I had buried this blog for the last 5 years. There were a couple of reasons why I did that. It was not a conscious decision in the first place. No, lack of time was certainly not a factor. In fact this was the period in which ( contrary to general perception ) I enjoyed the longest breaks of my life.
The one thing I took pride in my blog was that I was almost always truthful . Becoming an adult meant I no longer had that luxury. I found that my life began to move in directions which could have been ...ehh... slightly distasteful to an earlier self. An online, open diary no longer seemed like a prudent thing to keep. Another problem I faced was my life was increasingly getting entangled in the lives of others. This meant that maintaining online silence was my only defense against potential defamation cases.
Why now then ?? Well , I don't know if I can be entirely truthful even after all these years. But if I don't write about it now, these years of my life would go entirely forgotten. Some of these incidents would cease to produce the same tingling of emotions if I choose to pen it down at a later stage. Enough of an introduction I believe.
TCS LIFE
This was my first job.Even after six years , I can still feel the sense of relief of having dodged the "what after B tech ? " question. Irrespective of the fact that it was the most ordinary of jobs one could have amidst the software revolution, TCS occupies a special place in my heart.
We joined the company two days before the 2011 New year's eve. Foundational training for 2 days was at a place called Karappakkam in one of those mundane IT buildings you see along Chennai's IT highway- the OMR Road. Then we moved into ILP (Initial Learning Programme ) in a typical industrial area around Ambattur.
The transition from college life was never felt. Maybe all the initial training programmes are designed like that. I was living with some of my college friends- Prp, Aswin , Abhijith and Sabarish. Life was smooth. I made some great friends along the way.
Our training schedule had 2 parts. One was the general training which everyone had to undertake and the second a more specialised one (where you would be given Java, Mainframe, BIPM, testing etc ). My training partner in the first part was Nimi. She was the sweetest person you could ever come across . She treated me like a younger brother. Quite surprisingly I was also enjoying it. I have a thousand things to tell about her. But today is not the day.
This post is about another woman. I do not want to reveal her name at this point. Maybe, I'd do that later.
I met her on the very first day of induction. Though we didn't have much of a conversation, I must confess that I did notice her. She was attractive- not the one who gives butterflies in your stomach, but still pretty enough for me to make a mental bookmark on her. Aswin who was sitting some rows behind me did note that I was engaged in a conversation with some good looking girls. When he enquired about them, I quickly said I had already reserved the girl with the red spectacles. It was a casual joke- of the sort boys make before you can even spell joke.
But things took a rather fortuitous turn when the groups for the second part of the training was announced. Out of all those three hundred plus people present in the batch, this girl was to partner me. Quite the hand of providence- I started to feel! Even before this, we had become decent enough friends. But the new grouping accentuated the process. We were spending the whole day together and it was getting increasingly difficult for me not to fall for a girl who was witty, smart and pretty . Still , it was not until a weekend outing with her and Aswin that I began to recognize my own feelings for her ( Curiously the moment of realisation happened in the same place where Mr Pavanayi fell to his death fighting detectives Dasan and Vijayan- Anna Park . Now , did that mean something ? )
The problem with falling in love with a person with whom you spend a good part of your day is that you can not hide it well. I had always pictured that when I propose a girl , it would be in the most romantic way imaginable. But quite tragically, I revelaed my feelings for her through a mundane text message during a late night chat. She had the usual excuses ( I don't think anyone would want to hear them . It should suffice to know that she gracefully rejected my proposal ) Though I couldn't sleep that entire night , by morning, I realised that my hopes hadn't enirely burnt out . But I was never a very agrressive person. I felt that if I was patient enough, things might change.
And things did change. Change happened with her taking a decision to resign from TCS. She had some health issues which was getting aggravated by strenuous working hours at the company. I was kind of expecting her to resign too. In fact in my eagerness to show my 'selfless nature' , I myself had urged her to quit if she was finding it difficult. But when the decision was finally made, it jolted me heavily.
To my surprise, I realised that she was increasingly finding ways to spend time with me as the day of resignation drew near. One fine friday- two weeks before her resignation - she asked me if I could accompany her to Vellore where her friend had recently joined for M Tech.
