Piyush's zone

EK main aur Ek tu..so true..

2012-02-12T07:29:00.000-08:00

If i have to summarize the movie in one sentence this would be it - Two awesome songs one Ok movie.

First I would like to point out the few negatives because a whole lot of positives are there.

Don't go with very high expectations. If you go with even medium expectations you would love the movie. The bad parts were a bit slow middle part where you wish the movie would end soon.
The second negative in my case was the theater. A hell lot of trailers and advertisements was enough deal breaker that too loud sound that made my head ache was not required.

But if you keep aside this, it is a good movie. The direction was very good. And I suppose everyone could relate to any particular situation of one or the characters. Those who say it is a copy of the movie What happened in Vegas are totally confused.

Some of the best things in the movie is the novel attempt to show things. Like the movie started with engaging the audience with examples how different childhoods "occur" and most people can correlate with themselves. I also likes how they showed the title of the movie on a box.

The story is also very practical and so is the ending. My favorite dialog in the movie was when Imran Khan says that every morning he wakes up wishing he knew what he wanted to do in life. The way Imran react to Kareena's behavior and what usually happens in a friendship is perfectly shown. But the way Kareena handled the situation in the movie is really commendable. Being a boy, I wish all the girls could do like that.

But the best part of the movie were the two songs: "Ek main aur ek tu" and "Aunti ji". The songs make you "get up and dance..."

Cause & Effect

2010-12-07T09:31:00.000-08:00

Today we had our company's President giving us presentation during the annual Town Hall. It was a normal afternoon and I was listening carefully. All of a sudden I remembered a similar situation during conclaves in my MBA college. And it was then the "mental conditioning" taught us under psychology was again proved correct. No sooner did I remember similar situation in college auditorium than I stared feeling sleepy. It was just out of the blue. A second before i was fully attentive, but late it was damn hard to keep my eyes open.

Domino's Double Burst a two thumbs down

2010-11-28T03:11:00.000-08:00

Bulletined synopsis of Dominios Double Burst Pizza review

Reason(s) for ordering Dominos Double burst Pizza
1. The new ad
2. Its predecessor, the 'awesome' Cheese burst pizza's success.

Reason(s) not for ordering
1. Not remotely as good as the Cheese burst pizza.
2. Totally sweet taste because of the 2nd layer of "creamy spread". Even the Mexican green wave (double spicy) pizza was sweeter than any candies available.

NO Buzz for Buzz

2010-11-27T18:50:00.000-08:00

Remember Google Buzz, well i hadn't until this morning when i saw it's link below the Gmail inbox.
It has been long since since i used it. Don't know about other junta, but i like twitter better. I am following many people and its great to read what they are thinking and also to reply to them. Even though twitter has some limitations (140 character limit) which Buzz does not still it twitter seems better. (Some more technical difference here). I can say the 140 character limit is for good only, as it makes the twitter users use the "hip" short language. I did not do much research but thought to set up a fight and see who wins "Buzz or Twitter"

My heart I cannot trust

2010-05-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

In life we face ups and downs, highs and lows, but i think it is the time where i am feeling lefts and rights. I have left many things and I do not know what i am doing is right.

My new journey in life has taught me many lesson, a bit too many to absorb. Drawn from the simple life till now to the unclear life later. Pressed from issue you do not want to deal with but cannot run away from. Life far away from idealisitc scenarios and closer to wicked cruel reality.

I try not be philosophical but sometimes venting the anger helps.

Never Thought So

2009-08-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

There are things you never imagined you would ever do. But life such that you never know what turn it takes. So right after my MBA I had some free time which I thought to utilize doing something constructive, but then I got desperate.

Not that the work mentioned below is inferior ,but it was just that I had never related it to myself.

A person Tall, skinny built, wearing light Shirt with sleeves folded, and dark pants was standing in front addressing us. "We will be talking about great revolution in the insurance sector. So as you know Manmohan Singh was the finance minister in 2000"
Silence.
"Excuse me sir, but during 2000, it was an NDA government"
"Was it?"
"Yes"
"SO what? Still Manmohan Singh was the FM"
Then I interrupted. "Sir i think you must talking about 1991"
"Yes yes sorry...I mean 1991"

Before moving forward i want to tell you that these excerpts are from a training session that me and one my friend(from IMNU) attended for being an Insurance Agent. The Scope of the work ws local and hence had respective crowd, people just out of high school, people wanting to sell insurance. How I got there is a long long story. But again, never thought I would be doing it.

