If only ...

Yet again I'm feeling distressed , fatigued , empty .... clueless as to what is happening around .... is this where I should have been ? .. No answer ... Its been almost three years since I'm working in here ... and I bet these three years have been pretty dramatic for me considering the varied and structured phases during this time frame. They say that you learn from your mistakes ... but unfortunately I couldn't live up to it and made the same mistake again ...
Year 2005 : Was studying for my MBA entrance exams ... (did I mean pretending ?) ... Things were pretty dull on the academic front ... my final semester exams were over by June-July .. and I was kinda chilling out with my friends in Pune ... most of them placed with some or the other company .. except me ... I was bloody scared now coz I wasnt confident enough about my MBA studies and wasnt ready for any technical job ... ( My group of friends are academically brilliant ... and hence it was kinda pressure cooker for me :) ... Finally I returned to Thane ... had enrolled for IMS CET entrance coaching classes nearby ... things were dull then ... since I hardly had any friends in Thane ... a few who were busy enough .... My coaching classes werent that exciting ... so it added to the boredom ... I was in a dilemma whether to try for a job or continue with the studies ... ( While playing my baddy matches in the past ... whenever I got a loose shot from the opponent I would be in a double mind whether to smash it or to drop it ... ending up in some silly shot ... which obviously didn't benefit me ... ) .... this routine continued for a while ... for a couple of months ... I was waiting for my results so that I could update my resume ...
30th Aug , 2005 : Today was one of the best days in my life :-) ... My sister was admitted to the hospital ... a day before coz her labour pains had started ... ( yippee I was gonna become a mama.. ) .... we were definitely tensed .. at the same time our happiness knew no bounds ... Sometime in the afternoon my friend enlightened me about the BE results which were out ... ... Damn !! the nightmare began ... those scary orals/ vivas ... and the funny answers we'd given ... the external examiner might have thought "why in the world are they doing engineering" ... I started perspiring then and there ... I was expecting a call from one of my friends ... and there it rang ... my heart started pounding heavily ... my friend was on line ... I heard the result ... some total ... I dont remember how much ... and I was like what ?... it was "first class with distinction" ... phew ... I had no reaction ...I hung up on her ... and started thinking about the total ... calculated the percentage .... it came upto 72.46% ... woohooooooo..... my frown disappeared ...I rushed to my parents ... .. they were overjoyed after hearing the results ... especially my dad ...somehow I had done it ... :-) Time passed by we were tensed again ... as the time was near ... Around 11:45 pm : Arjun was born ... my cutie pie ... good times had started now ... we were celebrating ... ofcourse we had a couple of reasons to celebrate ... There was a wonderful addition in our family ... new relations ... ( I'd become a proud mama)....and in no time the house was full of the baby stuff .. the toys , cradle , diapers :P ... and what not ... in short the house had become lively ... Arjun never slept at night ... :-) ... hence I used to be on duty at night ... and realised that the most difficult task in this world is to change a baby's diaper. My salute to all the mothers out there :) . Couple of months passed by .. my studies were meagre .. I'd updated my resume on some websites ... One fine day I got a call from a company "XLDyanamics " ... it was a US based company ... and had an opening for trainee BA ... I somehow cleared the written test ... and since the company wasnt that big .. my interview was with the CEO ... :) .... he literally ripped me apart ... he gave me a marker .. and there went the question ... "Pls derive the volume of a cone using integration" .... :-) .. I had my mouth open after hearing the question ... I was literally stammering ... .. all his questions were somewhat similar .. and I was consistently answering wrong ... but since my written scores were good enough he actually decided to recruit me :) .. with a decent package of 2.4L ... I was supposed to join on the coming monday ... I returned home with a mixed feeling ... told mom- dad about the job ... we were happy but not as excited ... casually checked my email in the evening ... saw a new mail and was startled ...(Flashback) Around 15 days prior to XLDynamics .. i'd given a test for Infosys Technologies Ltd... they had these 10 puzzles in the exam ... I presumed that I solved 9 correctly .. but after coming out of the examination hall it had come down to 7 ... ... with marginal hopes ... I saw the result in the afternoon and saw my name in it ... got through the first hurdle ... The interview was scheduled for the next day ... I'd forgotten to take a pen in the interview room ... had to ask for a pen from one of the panel members .... that was it I thought .. no chance at all ... apart from this the interview was decent. I had very very less hopes of getting through ... and checked my mails till a week ... after which I lost hopes completely ..(Flashback ends) The mail subject was something like "Offer at Infosys" ... I hastily opened the mail to check the contents ... was truly amazed after looking at the offer ... My mom was happier than me ... so was my dad ... since he had a lot of respect for Infosys ... I decide to join Infosys and not XLDynamics .... My joining date was 19th December 2005 .

