“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.