"What do you understand by insurance" he asked.
My friend, very good in acads and even better in CP (class participation) could not hold himself and narrated the full Intro paragarph from the "Management of Financial Services" Textbook chapter named Insurance, that we did in our MBA.
Of course this was a bit too much than what he had asked for."Good Good"(which he did not mean). And then he shot another question and pointing at my friend "You don't answer"
From the next question onwards i was also blacklisted. But then no other person seems to know the answers and then we were then again granted our freedom of speech.

The person that was teaching the tricks of the trade, seemed totally disinterested. But his seemed to sometimes awakens spontaneously and he tells some of his off the cuffs tricks.

"What I used to do, If the person seems reluctant to buy insurance....Toh Aunty par kood jana..."
And we were like what?

The whole one hour session was totally entertaining for me.

Prince Of Persia

2009-08-03T21:20:00.001-07:00

I owe a lot to this game. It is a name written in bold in my gaming part of my life. Me and the game Price of Persia goes a long way back.
Prince of Persia(POP) was the first game I ever played. Even before solitaire, even before windows. Even when Windows was not even there. On a 386 processor (might be even a 286) on my Uncle’s laptop when he used to visit us. I was a fan of that game ever since.
I have played POP 1,POP 2, then POP3d. And then got my hands on the awesome POP Sands of Time, Warrior Within and The Two Thrones (gaming currently in progress).
I especially liked the fighting sequels of WW, many ways to finish off an enemy.
The POP SOT,WW have a terrific storyline with lots of twists and turns, superb ending (They are even making a movie on these two...can't wait for it). Enough to get people hung on to the game. In WW you even get different ending depending on how you play the game.

Loooong booooring time

2009-05-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

I have been not-writing my blog since a very long time, due to many reasons, some genuine and others sounding genuine. But now I am free of all that MBA stuff and am just waiting for my joining date in TTSL. So have a lots of time to kill ( though i strictly oppose killing for fun).

While I am waiting a very good friend of mine suggested writing during my “supposedly” free time. So I thought to sit back do some thinking and stop talking to that friend for a start. But any way I would love to show the world all the loony ideas that I have gathered during the decade and one more decade and another decade minus 7 years of my life.

Your feedback are welcome and they would be suitably filtered and then posted on my blog thank you.

Yours faithfully
Piyush

First Time: Blood Donation

2009-02-06T06:15:00.000-08:00

Today I volunteered for the first time to give blood in a blood donation camp. The camp was set up by Prathama, an NGO, in our college campus.

I thought I would overcome the fear of ‘first time’ very easily and I was almost there,except that my BP was 145/85. But just before I was to lie on the bed for blood transfer, a person in the room fainted and had to be given attention by the doctor. I came to know that he was a first timer.

Now I was a bit scared. He might have missed a precaution that maybe I have also overlooked. Damn! why didn’t I read the instructions again this morning before coming here.

I took God’s name and went ahead.

Then, Dinesh and Anupam maybe sensed my fear and approached me. They talked to me all through. I felt relieved (that if I fainted, they would immediately look after me). Arnab, who was also giving blood in the bed next to me, was also a great support.

I would really like to thank all of them for making it smooth.

2008-05-14T04:09:00.000-07:00

Home Away

As the summer seems ending (ahh...3 weeks to go) I can’t wait to go home. For the past 1 year I have been away from my family and seeing them only for a couple of days that too after every 2-3 months. I am longing to go home not only because I want to see my parents, but also because it is the place I have absolutely no work to do. I sleep 12 hrs a day, sit in front of TV and do nothing. More than me, my clothes want me to go home. Alas they cannot suffer the agony of me washing them and debasing them exponentially towards a rag.

Of the various types of dwellings that I have seen- hostel, PG (paying guest) room, shared apartment, I find a house (home) most well organized.
My PG room would come in next in organization. There is no space or things, which I can disorganize. All that can be moved from one place to the other is the TV remote.

