The Welcome!

"Welcome to Standard Chartered Bank." No, not you, me! Its for me. In case you did not know, I have joined SCB and this has been one statement I have been hearing a lot over the last two weeks. I have heard that sentence so much that now I have started reciting it in sleep and my room mate is scared of me. He doesn't want to talk to me after dinner! Although it does feel nice to be warmly welcomed into a new place, there is a fine line between adequate and overdose. Well that fine line differs from person to person, so lets not read too much into it.

Life has been so far so good, well mostly. I met a lot of new people who joined with me. Almost all of them were very interesting and great people to get along. (This sentence is only for those of the new joiners that will read this blog :P) I did all the fun stuff during induction (you know what I am talking about ;)). One thing that definitely needs mention is the pillows from the hotel we were put up. To call them heavenly is an understatement. Pity that I couldn't smuggle any out of the hotel. Pillow - too big, suitcase - too small, me - too disappointed!

Official life has otherwise been BAU. Oh yeah, we use a hell lot of abbr. ;) You know I have been filling forms, updating details, finishing learning modules, meeting people, getting confused, feeling lost and other such regular stuff. But there is one thing that definitely stood out from the e-learning modules. There was this module on HIV and one particular attribute of HIV actually inspired me. Apparently HIV does not discriminate across country, race, colour, caste, region, not even sexual orientation! It treats everyone equally. How nice! Won't it be great if everyone behaved like that. No, not like HIV, I just mean the non-discriminatory part.

One should NEVER forget that there are ALWAYS two sides to EVERY coin. The second side more often that not turns out to be a pain in the posterior. Do you know the most dangerous thing mankind ever invented after H-bomb and A-bomb? It happens to be the bloody SNOOZE button. My trysts and the resulting troubles with the snooze button can go on and on forever. Then there is this travel part. If you work in Bombay and if your office is in SoBo, then travel to work becomes a separate distinguishable part of your life. Having already dealt in detail about travel in Bomabay here and not wanting to relive the terror through my words, I am moving on to the most notorious culprit - the rains. Actually rains deserve a separate paragraph for themselves.

It has been pouring like hell outside for the last 90 minutes now and only God knows when it will stop. That was pretty much the situation over the last month and that will pretty much be the situation over the next month. Bombay's monsoons are like a lady. Please don't mistake them to be beautiful, elegant and graceful. They are actually highly unpredictable! And when rains team up with winds, they have immense fun at our expense. Umbrellas flip before you can bat an eyelid. Umbrellas don't flip back even after everyone around you have batted their eyelids ten, fifteen times! If you lose grip on your umbrella, you will be made to look like a crazy toddler running after a confused cockraoch. Of course, you can ROFLMAO in case you are not the crazy toddler chasing the confused cockroach. But, Caution: Wet floor, ok? There is more. Even army trained mine field navigatiors can't figure out the placement of pot holes on these submerged roads. Not to mention you have to polish/wash your shoes every time to venture out. You are still wondering how you completely got wet below the belt (!!), even though you had an umbrella. You cannot figure out why that random guy designed the auto such that the driver never gets wet but you always do. Lunch table debates typically revolve around whether you drive through or swim across subways... Jolly good stuff, heh?

Well, thanks to Standard Chartered for making me an International graduate. Ping me on gtalk for further details. Here is to all the international graduates who joined with me (this time no sarcasm, ok?), you are one great bunch of people. Life has been made much easier becaue of all those faceless interactions we everyday have. Thanks folks! Thats all for now. I will keep ranting here as and when I get enough content and motivation. Till then...

Cheers... hic... ;)

P.S - For those of you who have still not discovered Google, BAU means Business As Usual and SoBo means South Bombay!