Friday, July 21, 2006

Farewell Wall Street

Who would have thought this day would come? I never wanted it to. But come it did. The time has finally come for me to bid you all farewell. As I move away from Wall Street to new things, new places, (to join that clique i kept mentioning) I feel that Wall Street as it stands today will not be the same again. So I bid u all farewell. Thanks all for visiting my space.. and sharing my adventures. Your comments were great to read and imbibe. Made some nice friends here. Don’t worry, I wont stop reading your blogs, and who knows, one day I’ll come back with my second blog. Until then, Good Luck and Good Night!

There's a sad sort of clanging
From the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple, too
And up in the nursery
An absurd little bird
Is popping out to say coo-coo
(Coo-coo, coo-coo)

Regretfully they tell us
But firmly they compel us
to say goodbye
To you

So long, farewell
Auf Wiedersehen, goodnight
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight

So long, farewell
Auf Wiedersehen, adieu
Adieu, adieu
To you and you and you

So long, farewell
Auf Weidersehen, goodbye
I leave and heave
A sigh and say goodbye
Goodbye

Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Flowers in the Window

Wow, look at you now
Flowers in the window
Its such a lovely day
And Im glad that you feel the same
cos to stand up Im in the crowd
You are one in a million
And I love you so lets watch the flowers grow



Life is a flower
So precious in your hand
Carry on smiling
And the world will smile with you


Thursday, July 13, 2006

Unwell

All day
Staring at the ceiling
Making friends with shadows on my wall
All night
Hearing voices telling me
That I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for something
Hold on
I'm feeling like I'm headed for a
Breakdown
I don't know why
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know, right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know, right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be
Me


--Matchbox 20

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Location Location...

For the past one year, I've told u about tales from Wall Street. I've spoken about the view. The planes. The people.

I guess its time to give u more of a view on where we are. For that I shall introduce to you a fabulous site.. wikimapia a site that does everything google maps does, but is much lighter on the system, and requires no installation. :-)
We recently tagged it on the site, so a search for Wall Street there, ought to lead u straight to the home of this blog.
Anyway, wall street, famous for its awesome view of the airport, is here. Dont wanna look at the site? Here is a snapshot of the view.


Snapshot of Wall Street
Happy hunting!

Monday, July 03, 2006

The G-10 Meet

Well, that was the plan. Unfortunately two of the members were out fighting battles, one with the influenza who invaded her, and the other with traffic as she headed out of town. Another member was held up at a foreign location and was unable to make it to the gathering.

Nonetheless, the remaining seven members made their presence felt. The itenrary for the meet was a reunion and a dinner. It had been a long time since this group had been together. This was the day when all those distances and the times spent thousands of miles away, buried deep under mountains of work was to bridged.

Now you may ask, "Whats a group without a nickname? " Well, we do have a name.. we call ourselves the BiblioPhiles! A bunch of enthu book lovers, who not only read.. but try to spread the joy of reading amongst our other friends and colleagues. This is quite easily done. Events are conducted. Newsletter(s) are written. Assistance is solicited from the other people in our organisation. Before this becomes a propoganda post, I'll stop boasting :-)

Saturday night, we all met up at a restaurant in heart of the city for dinner. With a slip of the mind on all our parts the event clashed with the humdinger (so I hear) of a match between England and Portugal. N was furious. NG was quite happy. As was AR. The rest didnt seem to be bothered too much. It was already a lot that they had managed some free time to attend the gala event ;-)

Yours truly, hosted the event. As N stays close by, and is a fellow Wall Streeter, we decided to leave together. A call from NG, and we pick her up on the way too. Trust everyone to stick to IST. 1930 being the schedules TOA, the three of us reach at 1940, to find ourselved the first at the restaurant. Soon after, NiG makes her presence felt. She brings with her, a newly purchased toy, a digital SLR camera. Now you all know how I love photography, and so I could not resist playing with it, even as I sat at a table with 3 gorgeous girls :-)

I did manage to stop soon enough tho.

Enter AR. Followed soon after by H and AH. And that was all of us. DK, was the ill lady, who sweetly called during the dinner to say hi to us all. SP missed the date of the event by a day and called me on sunday night! AA had already excused herself from the party as an emergency had crept up.

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The BiblioPhiles (seven who attended)

With all of us together, the banter across the table was amazing. It had been ages since we had such a lively discussion on nothing. Was basically music to the ears. Food was great, service could have been better... but then who noticed?

And the desserts... to die for.

What did we talk abt? Thats our secret. But its something that I will not forget. And from what I hear, neither will they.


I want to thank you
for giving me the best days of my life
Oh just to be with you guys
is having the best days of my life


Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Memory Lane

Memory Lane,
We're here again,
Back to the days,
And I'll remember them always,
So much has changed,
Now it feels like yesterday I went away.

