Training day

I couldn't feel my fingers. My cheeks were getting number as I zipped through the empty Bangalore roads, (no I am not kidding, they were empty!) at 7:00 AM. I had to catch a bus from point A to point B and no sane person would dare to drive him/herself from any point to point B.

I would never drive to point B. Yes, I'm a smart ass.

I had registered for a training session with great alacrity, a week or so back, and was really looking forward to it. I comfortably seated myself at the back row,ahh brings back college memories. The whole bus was quiet. It felt like we are prisoners being take to work. I made some smalltalk with people around, who all happened to be sleeping. To lessen the pain of rejection I looked outside the window to see everyone moving backward while I leapt forwards. It was a great feeling of accomplishment.

My feeling of greatness was short lived as I was handed sheet wherein I was supposed to write my name and employee code. Why ??? With a great struggle I somehow wrote my name only to realize it was all over the place. Was it my company's version of a DUI(Driving Under Influence) test ? Only here we are to show our talent by writing legibly and within the 2 lines while the bus swerved and bounced at 70 kmph.

On shamelessly failing the test with a hysterical laugh I woke up a few guys and they saw me pointing to a board which read "...(A subsidiary of something else)" ! LOL. Someone in this planet actually has a sense of humor and the balls to display it on a huge board above his store. Only later I realized "something else" was the name of the adjacent shop. The guy lost all my respect. Loser.

So now I'm sitting in a training session. I had a PC in front of me which actually had a working internet connection and ofcourse in such a situation the most obvious thing I did is to look at the local intranet webpage. Brilliant.

The trainer was a decent chap. He was slim and in a jacket. He had long hair. Kinda looked like a stud. The only thing that worried me was that he kept staring at me. It was like I was the only person in the god damn room. Did he realize that I was the only doofus around ? Or was he one of those few who spotted me to be one of the Intelligentsia? Or was it something else ?Whatever be the reason, we made loads of eye contact and I shied away like a little girl behind her mother.

I was petrified.

During the break he approached me. I was alone. I saw him walking towards me and quickly turned my gaze to my monitor pretending I was deep in some research work. He pulled a chair beside me and laid a hand on my thigh and said in a deep tone "So you come here often ? "
Oops. I am getting carried away. But it was quite possible. He sat beside me and enquired in a reassuring tone whether I was struggling with something. I almost lifted my skirt and ran out of there if one other guy hadn't accosted him. phew.

Sharp 5:30 I ran to the stop to catch the cab where again I was presented with the arduous task of passing our company's version of the DUI, only this time I wrote my name over the lady's name. It was dark ok.

The cab could hardly seat 9 guys and all of them were on their mobiles bombarding my ear drums with eclectic tones. Why do people talk to others miles away when don't even look at the person beside them ?

People are weird.

I really feel awkward gossiping on a mobile when people are around. Not only do I find it unhealthy but its insulting to the people sitting around you waiting for you to get off the phone so they can have a bit of you.

With a not so good experience today, I am a bit skeptical about the next 2 days. It was quite a boring session like all other sessions. I can't sit in one place for long and that too without talking/chatting with someone. I like to talk.
Gawdddddd.
I couldn't take it anymore.Through out the session I kept telling to myself, "common Shalabh, you have done your engg. You have seen the best of the worst. This is nothing". Yea, but he is a corporate trainer. My company could not have shelled out loads of money on a jerk. He has got to be good. Its all in my mind. I must listen attentively. Yes!

Must listen to brain.

I took my eyes of the intraweb page with a command from an almost dysfunctional cranium and heard the dude say "Tomorrow we shall do .....*static*....... I have a few problem sets ........*static*......... they are unsolvable .......*static*...... but we must solve them".

Thats it. Its official. I am calling it quits tomorrow.

D-Day

Like every year, this time too my happy birthday landed on 24th Nov. All the 'anticapation' and excitement is now over. My arse hurts a bit, not because I sit on it all day long, but because of the N number of boots that got a chance to kiss it on that eventful day.

It was a decent morning, and I was amongst the first few guys to arrive in a dimly lit office. Soon my inbox was inundated with mails with warnings in them. Never in my life had I read such well crafted mails. Short. Laconic. Intimidating. Don Corleone, learn.
No sooner did I get off the phone with my friend, I found myself being escorted by 20+ guys to a remote place. I kinda felt like MJ, you know how people are always out to get him for all the reasons,good and bad. That was my 2 sec of fame. Next thing I knew my butt was making a lot of new acquaintances. I could totally relate to Bond in Casino Royale.