Year 2001 : Badminton was almost over for me ... and my score in 12th was average ... not good enough to get me into the top colleges of the city ... my thoughts started troubling me ... I was like this "gali ka kutta" ... A couple of years ago badminton was god for me ... and I was having a decent progress there ... I chose to go for engineering .... ( had no other option .. since I dint know what else to do then) .... got DYP college , Pune for civil engg in the 30% quota ... I was hardly interested ... The college routine was pretty boring ... had to travel by bus for an hour ... somehow managed to attend the college for a month and half ... after which destiny had something else in the plate for me ... There were openings in PVG's COET college for the E& TC branch ... I applied for the same and fortunately got through ... (I thought.... atleast better than the DYP college) ... I struggled in the first year ... both academically and personally .... but the journey after that was a memorable one ... a typical engineering one ... Got all my best friends in engineering .... Harshad , Shardul , Shri , Shweta , Sopya , Rahulya , KRahulya , Chamya , Ketan ,Yogini , disha , amol , huddar and many more ... Got my bike in the 2002 ... one of my happiest moments again ... Trips , treks , crushes ... gossips ... sitting on the katta ... there was everything ... The bonding has become so strong that ... it'll be for lifetime now .... We all shared an amazing chemistry .... Bunking lectures , going for movies ... restaurants , sports etc etc ... was definitely memorable . badminton was not completely over for me .. I represented the college for all the four years ... Studying during the PLs was a nightmare ... then but when I look back now ... I definitely miss it ... Harshad and I use sit on the first bench .. we used to pass comments , blabbers etc etc ... never got caught since harshad was the favourite among the professors ... extremely sincere ... etc etc ... Ketan and I used to bunk lectures and hide from our professors ... only to gossip about the girls in the college ... Shweta and shardul hardly bunked any lectures :-) .. Shri was a true techie ... :) Chamya , rahulya K , rahulya T , sopya were the full TP gang we had ... constantly giggling and chit- chatting ... I had serious crushes then ... and that brings a smile on my face when I look back ... Summarizing these days were the best days .. there can be a separate write up on each of these phases ... But .... but ... I never knew the outcome of this ... i.e after engineering ....

Year 1999: We had a wooden badminton court in our colony ... rainy season was apt for badminton and football ... and hence we enjoyed the game every season along with the other sports ... but that summer was different... we had a badminton camp for the residents ... and I took part in it ... I was recommended for coaching ... and that was the beginning ... I started coaching sometime around 8th standard ... My progress was good .. and I used to play on wed , friday , sat and sun .. which was a special training batch ... It was fun meeting ,watching new faces there and play with them ... a kit bag , rackets ,shoes , shuttles ... was a different and satisfying experience ... Our summer camps were hectic ... since we had to be on ground at 5:30 am for training ... till 8 am ... and learnt many new exercises ... which includes double skipping , endurance running , slow-fast running .... the list goes on ..... I still remember those 80 min of endurance running ... that was a record for me ... Thane district tournament U-13 category was the first ever competitive tournament and my performance was pretty impressive ... where I was the runners-up in singles and doubles tournament. Since then , the training started becoming rigorous and the coaches expected more and more every time ... My day started with badminton and ended with badminton ... I started representing my school in inter-school tournaments .. where we won at the district level and also fared well at the zonal ... , represented Thane district twice ... it was all smooth ..... 10th standard is the stepping stone towards the career of any individual ..coz it decides the field you shall opt ... I was academically average till 10th standard ... and hence had to study well this time ... badminton was still important and I played all possible tournaments ... on different levels ... Last 2-3 months I studied as much as possible till the D-day ... The best part was that ... I was playing a tournament in Pune when my results came out ... I'd secured 81.73% in 10th which was a good score ... at least for me ... :) ... It was a trend that those who wish to play badminton should take up commerce as their specialization since you could devote more time to play ... coz we could hardly find any time after taking up science ... My parents wanted me to take up science ... and not commerce ... but I was adamant ... as I wanted to pursue badminton as my career ... Fate had something else written ... my chief coach came up to me and asked me ... "So what have you decided ? Science or commerce ? " I dont know what was going in my mind ... but I said science ... and that was it ... The downfall had begun ... my coaches couldn't concentrate on me ... since I devoted comparatively lesser time on baddy ... I got admission in one of the top colleges then .. through sports quota. I played a lot for the college and hardly attended any lectures in 11th . I played my last nationals at Vijayawada , AP where I qualified for the main draw. Things changed after that ... and I started concentrating on my studies since 12th was a very important year again .... Time passed on ...... there was a time it was my dream to come in the state team .. and I was moving steadily towards that goal ... but I ended up in something different. Reading the tournament results in the newspapers , those certificates , cheering etc etc .. all was fun ... but short lived ... now I was one of the many many aspiring engineers :D ...

Before 1999: I used to be very timid and kept a very low profile in school. Very few knew me in the school. Was interested in sports and was academically average ... that definitely hampered my growth ...my school days weren't exciting enough .. in fact I hate to look back at them .... I guess I lost out because of my school days ... Singing was my hobby ...and I'd enrolled for the Indian classical singing ... I learnt singing for around 3 years and gave the first two exams ... after which I somehow got tired of that ... and stopped the classes ... ( why the hell did I do that .. ) coz sports craze had taken over . Singing and sports up to certain extent justified my existence in school ...
3 years in infosys has taught me a lot of things. This company has an awesome infrastructure ... the workplace rocks !!! I've had good as well as bad experiences here ... moreover I've found the best people in my life :-) who have helped me through and taught me many things knowingly or unknowingly ... but still I think this is not the place where I should have been .... I'm still clueless about every little thing that has passed by ... If only I could go back in time ... undo certain phases and relive certain moments ....