Mumbai Slice -- Are you kind of Married?

Now for the big revelation, I had joined TCS in Mumbai. The office : Suren Road , Banyan Park. Man! that was an office you would kill to be in. A resort in the middle of Andheri East. Flanked by The Landmark building, Eagle's flight Cine max Multiplex and The TOI office, this 23 acre forest area houses one of the best looking offices I have ever seen. IT also has a beautiful guest house and this place boasts of a wide range of flora and fauna. Not to mention a cottage like canteen with great food , a tennis court and a beautiful training room. I was supposed to be here for 1 month for the training, yummy.

Now for the Training part, the class was a mix bag ... a treat for a director who wanted a film on national Integration. All the South states were represented, so was Gujrat, MP , Delhi/Punjab, Haryana, Orissa, Bengal and of course the Home state of Mahrashta which was also amply represented. The majority infact came from a Mumbai engg college, Shah and Anchor.Some with prior(about 1 year) experience like myself and the rest from colleges from different parts of India. There were some memorable People. There was one Priyesh Parmar --> no ya! thaat eez not the waayyyy yah! n yeah! I am not talking about "ansoo" in this part. Chirag Sah --> from Vapi, who would always introduce himself as: Hello! ME, Myself Chirag sah from Vapi, which incidently felt like he had 3 souls trapped in him, he, himself and someone named chirag sah! There was some mallu lady, a beautiful girl, unfortunately married :) I think her name was Sangeeta (not sure though). Chomu from Bokharo (oblivious to the fact that Sangeeta was Married) --> forgot his real name. Then there was the Standard Laxmi chhaap FIRE CRACKER from Miranda House Delhi the one and only unique piece ... Anshu Gupta, she always made it a point to tell everyone that she had an imaginary husband from Bhatinda and 2 Kids. This never ever failed to break Priyesh's heart. Finally an Andhrite Srikiran Goli, I remember him for one act of nobility on the penultimate day of the training schedule. This guy never spoke more than 25 words during the entire Training of 30 days,but he was destined to make history! He stood up during the feedback session which was attended by the head of training Mumbai,held his UI training manual and said: "I have no Idea why this book was ever though of. It makes no sense and should be thrown to the dust bin", a comment which made us, the attendees squirm and the people on the dais were lost for words. Their wide eyes and open mouths were a sight for sore eyes. It took a looooong minute before they regained their composure and mumbled something and changed the Topic. Then there was Soumyakanta Sahu (Kaanta Laga ... Bhude wai!!! ), Phukkad, Naman Kuwadia ... a great joker someone who you could spend an evening n go home with a hearty laugh. Then there was the team I was in .. There was Janardhanan V (Jenny), a Punju BOSS DK I dont remember his name and there was Janardhan's friend from his locality.

This probably was the best time I had in TCS. Though my friends said that was not comparable to Trivandrum. Days passed with Priyesh being the butt of jokes on Anshu who in turn pulled Priyesh's leg by heralding that she was married and had 2 kids, which broke Priyesh's heart in a million pieces. Back to chomu ...why was he called Chomu? cause he said it was a code word for some slang which was used in his college so that girls did not know that the guys were hurling abuses.There was this incident of incidents. It was some afternoon and half the class was in the cafeteria I had no place to sit with my project team, hence was sitting with Goli, Priyesh,and Soumyakanta and then there was Sangeeta sitting with the us. I observed Chomu coming from far, with a confused look on his face and his heart pounding like a 10 tonne press. He comes close to us and asks Sangeeta "Are you some kind of married?", Chomu genuinely looked dejected! What was he thinking when he was asking this question? ... beats me! Sangeeta who was sipping on the soup dropped the spoon into the bowl and with an equally confused look on the face shot back, "what do you mean by SOME KIND OF"? Chomu went cold. He had no answer, eads of sweat on his forehead, he said, "I mean are you married?", Sangeeta smiled and said, "YES, unfortunately" Chomu's questions, a comment which will go on as one of the best ones in comment history! End of Training I was sent to Borivili GDC office.