An Unknown Indian

I am a simple and fun loving guy from a small city. Very much passionate about gadgets and cell phones. Love to live prince style. Till now I have added 30 gig video iPod, Sony DSC T5 camera, one more ipod, Canon SX30 IS, Nokia E71 and all new HTC Desire HD into list of my owned gadgets.

Making friends, travelling to scenery and untouched places, chatting with friends are few of my hobbies. In my free time I love to hear old Hindi music and watch movies (mostly Hindi). Lata Mageshkar and Md. Rafi are my all time favourite.

My grandfather and my father influenced me a lot. I learnt to work hard and be focused on objective from both of them. They taught me to keep a perfect balance between work and responsibilities towards dear ones. I learnt basics of business concepts from them. I love to spend time with my grandfather and my father and learn from their experiences of life.

Among the famous personalities I am highly impressed by Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan because they didn’t had any readymade platform to grow. They started from very basic and placed themselves at the top of the world.

The Shape of My Early Life

It was morning 7:10 of 21^st August 1982 when I started my ultimate journey in this beautiful world in a middle class joint family residing in a small town Gaya in Bihar.

Brief about my birthplace

Gaya is 100 kilometres south of Patna, the capital city of Bihar. Situated on the banks of Falgu River (Niranjana, as mentioned in Ramayana), it is a place sanctified by both the Hindu and the Buddhist religions. It is surrounded by small rocky hills by three sides and the river flowing on the fourth (western) side. The city has a mix of natural surroundings, age old buildings and narrow bylanes. Gaya was a part of the ancient state Magadha. Bodhgaya is situated at 12 Km from Gaya where Gautam Buddha attained enlightenment.

To read more about Gaya please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaya,_India

To read more about Bodhgaya please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodh_Gaya

My Family

I born in a joint family. I feel myself lucky to see my great grandparents. I still have memories of both of them. My grandfather owns a jewellery shop and my father is a lawyer. My mother is a housewife. In addition to these people my three siblings completes my whole family as of now (as I am still single).

School Days

I spent very first six months of nursery in a local school named “Sri Sarasvati Sikhsha Sadan”. I left that school after getting a direct hit of duster by a teacher right below my eye and my counter attack on that. Then I moved to St. Paul School, Gaya for my early studies. Somehow I managed to complete seventh there. I left that school due to the fact that I was exceptionally weak in mathematics and eighth class math teacher was very strict. My sharp mind realized in advance that it is going to be really hard for me to survive even a single day without offering my hand for his stick.

Then I came to govt. school named Zila High School, Gaya. This school was COOL and all my basic necessity gets fulfilled. No need to study and no dress code. Not even need to come daily. But eventually I started taking interest in mathematics and very soon it was one of my favourite subjects. Still I was weak in studies or can say my laziness overpowers my studying interest.

Finally the day came when 10^th result was scheduled to get published on local newspaper. It was a great morning. I wake up very early and went to railway station to get the very first copy of newspaper. It was the first time when I was searching for a newspaper. I heard rumours that this year board results are really bad and only few students have managed to get 1^st division. My heart was really pumping out. I was very nervous. I opened the result page of newspaper and I saw the rumours were very correct but….

Somehow I managed to get first division in 10^th board. But it was a combined effort by me, Nitish Kumar, Rajiv Kr. Niraj and his father. I would take this opportunity to thank Rajiv’s father because without his co-ordination with guarding teachers and regular supply of answers, it was never so easy. God bless you. This co-ordination and interpersonal relationship get reflected in my board marksheet where I scored exactly 420.

Life after 10th board

Anyways, it was a celebration time for me. I proved myself in first battle of life. This celebration went so long that I forgot that studies are not over with 10^th…. 12^th is still to clear. Registration date passed, seats get full in both the top colleges of Gaya. Laziness again surpassed my studying interest. Finally I got admission in 3^rd best college for my 11^th, 12^th and so on, Mirza Ghalib College, Gaya. It was a Muslim college and on admission day itself I discovered a heart breaking and shocking info that there are separate classes for boys and girls. Boy’s lectures get started when girl’s lecture gets over. It was sad on human relationship building part.