Two years. Almost to the day. What a journey it has been. Two years ago, June 30, 2004, the first time I moved out of my house in Bombay. It was time for the baby to leave the nest. Time for studying was over. The working boy was revealed to the world. That day, two years ago, I flew to Trivandrum for my training period with the company I still work for. And now indulge me as I take a trip down memory lane.

The day began with a flight from Bombay to Trivandrum, in the land of the gods (as Kerala touts itself in the ad campaigns). The flight journey was rather interesting as there I met a friend of mine, who later became my room-mate for the next 2 months. The one and a half hour flight was quite peaceful, except, maybe for the food that was served and the occasional turbulence encountered. The flight was accentuated by the maneuvers the pilot made the airbus endure as we approached Trivandrum. To get the correct approach on the runway, the plane does a sharp turn, very close to sea level. As the plane turned, I would say the wings made an angle of 30 degrees with the ground over what I later learned was Kovalam Beach.

On landing at TVM, my friend (J) and I discovered that we were to be in the same lodge for the duration of our training. We immediately decided to be roomies. We headed out to the lodge (Safire), near the railway station, and found ourselves a room. We had got ourselves a 3 bed room. Out the two of us went scouting for a 3rd roomie. There we met Prima! (yup that’s what we still call him). He agreed to join us. As we sat in our room, we got our first taste of the Kerala monsoon. The windows being a little cracked, one bed started to get wet.

That’s where all the fun started. We moved into another room, a sort of outhouse. Hereafter, we were known as the cottagewallas :-) This room, however, had no power points, making charging our cell phones rather difficult. Slightly frustrated by the quality of accommodation provided by such a large organization, J and I decided to try for a change in lodges. The only way we could see something like that happening was through a petition.

That’s how we got the name, petition boys! We gathered all the tenants of the lodge to our cottage, and discussed the issues we each had about the accommodation. Most supported us. One girl in particular (RA) tried to convince us otherwise. She eventually bowed down to peer pressure! That signed the petition!

So ended day 0 for the working boy.

As for day 1, I just discovered an essay we were made to write during training describing our experiences on day 1. I will quote it below:

The day had finally arrived. After twenty-one long years, it was the day I finally began to work. Here I was, at Trivandrum, on the first day of July in the year 2004, brimming with anticipation at joining (name of company).

The day began well. The bus came right on time, to pick my colleagues and I from our lodge. During the half hour bus journey that ensued, all of us sat quietly, wondering what the day held for us.

We reached office at about eight’ o’clock and were quickly ushered into the auditorium for our first day briefing. This induction was scheduled for nine a.m. but in our nervousness, none of us remembered to have breakfast.

As we waited, the clock continued to tick away and soon it was ten in the morning. We began to wonder about the nature of the company, and how such a famous company could be so relaxed about their own punctuality.

In answer to our thoughts, one of the HR officers (SR) made a grand entrance into the auditorium. We were instructed on how to fill up the service agreement, a document we all called ‘the bond.’ This was followed by a briefing on what the training would entail.

The second briefing really made me nervous, as it was purely computer science based, and I was a telecommunications student. This meant that I would really have to burn the candle to be at par with my colleagues. Lost in my thoughts, I completely missed the announcement for lunch.

When I finally did reach the canteen, it was packed like a can of sardines. There was no room to stand. Suddenly, I lost all my appetite!

The afternoon inductions were quite boring, and had it not been for the finance induction, I would have had a nice nap.

The day dragged on as we waited for our personnel files to be collected. Finally at seven in the evening, we were asked to disperse and head back to our lodge the personnel files still not accepted.

It had been a long and tiring day, and I quickly fell asleep as soon as I had reached the lodge.

This was my first day as T-21, aka Primajhol. Those days I will never forget, and am glad I had the opportunity to make such good friends. Two years and still the memory remains.

Fortune, fame
Mirror vain
Gone insane...
But the memory remains


Saturday, June 24, 2006

The Clique Meets Again

Meet 3!

The people notorious for being late in meet one were surprisingly very early, reaching about half an hour before the scheduled gathering time. (So they say, at least!)

I reached at exactly 1700 hrs, as per the the invitation on the community. Standing outside the CCD, was trying to figure out if i had reached early or should go in and find the table where we were gonna sit. Thats where I bumped into another member of the group. He came up to clarify if I was who he thought I was (prob the advantage of having a turban, always easy to spot and recognise!!)

We walked in together to see 4 ppl already there. Two of them quite a surprise as i mentioned earlier. Slowly more new faces appeared.

Unlike the first time, however, there were no specific round table introductions. We already knew each other through the online world, and many of us had met prior to this.

Basically a few discussions on means of reaching the place, plans of what to do upon arrival, and the material to take with us. Then topics drifted to what normal ppl discuss as well ;-) Football, coffee... etc....

Two hours we sat there, and ppl grew fearful of one particular chap, who btw, gave me a lift home. The coffee addict continued with his addiction, 5 cups in an afternoon, now thats a lot isnt it?

Soon the time came to split up and head back to enjoy are respective Saturday nights.

We just not stangers anymore....... :-)

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