Finally the session ended, but I never told them anything. Just like the movie. Nor did they ask anything. Unlike the flick. As I doddered back to my cube, my friend in a very nice manner urged me to join him for coffee on the terrace, which was a trap. Again I was kicked to death. The whole morning went on like that. People would come by, wish me, pop in a coupleasweets, and kick me arounf like a cheap whore and that too for FREE!

The next day I was dragged by my friend to college to apparently collect our marks card, which again was a trap! Yes how gulible of me. After another round of boots, making it 6 in total, I really began to felt the pain on my right bun. For some funny reason, all the bumps I got were from the left side. But I guess the cakes, yea, cakeS, one in office and one in college, made up for most of it.

One thing that annoys me the most is my name begin misspelt. My name is spelt as Shalabh. Usually one of the h's gets knocked off, and most the last one. So here I am screaming "cake! cake! cake!" and out comes this real swell litchi cake with read "Happy Birthday Shalab". What the... !

I can't see my name being thrashed around like that.

Shalabh is real kewl name. Its got a lovely philosophical meaning to it.Its unique. A guy who happened to have my name(Grrrr!) apparently used to get clobbered by his girl for his name and he happened to read my interpretation of the name Shalabh and then wrote back to thank me for now his girlfriend stopped teasing him about his name and infact respects him and loves him twofold.
So here I am with such an awesome name that commands respect(read incident above) and these people thrash my ego with "Shalab". One of the biggest insults that you could do to a man is misspell his name or mispronounce it. So what do I do ?

Nothing.

Just cut the cake as quickly as I could and enjoyed it to fullest and now bitch about it in some devoid place.
As the eventful day was nearing its demise, I was walking with my friend and when I realised how duped I was.Those cheeky guys had included the cake bill along with my treat. So infact, I had actually paid for my name to be spelt wrong!

Birthday Season!

Today after a long time I visited my friend's blog when I realised that I too could kill time by writing crap in my own space. And what better way to resume from my long break than in the Birthday season.

Its birthdays all around this November, and mine is just 2 days away. Yea, I am supposed to be really happy, but then when I look around all I see is people grinning at me; the kind of grin that a person sports when he see's his mother-in-law drive off a cliff. They are all out to get me. And the best part is I have known them for like only 2-3 months now and yet they are eager to get their hands on me. Yea, I do tend to leave an everlasting impression on people, *ahem*, and it seems not a very good one.

This time around, 8-9 years back was when I got my first memorable birthday gift. It was from a girl in my school who was my batch mate but in a different section. As usual I walked upto the bus stop in my snow white uniform with an aptly knotted tie. I bet you would have picked me up and kissed me all over, were you there. Atleast I know one girl who would have about whom I may write about someother time.

So, I walk to the bus stop and there Ashwini smiles and says "Happy Birthday, Shalabh" and hands me a card made of notebook paper and some drawings with wool stuck to it to denote the dress/plants and stuff. Man was I taken aback or what! For one she actually remembered my birthday which I had mentioned months ago in a casual convo, but she made me a card!!

I was born on 24th November, 1984, and according to the Chinese calander I am a RAT. Supposedly RATS are very cool people, so I am, and RATS are really cool, which again I am.
And I am told that the most catchy thing about RATS is that they don't give a lot of stuff to others. But at times they tend to give things to people only whom they cherrish. Hmmm so the next time you get something from me, with a little devilish mind you can totally exploit me. yikes!

Now I known that earlier I would have made Ashwini a card or two. Infact I might have made her one, but I don't remember.

I am the creative kind you know.I have lots of things on my mind and tend to be a bit distraught at times.

What I vividly remember is how moved I was when she gave me the card. It was silly(not in a derogatory way) and simple but I was deeply touched by her gesture. It is one of the best moments of my life. I felt the same when I was in my 2nd year engg. I was walking down the road near college when I met my colony friend Chaitra, or Chy as we dearly call him, and out of the blue he wished me! He was the last person on earth I would have expected to remember my birthday. I was seeing him after years. Its these subtleties of life that we look forward to each day. I love being surprised; and I love surprising others like today when I gifted my friend a Simpsons DVD. She was totally thrilled and it felt real nice to see the natural happy look on her face. After all her 'thank yous' which embarrassed me ,I made my way to my cubicle where I surprised my neighbour by giving him an almost nude, lest be it for the cursed leaves, Shakira poster and he and the others around surprised me by giving me birthday bumps, while caliming it to be a practice session...