I decided to protest against this discrimination and not to attend any lecture or practical during 11^th and 12^th. Now I had holidays 10 days a week. But I was missing the opportunity to look around college girls, flirting with them and build a solid base of my love story. Then my friend Rajiv Kumar Niraj (remember that 10^th board guy and his father) proved that a friend in need is a friend indeed. He was a student of most popular and top college of city, Gaya College, Gaya. His father again helped him in getting admission to such college after scoring 2^nd division in 10th. Ohh! Lucky son. That was a co-ed college and best girls of city found there. I started attending lectures in that college with my best friend. No matter what the subject is, we used to attend lectures with most and best girls. Our favourite subject was biology that time (I was a science student with Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics subject).

As I was still an average student, I started coaching for physics, chemistry and mathematics. In chemistry class, one day I saw my neighbour girl, Nitya Agarwal. I stared liking her. It was crush for sure. Her house was right adjacent to my cricket playground. I used to reach ground at sharp 4 PM daily without a miss after taking shower and getting well dressed. She used to come in her balcony and we stare each other for hours till natural light dims. Then we started talking on phone and meeting while coming out of chemistry coaching. Her coaching time was just before mine. She comes out when I enter. As I was good in chemistry and scored maximum marks in most of the tests, I was one of most favourite students of my chemistry teacher. I asked him to change my coaching timing and shift me to earlier batch. Now I was in her batch and our story get started.

For the second time I went my college to collect my 12^th marksheet and degree certificate. After completing 12^th I wanted to do Hotel Management, I don’t know why. But my father wanted me to become an engineer as my elder brother is also an engineer.  Also, my chemistry teacher used to tell me that I am good in chemistry so I should go ahead with it and try for IIT-JEE. I got similar feedback from my physics and mathematics teachers as well. I used to have talks with my chemistry teacher on IIT-JEE preparation and life after getting selected in IIT. What I interpreted that it was tough for only 1-2 years while preparing for it. After getting selected life is never lasting party.

I went Patna to start preparation for IIT-JEE and appeared for it for the first time in 2001. Ranked 21,000 in screening test and disqualified for the mains. One thing I came to know that IIT-JEE is in scope. It just requires a bit extra effort. I came back to my home in Gaya and worked really hard. One thing I was very sure that I have to crack screening because road after that is not that tough. Finally I cracked IIT-JEE in 2002 with All India Rank 3212. IIT Kharagpur was my venue for counseling. I preferred IIITM, Gwalior over IIT kgp, ISM Dhanbad and IT-BHU because that time IT was on boom and IIITM Gwalior was offering duel degree with B.Tech. In IT and MBA in just 5 years. IIITM Gwalior was my first preference and IIIT Allahabad was second. My first preference got executed and I was pulling up my shocks for a new journey to experience new taste of life….called Hostel Life.

Ohh…you must be curious to know what happened to my infatuation towards Nitya. Yes, it was certainly an infatuation. She got married just after 2 days of my IIT-JEE result.

A Long Way from Home

July 2002, this was the first time I was away from my home. I landed up at IIITM Gwalior. I have already mentioned few points on my early days at IIITM Gwalior in one of my blog. My elder brother came with me to ensure that I don’t miss my home during first few days. But I am a kind of person who always lives in local environment. I never missed my home at hostel. Actually I was excited to see this face of life. Rajiv was the first person I met in college. His room was adjacent to my room. We had single occupied rooms in hostel. As time passes, I added Rajiv, Amit, Sumit, Abhinit, Sid, Tanay, Aman, Pawan, Abhay, Sabarish and Rahul in list of my friends.

In early days we had only couple of lecture rooms and we need to go MITS for computer labs and Jivaji University for physics practicals. Also, our lecture schedule was 8 AM to 12 PM only. So we got plenty of time to spend together and to know each other. Afterall we all were just 12^th pass boys and desperately looking for friends. We used to have long BAKAR sessions till late nights about our ragging experiences. Those moments were simply priceless and unforgettable.

