My First Infy Open House

Even years of years of experience can’t teach etiquettes or bring a hint of maturity in some people. Infy’s one of employees displayed it quite successfully in front of some thousands people and most importantly in front of the most revered person in today’s entrepreneurial world, Mr. Narayan Murthy. It was embarrassing to see a 8 year experience software professional first interrupting Mr. Murthy in middle of his dialogue and then asking the most stupid question that anyone can ask in a company’s open house session. I had thought these sessions serve the purpose to address their queries, grievances or inputs directly to the topmost management and hearing their response then and there. But I guess this was wholly changed by that immature person by asking questions such as ‘Will we able to catch our bus after this?’ or ‘Was there a forest before this campus was constructed?’. And that is not all, after asking his dim-witted questions he had the audacity to run outside uttering ‘I have to catch my bus’ through the mike to everyone’s hearing.

But let’s leave him aside. This episode didn’t change the rest of the assembly. I was quite looking forward to attend this as I wanted to see the man in person myself. And so did most of my other thousand odd colleagues too because as Mr. Murthy entered everybody rose from their seats, pushing people around to catch a glimpse. He is definitely a celebrity in the IT universe. And why not as in 27 years he has put Infosys on the global IT map as one of the most reputed software firm. Starting with Rs 10,000 and 7 employees, it is now a 5 billion $ company with employee strength touching 100,000. But the man himself is a legend, an idol for most of today’s budding entrepreneurs.

Mr. Murthy spoke in length how he had started Infosys in Pune in 1981 and where the company has reached in 2008 and what it is going to achieve in 2018. He has a way to address the young crowd of Infosys which just binds everyone to shut up and listen to the visionary man at the dais in front of them. With little anecdotes about his personal life intermingled with his professional experience, he kept everyone listening. I especially liked the way he started his speech by reminiscing that 33 years back in Pune he was busy chasing his girl which now most of us would be doing now. That is the way to touch the young nerve, to make them like you in first few words and to make them hear rest all what he has to say.

At that moment, watching scores of Infoscions around me gathered to hear their chairman and chief mentor, for the first time in my career, made me feel happy and proud for the company I’m working for. No other CEO or MD or Chairman of any of my prior organization had such an effect, had such a charisma, and had such a larger that life persona as Mr. Murthy. And in none of those companies I have seen its employees enthusiastic to attend open house sessions.

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Memoirs of My Childhood - Those Games We Played

If I burrow into my memories further and further back, the earliest recollection of my life is that of my birth city Jammu. I can without doubt recall some of my early childhood days in my family’s ancestral house located in that city. That address of 49 B/B Gandhi Nagar Jammu, consisting of three bed-rooms, one living room, one kitchen, one splendid green lawn with a small kitchen garden and an immense verandah, is the abode with which I strongly connect. Even when my father was posted outside Jammu, visiting that house during vacations always enticed me. It was not just about the house only, but the city itself was a major attraction and is still one of my favorite cities. This first part of the series describe some of childhood days in that house.

During my early days, we were five occupants of the house: dadi (my grand-mother), mom, dad, chacha (my father’s brother) and, of course, me. I can dimly recollect our Labrador that we used to have, called as Ceelu. And I was afraid of that dog. So I don’t have very warm memories of him except that he was all black and, now I that I think of his actions, the most decent pet dog. I might have grown affectionate towards him if he had survived a little longer till I was seven or eight. They say that I used to spend most of the time in the big verandah at the front. As far as I remember, everyone else also used to spend most of their time in that area. I know I needed nobody for company because I was pretty much capable of occupying myself in my toys.

As years went by, number of dwellers of that house kept increasing. My brother was born, chacha got married and subsequently their two children were born. And as we all grew up together, that verandah was no longer my sole territory. Now there were cricket matches in that quarter and numerous new games were invented in that verandah, or that lawn, or anywhere within the perimeter of that old white house.

Then there was the roof-top without any side barriers for protection and which was connected through broken stairs. It was the destination during kite-flying season. I remember when that stair came down right in front of my eyes. I saw a mass of cement and bricks falling down and my dad landing on top of that. Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt but thinking back it was a funny scene. How he escaped unhurt through the iron rods of broken stairs is beyond my understanding. Afterwards, it was totally prohibited to go to that already restricted space without any supervision.

