with her takiya kalam “whatever happens, happens for the good”. but i was in no mood to accept this Geeta Saar. Baba was quite cool, he asked me “Is there is any way to get your posting in Pune?” I assured them: “I will certainly try”…. I had 40 days in my hand. That was ample time to make some jugaad. I mailed, I phoned even approached personally alas no luck. I have to go to Pune and then to Hyderabad.

Day: 20th Sept 2005

Location; Dadar Station

Time : 5.30 a.m.

Aseem [My collegemate and Pune roommate] and I decided to meet at Dadar station at 5.30 a.m. to catch Pragati Express for Pune. Surprisingly train arrived at time and not very surprisingly Aseem didn’t turn up in time. It was awful watching your train passing in front of you. Then I called Aseem, guess what? That was wake up call for him. He arrived at 7.15 a.m. at Dadar station. Soon we caught Neeta Volvo, quite comfortable and 4 times more expensive than the railway fare. The only advantage they show movies in Volvo and movie was “Mumbai Express”, my Mumbai , Aamchi Mumbai….there are thousands and thousands of people coming to this city daily, to make their dreams come true, and here I am, one, born and brought up in Mumbai is going away from it. What’s wrong with my qualification? my profession that wont allow me to stay in my city, with my folks? Why there isn’t a single IT campus in the economic capital of this country? My thinking express started but soon got derailed because of Aseem’s snoring. He is from Srinagar, from there he came to Jammu then to Mumbai and now in Pune. May be I was overreacting; this change may not be that bad. Anyhow Pune is just 150 KMs away from Mumbai and with the express way like this I can cut that distance within 3 hrs. Let’s give a try, after all there isn’t anything else I can do now. So Pune here I come.

Pankaj from Bihar, Aseem from Jammu, Samsher from Kerala and Me Maharashtrian. My Pune apartment was the perfect example of national integration. All three of my roommates joined Cognizant just a week before me, professionally they were senior to me and quite enjoying there time at workplace.

Day: 23sept 2005

Location: Kaspate Vasti (Pune)

Time 8.00 a.m.

“80 Rupaye lagtil “ I was supposed to report at 8.30 and here is stubborn puneri rickshaw driver asking for 80 bucks. I have been warned by my experienced roommate that I shouldn’t offer more than 35. But that fellow was as firm as a wall, finally agreed for Rs.75 [that’s the best I could manage]. So finally I entered into Wipro arena at 8.20 am. Registered my name at entrance and got the EMPLOYEE pass.
After all the slog of 22 years, all the torture and the agony called engineering finally reached to the stage where I can be called as an employee. Working for the richest Indian’s organisation and probably the third largest IT firm in India, I was one amongst the 40000 employees of Wipro Technologies.

Wipro Technologies Pune Development Centre… 40 days 40 nights and Nightmare

3 towers, one administration block, 1 cafeteria, Tennis & basketball court that was all about Wipro PDC (Pune development centre) but quite trendy campus compared with neighboring Infosys and Cognizant. Just like any other IT firm’s training program, Wipro started with soft skill training called IMPACT. A bunch of 75 engineers picked up from all over India have been introduced to Platinum training space. Ice breaking sessions, role plays, and small presentations all have been taken to make us comfortable and conducive to the professional environment.

Day: 29September 2005

Location: PDC

Some days are special in your life, no matter where you are. 3rd day of my professional life was perhaps the most pleasantly surprising. My training instructor came that day with a vanilla cake. And yes that was for me, while introducing myself I mentioned about my birth date. She remembered that. My new colleagues were wishing me. It says in professional life there are only colleagues and rivals but no friends. Is that true?
In the evening I took my new roommates to Ice cream parlor. We gulped an entire family pack in less than 10 min. My place in Kaspate vasti was rocking, it was quite near to the campus, really cheap and had terrace with a water tank on that. I and Pankaj spent hours there talking, discussing or just sitting quietly. On my birthday night I was there …alone, thinking, life is changing, it’s moving, hope for betterment, I may not be with my people on this birthday, but even these people could be mine, could be……

And they cracked the news: We are Testers
U know, there are two types of people in the software world? One Developers and others called testers. I didn’t know this till the moment our training coordinator cracked the news in Platinum. our batch were put into testing domain and all the janta from IT and CS backgrounds were very apprehensive about that. They thought they have been betrayed. But I was more worried about the another news, to cope up with training deadlines they cut down our Saturday offs. That really hurt me. It was a masterstroke and all the anger burst on our training coordinator but he proved his metal, “All the strategic decisions are taking place at Bangalore” he has the stereotype answer for our every question. Bangalore people were in no mood to stretch our weekends. Anyhow the training sessions were as boring as I thought of. With the topics like C, C++, JAVA, PERL we cants expect anything else. For a mechanical engineer like me it was totally different field and I have already started feeling the heat. That’s it. So now, here I am at unwanted location with totally inferior profile and without any Saturday off. Not the way I wanted ”Jane kya hoga, Rama re?

Coming up ahead:

Pune Group: Ekade Tikade in short beauties with the beast

Assessment: Ultimate nightmare