The Squeeze is worth the juice

I will start from where I had finished, Miss A _ _ _ _ _

For next few days, I tried my best to figure out her name. Whenever I heard Vivek mention her mention, I never got it and I really don’t know what he used to call her, by some nickname may be. Nevertheless, I did try to find out her name, typing similar sounding name in Outlook and pressing CTRL+K only to find “no results found”. I also tried to have a cursory glance at dangling employee-ID card of hers (come on guys many of you might have done that), but again to no avail. 

One fine day, my efforts did yield some result and I figured out her surname, it was a Parsi sounding surname to the likes of “Daruwala” or “Batliwala”. I thought "wow" a Parsi girl that is a definitely a good start, quickly typed that name in Outlook and pressed CTRL+K. Fortunately Cognizant have only two people with that surname one male other female and Bingo! Here was her name in front of my eyes,

It read Miss A _ _ _ _ _   _ _ _ _ _ wala. It felt like a sweet discovery. 

For those who are anticipating the name. That is not going to happen. For the readability sake I am going to mention her as “You –Know-Who”.

Fast forward to few days>>

“People say that you need a bridge to connect two people…but there are certain cases wherein  two people connect when the bridge is gone”

That is exactly what happened with me and “You-Know-Who”. Vivek went to Mumbai and two of my Tamil team mates don’t speak/understand hindi much, hence she was effectively left with no choice but me for somebody to talk in hindi. My home “CEEBROS” played its sweet part as I came to understand that she lives in the same apartment. What more, in an unexpected turn of events my two tamil team mates also got transferred to other location and left only two of us at the Lunch table. 

So, on the first lunch table with her, to get the conversation started I asked where she hails from? She replied with more than I asked for. In her typically Punjabi -cum- Bihari accent, she retorted that she is from Hyderabad and quickly added that she did her graduation from Mumbai. I was quietly pleased that I do have something in common with her after having done my post-grad in Mumbai and worked in Hyderabad for around 4 yrs. Very quickly, I realized wow what a great company this “Hyderabadi” girl is and quietly thanked god that after all something worthwhile did happen in Chennai. May be… just may be “the squeeze is worth the juice”.

And to the "juice counter" is where we headed for. There we talked about some stuffs, cribbed about Chennai and as expected she had a much higher possession of words in our conversation. We parted after the lunch and I quickly went back and added her in the office-communicator, just to find out that she has a middle name starting with letter “A” too. It would take me some days to find out what this “A” stood for. 

We went back from office in the bus shuttle to CEEBROS and fixed up when to catch the bus to office tomorrow. This set the pace for what was about to be called “four FAADU days”.

Introducing Miss A _ _ _ _ _

This one is really tricky…because this is about Miss A. Remember the girl I saw on bus during my first travel to Siruseri. 

I met her…no actually just saw her during my first day lunch at Siruseri. She was there (this time without the scarf) waiting for us to come down and then we walked to the cafeteria. So I finally managed to see her “smiling” face. She was not smiling at me off course, but I must tell you this smile of hers was the ONLY thing constant every time we met before lunch. This ritual of waiting and then walking together to cafeteria will found numerous mentions in future, because this was something akin to the walk up/down the stairs in “THE BIG BANG THEORY”. This walk more or less defined the mood of the group and we talked about any latest happenings, gossips etc etc….

But why did she come with us, off course she has too..Vivek was her college buddy. Just for the sake of record, we were total of 6 people on the lunch table. And the “only” one talking was her. There were two tamilians who did not understand "hindi" much, but were still smiling (really don’t know why??), one supervisor who looked least bothered as if not getting what she was saying. Then there was Vivek who was intently listening and laughing out loud intermittently and lastly I was amazed and wondering that “how can such a disparate group of people eat together? ”. Something must be pulling them together and I was still to find out what was that. 

Anyway some how lunch got over with I being just a mere spectator to a lunch that was nothing sort of a spectacle. And then I was introduced to another great ritual of having a juice after lunch. If walking to cafeteria was like walk up/down stairs of “THE BIG BANG THEORY”… this juice session was a straight lift of “THE CENTRAL PERK” from F.R.I.E.N.D.S. We teased, joked, gossiped made fun of anybody and everybody and the juice would finish just like that. But today was my first day so again I just watched Miss A speak and Vivek listen, and others doing the same thing that they did during lunch. I actually did not even ordered the juice and believe you me that was the only day in Siruseri I did not have a juice. 

