A chapter about to end, another one about to start

It's been more than 2 years when I reluctantly came to Hyderabad, as this was where I got posted to after my 6 month training in Infosys Mysore, which were outright heavenly, to say the least! There was reluctance, there was apprehension and there was excitement in my steps as I moved around the Hyderabad airport, trying to recall the terms my long time college friend Sagar (who was one of the two college friends I knew here) had told me the previous night. I scraped around for "AeroExpress" and bought a ticket for "Hi-Tech City" (What a Loser Name - was my first thought about it!!!) and reached the place in 45 minutes. Sagar had come at the bus stop with Anubhav and within half an hour, I was with them at their flat, sharing my experiences of the Mysore training days and, since it was Anubhav and Sagar throwing questions at me, the typical "How many girls" and "what happened to so and so girl" were natural.

Someone has probably fast forwarded the past two years that were eventful in many ways. Projects were taken up and completed and each passing day made me question myself, "Do you really see yourself doing this for the next 5 years". The initial answer was "No" and it remained the same even though one project was completed after the other. After a certain point, the decision to go for MBA was made and that was the time real fun began. Once you give two hoots to your appraisal/growth/skill set (and other such nonsense), you can really ENJOY and that's what I decided to do.

A glimpse into Infosys Hyderabad campus - Glory Days!

The fact that despite being a part of 4 different projects none of my friends belong to any of those teams speaks volumes about how much I cared for them. The icing on the cake is the fact that I once got a feedback that I don't "gel well enough" with my team. Normally I am not the one to isolate myself but then when you are in a group of  10 people, 9 of whom prefer chit chatting in their own language, you can't help yourself from avoiding them for the rest of your lives.

Anyways, that left plenty of room for friendships to be formed via sports and that is how the friend circle got formed here. Nothing better than having like minded, unselfish, helpful friends in a new city.
 The joy for CRICKET was rediscovered, friendships were formed on and around the Infosys Hyd Cricket Ground, the realization struck that I am not a technical guy and won't want to continue in the IT field, etc, etc. 2 years is a long time and all of a sudden, people who formed my "core group" here in Hyderabad have gone different ways. Now they are working out of different cities, different countries, different companies and some have gone back to colleges to give the finishing touch to their career, i.e. to take the inevitable "MBA" plunge. I am no exception and two months down the line, I would also have joined the MBA bandwagon.
Don't know what the future holds but I'll have to do it all over again, i.e. moving to an alien city, carving my own niche, forging my own social circle and yeah... there's an MBA degree to be completed and a job to be found. Exciting two years ahead in Faridabad!

Last 5 months... it's been quite a trip

5 months back, had someone asked me the last preferred time for blogging, I would have said "Friday Night" before the person could bat an eyelid. Yet, that's precisely what I'm doing now. Life is a lot different and organized now than what it used to be. Things that have changed between then and now go beyond the last digit of the "yyyy" part of the date, things which I wanted to eke out in this blog but they never got beyond the "drafts" section. Friends have switched jobs, moved out of the city, a new one has come in, old friendship has been revived, gymming has become a religion, egos have clashed, cricket matches have been lost, my nephew has got cuter and naughtier, an almost-certain transfer to mysore has been defied, a chess championship has been won both as an individual and as a team, I've moved into a new project and yeah, the BIGGEST news is that the much feared CAT-astrophe HAS eventually happened. Not that I expected to top this time but then, I'm sure it would have come down to "those 3-4 questions" which, if solved quicker, would have been the difference between an 88.61 %ile and the one on the right side of 96, the one that I had last year! In a way, it has sorted out a few things. In the past few months I've got a new reason to stay here in Hyderabad and keep pressing. Work or no work, office never drew more than "just enough" attention from me. But now, having been working for 2.5 years, the thought of taking a 2-yr break for "possibly" a better job wasn't exciting me enough and thankfully, I got a CAT score that has really sorted things out.. talk about being an optimist!!!

2012 started off with a completely unplanned trip to Pune. Being a VERY organized person when it comes to my travel dates, I still can't believe that I decided to catch the 9 p.m. bus to Pune (for a 3 day trip) at 7 p.m, DURING a game of Chess! As I've discovered in the past, such unplanned trips often turn out to be the best ones an this one went exactly that road. The trip did little to change my perception that Pune is a GREAT weekend getaway but settling there, specially in the IT industry, is a STRICT no-no (hence it joins Bangalore in my list of "Cities I'd NEVER want to settle in"). It was my 4th visit to Infosys Pune since completing my Mysore training, spread over a period of nearly 2 years - and the observation that couldn't escape my eyes was the continuous decrease in the no. of known faces you bump into in the food courts there. Nontheless, it was great to catch up with whoever is left. 