After one year our junior batch came and we became seniors. Now it’s our turn to rag. Slowly I came in contact with one of my junior. She was a sweet girl with very childish nature. Her favourite was Green Kurkure, Mirinda, Little Hearts and Chilly Chicken. I started talking her and very soon we became good friends. We started liking each other and something happened between us that were definitely far beyond the limits of friendship. Now it was a kind of routine that I have to go Girl’s Hostel at 6-7 PM and spend few hours with her. Then long phone calls and text exchange till late night. With her, I made friendship with the famousfive. I always loved to spend time with them. Then after one year things changed and due to some misunderstandings and miscommunications we get separated.

Life at IIITM was simply awesome and rocking. I captured lot of beautiful and never lasting memories of tours to Vaishnodevi, Mussoorie, Tighra Dam, Sonagiri, Datia palace, Agra and incidents attached to each of them. The best part of Gwalior was Fort which definitely was world’s best bar. We used to go there late night and drink at the top of the fort. The scenery view of Gwalior at night was awesome. I don’t have words to describe those moments.

Volga and cooks restaurants in Gwalior were our hot places for birthday treats and other parties. Late night trips to Rituraj dhaba and few other highway dhabas in chilled winter nights were incomparable. We used get assembled at 3-4 AM for food, take the bikes, go to those dhaba and spend time there till morning. Those memories are unforgettable for me and definitely for all others.

One night I was sitting in my room with Abhinit and Sumit at 4 AM. Suddenly we start discussing on Dominos double cheese crunch pizza. Now we were in mood to taste that at any cost. We planned to go Delhi to have it which was around 500 Kms from Gwalior. Then we searched for dominos outlet in Agra and we found one. Now there was nothing to stop us. We took Sabarish iyer with us and we five went Agra to have dominos double cheese crunch pizza.

My trip to US

It was end of my seventh semester. Everyone was looking for an internship opportunity that we were supposed to do after eighth semester as an academic curriculum. I was very much obsessed with abroad internship done by few of our seniors and decided to do my internship outside India only. I had a talk with Amit and both of us started flooding our resumes to companies outside India. Months passed and we didn’t get any response. Suddenly one fine day both of us got few positive mails. This brings new energy to our confidence. Finally both of us got internship offers. Amit got an offer from Ireland University and I got offer from Red Bricks Media, San Francisco. I was getting $8000 for three month internship which was much more than my expectations.

I finished my passport and Visa related work in 15-20 days and was ready to fly. I was extremely excited. On 7^th May 2006, I landed to San Francisco. I was totally lost and looking here and there. I belong to a very small town and I used to hear that “his son is in US” etc etc. and that day I was walking on the roads of USA.

I reached office at 4 PM. Elliott introduced me to everyone. I was very nervous as I didn’t saw any other Indian in office. But I find office so cool and people very friendly. Since that was Friday so I spent just 2 hours and came back to hotel. Now what? What about food? What to do? This came to my mind. That night somehow I managed to get some fruits and sandwich.

From next morning I was desperately looking for house. On Sunday I got a house and house owner came to pick me from hotel. Now I was relaxed. I stared liking that place. It was all looking like a dream. I used to spend all of my time in freaking out here and there and exploring places. I found Indian grocery store, Hindi cinema hall and few Indian restaurants as well.

Monday I reached office, a table was ready for me with a desktop and a laptop. When I logged in I got a mail describing my work for that week. Thank god, I was very much familiar with those works. On 15^th May 2006 I got my first salary as $1500. What a feeling it was. My own earned money. I left office early, went to circuit city and bought a 30 gig video iPod.

After completion of first month, Elliott offered me to join them after completion of my MBA. In June I was declared as employee of the month. I went Vegas during long weekend for a holiday. Vegas is amazing. I think everyone should go there atleast once.  On 3^rd August 2006, I left US and was coming back to my India with mixed emotions. I was returning back with many sweet memories. Memories of time I spent with Americans. By that time I was desperate to see my India, my own country and my own people.

I would thank my senior Ashish Thakral because he shown me photos of his US visit that encouraged me to go for an abroad internship.