Next in line would be my hostel room. Since it is more spacious and has more things and hence more scope for disorganization. But this is limited by mine spending less time disorganizing and more on my laptop.

But the award in the disorganization category will go to a shared apartment where I had lived for a few days, a total and complete mess. With its analogy to the imbalanced forces of the nature, there are more disorganizing elements (working 24 x 7) than the organizing one (which is a lone angel coming 8 o’ clock in the morning and working only 15 minutes). A territory reigned by Chaos Knights. A place beyond imagination and if seen by my mom would scream at around 130-135 decibels.

You think this is an exaggeration? Ok, it is a little bit. But I will let you only decide. Here are a few cases in point.

If we eat (usually sitting on ground covered by news paper) and a few part of food fall over, we give the opportunity to the guardian angel to handle it (next morning). The next time if the naughty food has escaped the wrath of the angel then we just put another layer of newspaper and continue our chore. The cycle continues till eternity.
We returned the Tiffin box of the Home Tiffin services when even the bodies of the predators feeding on the leftovers decompose.
Each room has a dustbin of the size of that room.
Cleanliness is of tertiary concern. The first being time and second is of what is unknown.
The time for giving clothes to washer man comes when you run out of clothes and you send a messenger instead as you cannot go out.
Anything lost is lost forever.

So now you must have clearly understood why I fancy going home.

2008-05-05T04:04:00.001-07:00

Going too far
I don't know why but i keep getting spams from a greeting card site ( must have left a checkbox checked). With the subject like- A beautiful morning from Editor Bob, Be in high spirits from editor bob, and many such positive outlooking thoughts from the site. I have never opened any of the mails (really) but also did not unsubscribe because it was kindof good since it used to remind me of some positive thoughts. But today I was shocked when I got a mail from them titled "Remembering your first kiss from Editor Bob".

The Chronicles of Gurgaonia: The House, the Food and the Internet

2008-04-21T02:59:00.001-07:00

The God has given us the world along with it many things like iso-propane, neo-pentane, leaves,shoe lace, glass etc. But the three most important and basic necessary things, for our survival in this world - shelter, food and Internet. So these are the things I was looking for when i went to gurgaon.

I reached Gurgaon on Sunday. I had been rest assured by ashish that the first two necessities will be taken care by him till i find the two for myself. I took some space in ashish's livingroom/bedroom for that day. Well space in gurgaon is very costly. Even a match box occupies land worth lacs of rupees. So now I owe him a match box. That day we just visited a few mall and came back and slept.

I went to office the next day and the details are given in the previous post. As told it was an experience not quite the one i expected. No induction just start working(or sitting). I was not even told where the toilet is in my floor. For two days I used to go to the one in ground floor and discovered the one on my floor by mistake(won't tell u how). Later that day ashish found me a good PG and i shifted myself there. Now that solved the first problem.

For second problem, there are a lot of solutions here. There is a nice lil restaurant- cheap and tasty (but only serves paneer and mushroom; We don't need menu card there, just add a suffix to paneer/mushroom and he will serve u some dish). And there is a Food Court which has McD,Baskin robbin and many affordable outlets.

And for the third one i think i am very luck as I some how or the other finds it. And her I am in my office using Internet without any restrictions (unlike others who i have heard have orkut,gmail blocked). Best thing about office is that, it is akind of a 8-5 cyber cafe.

So God has been grateful to me by providing all the important things even in this city of gurgaonia. Narnia was beautiful with tall trees and snow everywhere. Gurgaonia is kindof same with tall offices and dust everywhere. Because of so much construction and missing of footpaths there is so much dust that every day I wore black shoe to office and return with brown one.

My 1st day at Oh-fice ever

2008-04-17T22:52:00.001-07:00

My first Job of my life. I am here in gurgaon to work with an organization for 2 months. I had many thoughts regarding how a job would b like.I had only heard but never had first hand experience. Not to mention the narrow miss, when i did not not join TCS and got admitted to Institute of Management, Nirma University instead.

