This year began with, or shall I say the previous year ended with as it summed to my lucky number 6, a good note. I have left MBT and joined Mindtree. It was not only leaving MBT but have left behind many friends, old and true, whom I would get to see now infrequently due to the geographical diversity. Anyhow the detachment was must for succeeding ahead and moving. As I believe every detachment brings in some attachment so did this. So here's a breifing of my first year in Bangalore.
Initial days in Bangalore:These are the some of my memorable days in Bangalore, for here I met Gulshan who also was looted like me for 150 bucks by an rickshaw wala. Then the first day in Mindtree surprised me more as Shrish, who gave us the intial 3 day introduction to Mindtree was from Aurangabad, the place where I belong. That was the greatest surprise. Really life is full of surprises and excitement. Then thought whether are there any more surprises to come. Who knows? But this didn't stopped here. I got two more when I joined the Mindtree GE group. Here I got to know 2 Maharashtrians. The more surprising part was that one these two, Swati, is one of my seniors cousin and the other fellow, Nilesh, was in my uncle's(he is a professor) college. Man that's awesome, getting to know people by some or the other links.
Initally unable to get the house in the alloted time frame of 2 weeks, I had to leave the guest house and take up P.G. in Jayanagar. The inital days in the P.G. of Jayanagar 4th block above the SukhSagar hotel were even more memorable. There was this chap called (hmmmm I forgot his name something muni..), who used to clean our rooms. He was terrific. Our desperate trials to explain what we want to convey to each always ended up in fun. Rajan and Gullu, always used to forward any request from him to me. Those days were full of fun. He used to come the moment we reach the P.G. to gets him clicked by my then camera mobile that my brother lost in few days after handing over to him. I could not even celebrate its 1 birthday:((.
The time in Jayanagar was awesome as it is one of my favorite palces to roam around. Many beauties roaming around here to have crushes that last no longer. As many of you know that I am used to get crushes so Bangalore was not at all an exception. I have got many crushes;) while roaming in Jayanagar, Forum, M.G.Road. Full time pass. The jain temple next to Sukhsagar was also fantastic.
Some of the days in this period that I cannot forget:
1. 1st day in Bangalore - For I was looted by the rickshaw wala,
2. 1st day in Mindtree - got to know Shrish,
3. 1st day in Mindtree GE - introduction to all the MT-GE team,
Later days in Bangalore:After the Jayanagar tenure we shifted to our new house in Banakshankari hardly a couple of kms from Mindtree office. Moving to a new house also brought alongwith a new project assignment. It took ample time to get this house. Slowly we started bringing in the essential commodities, like gas, mattress, etc. We (myself and gullu) decided to give cooking a try. The first day of cooking was all on the telephone. Both of us asking our moms as to how to cook rice? How much rice and water for 3 people. And all the fun began. The first day I think we had made good rice except that water was little less and hence the obvious thing was to happen. But anyhow we both enjoyed cooking. Then all this cooking fun started every night. We tried new new things. Sometime masala bhaat, sometimes rice and dal, etc.
Slowly my friend circle increased in Mindtree due to the intial bench period cos during this time I used to play carrom with Swati, Shabu, Soumya (all 4 S), then more due to Pegasus, the Talakad picnic of Mindtree GE group. I think Talakad's my first outing in Bangalore or was it Coorg? Don't remember exactly. But both of these were fantastic. Before the commencement of the project I was moved out of this one to join the UIL project. This was the project that was talked about a lot. The team was almost waiting late nights everyday. The thing that I wanted to avoid, especially after MBT. Since the guys over here were always on their marks, I was bit worried as to how these s/w geeks are, very professional or just like me(doing TP)? Because Raghu - looked like lost in himself, Shirish - the fun box but looked very serious intially, Nilesh - already knew this guy, Aravind - Very sincere, less hairs (like Sidh in DCH) on the head added to his sincerity, Venkatraman (TL) - most of the time seen him shouting loud "Ae ba yeh hua kya re..."and all the sutff, who did the first job of adding me into the windows community and told to give some presentation. For me this presentation turned out to be fun as I had to call up people to attend the presentation. Something real wiered and one of the things that I hate the most i.e.forcing. The urge of attending any presentation should be from within but still had to do that. But eventually we all, UIL team, shared a very strong bond of friendship that added to the joy of working, be it late nights. It was real fun.
The friend circle grew to include friends other than company friends like Pankaj, Vikram etc. Every new comer (who was friend of either of we roomies) to Bangalore used to first come to our house for the intial stay. Hence the friend circle increased, increased and increased. We were now a totala of 10-12 guys every saturday/sunday on our flat making chapatis sometimes, sometimes rice. It was huge fun to cook for @10 people. We use to enjoy the food while watching the movies on the rented TV and VCD player. Those saturdays/sundays were full of movies and fun.
Then in the month of June/July/August I got to know that Karthick(a close buddy of mine) got offer from GE and that he'd be here in Bangalore. Samyak's, Amit's (both my college buddies and one, sam, was my roomie as well in Pune) and Kishor's (my college junior) entry in Bangalore added to the list of old friends getting back together here in Bangalore. Samyak got into Applied materials, Amit into Tavant and Kishor through his campus placements into Perot. We started meeting every weekend at our flat and Forum and enjoy.
But the reason for what I've left MBT again started bugging me. I needed something else on the work front. Or is it that the moment the company appraises me good I leave it? So I decided to leave Mindtree. Got an offer but was waiting for something else. I was waiting for Applied's result. Eventually Samyak forced to process the tests and interviews quickly. I cleared the interview and all, was into Applied in September. One thing to be noted was the sum of the date of joining turned out to be 6 again. My DOJ in MBT was 6th. Here the sum turned out to be 6. So think that this will also be lucky.
Some of the memorable days in this period:
1. 1st 5 days in UIL(there are many in th UIL project, but these 5 days are worth mentioning as I attended the design meeting wherein I was not at all getting anything into my head),
2. Trip to Talakad, pegasus(mostly the shot that Raghu hit and Shirish was in the air, flying for few seconds. It could have been given to the director of Shaolin soccer), Coorg, Nandi hills
3. The first meeting at Forum(myself, Karthick, Samyak, Amit, and Rishikesh)
Initial Days at Sam's room: After shifting to Applied, I had to shift to a new room. But for the intial period until I got the room, I stayed with Samyak. Those were also memorable days of this year. Here also the cooking spree continued. This room again added one more in my friends list, i.e. Nagendra. A very sincere, devoted to work and most of the time in the fun mood person(sounds contradicting). I must say he is like another Aravind. This fun discontinued as I had to shift my new place. The task of searching for a new house was as painful as the one we (Rajan and myself) had. Its the most boring work I've ever done. But anyhow we(myself and Kishor) shifted post-diwali.
Last days of the year: In the last days of the year I started blogging and all. (Do go through the remaining blogs to get some of the updates.) The inital days at new flat, though satisfied of getting the house, but were again painful due to the same settlement problems. Buying of all the required goods, the kitchen items, getting all the things done in the new flat(new in real sense, we are first one to stay here) etc was hectic and more boring.
The timely outings always added to the fun N fresh mood. It was a long time that we did not have a trip out, so planned to visit Shivsanasamudra with all the PICTians(PICT is my college name) batch 2002 on bike.
The going in the new flat was fine. We started having fun once again along with a new member Vasant, whom we call jiju. He too, despite married, is a fun loving man. So overall a memorable first year in Bangalore with loads of friends caring,
praying, helping, fun-loving.
