Tuesday, June 10, 2008

This is my Infy.....!

All good times must come to an end. So does this one. I am writing this blog 3 days before I am going to quit Infy, my first employer.

It all began on 23rd July 2007 @ Mysore. A sultry Sunday marked the beginning of my corporate life. I would say the beginning itself was unique. Yes. Tell me which company will make its employees stand in hot sun outside the company gate on the very first day? Infy did. Wow… I had my breakfast at 6 am on the train and it was 8 hours before I could at least see some food :( Hmmm no one can go back and change a bad beginning, but everyone can start today and make a good ending. 700 odd people started that day.

Early next morning, we were all pumped up. Why not? Somebody was actually going to pay us for whatever stupidity we were blessed with. Then we were made to go through several ppts in the name of induction. Never mind, we had 4 yrs of experience in handling those. Yes, engineering only :D Induction was too boring, but they said it was the only free time one gets in Infy training and it was almost true.

Then started the mandatory, boring, generic training. You are supposed to master(…!) the basics of computer engineering in 2 months. We did. :) Actually I did it with a li’l glitch. I flunked for the first time in my life :( But then failures are as important as successes. So forget it. Our batch was blessed, I would say. We stayed 2 months outside the campus and 2 months inside. That was the best mix one could expect. We could enjoy the splendor of Mysore city at the same time exercise our rights over Infy’s facilities.

Though I had CAT coaching classes over the weekend, I enjoyed as much as I could. Late night movies at the multiplex, full hogging at de cheap Dhaba, fruity at Gazeebo, once in a while thanni party at Ambrish dhaba, quick breaks at Loyal world, late night tennis, midnight badminton, cricket at hostel TV, FC2 lunch… the list in endless.

After I completed my generic training, I received the shock of my life. I was put into PLES unit. Don’t know what is PLES? Don’t worry; half of Infy still does not know what it is… Btw it is the engineering services wing in Infy. We were supposed to take another 2 months training in PLES about aircrafts. Hiya I am an aeronautical engineer. That status enabled me to clear training without studying (read without attending classes ;)) PLES training was a breeze. It just went by. Actually we had so much fun and I can’t disclose all that publicly. It classifies as classified.

By the virtue of so many prayers right from my birth, I successfully cleared my training and was posted at Bangalore. It sounded funny when I joined my team at Bangalore. Wont it be funny if the whole team is in bench? And that includes my PM too!! After about a month, our team got a project from Airbus. They called it luck. I dint tell them it was because of me :P Like the squirrel that helped lord Rama, I helped Airbus to make their giant A380 fly better. Believe me, it is still flying fine ;) Hmmm the time has come for me to bid adieu to my first company and chase higher dreams of life. My stint at Infy, though short, has been nothing short of a roller coaster. All these days, I wanted to quit to do my masters. Now the time has come , but… Let silence fill that sentence.

Monday, June 2, 2008

FROM : Up above the world so high....

It was my first night flight.... Hmmm whats so special about it? Take off, cruise, and then land. Big deal.....! Nopes. There was more to it. It was not actually a night flight. I was going up when the sun was coming down... In short I was flying at dusk. I had to fly from B'lore to Mumbai for an interview. Since my role in my project was so critical (...!), I had got only a day's leave. So I decided to leave after office hours and hence had booked for an evening flight. Dont be surprised when I say the flight from B'lore to Bombay took 1.5 hours and my travel from office to airport took almost the same time. :( I live in B'lore, you see. After completing the formalities I was on the plane. I forgot to mention that I had got a window seat :D Its always fun for an aeronautical engineer to be in a window seat and observe the flight. Hmmm slowly the plane came to the runway, picked up speed and whoa..... took off :) Only then did I notice something. Storm clouds were forming in the sky. So were they doing in my stomach. Much to my relief, our captain assured us that we wont have any problems whatsoever because of that. The accent was fairly eventless and we climbed right through the storm clouds. Then on the flight radio they said it was raining in B'lore. I looked out of the window and hey what was that....!?!?! It took me sometime to comprehend that sight. C'mon yaar , how often do you get to see rain from a top angle? ;) Seen "independence day"? The clouds over B'lore skies sort of resembled it. It was fun to watch rain that way, I would say. It seemed like a giant taurpaulin roof that was leaking all over :) Oh nature, how beautiful can you become..? Nature answered me with a sight that can never be erased from my memory. I am still thinking for a word to describe it to perfection. Just as the sun had set, colours began to splash over the sky and it resembled one of those paintings in Taare Zammen Par. And finally as it became dark, I saw the biggest rainbow of my life. This time not because of rain, but because of sun and air alone. Yes scattering, diffraction, bla, bla, bla had joined hands to produce the biggest rainbow. The whole horizon was painted in seven colours. You need a thousand eyes to cherish that sight. Hmmm I had witnessed enough that evening and I wanted to rest my eyes a little. I had an interview the next day (if you remember). Slowly I started dreaming zzz.... I was so obsessed that day that even in my dream I was flying over Bombay. My dream captain said "We are going to land shortly. Fasten up your seat belts." Suddenly my neighbour shook me out of dream world. Actually those words were not uttered by my dream captian but by my actual captain. We were actually approaching Bombay airport. ;) I peeped out of the window and was literally shocked. How the hell is he going to find the runway in this mess? What if he gets frustrated and lands it in the sea? I dunno swimming. Arey yaar, even I forgot that I was an aeronautical engineer! I remember reading something called Instrument Landing System in an aircraft. Phew.... I was safe again. I closed my eyes to reduce the effect of reduced G forces and after sometime as gracefully as an Eagle, the aircraft touched down. The pilot applied full brakes and it came to a screeching halt. The moment I came out of the aircraft and smelled Bombay air, I wanted to sing "Pudhiya vanam, pudhiya boomi...." (For the benefit of those who do not know Tamil, its a Tamil song meaning "new skies, new land...") How much had technlogy advanced... Just 80 minutes back I was in B'lore and now I am in Bombay. Wow... But I had realised something else that evening. How much ever technology may advance, man can never match the beauty of nature. Nature's beauty is beyond wordly expression. I shouted, "Hey mankind... you may be foolish enough not to enjoy this beauty, at least dont spoil it." My voice got drowned in the metro noise...