I joined in the 2nd week of April. I came to know that the office opens at 8.30, so thought to make a good impression on the first day by being punctual. Hence woke early and reached there well before time on 8.15 and was asked by security to wait outside the gate till 8.30. Got inside and then went to meet HR person there. He told me, he would get back to me in 10 mins and then again i waited (without breakfast). After, what seems like half a decade to me and 1 hr and 45 min by the watch, my guide at last turned up. He briefed me on my project, which at that time could not get head or tail out of it. He gave me a PC(an ancient one, but at least it had Internet connection) and asked me to start by reading the various material and manuals and many undecipherable,atrocious charts. Even if it was till here that would be fine. After all office was not the quiet place i was thinking it to be. Every one talking on phone, some one chatting and i thought my hostel is the nosiest. I tried to stay calm and used all my knowledge of yoga to try and avoid over hearing people. And it turns out i did not learn yoga well.

I was pleased that when the lunch time came. But after lunch was a afternoon-mare. I just could not keep my eye lids open or keep myself from falling off the chair. An hour passed and i did nothing but to stare at the monitor. Finally after an hour more of battle and a little help from coffee I won. But then i had lost my wit studying the materials and found just staring at the monitor more interesting. I did this till the closing hour and then happy went home.And I lived happily ever after till the next day.

First year@Nirma

2008-04-16T03:06:00.001-07:00

Wow just finished my first year at nirma inst of management (hope successfully, the results are still awaited). Had a rocking time there. Well there are loads of thing and hence won't write all in this thread. And after a wonderful time I am feeling very nice to be half MBA. Also missing our seniours of Nirma. But this summer I have the opportunity to again go away from nirma and live at some other place. In summer training i am in Gurgaon working for a company. My first job of my life. But job reminds me of the good days of the college life - the hostel,the class mates, the night life, the studies, the assignments, the LAN, and all the masti which is not here.

2007-02-19T06:03:00.000-08:00

IIT-kgp @ IMI

My next second stage was at IMI New Delhi of IIT kharagpur on 15^th Feb. I shared my timings with Mayank. We both had it on 8.30 in the morning. We went to Delhi together from Nagpur and stayed there at Mayank’s uncle’s place in Noida.

We reached there at around 7.15 and the reporting time was 8.30. So we roamed in the vicinity and saw IIFT, IIPM and IMM. IMI was also good, although it did not have a campus as big as IMT Nagpur but its interiors were equally beautiful if not less.

The process started with the students of IIT kgp showing us presentation of VGSOM followed by allocation of batches. The entire process of GD/PI was coordinated by the first year students. They were very helpful and carried out everything smoothly.

Then we had a GD in the form of a Case study. It was about Harley Davidson and how their sales were declining and the steps they took and the problems that arouse because of that. We were to give a monologue for a minute or so and then discuss. And if I thought that IMT GD was a fish market then this was an open sale of fishes. 10mins of high decibel endurance test. The panel members stopped us in between to let their ear drums have some rest and asked a few people who did not speak till then to speak and then again asked to continue and again had the fishes sold for free. I tried to enter the discussion but all in vain. Then I thought better not to add a few more to the current decibel levels. Then the discussion ended but the panel member told that we should speak in the GD and speak sense. Then we were to write 3 bullet points of the discussion.

After that we had Interview. I then came to know that maximum students in my panel were 2 digit rank holder (mine was 862). Wow! I thought they think I belong to the elite group (hahaha). There were 2 panel members.

P1: Sit.

Me: ( :O )

(The chair was facing the other side, I started staring, how to sit and should I turn the chair or not)

P2 noticed it and then said: Oh sorry turn the chair and sit.

Me: (Phew) Thank you

P1: So why you want to do MBA?

Me: Same Blah-Blah.

P2: What qualities are required to lead a world class organization?

Me: Some Blah-Blah.

P2: No, those are obvious. Tell some others.

Me: Other Blah-Blah.

P1: What is your favorite subject?

Me: Computer Network.

P1: what are the latest developments in computer networks?

Me: Latest Blah-Blah.

P1: What are your hobbies?

And they grilled me on my hobbies.

P2: Thank you. You may leave.

("Sir in which direction should I put the chair for the next one?" i thought of asking.)

