My summer

It is 3.45pm on 21st May, 2009. I am sitting on the 5th floor of the Big Blue... now that is the nick name for IBM. In 1 week, I hopped from Delhi to Trivandrum to Bangalore.
This is my first brush with the corporate world. No surprises, it is just like what I expected. So I am allotted to one manager who has more work than that can be finished in 24 hours. On top he has to be mentor to me who is going on torturing him. It’s been just my 4th day and my mentor apparently has stopped coming to office and is working from home. I know, I do this to everybody. But no, I am not getting away that easily. I have mailed him my ppt and waiting here jobless.
So I thought I will just update my blog. Tell a hi to those who are kind enough to check it once in a while. So here I am posting after 2 months. I was a bit busy these last 2 months. April first week it was Parivartan. And our dear ‘pari’ (rightly called fairy by all of us) flew really well. The event was a success. I am not saying this coz I was in the organising team. But it was really good. The best Parivartan DMS has seen. Even though the dates were a bit odd in the B school calendar, we managed to pull it off decently.
I had a great experience working in the Pari team. Sleepless nights, messed up exams the week before the fest, frustration, happiness. The most happening time was not the 3 days of Parivartan but the week before it. Musti and the others had done a fantastic planning that all the team had to do was sit and enjoy ... see our dear pari flying. We even got lots of appreciation from the faculty.
Then there was the whole wrapping up of the B fest which is really boring and dragging compared to the former part. Then the summer started at Delhi ... it was scorching ... Now i really know wat summer means.
After this were the major exams. I finished it dreaming of flying back home after 4 months... that was the longest that I have ever been away. Before that we had the farewell. Now the Pari team being officially christened ‘The Cultural Affairs Committee” had to organise that too. To be painfully honest, the Farewell 2009 was a total disaster. But I can say for sure that it was the farewell that neither we nor our seniors will ever forget. The “sambhava vikaasangal” (as we say in Malayalam for the happenings) were too much that it really was a hell of an experience. Yes, the pari treasurer is still crying over the 15 grand that he gave the DJ. So after that we had nothing but meetings and talking over about the whole issue, even during the majors.
Luckily, everything got solved and I headed home, flying the good times. Apparently, India’s only 5 star airline gave me a rocking (and I mean rocking me from head to toe through out the flight) journey. I have been air sick all my life, from when I can think of. But the last year, from when I flew home with dengue fever, things were getting normal. I was beginning to feel proud of myself for having recovered from the pressure and altitude sensitive person I was. So I flew from Delhi to Trivandrum via Bangalore vomiting about 4 times, making the flight horrible for the nice family sitting next to me, and landed up at Trivandrum an hour late.
And I have to wait for the baggage for almost half an hour. It comes last. Yes, when else can that come? Because it is my world and Murphy's law applies more than anything here. So I land in the Trivandrum airport, so weak and then call my mum. She argues that she is standing right there at the arrival and that I am telling her the wrong directions. Yes, that is right... my dear mum forgot a small thing... to check whether it was domestic or international terminal. Then finally after 15 minutes I am finally, heading home.
I always believed that God has been very kind to me. Even when I had such a hard time last year, things happening in my family, I always believed that all of these have been done for a reason. There is always light at the end of the tunnel.
So I reach home, put my bags down. I get a call from my uncle saying that my grand father is not well. I take a quick bath and rush to see him.
He was in a real bad state. We rush him to the hospital, where he is still admitted and has to stay for another 1 week. The next 2 days I am at the hospital with my mum and grand father. Then the next day I head for Bangalore.
Joining and on boarding was smooth at Manyata at Hebbal. Thanks to Nipun, I got a PG already arranged just walking distance from the office. On Wednesday, I report and that evening the HR tells me that I have to now contact my mentor. He hasn’t picked up his phone for the past 2 weeks when I tried calling him. So I contact the person who recruited me. She gives me a number and after contacting another 4-5 people I finally understand that he is at London and will be back on Friday. Between this conversation, one of the people mentioned that he sits at EGL. Great, that is 22 km away from Hebbal and now I have no clue where I will be sitting and this person isn’t reachable.
My parents had booked tickets to go back on Thursday. So my mother went and my dad stayed back with me. Finally he called me back after me trying to reach almost everyone he knows in IBM. And here I am sitting at EGL.
If I was in MEC now, I would never have been able to have so many varied experiences in such a short span of time. I still hope that things happen for a reason, but nothing working out well these days is really trying my patience. But I am still hoping and waiting...