Air india flight AI 656

Completing by client visit, i was scheduled to return back to Mumbai from cochin.

Though by travel was domestic, my flight was international.

The flight was a special flight by Indian airlines and destined to reach UAE via Mumbai. Infact my company booked this as this was the cheapest option avialble then. I had to give handover to my colleague, and so i thought why not give it on the day i have to fly. Since i had whole day with me. We started our sessions and it was like taking a hell lot of time. And finally as it happens always wid me before every travel, i was running short of time to reach airport. Although i knew i will make it up, as i have never missed train in my life, juz like kareena kapoor ka “JAB WE MET”. I left the customer premises at 1600 hours, well now i had enough time to make it to airport via hotel. I started off to reach hotel Excellency, it took me half an hour from the site. And then i remembered that yes, before leaving this place i need to clear up all the pending bills. Never mind, i had enough time. I made all the payments and str

ated check out procedure. I got an unexpected call from my Mumbai collegue and he asked to leave the laptop at hotel as he was coming there, this urged the need to data transfer. I had to transfer around 6 gb of data to my portable harddisk. I hurriedly started the process. I had company of my other collegues and friends already to disturb me in this situation. I was accompanied by a senior with me, who had to catch up the same flight. He was the most worried person as if he is the only in on this planet scheduled to fly before the world ends and it was 13^t December 2012.

Finally i was done and we left the hotel. We had hotel cab and some girls for company, ofcourse my office mates to be droped on the way to airport. Hurriedly we occupied our seats and the cab started. THAT was the time i remembered i didn’t had taken the printout of tickets. FUCK was the call and i got tensed. i immediately grabed my data card to opend my comapany’s email id. I mailed it to my gmail account and was searching for internet cafe. I had to take printout asap. I aked the cab driver to check for some cafe. Then i remembered that i had a friend at cochin who can help me out, i called him up and he was sitting at his office. I called him up, forwarded him mail and asked him to get a printout and come at the place where i was goin to drop females with us. The meeting of print out handover was a big square, right was airport and we crosses the signal and waited for my friend. I called him up and alias in this time of hurry he was standing at diagonally opposite end of the square. I got out of the cab and ran towards him, i did not was to miss the flight anyhow and bare the ticked money, on top of that my boss would have kicked me out. I ran like shahrukh khan of kuch kuch hota hai, to catch him. Finally i got him. Snatched the printout of my friends hand and ran towards the cab, bye bye to girls and we rushed towards the airport.

In all this drama, we realized that we didn’t had food. We stopped for a while and had famous banana chips of kerla. We reached airport just in time. Although a domesict fligh, we had to catch it up from cochin international airport. Airport was fantastic treat to eyes, far better than Mumbai international airport. We checked in to find that flight was delayed by 4 hours.We had a real hard time to kill. We watched the mallu movie shown at airport. I was fantasizing about the brave director who directed it. That's how i was looking at airport.

Finally the flight arrived and we started to board. Occupying a window seat i tried to rest back to find the lever welded out. Cushions repaired, overall the flight looked like being not used since years. The food tray was not sticking up. I was so frightened that i thought this to be my last flight. We i somehow enjoyed the flight with fear on back of my mind. I was playing

with

the knob to hold the food tray, i even hanged my boarding pass there. Yes, the same boarding pass that i m carrying with me in my hand in the snap above. We landed Mumbai airport. Ahhh.. what a feeling, as i had bad time at cochin, specially this hectic journey. But this was not he end. We had landed international airport. We passed through security checks after landing and the gaurd there then demanded for boarding pass. Fuck, where’s the pass. I checked by baggage, all pockets, bad i had a cargo with 10 pockets. I was looking fool searching alone until i had a comapnay, 1 more foreigner din had the pass .

We both looked in each other;s eyes and to gaurd. The foreigner searched hard and he found his. I was the alone traveller who din had boarding pass. All this bomb blast season forced the security gaurds at there best. He called up his seniors and they decied to check the manifest of the flight. My seniors already started to curse me. He was newly married and had his wife waiting for him in bed.I asked him to go ahead n go home as this would take time, Moron really left leaving me in despair. I stared to converse and convince the gaurd. She was a Marathi female. I started in Marathi. After all Mumbai was a city of Thakre’s. And i took the Raj thakre advantage. I told her about my identity. Showed her my pan card, driving license. Finally she let me go. Akhir baat karne se hi toh baat banti hai. This added to half hours delay.

I reached the baggage counter. I found my senior there still waiting for baggage. The baggage was not yet put on belts, reason being the airport athorites were waiting for some belt to get free. We had another half hours wait making our total dealy to 6 hours.