Well I came out, wrote a feedback form, then waited for uncle’s car and went directly to railway station. And came back home. Hey and not to forget that first time in my life had an up-gradation of rail ticket from sleeper to 3^rd a/c.

2007-02-18T09:50:00.000-08:00

My First Second-Stage

So here I am telling you all “ma first second-stage”. Well the first GD/PI call I attended was of IMT Gaziabad/Nagpur at IMT Nagpur on 13^th Feb. It was memorable not in terms of my performance there (actually it was the worse I ever performed) but that it was my first.

(First some boring crap for my friends who wanted to hear all this. People interested in GD/interview can skip this paragraph) we boarded a Volvo bus from Jabalpur at 3pm for Nagpur. The journey was a hell. The bus was moving in vibration mode (with high amplitude) and some times I felt like a pea in a chutney jar of a mixer. Somehow we reached Nagpur. Searched a sasta lodge and rented it (kind of good, got its card).And went for a walk and ate at “gujrati lodge” (ok-ok food). Then went to see for local transport to IMT since it is around 35-40 kms away from Nagpur city. Next day woke up at around 8 got ready, the interview was from 1pm and went to that same place hired a van for 1100 bucks (&*#$ the agent, he didn’t budge, could have got it for 900 had we talked directly to the driver). It was for to and fro travel and a wait of 4-5 hours. We had to that because we got a train to catch at 8pm.

It took around 1 hour to reach there from Nagpur. We reached IMT at about 12 noon, roamed around in the campus for some time (very beautiful campus, nice environment). Then we went for registration. I got Panel 4 serial no. 3. There were 12 students in each of the 4 panels.

First was the GD. The topic was “Is the current uni-polar globalization same as the exploitation done in the pre-independence India” (hope that’s the exact wordings). We were asked to think for 5mins then followed by 10mins of discussions then followed by 1mins of monologue by each candidate then 5mins to write the summary of the discussion (150 words). The discussion was a fierce and was kind of fish-market but had many good points. But I could not speak much (only one sentence).

Then we had our interview. There were 3 panel members. When my turn came I entered the room, wished them and was asked to be seated.

P1: So you are from Jabalpur. Hmm. Tell me some good B-schools from M.P.

Me: Sir, IMS Indore is a good B-school. (Hell!!...I didn’t think of IIM-I then. &*#$&*#$. What a start!!)

P1: Ok. (Smiles)

P1: Ok Piyush. Tell me about yourself.

Me: Blah Blah.

P1: So what is the difference between spirituality and religion? (It was there in my answer)

Me: Blah Blah.

P2: What are your goals in life?

Me: Blah

P2: Ok Piyush. How confident are you about your subjects?

Me: Quite confident.

P2: What is antenna? What is radar? What is IC? (All clubbed together)

Me: Answers (Well these don’t require a BE to be answered)

P3: Comment on “the youths in India are under-used”.

Me: Answered (but not convincingly)

P1: Ok. U may leave. (Smiling)

Me: Thank you.

Well that was quite a relief. I think the interview got over in 5mins.

My first ever GD/PI experience. It was around 4.30 then. We came back to Nagpur had Dosas and Vadas. And then boarded the train for Delhi.

Bye-bye Nagpur.

Back Again

2007-01-15T11:06:00.000-08:00

Hurray... after long time I am getting time to keyboard down something. Last semester for me had been a full of events which took a lot of my time and could not be online often (added to that was the absence of broadband connection during this period). But now no exams to appear and no more book-mugging (at least for some time).I'll summarize my last year's escapades after my last blog.

My last semester (7^th) was a critical (and the busiest) one I had to prepare for CAT as well as work for a gold medal. On top of that I had joined JAVA classes. So I ended up jumping form one place to other whole day.24 x 7 x 4 x 6. My university gave me a bolt by flunking me in one subject (and to tell you more, it was the subject I used to help my friends out with and they used to call me master of it). I had never expected such a thing for the first time in my life and that too in 6^th sem. And then there was a mother and all her siblings, I mean CAT, IIFT, JMET, SNAP and XAT. All scheduled between my practicals and semester papers, with CAT initiating my practical exams and XAT just a day before the last theory paper. All the sem I spent thinking what to study.