Juice session got over and we walked back, most of the time I was following the group as I was not clear of the complex route they took to walk to cafeteria from the office block. The girl with us took a diversion and went to a nearer block and rest of walked back to our block.

Ooh yes…I forgot to tell you something, Vivek did introduce me to her…saying she is A_ _ _ _ _. Frankly speaking I did not get her name first time and felt too shy to ask her name again.

So, for now I just called her Miss A.

PS: For those wondering about the picture….this is because Facebook thinks this character from GoW resembles Miss A . 

 I kind of agree with FB and if you keep reading further you would also start agreeing.

Siruseri IT is...

“Finding a nice home might have sounded a good start but the next very thing that happened to me in Chennai was even better.” ………………………..  Vineet Nandan (17^th Sep 2012)

Flashback to May 23^rd  2012, I thought what worst can happen. I always hate travel long to reach office and now my designated office located in SIPCOT IT Park; Siruseri was 14.6 km from my home. And what more the mode of travel was a Company provided Shuttle, something of which I was tired off after using it for around 45 months in my previous company. But there are certain things in system which you cannot control, in SIX SIGMA terms we call it Key Noise Factors. What max we can do is to prepare ourselves against those as far as possible. That’s what I did. I got on the bus early, catch hold of a seat and plug in ear phone to reduce the “noise”. 

But despite my earphone (which I must confess is not too good), I was able to hear around. Just in front of me there was a guy standing talking to a seated girl. The conversation was in “hindi” and I thought wish I get similar company in office. For most of the journey I tried to eavesdrop and enjoy their conversation about the kind of work they do. They looked like new MBA joiners and already fed up off Chennai as I understood by the girls statement “Yaar humne kya bura kiya hai jo itne saal Chennai mein rehna pad raha hai…already we have spent 1 year”. I got my Sherlock Holmes cap on, One year already in Chennai, looking like a fresh joiners from an MBA college, must be from Great Lakes. And as later on I found out Great lakes, Chennai it was.

I must thank both my companions on my first journey to Siruseri, because listening to their talks made the travel look shorter and smoother. I alighted from the bus, had a cursory glance on the girl seated ahead (a natural reflex for most guys) and what I could see was only her eyes behind her specs, as most of her face was covered with a scarf (a necessary action in Chennai for girls). Her voice nevertheless sounded like a Punjabi girl. Disappointed I turned around and went up to the floor where I was directed to go by my supervisor over phone. And as soon as I enter the seating area, bingo there was the same guy who was standing in front of me talking to the girl. 

Hi I said.. I am Vineet. To which he replied “Hello this is Vivek, and welcome to Siruseri “

I tried to look for the bus girl too..but that turned out to be a different story altogether.. :)

Finding CEEBROS...

Two weeks is what CBC gave us to find a place for ourselves in Chennai. First few days passed with no search due to my laziness and next few due to the fear of going out in the humid summer of Chennai. All these constraint notwithstanding, we started our endeavour for a "home" in Chennai. Starting from search on various web portals slowly turned into exploration on the roads. Reading pamphlets attached on the gates, posts and what not, and then calling them up turned to be a tricky job because the voice on the other side mostly did not understand any of the language that I can speak. Couple of days passed without any positive result.

Then one fine day we entered a gated-society and were mesmerized with the internal architecture of it. It looked resplendent and nothing less than some high class hotel. But the office of the society refused a flat for bachelors boys. It was like a "God Damn it" moment for us. We returned despondent and started thinking of other options. But God has other plans for us, we received a call from one broker who promised to get us a flat in the society. We duly agreed to the rent also as it was well within what we had budgeted for.

Next day, we went inside to see the flat on 11th floor, yes that is the top most floor of the building. The view from the balcony was that of Bay of Bengal meeting the azure sky (see picture for proof). I was fixated on the look and feel of the apartment and almost decided on the flat. But as a true Indian we did bargain for a lower rent and was able to achieve a decent rate.

Going downstairs what I saw even strengthened my conviction of getting in this apartment, we saw gorgeous air hostesses entering the building, what bigger incentive young guys need for staying in this apartment.

Couple of days later, we shifted to this apartment and "1106, CEEBROS BOULEVARD" was our new home in Chennai, and this marked beginning of nicer times to come..... What more I was now living in a BAY VIEW APARTMENT technically... :)