Formation of NINE

After getting placed in various companies we decided to throw a placement party to our juniors with fog and booze obviously. But half of our batchmates disagreed on booze part. In this case Aman, Amit, Tanay, Sabarish, Rajiv, Pawan, Abhinit, Sumit and I (all these nine people are referenced as NINE here after) decided to give party to only selected juniors with whom we had friendly relations. The task of design, development and distribution of invitation card was given to me, Abhinit and Sumit. We three sit in my room and started thinking on the look of the invitation. The final outcome was superb. Very basic colours were used with least possible content. Simply outstanding thinking by three JEE qualified dudes. As we nine friends were throwing the party so just a NINE was written on the card with fire effect and black background.

And the party was so amazing that I have seen few juniors wrote captions like “300 is good but NINE is awesome” (300 is an English movie). NINE is seriously amazing. All fun loving guys and great friends. Can do anything for each other. I feel lucky to be a part of NINE. Love you guys.

Last days at IIITM

In last 6 months we start realizing that these golden days are about to end and countdown has already began. We started spending time as much as possible with each other. We had some awesome outings in that duration including a night out camping at nearby hill as well. Few people were busy with their CAT preparations. Once CAT gets over, we blast like anything. We were in mood to enjoy every single second of our remaining time at IIITM. It was our last semester and none of we NINE was interested in attending lectures or even studying during exams. For last one month our resolution was to drink atleast one beer each on every single day without a miss and we executed it perfectly.

Preceding night of our last exam in IIITM was great. Our juniors arranged a farewell party for NINE with a massive quota of whiskey and beer. We were drunk like heaven. Whiskey over beer, beer over whiskey…all mixed up. Then we had a water party. Next morning all were enjoying the hangover and Tanay was distributing lemon to each and every room. Afterall we had to get prepared for our final day exam and cover the syllabus in next half an hour. We all were still high during exam. No matter what the question is, we were writing whatever came to our mind. It was fun, totally fun.

During last couple of days a movie was released “Life Mein Kabhi Kabhi”. We used to hear a song of this movie “Hum Khushi ki chah mein…” all the time. It was a perfect timing of this movie release.

Finally the last day came. Regular trip to railway station was going on to say bye to friends with whom we spent our most beautiful five years. Eyes were wet everywhere. I was realizing that I am not going to see many of these faces again in my life or will see very occasionally. That was really a hard time. I wished if I could rollback those five years. But that was not possible. This is called journey of life. You have to accept this. But one thing I was very sure that I had best possible college life. I earned some lifelong assets like Amit, Tanay, Sumit, Abhinit, Pawan, Sabarish, Rajiv, and Aman. Without them life at IIITM would never been same.

I was travelling back to Gaya with flashing memories of last five years and wish to meet them again. I was joining Satyam with Tanay and Pawan.

Unfinished Journey: Twenty Five Years Later

After a long wait for offer letter, I finally reached Chennai on 30^th June 2007 with Pawan to start the journey of corporate life. We eight people from IIITM were struggling hard to
get our offer letters. Finally on 18^th of July we joined Satyam. It was good that Pawan and Tanay were also in Chennai itself. But in few days both of them got transferred to Hyderabad. Now life was really boring in Chennai. Absolutely no work in office and no friends in city. Then I came in contact with few of my seniors and I started enjoying life again with their company.

As time passes I made friendship with few more of my officemates. Also, I used to make regular trip to Hyderabad for NINE reunions during weekends. Those two days looks like heaven. Then again back to work. One and a half year passed like this only. Now everyone is busy in their life. And I am having fun with my roommates. Life was going smooth then suddenly….

An unfortunate incident happened with Satyam, the biggest ever corporate fraud done by Chairman Mr. Ramalinga Raju. I won’t go in detail of this incident because all details are available on internet.

Future is again in dark. Don’t know what will happen to this company. Don’t know what will happen to we 53,000 employees. Should I start looking for another job? Today is 20^th Jan and I don’t know I will get the next salary or not. Company is out of money. And between all these uncertainties I am sitting in office with absolutely no work and writing here.

