Take me back to past or show me the future

I did not know what I wanted in life when I joined Infosys. Yes I had no clue if I ever wanted to be a software engineer. From second year of my college, I knew I wanted to do MBA, study about the world , markets , understand the human mentality.

I joined infy because of the great NRN. I always have been a fan of him. So it was a easy choice despite the other two jobs being in delhi. Now if I think this move changed my life forever. I lost almost everything because of this.

The only thing I learned during engineering was not to be scared of any subject and study anything and everything and clear the papers even if I don’t understand a word of it. So from studying electronics & telecom to C++, was not that difficult. Eventually, I had developed interest in C++, and had become good at it. Was among the toppers. At that point of time, I had decided to work for 3-4 years in software industry and then go for exec-MBA outside India. Everything was going smooth till one day…………………………………

Life had turned upside down. All the dreams came down crashing. Had no clue where both professional and personal life was heading to. Family and close friends came to rescue.

If things go wrong once, you always fear it may repeat. That fear is the worst feeling. I too fear the same. I don’t want some external entity to stop me from chasing the dream.

I wish I have an idea today if am taking the right path. I don’t want that couple of years later I look back at this time and again say that I repeated a mistake, the same mistake that I did when I decided to go to Infosys.

I admit the support from my family and close friends has been fantastic. They always ensure that I don’t feel out of the place, but somehow I miss them so much that sometimes the emotions get better of me. I don’t want that couple of years later I look back at this sacrifice and think what have I achieved from this…….

From family dinners, to walks with my dog, to playing cricket with school friends, I want them all…..

I want everything and everyone back. I want to feel the perfect life again. I miss that feel. I want to say again the line I once said in December 2008, “ My life is perfect ,because god and you are with me”.

Or I wish I get a sign from somewhere which tells me that what is happening today is for a better future………

And the battle goes on

Not because am an analyst and its my job to find something extraordinary from normal, everytime I think about my life in past 3-4 years, I see a pattern. Good things happening together and sadly once a bad phase starts everything goes wrong together.

I don’t know but somehow I get a feel my life is always in extremes. Say for example Infosys, first 4 months the best, last 3-4 months the worst.

And its not the big big things , even the smallest of my wish gets nullified in the bad phase. And somehow these small small things makes me scared as they always have been an indicator to me that rauuullll things are starting to go wrong and it’s the beginning of something bad to happen.

This whole week has been like that. Anything and everything I wanted or I did , went completely wrong. To add to the woes, yesterday night I went for bowling , even that did not happen. And I know its difficult to digest the fact but the simple reason for this was that there was no parking. Oh yes, I was not allowed to park my car , the guard told me to come couple of hours later as movie shows were going on. YES DAMN YES !!! this happened and its very much normal in Chennai.

This is just a small incident. The biggies are better left unsaid. No point into dwelling into them. Even thinking about them are enough to scare the hell out of me.

But the crux of the matter is that why the hell everything starts to go wrong together. I mean wont it be better if one thing goes wrong in the day but to counter it something good happens, so that atleast I can sleep peacefully thinking about the good thing that happened and may be have some positive dreams.

Its so bad to even go to sleep during bad days , because even in sleep I get nightmares.

Its so so so bad to have these kind of days in an ALIEN LAND known as Chennai. Its getting difficult day by day but then I WONT QUIT easily. Bring it ON!!!

The Battle City

Its been now 5 months for me in Chennai. I find it strange to say but its true, these 5 months have not been the worst period of my life by any means. But yeah, its been tough.

It has been a strange phase so far. I have worked on all the public holidays so far. The reason being simple, I have nothing else to do in Chennai. Therefore, taking a holiday and sitting at home is worse than going to office. I save all my leaves and utilize them either to go to delhi or some holiday. So the next trip is for Kolkata this month end.

I never imagined myself going to a restaurant to dine alone. Sadly I do that quite often here to please myself. The same I did yesterday, Friday evening 8 pm I was in office. A normal life if I would have been in delhi and got late from office, directly gone home, mom would have said “Beta, you got late and look tired, I will get you some food, you relax.” But here in Chennai, I said to myself “Hey Rauuulllll, its been a long and tiring week, come I will take you to a good restaurant, have a good dinner”. Sounds sad, yeah it is.