I remembered the rush we had to catch a delayed flight with delayed baggage with lost boarding card all the way coming to pune from the airport. To get a moral from this, start early when u have to travel n always check for tickets. You must be thinking why i m repeating this when we all know this very well n grown up. This is because this can happen with anyone of us anytime.

Heart Shocker..!!

Guys,
its more than a month now for me at tech Mahindra. Now i am much familiar with the colors of walls here, with the paint of furniture, my desktop (though its v. slow),canteen, cafeteria and ofcourse my cubicles mates. On back of me sits Saumil shete (a typical gujrati and similar to Amar shete at arrk) making our seats back to back and in front of Saumil sits Payal. The arrangements makes Payal to see my desktop from her place. Payal joined techM as fresher (referred as ITP'ians here) almost 2 years back. As far as i know her, she is talkative but not more. She works as a business analyst here.

It was a routine morning of 10th September 2008. i had a good nap in vashi-chandivali bus route to office and so was fresh. I had breakfast before reaching my cubicle located on 6th floor.

 Everything was in place and very normal. I logged on to my PC started checking mails, logged in 

messenger and started off with the days work. Today i was anticipately waiting for few mails. 

They were abt the exam results of two test which i underwent yesterday. They were "TechMahindra internal Security Awareness Test" and "Process Level 1" (these test's are mandatory for all employees joining here) These two exams i had taken on at my desk only which belonged to ISG (Internal Security Group) and had a 2 hours duration each. i had reference material with me and so could look up into those for help. i took help of saumil and payal also to solve some questions. i clicked Send/receive and the all mails popped up. The result were out and i had scored 64% in security awareness and 80% in process level 1 exam. But not to my expectations’, the passing percentage was varying for both the exams. I scored 64% whose passing was 80% and scored 80% whose passing was 60%.

It meant that i had failed in security awareness exam. Failing in exam was never new to me. I also do not get tired of giving repetitive exams. I also heard that there are more attempts’ for the exam to go, but then a mail popped up. Putting up shivers all over me. I was scared, frighten. The sense of fear gripped all over my body. My thumb went numb. The mail details were :

From : violation@techmahindra.com
Sub : Attempts exceeded for Security Awareness Test
Body : The ISG has concluded you to be an inadequate employee for not clearing the Security test in one attempt. This will have a bad impact on your appraisal. 

Next will be your last attempt before your termination of the job. Have a great day & learn to work hard.

I could immediately sense the fear of job lost. “What the F? Again?" came out of me at once. I worriedly called up my bro, Niks, who also works for TechMahindra and sits in pune office. 

I forwarded him the mail. He was startled. I asked him the seriousness behind this. He said last year, many attempts were allowed, they might have made it strict. Its serious. I looked around. Moved slowly to loo, thousands of thoughts moving in my mind. i walked to Rajnikant (My colleague) desk. He scolded me, stating "Who told you to give exam all alone? you should have taken up few people with you..!!" Later he clamed down and to ease me, said , "Tension Nakko..!!"

I came back to my desk, sat and turned around. Saumil and payal were working together. (They usually do so), they looked busy but i intervened, "Saumil, mujhe dhamki bhara mail aaya hai.." i narrated the story. Saumil replied "Tension mat le.. ek aur attempt hai na" Payal poked up "Saumil bahut cool hai, tumhara job jayega toh bhi yehi bolega, tension mat lo, doosra job mil jayega..!!"

I was at no time at ease. My brain retrograde. I looked anxiously at payal. She asked, "Who else you told this?" my reply was "i m thinking of dropping a mail to PM, he might help me out somehow" Saumil said, we have an implementation with which we could send mail, that time i tried to crack a joke in serious situation, juz to ease myself, "Shall we send the mail to ISG stating that you have sent a heart shocker mail to a sincere employee..!!" But till i finish the whole story got flashed on mind in seconds. The Mail was FAKE. Guys the mail was a FAKE mail. It was done by none other than Payal, She had a loud laugh and we all followed her laughter making a big noise. That point of time, no body in whole Premises might felt as relived as i did. Stone thrown in air comes down is very true. I did similar prank with others sometimes back on April fool day at arrk and now it was my turn.

Girl squared in yellow is payal.