To be continued…

The way I am

Till my 10^th I was very shy to people. I prefer to talk only to my friends and take time to be frank with strangers. Talking with girls was not a my cup of tea. This might be because since my childhood I spent all my time with my cousin Rajesh who is just one year elder to me. Also in school I had just a couple of friends. Only few people were familiar to me in my locality because I used to spend all my time in home only. In 9^th or 10^th I started interacting with locality boys and started playing with them. Also I had a very angry kind of nature. Fight every second day. My parents gave me a pearl ring that you can still find in my little figure.

I don’t know how and where I left my shyness and gained this flirty and easy going nature. Still I don’t find myself very comfortable with strangers but now I take fewer meetings to become frank and this number of meetings varies with person and gender. I find myself very emotional in many occasions especially for my friends and family. And as far as my angry nature is concerned…. That has been taken care by pearl ring.

I am an average by physical build or you can call it slim. God has gifted me a good height of 6’1”. In recent one year I put some weight as well. I came Chennai with a weight of 67kg and 30 waist. Now I am 82 kg with 36 waist. People usually call it “Hawa paani suit kar gaya”…and actually mujhe Chennai ka HAWA and PAANI suit kar gaya tha.

I don’t know I am spiritual or not. I am not a regular temple visitor and truly speaking I don’t know how to pray. I never take more than 1 minute in pray. But at the same time I feel myself relaxed in temples. I have visited couple of times and love to visit holy places like Vaishnodevi, Baidhnath Dham in Jharkhand and few local temples in Gaya. I don’t know I go these places as a prayer or a tourist.

Personal Memories

Best time of my life

I must say till now I met many good people and experienced lots of sweet and memorable reminiscences. Those gaieties are still fresh in my mind. If I start to list down my favourite times then I will definitely keep time spent with my family on top followed by three months of my B. Tech. project, three months I spent in US during my internship, those BAKAR sessions with NINE, time spent with my junior girl and rest of famousfive. But if you will ask me about the best time I had then I would definitely say that best and most special time of my life is……

Time spent with her – She is the girl I always wanted to marry with. I know I have not mentioned her name or even a small description about her anywhere in my biography. I did this very intentionally. This is because this part is very personal to me and I want to keep all her memories limited to me only. We first met in 1998. We used to meet very occasionally and get very less time to spend with each other. Sometimes once in six months or once in a year. Those small patches of time will always remain best time of my life. Those memories are so special that I can easily recall every second of that.

Most embarrassing day of my life

It was 11^th November 2000, just like a normal day I was playing cricket on the same playground. I hit a ball towards long-on boundary. It hits the flag of RSS (Rastriye Swamsevak Sangh). One of them threw the ball to river. That time I had a very angry kind of nature. I asked him to get the ball. He simply refused. I hit him with my bat on his head and in a few seconds it was all blood on his head. Somebody called the police and they took me to the police station in front of the entire locality including NityaL. I spent four hours at police station (not in lockup). My father came and negotiations happened between him and RSS people. All RSS people knew me very well because I was in RSS for seven years. Finally I came home at 11 PM. This I would call the most embarrassing day of my life.

Out of My Life and Thought

My secret to happiness and living a good life

I think the biggest secret of my happiness is I live in IS with least bothering about WAS and WILL. Because it’s now when I am learning lessons from what went wrong and when I did well in past. Also it’s now when I am planning for my future. I am not saying I never bother about WAS and WILL. Ofcourse I do. Afterall I am a human and its human basic nature to think. You can’t avoid it.

For me the people around me right now are my family and my gang. I try to enjoy with them only because there must be atleast one common thing between me and him/her for sure. All I need to do is to find that and just start.

Also there are many things that make me happy. This includes old Hindi songs, movies, articles about gadgets and cell phones, websites of gadgets and cell phones,
orkutting, chatting with friends, talking to parents, visiting profiles of strangers and inviting them for friendship, looking at photographs of past days and sharing them with friends etc etc.

Few important life lessons I have learned

• Love is beautiful and best feeling. Do experience it atleast once in life.
• Faith and Transparency are two biggest and strongest pillars of any relationship.
• Emotions, expectations and attraction always hurt.
• Most relationships end due to absence of proper communication at correct time.
• Every relationship has its own limits. Either be in that limit or lose the relation.
• And above all….Girls are best creation of God, spread your love on each of them.