(will complete this in another post... )
The one thing I took pride in my blog was that I was almost always truthful . Becoming an adult meant I no longer had that luxury. I found that my life began to move in directions which could have been ...ehh... slightly distasteful to an earlier self. An online, open diary no longer seemed like a prudent thing to keep. Another problem I faced was my life was increasingly getting entangled in the lives of others. This meant that maintaining online silence was my only defense against potential defamation cases.
Why now then ?? Well , I don't know if I can be entirely truthful even after all these years. But if I don't write about it now, these years of my life would go entirely forgotten. Some of these incidents would cease to produce the same tingling of emotions if I choose to pen it down at a later stage. Enough of an introduction I believe.
TCS LIFE
This was my first job.Even after six years , I can still feel the sense of relief of having dodged the "what after B tech ? " question. Irrespective of the fact that it was the most ordinary of jobs one could have amidst the software revolution, TCS occupies a special place in my heart.
We joined the company two days before the 2011 New year's eve. Foundational training for 2 days was at a place called Karappakkam in one of those mundane IT buildings you see along Chennai's IT highway- the OMR Road. Then we moved into ILP (Initial Learning Programme ) in a typical industrial area around Ambattur.
The transition from college life was never felt. Maybe all the initial training programmes are designed like that. I was living with some of my college friends- Prp, Aswin , Abhijith and Sabarish. Life was smooth. I made some great friends along the way.
Our training schedule had 2 parts. One was the general training which everyone had to undertake and the second a more specialised one (where you would be given Java, Mainframe, BIPM, testing etc ). My training partner in the first part was Nimi. She was the sweetest person you could ever come across . She treated me like a younger brother. Quite surprisingly I was also enjoying it. I have a thousand things to tell about her. But today is not the day.
This post is about another woman. I do not want to reveal her name at this point. Maybe, I'd do that later.
I met her on the very first day of induction. Though we didn't have much of a conversation, I must confess that I did notice her. She was attractive- not the one who gives butterflies in your stomach, but still pretty enough for me to make a mental bookmark on her. Aswin who was sitting some rows behind me did note that I was engaged in a conversation with some good looking girls. When he enquired about them, I quickly said I had already reserved the girl with the red spectacles. It was a casual joke- of the sort boys make before you can even spell joke.
But things took a rather fortuitous turn when the groups for the second part of the training was announced. Out of all those three hundred plus people present in the batch, this girl was to partner me. Quite the hand of providence- I started to feel! Even before this, we had become decent enough friends. But the new grouping accentuated the process. We were spending the whole day together and it was getting increasingly difficult for me not to fall for a girl who was witty, smart and pretty . Still , it was not until a weekend outing with her and Aswin that I began to recognize my own feelings for her ( Curiously the moment of realisation happened in the same place where Mr Pavanayi fell to his death fighting detectives Dasan and Vijayan- Anna Park . Now , did that mean something ? )
The problem with falling in love with a person with whom you spend a good part of your day is that you can not hide it well. I had always pictured that when I propose a girl , it would be in the most romantic way imaginable. But quite tragically, I revelaed my feelings for her through a mundane text message during a late night chat. She had the usual excuses ( I don't think anyone would want to hear them . It should suffice to know that she gracefully rejected my proposal ) Though I couldn't sleep that entire night , by morning, I realised that my hopes hadn't enirely burnt out . But I was never a very agrressive person. I felt that if I was patient enough, things might change.
And things did change. Change happened with her taking a decision to resign from TCS. She had some health issues which was getting aggravated by strenuous working hours at the company. I was kind of expecting her to resign too. In fact in my eagerness to show my 'selfless nature' , I myself had urged her to quit if she was finding it difficult. But when the decision was finally made, it jolted me heavily.
To my surprise, I realised that she was increasingly finding ways to spend time with me as the day of resignation drew near. One fine friday- two weeks before her resignation - she asked me if I could accompany her to Vellore where her friend had recently joined for M Tech.
(will complete this in another post... )