The Ring Effect

The waves of Nagaon beach were still fresh in my minds and also the discussion which happend post dinner. One more game was out to play on and i tell you i hated this one like anything only because it gave the person standing right in front of you a chance to dig up deep on your weaker areas straight and directly. Intresting thing is that everybody knows his/her weekpoints. But feels bad about those when it falls on his ears with no voice of his own. In my case it was carrier. After coming back from picnic, when everybody else was getting fast back to their normal track, i was thinking of something else. The words of Sunil bowed deep in my heart. I thought for a moment that why always me in any sort of trap. Now what is this trap? Trap means incappabilities to overcome certain situation. What situation though ? Situation was the urge of time to move out of ****, I called Rash (Rashmi) and told her the situation and asked her solution to cope up with this. She smsed me back, "Dont' worry Swap, everybody is sailing in the same boat." but i was far beyond these convincing words. It was 1st May 2008, i in desperate mood opened up ms word and started keying the real facts, discussed in picnic about me. I needed a change, i needed a break from ****, But whose gonna give me that. There must be someone who has to come to my rescue. But who? Many of you would say ... Its no one but me / myself. But that's not true. You mean to say that i should start studing and crack interview calls and just do it as impossible is nothing. But if this was the case, then probably i would have seperated from **** long back.
So who will pull me out of this trance. In such a senario, most of us would ask the AllMighthy / GOD to come to rescue. I did the same thing but in an abrupt manner. I called my Mom and told her insane "Mom, Nothing great going on in LIFE, i am bored off this routine, only thing when i feel best is when i chill out with my friends, after that, all is same. Please try out some jyothish vidya stuff and check where my furutre lies." While talking on phone my eye catch the attention of ring on my ring finger (Apollo finger / 3rd finger), i continued on phone, "Hey Mom, i am wearing this ring since 1 st year of my engineering. it must have fadded in showing effects now. i wanna change this....." Mom's reply was affirmative and she immediately consulted a new jyotish and he suggested a new ring with RUBY (manik) stone. 10 days later i had it with me. A new sparking red ruby stone in my ring finger. I replaced the old one Red CORAL (moonga) with this new ring. Actually i dumbed the moonga ring.
I was the best in energy level since then, all psychologycal effect may be. After that i got some new work also. I did it quick in no time but nevertheless that was something i never expected to get wrong. The code bugged out and i was fallen prey for the act. Firing mails imediately exchanged between my bosses and i just looked at the ring. I was in a fix. Same night around 10, I informed Mom about the insidence. She asked me to cool down and this has nothing to do with The Ring Effect. Okay, i had to cool it down.
Things moved gradually... till the time came for me to depart. i.e. the 30th May 2008. Some call it black friday, others just couldn't say anything. All were stunned, all on ground zero.
Organisation was to be restructured and so they wanted 30 employess to make 30th May as their last day. Now what ? Was the next question. Just before that, Am i the one to go out? Was the second next question. The procedings for the same started and everybody was thinking if his own ass is safe or not ! I called Rash, i told her abt the situation and asked her opinion abt me, if i am on the list or not? She replied . "Tera naam hona toh nahi chahiye...." i got the answer. She meant that my name is on the list.
FUCK !! Is It me !! the answer was no..!! not yet..!!
Another list was to come in a month's time and there had to be my name for sure.
Now what, whom to blame, ****, to whom i owe almost everything, right from my underwear to my sunglasses? To Me, as i wasn't able to make justice to myself ? To the Dot Net Team, who were not able to move out past one and half year? Or to the Ring which i recently exchanged ? I again looked back with anger this time. Called Dad, Mom and told them about what happended. Poor parents had enough to back me in the crises situation, But things were beyond manipulation.

Deserted look of the empty bus after 30th May 2008.

Friday night, i beleive most of us couldn't sleep. That night tension kept me awake till almost the wee hours of morning. A flood of thoughts and images swam in my mind. I looked skywards into the rotating ceiling fan and felt like my own life is moving round and round, as mumndanely as the fan. Next 2 days i had rest considering weekend and took up with studies from monday morning. Meantime i was in regular touch with parents and asked Mom to clarify on the ring effect. On friday of the very week, Dad confirmed from his collegue cum jyothish that i should immediately put on the ring (moonga)which i dumbed. But this has to be done only on sunday before the sunrise.

I did the same, i woke up that sunday, befor sunrise i took bath and again exchanged the rings well befor the sunrise as told by jyotish, my Dad's collegue. But this time i did not dumbed the ruby ring, instead shifted that to left hand ring finger (3rd finger).

What a effect then, i couldnt belive myself what followed next. Amazing energy, amazing power, confidence so high just as Manmohan Singh has in presence of Sonia. With this ultimate power, i cracked TCS interview throughly. A perfect technical followed by superb management round and a soothing HR as the last round. Very soon Tech Mahindra in the next weeks.

Is this not intersting ? But again i tell you, to beleive it or not soley depends on individuals personality. Beleive it or not, i am still waiting for TCS offer letter up to date. :)