Those stairs were not the only thing that came down. Our neighbors were almost like a family. My chacha and their eldest son had grown up together and were best of friends and consequently their eldest sons also turned out to be very close friends. On one stormy night as we were busy watching TV inside, we heard a loud bang. The wall connecting the two houses had come down just like the stairs but unlike stairs it didn’t involve any human being. The wall like the stairs was never re-built, as long as we lived in that house. Surely, it gave us unlimited access to more ground for inventing new games.

I being the eldest of all was the leader in all those games except in few occasions when my elder cousin was visiting us when I had to give up that position. Sometimes, it was cricket or football match in the lawn or sometimes it was plain old hide-n-seek. But surely, every time there was a scolding from my grandmother for ruining the kitchen garden one way or the other. Later that garden cease to exist as it was impossible to control 4-5 children trampling the newly laid plants or saplings. Those were fun days whether it was scorching June heat or chilling January cold.

Those games are long gone from everybody’s memory. As we grew up, four of us moved out as it was getting small for two families. And few years later we sold that house. Nobody has been able to reconstruct it till date. It is still standing in its decrepit condition on those grounds. The wall is now built, though. But I’m not sure if the stairs met the same fate.

Ek Glassy, Do Glassy

My first encounter with alcohol was after finishing school. After gulping down a full bottle of beer amongst three of us, we were as happy as a father of new-born. It was a toast to much anticipated future college life. We were high just by thinking about it. But at the end of the day I was so petrified going home. If only my mother would have come to know, I would be writing this article from hell.

But, my first real experience of having that ultimate, heavenly, dizzy feeling of drunkenness came in my first semester in my college. That was the first night-out of our batch after two months of torturous ragging by seniors and non-stop schedule of lectures throughout the day. There were many experienced players in that bunch, but there were much more new-comers as well. Even the most experienced player was only 2-3 matches old. Experienced or not, everybody got clean bowled after finishing one beer bottle each. I was feeling so happy and relieved from tensions of studies. I knew that it was not the last time for me.

As we entered into our second semester, we were free from the chains of ragging and other restrictions that senior had imposed. Now it was time for me to go a level up, to get a taste of real drink - whiskey. After getting acclimatized to the taste of beer, there was no problem in swallowing whiskey with water. It was so much better than beer and still whiskey is my favorite drink amongst all. Afterwards, semester after semester, I kept discovering new drinks and new brands and savored them all.

And when I'm drunk I can converse on any topic for lengths. I might not be making sense but if everybody is else is also drunk like me; it will make whole lot of sense. I can give such speeches which could easily win me election for President of United States. Just I need to get started. In college, I always look forward to a drinks party just to have a chitchat on any topic. Otherwise, in a more sober state I'm more of a quite guy. I guess alcohol brings out the hidden person in everybody. Then there were times when a drinks party was necessary to mark any occasion no matter if it is sad or happy. Whether someone has given superb "Chak-De-Phatte" performance or terrible "Beda-Garak" performance, as the sun sets everybody was sitting at the same table having a drink or two.

Our group of nine was especially known as "No. 1" group. This title was not because we were some bunch of all-rounders who always stood at No. 1 position in every arena. But, unfortunately, it referred to a famous brand of whiskey at that time. Somehow we had gathered a false reputation of being No. 1 drunkards in the whole campus. I want this as proper opportunity to clarify to all those people (especially residents of girl's hostel), that we were not that bad. We were very sweet, innocent and cute bunch who tried to enjoy whatever that god-forsaken college had to offer. You would have liked us if you had given us a chance.

Well! We didn't bother about anything. And thus ended our four years of enjoyment in that totally lackluster college campus, when we came out of examination hall after last paper of last semester. But before we went our separate ways in search of a good life, we had a 3 days blast. And I needn't tell you who the chief guest in that blast was. Our good old "Daru ki Baatli".

After almost four years, I still remember each and every time we had a drinks party. I still remember, roughly, who all were present on those parties. I still remember the reason of each party. I still remember the aftermaths of each party. I still remember the two times when I was not able to recall anything about the party next morning. And I will always remember my whole "No. 1" group and the incessant fun we had.