He came, he conquered

It was the beginning of my second semester. A bunch of us regular Chamu fans (:P) decided to go back to his tuition. To my surprise, I found quite a few guys from my class on the first day there. Not all of them were my 'friends' but it kinda felt nice to have familiar faces around.

Among all of them was this goofy, crazy guy with a wacky sense of humour, who used to make stupid jokes and make sure at least most of us laughed at it (and that 'most of us' almost always included me :P). The times we spent together used to be filled with laughter, laughter and more laughter! Not once had the situation been serious with him around.

This is how his self-description goes:

Once upon a time in a far far away land there lived a person(wether the person is a guy or gal is upto whoever is reading this) and he\she was called X.Now X learnt of a new thing called internet and set to explore a world of possibilities.Mid-way X came across some writing whcih he\she simply could not make out the purpose of its existence but still carried on reading it until X reached a point in the script with the word "screw"......SCREW....if u didn't understand what this whole story was about then now u know me very well.I almost always have as much sense and purpose as the above story!Cheers!(if u wanna know real thins abt me then ask me and i'll tell....or at least try to control myself long enough to tell u in a way u will understand...)

Get it? ;)

I learned to ride the bike from him, a pulsar 180. The first time I got on it was in Premier, after a game of pool. After that there were frequent rides inside the college campus, and it used to be exhilarating!

Within a span of two to three months, he'd become one of my best friends :)

I dreaded the end of the second sem, since we were gonna be split up into our respective branches. But with the power of the cellphone, nothing could keep any of us away from each other :) I used to wait in class for him to start off some nutty conversation, and the rest of my day used to go super smooth :) I know that was what prevented him from sleeping in class as well ;)

That one trip to Waynad, I will never forget. He along with Shakeeb were the ones who made me feel that it was OK to feel the way I was feeling (let's not get into details). And that was the only time we got some photos of both of us together, since we had never taken any. Some of the best ones that I have!

Just 4 days after that I called him up, made plans for the next day to go to the Maddur Cafe Coffee Day. He got super excited as usual.... another biking trip! At 1 a.m, I got a call, and it froze me. I was never gonna speak again to the guy whom I'd spoken to a couple of hours ago. It took me a while to realize what exactly had happened. I didn't know whom to talk to, I didn't know who could console me. That was the most awful night of my life.

SHARAN.. I miss you. I've missed you the last two and a half years in college, I've missed you every time we went to CCD. I've missed you every time I got bugged in class, I've missed you every time I saw a girl riding a bike with a friend sitting behind her. I've missed sitting in Nescafe and watching you walk out of the class with that bag on your shoulder, that knowing smile you used to give as you walked towards me. And you know what I do when I'm bored? I go through your Orkut profile. Makes me laugh every single time! :)

Wherever you are, I just want you to know that you've left a mark on every single person you met here, whether they were your friends or not. And I can bet, every single one of us loved you, and we always will!

An ode to the ones back home!

The moment I created my blog, I knew most of the posts would be written when I would be away from home. And of all the things 'back home' I miss the most, there's SJCE (my ACTUAL home ;) ), home food (never thought I'd ever say this), but before all these come MY PEOPLE. Some of the posts which follow will have my 'tributes' to them and our friendship :)

I love you guys!

The last day of Quintilis

This is my first post as an EARNING person :) Was supposed to get my salary today, but got it a day earlier. A really nice surprise :)

Another great news is the return of the Speed God! I wasn't expecting it at all, and after a tiring day at work I walked down to the cafeteria to grab some (boring) food, and I saw on the screen that HE'S BACK! :) My F1 following had radically come down since the past 2 years. It's gonna be different from now :)

Hail Michael Schumacher!

Happy happy happy :)

I'm a little too happy today. Got the news that Roger Federer and his wife Mirka had twin baby girls! :) I've been jumping around with happiness, not being able to tell anyone why I'm so happy! And here's the reason: a discussion has been going on for the past two years about a certain 'future plan', and now Roger has something that WE have always wanted :)

And I'm happy! :)

Café Nandini

Hyderabad is a weird city. It strives a little too hard to make you feel at home. And to tell you the truth it does succeed!

It was raining one day when 5 of us entered this small Udupi restaurant called Café Nandini. The guys were just looking for something to eat, and I was waiting around as usual. Just then I smelt an aroma that wasn’t really very familiar in Hyderabad, that of fresh filter coffee (any corporate person would agree with me on this ;)). On an impulse I ordered it, and that was the moment Hyderabad came a lot closer to being ‘home’:) That coffee was the best I’d had since I left from Mysore. That’s when I realized that this place certainly deserved a blog entry :) The coffee reminded me so much of how Ma used to make it for me and get it to my room, how I used to sit on my bed and drink it watching something on my PC, how I’d spilt some of it on my bed and cleaned it up in a hurry ;) (Mom still doesn’t know about the stain under the sheet since I assume the bedspread hasn’t been changed yet!)

We went back there yesterday for dinner, and another amazing thing happened. For the first time in many many years, I managed to finish a whole Channa Batura (they call it Chole Batura here) by myself! The big deal here is that I didn't 'waste' any food!

I’m sure a certain someone will be proud of me ;)

How's it going?

There I was sitting in the A block 'Vindhya' conference room with 12 others, almost all of us trying not to fall asleep :P Ravi Dasari (an amazing guy!) walked in and said he wanted to talk to us. He gives us some random information, and then says 'So Pavithra and Ajith, you guys will be working on a project starting in two weeks'! And then I woke up! This happened 12 days into training! I still dunno if I should be shocked(about being selected), happy(about being SELECTED :P) or incredibly sad(about the long training and working hours to follow).

Other than that last week was incredibly strenuous, running all over the city like dogs to look for a roof over our heads after having to move out of the guest house! I've moved into a nice place in Miyapur right now with Gunjan and Vini (Shilpa is gonna move in in the next two months), and things are going fine :)

This is what has been going on in my LIFE :)

And I can't wait to get home next weekend!

Deloitted!

Today's the fourth day of my life as a 'professional', and I guess I can say that I'm delighted to be in Deloitte! During my last year in college, I heard a lot of 'this is not how you can be at your workplace' or 'you dunno how hard it is to survive in the corporate world'. But just seeing the environment around here, it makes you feel that this is where you wanna belong!

I've interacted with a no. of seniors over here, and one particular person told me that she came here thinking that she'll work for about a year and then probably look for something 'closer to home' (kinda what I have in mind as well ;) ). But now she's been here for almost four years! The place kinda grows onto you :)

Right from the time I moved into the guest house, people have been extremely friendly. If this was the case at home, then I might've thought probably the person needed something from me. But here we need each other to survive! For me it's been particularly hard to find a roommate, someone whose wavelength of thinking matches mine. But I'm still positive and hoping I'll find a good one soon and move into a nice, new 'home' :)

Everything said and done, there's nothing that can beat the feeling of being 'home'! It's the place you're so used to that the thought of leaving it initially scares you! Only once you come out into the real world that you get to learn so many things that you wouldn't have even thought of otherwise.

Ultimately, you learn to SURVIVE :)