Closer home, the weekend right after returning from Pune was occupied by the Inter Corporate Chess tournament, hosted by Infosys. It was open to more than 60 IT/ITES companies in Hyderabad. Last year I could not participate despite being selected for the team, as it clashed with my leaves. However, lightning missed striking twice very narrowly this time, as the tourney fell on the weekend sandwiched between the Pune-trip weekend and the one on which my family visited here. I've never been in favour of playing more than one serious game of Chess in a day but as has become a norm now, we had to play 7 games over a 2-day period. Considering it was a corporate tournament, you get some very good players who make you think so hard that at the end of the day your mind completely goes blank. Day 1 turned out relatively easy for me, as the opponents from D.E. Shaw and HSBC blundered once each, which was enough for me to mount an attack and then there was no looking back. Day 2 was the real challenge, in which we were required to play 4 games. I got a walkover in the first one, as my opponent was too lazy to come at 9 a.m. on a Sunday.  The next game(Round 5) would rate pretty close to one of my best defensive games, in which, despite trailing by quite a bit throughout the game, I made quick enough moves to leave my opponent short of time and claim a win. The Swiss League format is such that if you keep winning, your opponents for the next draw keep getting tougher. Round 6 was a bit of an exception, in which I went for the good old english opening with black which confused my opponent. Round 7, the last of the lot, turned out to be thrilling, as I was again trailing all the time but somehow kept fighting. In the end, my time did run out but I had made my move which would have caused my opponent a forced mate in the next move. Since I didn't have enough time, the points were shared and I ended up as the only unbeaten player with 6.5/7 points, which was not bad at all. My teammates Vishal, Parthipan, Rohit and Rizwan also fared great in their games, which ensured we won the tournament by a distance. Beating Sanjay Saxena was the best moment for me, as he was one trouble maker who was accusing Infosys of cheating in "every tournament in the past". He did end up as the 2nd best player though. 

Ok, enough of Chess bragging now. Bhaiya-Bhabhi's visit to Hyderabad last weekend came at the perfect time. Having the excuse of guiding them through the city, I also explored a few places I had never been to, including the Golconda Fort, Zoo, Charminar and revised the places such as Lumbini Park and Eat - Street. They were tiring-but-enjoyable 3 days and am looking forward to my next Delhi trip in mid Feb to join my family in celebrating nephew dearest's 1st birthday :-)

The 2 non-manipal people out of 4 have moved out of our beloved 4 BHK abode and guess what... 2 manipal people have joined in. Things couldn't have been more perfectly timed. Not that Nitin and Deepak were any trouble, but now, the 4 of us - Sagar, Anubhav, Vinit and myself are from the same college, same batch and our flat still has a car and a bike :). 

All in all, Hyderabad hasn't been a bad place to stay, after all. A city where I am at my office desk within 10 minutes of starting from home, a city where I've made a lot of good friends on my own and have the company of few of the old timers and a city I ddin't initially want to come to! Yet, there seems to be some void... that one missing piece that'll complete the picture. What is it? Even I don't know for sure!

That Talismanic Jinxer!

It was exactly a week ago that Anubhav, the only friend of my engineering group left here in Hyderabad, responded with the question, "WHAT??? YOU also feel sick?" to my initial statement after returning from office, which was, "I'm feeling a bit weak and feverish".
The fact was that I had resumed office on Monday, 7th Nov, after a rejuvenating 11-day Diwali (and CAT exam) break at home. For a good part of past 4 months I had one injury or the other which prevented me from gymming, playing cricket and tennis, running, etc (pretty much everything physical). On top of that I preferred to save my energy for my supposed CAT preparation session, which was supposed to take place every night (why it never actually happened is a story for another day).
So, the point is, once i returned, I was fully fit, had got CAT out of the way with an average, accuracy-dependent performance and was raring to go. Monday started with a little gymming and running around the cricket ground of office, Tuesday got more intense and on Friday I went full throttle, starting my evening with cricket practice at 5 pm and ending it with Tennis at 8:30, sandwiching running and gym between the two. Add to that riding home in a sweat-drenched sleeveless, with that poetic "wind-blowing-in-my-face expression" and you have all the ingredients for falling sick.
Anubhav has known me since the time we first met in train while going for our Manipal counselling and truth be told, I've probably never fallen sick since that day in May, 2005(TOUCHWOOD). And, given that he has a good memory (He still remembers the release dates of all the movies that released in the year 2000-2001!!!) his question wasn't random. However, one main reason has been the fact that the day I stepped out of home for joining my engineering college 2147 km away, I was conscious of my health and made sure that nothing goes wrong. Being bed-ridden with your family all around you feels bad enough so I didn't want to experience that with no one around. Thankfully, I made friends that would last this lifetime in that journey (which was supposed to take 36 hours but ended up taking 60, thanks to Mumbai floods!) but still, I hope you got my point.
Fast forwarding to that eventful Friday: When my ability to fall sick was doubted, I uttered a few curses, drank a glassful of hot water and retired to bed, hoping I don't wake up with a temperature on the wrong side of 100 Farenheit. I didn't.I thanked The Almighty and started aggressive planning for the 2-day weekend. But probably I had thanked God too early. I noticed a small lump on my left thigh and ignored it, choosing to go out shopping instead. The next day it had taken the shape of an inflammation and its head had changed colours from red to white. Still, it was small enough to force me into bothering. By Sunday evening it had started spreading and I decided to go for my typical "all or nothing" method, in which I turn to my ever so reliable after shave lotion to burn the acne into extinction. Stubborn as it was, it refused to just die down and had grown to challenging proportions by the next (Monday) morning. Since then, I've been on a dose of pain-killers followed by antacids followed by anti biotics.Needless to say, I've not been able to walk without pain this whole week, leave alone sports and gym. Can't put to words how frustrating it is to turn up at the Cricket Ground in office at 5 pm and watch the team practice. Thankfully there has been some improvement in the past 24 hours and as of now, I'm targeting the Sunday 2 pm practice session. Fingers crossed...