CAT was a terrific experience. Equally terrifying and exciting. And I managed to do my level best. And the semester papers were more terrifying and even more less-exciting and there went my hopes for a gold medal down the drain (except if other's sewer runs more lower).

In short it was equal to a nightmare ride in a roller coaster with full stomach in a 100 degree fever on Jupiter with pins all over your body and you had free ticket for the whole night. Mind you this is short.

TWO NIGHTS @ JEC JABALPUR

2006-04-24T07:11:00.000-07:00

THE FINAL NIGHT

After the interview I wanted to go home but just then I bumped into a senior. I told her that I am going home. She was surprised and said that how will I be able to sleep when the result is still not out. Is that so?? Well ok I thought, I should stay in the college.

I thought to just roam around here and there in the college and see how other's interview goes. To pass the time I choose the farthest water cooler and went there twice within half an hour to drink water. I chatted with some friends from other colleges and motivated a many friends. I had asked about the time around which the results will be declared and was told that it would be around 11 in the night.

Hey guys if you are waiting for Qualis ( @JEC Jabalpur ) then forget it; there are a lot of open spaces in the college and I don't have any girlfriend or ex-gf :(

So I just sat there trying to ignoringly listen to the PJs of phechan-kon type of people and passing my time. As the time neared, I stated having butterflies in my stomach. I went inside to have a look at the progress. There were around 20 people still left and it was around 9pm. @30min/ppl it amounts to 10 hours!!!! Good it will be 2nights+ one morning. But they started to speed up and I then saw some spectacular case of typical interviewing in front of me. Well I won't go deep into that. But it was getting difficult to abate the sleepiness and hunger and the result was no were in sight. After Raghvesh (my friend and my driver to the college today, as we came on his bike) came back after all the rounds I went with him to a nearby can-be-classified-as-a-sort-of-dhabba. We had dosa, which though lessened our hunger but only increased the weight of the eyelids.

9.30

10.00

10.30

11.00

11.30 only tensed faces and nothing else.

And at last at around 12 they finished up with all and the excitement level started going up. We assembled in the assembly hall again (from where this all started). There were sounds (to my ears, and I thought I was awake) that can be classified as booing and cheering.

The TCS people came to the hall at around 1 and then started giving out some sound which as others told me was some speech. Then they started calling the names of the selected candidates. I was waiting with my fingers crossed.

ASDFG

XYZ

QWERTY

POIUY...hey Piyush it's your name... huhh

Hurray!!!

My name was there along with the names of all my friends who had qualified till the HR-round( I heard there name well but am not still sure they had called mine) . We were jumping and shouting. And there were phone calls all around. Sorry none from GOD! I too called GODs...my parents and said "MOM I GOT SELECTED".

"good. WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK??"

Huhh..."I'll be back in an hour". Uffff...mothers!!!.

So we were a bunch of happy people coming back home crying and shouting on the top of my voice at 2 in the night. But I also hoping better future for those who were not selected.

EPILOGUE

So here was my first ever experience of a campus recruitment and the first that was held for our batch. Well these were the best nights I have ever had !!!

HEY!! I now have recalled the story by the stranger. It was about three blind mice or something like that!! :)

2006-04-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

TWO NIGHTS @ JEC JABALPUR - DAY #2

DAY #2

We were called at 9 the next day. They had rejected nearly half of the lot. I was feeling lucky to crack through because many good one have been rejected because of problem in the systems. I had slept as soon as I came back from the college a day before. And I thought to do the interview preparation in the morning. As usual I again woke up late that left me no time to brush up the basics and I hurried to college.

9:00 am

9:30 am

10:00 am - nothing happened. We were just sitting preparing for the technical interview.

Then we saw the first batch students coming out from the building and complaining that the questions being asked were pretty tough. There faces were doleful. There were some toppers of our class who were also complaining of the question being pretty tough. My heart sank. I thought that now let me now just concentrate on my strengths and nothing else. So I started brushing up the basics of C/C++. I thought if they ask me anything different I would just say sorry and tell that I am more comfortable in this subject.

