Kahi Kho Gaya ....!

Well this happened sometime around month of April if i am correct in the year 2003! Yes the same year that i left VIT in the pursuit of WASE- Wipro Academy of Software Excellence. It's a unique and un-heard concept among the circles of IT companies but it is fast catching up due to the trend of changing jobs and high attrition rate in IT circles. The reasoning that the IT companies give behind this is to retain the talent pool that they have and in lieu provide them with roti, kapda aur makaan! Ohhh am sadly mistaken it's absolutely correct but it comes up as dhoti, padhnaa aur kaam.....

well enuff of this as I don’t want to get into a debate with regards to the same. It was our early days of induction as we were made to sit in these halls of Talent Transformation from morning to evening and learn all the stuff on our own. we were getting trained on java at that time and were told by our supervisor from TT that we wud be given 3 chances to clear the assessment exams and we need to come up with a score of >=80% in them else we would be chucked out of the organization. I missed by 1 question in the first two exams as i remember. I was scared as well as sab but as it turned out the last exam didnt happen at all. again diverted from the topic so back to the basics again as told in cricket so much.!!! At that point of time which seems so much distant now there was a cafeteria in Tower-4, 5th floor. There I used to have dinner at times and now lunch but it is now shifted down as it's a pain going up all the way to the 5th floor and come back again...

I guess I was having some snacks there and I met anu there in the cafeteria. She was about to leave and so was I, but I had forgotten something in the class room so I asked her to wait for me and I would get back with the stuff. But to my surprise when I returned she was no-where to be seen. I searched for her but not able to locate her I left from there.

As it was almost 7:30 so I rushed to the bus parking lot to catch the bus for BTM. As I got into the bus it was almost co-incidence or what I met anu again sitting somewhere in the back and that too with the next place vacant. I asked her about her whereabouts in the cafeteria, she told that she had waited for me but I guess I was late enough for her to leave for the bus. As the bus started its journey towards its destination so too our conversation started. Initially as told to me by anu she always tells me that I was pretty formal and no-nonsense person she thought of me. But it is in my nature that I cant just hit an instant cord with someone unless I know that person much. So our initial talks were all high level and in high angrezi language. As she was new to Bangalore and didn’t have much idea about the whereabouts of Bangalore I gave her a crash course of some of the landmarks and places. I also told her about where this bus would drop her and what all bus routes would suit her on the way to her house. I must say after all this she was pretty impressed with my knowledge about Bangalore’s geography. Some snippets of the conversation if I recall:

Anu: so where do you stay kapil?
Kapil: Well I stay in BTM, its very near to silk board. You know silk board naa?
K: what about you?

A: I stay in koramangala(the land of Bold and the Beautiful, Santa Barbara…). How many of you stay together?
K: We are 7 in all, actually we stay in two flats, 1 in the ground floor and 1 in first floor(telling as if it’s a mantra apartment or so…)

A: this bus will go to Kormangala how will you go to your place…?
K: Well I would just get down to BTM and then would walk all the way home…(in thoughts: how shall I tell her that all the BTM buses had left by the time I reached at the parking lot)

A: How much far away is it from your place?
K: well it is about 1.5 to 2 Kms away (and believe me sir it is approx that much far but no one believes me. don’t know why???)… I generally get down here and walk this much… (he he he laughs…)

A: ( In thoughts: gadhaa apne aap ko zyada shaana samajh raha hain) hmmm….

While all this conversation was taking place no-one took care to look out and think where we were exactly so Mr. Munish takes a peep outside the window and walla what do we have here..
Soon I realized that there is a junction ahead and it is silk board junction, so I took her leave, wished her and started walking towards the front door. As I approached it I could make out that it was my mistake to think of bomanhalli junction as silk board junction. I looked towards anu and she was laughing in a way which was conveying a bye kind of gesture. Well all this for showing my prowess in Bangalore roads knowledge would have been a damp squib had I gone back. Stupidly I asked the driver to stop the bus and got down there only to realize that silk board itself was more than 2kms away from the place. Wipro bus seemed a nice option but it would have been so embarrassing having got down from the bus and become the laughing stock.

So I decided otherwise and waited for the bus to fled away as it was still stuck in the jam. Then caught a BMTC bus but that too only was till silk board so ultimately it turned out that I had to walk back from there to my dream house. Wow what a painful walk it was…