Somehow, I have ended up knowing very few people in office and outside. It’s a small group of people around me with whom I interact on a daily basis. Thankfully, the group is really nice but at same time I miss the life in Delhi where I had a circle to hangout with.

The only respite is Saturday when I get to hear from most of you via phone or gtalk or FB. However, am sure it would have been so much fun if we could meet every weekend. J

Sab kuch alag hai Sab kuch nayaa hai

Every morning I wake up, open my eyes , the first reaction I have is where am I , its not my room , its not my home. Then, next second the realization of being in a new city sinks in. After that its normal day, same office routine. Till now I have spent most of my time in office, so haven’t seen much of the city except for normal shopping places like big bazaar and all.

Its almost two weeks now in Chennai and strangely I haven’t started hating the place. Even I am surprised by this. I think its more so because am having good time in office , it is hectic in office , have to spend weekends including Sundays too in office but I guess its better for me this way , by this  I don’t get time to even think of hating the city or cry over bad food .

Well I was told that I wont get good food here , so I was prepared for the worst. Surprisingly once in a while I do get decent food. I have found one north Indian restaurant owned by a Sardar , so I go there whenever I have time and today I had mast bhel puri.. mazaa aa gaya …delhi ki yaad aa gayi J

Then I was told that I will never get to see mast beautiful girls. Well I get to see three beautiful girls every day. But the only catch is they are models whose big poster is on the GRT jeweler showroom.

Other than that, the real count is 4 in 14 days. L

I was also told that the people here are not at all cooperating. Luckily I found good landlords and a fundoo house too.  But yeah the autowallahs here are not good. The way they drive , am very sure Rajnikant must have played a role of auto driver in some movie and they all are inspired by him. And then add to it , when I ask them “ you know English “ , they reply “ No English “ . Then my next question is “ Hindi aati hai “ , to this they always reply “ Hindi nahi maloom “ . Man, they are professional: D.

I had one big argument with an autowallah couple of days back , bahut sunaya usko maine :D . I doubt he understood even a bit of it though . J

I think the day I feel bad in office I will start feeling bad in this city too. Till then I can survive easily. I hope office life remains like the same as is now , these days I come home so tired that I have dinner and then am off to sleep max by mid night. And with this ends another day.

I hope you all are also having good time in office / college / business .

Take care

Its Idli Dosa time again

Pheww..Less than 20 days left now. Everything is almost set and from the talks I had with HR, it seems there wont be any further delay in joining this time around.

It seems there is some kind of connection between Chennai and me. It’s the third time Chennai is calling me, first time I spent two years there. The second time Infosys sent me there but due to some unavoidable circumstances I could not make it and came back home directly from mysore. Frankly I never thought in my wildest of dreams that I will be going back to Chennai again so this has left me also surprised.

I myself know it will be little tough to adjust in that city but I feel it is important for my career to work in Chennai as it’s the head office there. That is the reason I did not even talk with the HR for change of city, I had left it completely on him to decide the city. The good thing I liked is they were ready for changing the location if asked. So am just taking a little bit of gamble here and if some months later things go worse in Chennai which I hope not, then will go to HR and talk.

The reactions I get from everyone kind of irritates me. On hearing am going to Chennai everyone reacts as if am going to a village or hell. Then when I ask if you ever been to Chennai, 99% of the times the answer is NO. So I just give a sarcastic smile and the other person understands that its better to keep quiet. I intentionally stop anyone from talking bad about that city. Its because if I listen to them then I will be going there with prejudice and that will be wrong as I strongly believe prejudice is something which always stops you from doing things right. I don’t think then I will ever be happy there. So its better for me to just  go there and see the situation myself.

I am excited and at the same time little nervous too. Its kind of second innings for me in job arena, the first innings in a way I got retired hurt. Its interesting I will be starting it from exactly the same place where I left the first innings, Chennai.  Exactly 2 years ago I was supposed to be working in Chennai , so here I go resuming it from there. What goes around comes back around. J