One by one all the students started going for the interview and at same time many came back having their even HR round done. I was getting nervous (for the first time in the day). Many had their HR done and when will be my Technical interview???…

At last my turn came at round 4 pm. I had given up preparation at 12 and now was thinking to do hell with the studies if I am fit enough they will take me. The person before me was interviewed for at least 30 minutes. Then my turn came. I went inside, wished him and when he said sat on the chair.

He at the first sight of my resume asked that why has my scores gone so low in the college semester exams. I replied the already prepared answer and told that in school we were required to write short and precise answers and in the college it is not the case, here we have to write long, senseless and don’t-know-what sort of answers. So he concluded that I was not good at mugging. On which I nodded in agreement. OOPS! Did I give it away on this?

He then quizzed me on a few topics and I always answered confidently. After he heard that I love programming, he made me write a lot of programs. I managed to do nearly all effectively.

I was then told to wait outside for some time (which seems like another day) till the result is declared. After a long wait the results were declared, I was the only one selected from my group. And a few of my good friends were rejected. Now this is the toughest time. They wishing you good luck for the further interrogation and you don’t know what to say or prepare for the next round.

I was then taken outside the HR interview room. Me and Amit (my friend) sat next to each other and started discussing future@TCS. Amit’s TI had been over quite some time ago, but my turn for the interview came before him.

I went inside holding tightly my folder (as one of my friends had dropped it during the TI and I thought not to let mine do it.). There were two persons there in the panel.

On reading my hobby (surfing net) one of them asked what I surf.

The net obviously. I replied that I surf on the net anything (I didn’t know what to say)

He asked me what kind of sites (with a smug). I did not know what to say so I said that I go to the links that my friend sends me. He raised his eyebrows and asked what kind of links. Oh it’s getting messier. I tried to divert him by saying that most of the time I read mails. Now he wanted that kind of stuff in my mailbox. I somehow managed to get out of it. Phew...

Then they asked that why should they hire me as I know only C and C++ (who the hell in the college knew more than that). I replied with the usual blah-blah. With every sentence I said they looked at each other and made faces. Then in the end they asked if I had any questions. I thought to say no but don’t know what got into my head and I said yes.

Hey but what should I ask????

I had thought of a question before and thought to throw the dice. I asked how he got to this post of HR manager. (As usual he made a face) And he replied that an MBA or a senior employee is only qualified for the job. Oops again! I had been warned not to let the M-word pop in the interview. But it did. Hell !!

He asked me to leave and I came out perplexed, baffled, bewildered, terrified, fearful, unnerved after my very first experience. It was already 5 and I wanted to go home have some food and then take a long nap (I hadn’t eaten anything since morning).

2006-04-23T00:03:00.000-07:00

TWO NIGHTS @ JEC JABALPUR

PROLOGUE

I sat on my computer and opened the yahoo messenger. There was no one online at that time (which obvious at 5 in the morning). I just opened the messenger to see if there were any new messages on my mailbox. I was about to close it when someone pinged me. I was surprised to see a stranger on the IM. There he told me a story.

Which I forgot so can’t tell you. And here what I am sharing with you all is my experience of the first ever campus recruitment (nothing related to the story) that I ever went to (better to say was allowed).The first company that came to our college was TCS

DAY #1

Well I got up in the morning as usual at 8. The day passed slowly. We were told that the PPT was on 5 pm, so thought of leaving for the college at around 4 (it is half an hour voyage from my house). PPT was to be followed by online-test and then the interviews session on the next day. I had to print my resume on the way. So I left at 3pm. Still due to stoppages better know as friends I was late and reached college half hour late. Better the TCSers were also late. We assembled in the assembly hall and were waiting for them.

They arrived and gave their introductions. We were so excited that we were noting down everything so that I might help in the HR round of interview. And our entries read – Mr. XYZ: black coat, red tie, takla, mota, Ms ABC: slim, long hair, good (life won’t be boring @ TCS). The PPT was exceptional and I was really motivated by their movie.

