The Sobremesa Gang

It has been a month out of college and I’m all set to move on to the next step in my life, make a living on my own. But sitting back at home idle over the past month, I wonder if life would ever be the same again. It’s not because I miss the place or being tutored but the people, the friends for the past two years. Once you are in your post graduation, there is always some amount of maturity in the way we carry ourselves with our friends unlike the friends from school or under graduation. It is more about spending some quality time, having memorable conversations, learning from each other whatever one is good at, discussing each other’s lives now and after and yet spare a few laughs and pull each other’s legs. Christ had given me all of it. Thanks to the wonderful people I got to know.

Everybody has a gang. It took me sometime to figure out where I belong for I was always the odd man out in the place, which I now call my gang. Here’s to the tiny gang of mine without whom Christ wouldn’t have been half as good.

Advithi  aka Advi– The Sane One

There are just few people who would be on the good books of everyone around, she’s one of those rare kinds. Never loses her cool whatever be it, takes everything with a smile and the one who keeps us all grounded. Everybody has problems when someone doesn’t pick up your calls or takes time to respond, but with Advi, that never happens. She’s literally a click away (the ideal girlfriend but taken ;) ).  She always has the alternate option of taking up a job in the UN as a translator as there are very few Indian languages she can’t speak. A very good listener and an expert in Bollywood gossips (You got to watch Mahesh Bhatt’s rapid fire Advi).

Aparna aka Appy – Ms Beautiful

It’s an irony she likes Vijay when her second name is Ajith (I’m hoping she sees the truth on this). It’s true she dances so well that she makes everyone around fade away but that doesn’t warrant her to add a bit of dance to everything she does (Even in the dumb video presentation we had to submit to Ashish Sir. No wonder you scored the highest ;) ). The best desk mate anyone can have for you can talk anything and everything and bring up the weirdest arguments provided she doesn’t get caught and be sent to the first desk  (My favourite- the dowry debate and the relationship talks). If Advi can be the ideal girlfriend, Appy is a complete nightmare. You don’t call her, she calls you :P and that’s when even you had forgotten you had called. She’s a bunch of contradictions. Nevertheless, she is someone everyone in Christ knows and likes, a complete goodie.

Muffadal aka Muffi- The Real Mr Know-it-all

A complete gentleman, never talks a word out of place and knows his manners at all times. He is a powerhouse of knowledge, knows everything that interests him to the highest detail and yet never very vocal about it. A man of few words, talks only when necessary and never pretends to be someone he is not. He clearly knows what he wants and what others think about him is never an issue. He keeps doing what he wants to no matter what. Super intelligent yet very hard working. The kind of person whom you are sure would do wonderful in life. And yea not to miss out the fan following he shares with the women and the cat fights he triggers between his loyalists. I hope he gets us some good influence when his uncle Modi becomes the PM.

Anindita aka Onin- Chottu Didi

When you talk about Muff, you need to mention Anindita next. If Oxford Dictionary was a woman, it’s her. She comes up with a plethora of words out of oblivion and leaves us all dumbfound. Our little princess, is such a fun to pull her legs. You are the life of our gang Anin. Unless you mention, no one would ever know that you are a Bengali. She has a knack of getting things done and is fascinated by fellow geeks and studious lot. Probably the only one who is linked to every guy in class (I think she stage handles it). There’s a reason I called you our princess, you just let things behind so that we are there to pick it up for you and also the flock of princes who make your family. You are a bottle of life, always had a smile when I had been around you.

Adhitya aka Adi- Serial Killer

I remember Aditya telling me once that nothing excites her more than getting the new episode of a series as soon as it is out. I was thinking she would make a good pair with someone who runs an internet centre but she’s finally caught up with a fellow Serial Killer (Best wishes to you Monica and your Chandler). She’s the oldest friend I know(It’s not the age that I’m talking about :P ), matlab from Engineering. She is my gate pass to the gang (I remember you telling me that Advi looks like Silky. No, she doesn’t). We were part of the Peter gang (term used for people who talk in English in Tamil Nadu ;) ) in college but only after coming here did I know how big a stylish Tamizlachi she is. A big fashionista who lives life queen size and the one with the biggest bag collection. She keeps the sad things to herself and is at her best at all times.