After the PPT they dropped a bombshell. They told that they might conduct interviews of a few candidates after the online-test that day. My god! No one was prepared. I thought the online-test if goes as scheduled will run unto 10 pm. How can they have interviews so late??? Still I hoped that their interviewing panel would get late and not arrive on time for the interview. Hey! Was I thinking too ahead I had to clear the written stage first. My written was to hold in Round 2. it was a tough period the time when 1^st round student had gone and we were waiting for our turn. After a day long one and half hour it was our turn for the test. The result of the test is shown after the test is completed. So the first batch students were coming out happy and depressed. I sat on my computer and started the test. The clock that showed the time left, was running as if was running on Pentium 7. I somehow managed the test before time but was afraid to click on exit. Instead I preferred to wait for timer to run out it self. AND HURRAY!!! I cleared the round. (Obviously you might have guessed it, how else would I came back to spend the next night there). When I came back it was 11. It was the longest I have ever stayed in the college. Now I knew the utility of the solar powered lamps that were there I the college. After a long day I did not knew it would be a longer day the next one.

2005-10-11T02:57:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, now goes the second part of my blog. But before that I want to tell you the names of my friends who were accompanying me – Amit & Sagar. It was a lot of fun with them.

We stayed at Sagar’s relatives at Hyderabad where we spent a good whole day. We went to see a few places and had a pleasant and memorable encounter with a police man. He was so helpful that we would never forget him. And in the evening after enjoying a pleasant day we boarded the train for Bangalore.

We reached Bangalore early next morning and after getting the address of the hostel we hired an auto-rickshaw. This Auto-rickshaw is important here because the driver fooled us by taking Rs.110 for what could have been 40 odd rupees, which we discovered later. After that we became extra careful not to be fooled again. Anyway after going to hostel, we made ourselves comfortable in the six-bed room by occupying all them. As it was a Saturday and we had a day off we decided to explore Bangalore a bit. In the afternoon we decided to take a stroll in the neighboring areas. We took a path out of many and walked, carefully seeing the signs so that we can find the way back and not get lost. (Amit, here I would like to remind you of the count that we started). But Murphy’s laws proved their existence. We got confused and only after three hours that we thought of coming back we reached the hostel. And we thought to drop our plan of hanging-around afterwards. But, in the evening, an angel in the form another student came to our rescue. His name was Subojit. He was from Jharkhand and was a student in the local college. He shared the room with us. We were overjoyed to have a Hindi speaking person who also was familiar with the place. He told us the buses that we would need to go to bhel and main areas and everything else. Once we went to movie with him at the local theatre and thought to tell friend back home that we watched it at a multiplex.

As our training timing was from one to four in the afternoon, we used to get up late. And after coming back from the training we went to main sites of Bangalore. The training was also good and we learned many things and met many from all over India. It was more than learning and fun with every type of people there, all in a place new to them. Talking about the people and the culture here and reciting their humorous incidents. I still remember Vedji and his extreme wit and ability to gather people’s interest with his a-little-modified experiences. Also we went to Mysore for a whole day in a tour-bus.

And after fourteen spectacular days we came back home. Well this is all I remember now.

In all it was really memorable time there.

2005-10-10T01:51:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. This is my first blog and I would like to share my memories and views with all. Well to break the ice let me tell you about my experience of vocational training at Bangalore.
We were told by the college profs. that we had to do Vocational Training (VT) at anyplace, to improve our practical insight of the industries. Many of my friends thought of doing it from some fargee place. But the bug of seriousness bit me. And I thought no fargeepana by going to some local place.
My father had some contacts with bhel and hence I thought of doing my VT from there. Bhel had their electronics division at bangalore and so I decided to go there. Luckily for me, the bug was also there in two of my friends who decided to go with me. Needless to ask, I was glad that atleast I would be able to pass my time had the VT gone boring. So the VT for me turned out to be a Vacational Tour.
We were first told that the training would start after a month or so(after our Fourth semester exams). But then we were informed that the training had started and we are required to join as soon as possible and the training mentioned to us before was for other purpose. And then we quickly packed our bag and got ready to go. But the main problem was to get the train reservations. In such a short notice there were no direct train seats available. But thanks to mobile-phone services and Indian railways web site, we did manage to find a train route although not direct one but via Hyderabad. But after that it was all fun.
Well I think this is sufficient for today and I will post next part of me @ banglore tomorrow.
Ok bye till then.