Swathy- The Woman

We often have a few names which we give as examples when we talk about successful women (Indra Nooyi, Kiran Bedi etc), Swathy could be one such (Really ;) ). Super smart, level headed, focussed and hard working. She can make castles out of thin air, I’ve never seen anyone who can put their thoughts across as clearly as she does, bang on. She’s someone who isn’t easy to impress and she doesn’t fake liking for people. She loves the ones she likes and hates the ones she hates (superlative tense :D ). It kinda took me a while to know her but once we were through, she’s such good company. She can crib the whole day when it comes to Christ and India (This is how I start a conversation with her when there is nothing to do :P ). My fellow CR, gets super hyper for small things but super cool when it comes the big stuff. She left me with very few work doing most of it herself.  Swathy, I’m sure you are gonna go places.

Such wonderful memories you guys have given me. I’m really happy I got to know you guys and would always try and be so. There’s this Spanish word “Sobremesa” which well reflects the time when we let our friendship brew – around the lunch table. Here’s to more such sobremesas in the coming years.

Entreprise de Reve

More than blogging, it’s to decide on what to blog that is difficult. I’ve been pondering over it for a while and since I’m nowhere near finding one, just thought I’d come out with some random thoughts. Firstly, I’ve been placed in CTS (BITians- read dream company). Since my teens, I have always thought that I was sure about what I wanted in life but it’s when the showtime is on that all the confusion on earth widens leading to chaos (pardon me if the usage is wrong, wanted to add that word in someplace irrespective of whether right or wrong). And the best decision at such moments is to go by the wind, to accept what life has to offer (I know it isn’t optimistic but it could work). I would love to share a few details on what a dream company means at BIT.

Ever since the day I joined college, the only company that I knew recruits in my campus is Cognizant (there are a few others but you can gladly term them ‘negligible’). And so came the final year, I could hear echoes all around sounding “When’s CTS coming?”, “Machan, teach me aps da.”, “They recruited so many in X college and so many in XX college.”, “You’ll anyways get through CTS, Gethuthaan”. The last one is a cliché on which hours are spent in order to otify someone (means make satirist remarks) when he unknowingly utters some word that the other doesn’t know. There is also something called post dinner session which aims at training grads to crack Cognizant’s HR round (our alma mater says cracking CAT isn’t our task, we leave those stuffs to our inferiors at the IITs). Well, I’m not totally against it as it aims at bringing everyone to a state of equality on a medium scale (the robin hood way).

While talking about lobbying, how can one possibly miss out mentioning Nira Radia ! The lobbyist here is our placement officer (read CTS campus coordinator), Dr Sankaran. There is one incident that could help you understand the whole case. We had an off campus recruitment by TVS at CIT, the day before Cognizant. And there was a so called motivation speech delivered by our beloved CEO (like in the corporate world) the day before TVS, where he hardly said anything but kept repeating the repeated phrase, “ again and again and again” (God knows what he meant!). Me and one of my classmate were out that time on the process of getting a bus booked for the next day (really a tiresome job in a college like ours, hundreds of signatures). That’s when Sankaran saw us and started yelling asking us to go attend the motivation talk and that TVS work could be done later (perhaps after everything is over).

I used to be astonished when I see books with the title reading, “How to become Ambani in 20 days?”. But now after seeing my roommates preparing day and night barring sleep from logical reasoning to self- introduction, I actually think it is possible that I’ve even ordered for a book titled “How to become Mallya in one night?” (hmmm, expensive affair though). I’m pretty sure that if an outsider had seen our college on the D-day with a thousand students file handed, he would easily have mistaken in for a modern fine tuned version of the Kumbhamela. Unlike Prathiba Patil and Prince Charles fighting to utter the words, “ Let the games begin “ at the CWG, here the decision was unanimous with Dr Sankaran saying “ Now I completely hand over the stage to Cognizant”. The way he said it, I was surprised he didn’t fall flat on the floor (Thank God).

Fine, no matter how the run was, now that the great looking HR hottie has welcomed me on board Cognizant, “All izz very very well”.