The First Cry

They say when a woman becomes mother, her womanhood attains completion. Not sure about the correctness of this statement, but the woman in me has sure become a mother and she sure feels more beautiful now.

How unpredictable life is – last year this time, having a baby in near future was nowhere in our plan. But (somehow) the plan soon changed.  After doing a short analysis of our readiness, I and my husband decided to welcome a new family member!

And soon by god’s grace the most precious news arrived us. The new soul had made room in our life already.

We chose a nearby hospital with a good obstetrician, after checking out reviews. A more disciplined lifestyle including balanced diet, proper sleep, distance from stress and so on, followed next. I bought a good book on pregnancy that I referred to right till the end. I tried to refrain from old wives’ tales and to strictly follow my doctor throughout.

I continued going to office till the eighth month, though I had made up my mind well in advance that I may have to discontinue work due to medical non fitness at any stage of pregnancy. But fortunately all went well and I worked till the date I wanted.

Baby was due in August last week. And as July started, so did my anxiety. The date though more than a month far, was approaching at a fast pace. The thought that eight months have passed already gave me jitters. There also was a sense of achievement that I have successfully nurtured a baby in my womb for quite a period!  July passed somehow – it felt like years though. Now the D day could be any day, as I had read that the baby may arrive any day plus or minus few days of the estimated delivery date.

August being the most awaited time of our life, started with high degree of anxiety, impatience and energy. The image of my baby in my mind got firmer each day. The thought that soon I will have my angel in my hands was in itself a divinity.

I unfortunately picked up dengue in the first week of August and it was lowering my platelets count each day. With no other major symptoms showing up yet, the only thing bothering was the rapidly reducing platelets count. This was accompanied by a low fever that still was bearable. A major concern was that the baby shouldn’t catch the infection.

Doctor called me for a couple of blood tests. On analysing the report it was decided not to wait any further (it was my 38th week of pregnancy, already). Yes, that was the day!

The shear news that i would be operated within an hour, gave the unprepared me chills. It was so quick that i and my husband could hardly get time to inform relatives about it. I was quickly shifted to the ward where all the crude things started happening. A set of nurses came and changed my dress to a loose fitting dressing gown. A catheter was inserted as i could not move out for next couple of days. Few more gross things happened that would be inappropriate to be mentioned here.

Within minutes my doctor came to examine me and my baby. Next, a wheelchair was brought and i was transferred to the OT. i was asked to lie down on the operation table. A batch of doctors was already present there. My doctor was explaining them my and baby’s current status. The anesthesiologist asked me to stay calm as he could clearly figure out my nervousness. I was scared like a chicken. All the sweet dreams of holding the baby for the first time had taken a back seat. All i wanted at that time was to survive that surgery. A couple of IVs were pricked, one being platelet transfusion. I was next given anesthesia in my backbone. Seconds later i couldn’t feel my lower body. I was then blindfolded. I could hear everything happening around and could feel some vibrations on the table. I had surrendered myself to the godly doctors present there. My ears were literally dying to hear that ‘first cry’!

I was dizzy and all ears at the same time. Minutes passed like that. Finally after about half an hour i heard a feeble shriek. But it was so low and short that it got me thinking if this was the one i was waiting for. Then there was silence. Doctors were on with their work though. I could feel some activities still on. A nurse in a corner said - ‘2:43:06’. Was that the birth time of my baby?

Finally i bumbled with the blindfold still on - “How is my baby?”. My doc replied - “Your baby is absolutely fine. Nurse is cleaning him”. I felt like crying. Entire nine months of carrying flashed back. All pains gone. My eyes were pining for baby’s sight.

Few minutes later another doc present there brought him near me and my baby was looking at me with his eyes wide open!  I kissed his soft feet and they took him to the NICU for examination. They shifted me to my ward. After a long wait of around eight hours we finally got him back. He was asleep all cozy in hospital muslin.

I felt like jumping and grabbing my baby but the pain of stitch held me back. Still I managed to cuddle him. The feeling can't be expressed what it was !

An eternal connection was made as he latched for feed. That moment and now are not much different. Just that his toes have grown a bit - I handle his poo better for sure  - I sleep a little less now - he loves me a little more!

When Last

When last

You hung on to a singing bird

When last

The smell of rain captured you

 When last

You felt deep the flowing breeze

When last

A rainbow captivated you

When last

You fingered through a touch-me-not

When last

A row of ants distracted you

When last
You sniffed through pages of a book
When last
A child’s innocence brought smile to you

When last

You admired a blooming bud

When last
The dew drops enthralled you

When last

You gazed at a shooting star

When last

The sunset becharmed you

When last

You drew deep the air of dawn

When last

A heartbeat enraptured you

When last

You zoomed out of daily chores

When last

You stopped by nature not far, but around you

402-A

Pretha lived in an apartment 402-A in East Bangalore. She was a housewife with two little kids. Her husband Raj was a serviceman with a very busy schedule at work. He loved them but could hardly buy any time for his family which he was rueful for.

It was a weekend night when she alongwith her kids was waiting for him to come back from his overtime work. She had prepared his favourite dish for dinner. It was quarter past ten as her phone rang. She rushed to get it expecting his call. But the number flashing was an unknown one. When she recieved the call, the voice on the other side said that her husband has met with an accident on the highway and is in a hospital.

Hearing this she went numb for a while. She somehow managed to rush to the hospital counter and asked for his ward number. The receptionist searched through his database and reported that there was no patient with his name. She insisted that the phone call gave her this address only. But the person on the counter refused again.

She quickly visited her phone call history but failed to find the number that had called her. She had probably deleted the number by mistake. Her anxiety augmented. She didn't know what to do or whom to ask for help.

An elderly man observing her restlessness suggested her to try calling her husband’s phone just in case he answers. This was much of a common sense thing but under the haze of worry she had not thought of this option.

She quickly reached out to her phone and dialed his number. The bell rang. But no one answered. Tears mixed with her sweat of worry trickled down her cheek. She only wished in her subconscious mind that it were just a bad dream.

Just when she had almost given up her hope on the situation, her phone rang. No, it was not him. She lost her consciousness and fell there. The old man took the phone and received the call. It was her neighbor Rita who in an anxious voice, without hearing this old man, said, ‘Pretha where are you? Your kids were running out of the apartment and your door was ajar. Why can’t you be careful with your kids and home? Please come back from wherever you are as they are crying and looking out for you.’

This man replied that she has come to the hospital looking for her husband who has met with an accident. She promptly replied, ‘her Husband who died two years back, has met with an accident!!’, and she took a deep breath, having understood what just happened. But the man still seemed perplexed.

Then she explained him the tragedy about Pretha. “True that her husband died in a road accident. But it had happened two years back. And Pretha is since then under a deep trauma, from which she has yet not recovered. She keeps waiting for him everyday and at times when her adrenaline rush is really low, she ends up hallucinating about him in different ways like this one”.

Rita came to the hospital and took her back home. Pretha’s kids came running and jumped into her arms. Pretha realized that what just happened was just another sour outcome of her misery. She loved her husband badly and could still not recover from the pain of his loss.

She used to engage herself with her kids. She was under medication to battle her depression.   But at times when her soul failed to fight strong, the medicines would also fail. Life went on with her relatives and friends visiting her now and then.

One day when her kids came back from school, they saw a herd of people including the relatives standing in their house. In a corner was their mother’s dead body lying. Their granny held them and took to the other room where they learnt that earlier that day their mom had hung herself from the ceiling fan. This was indeed a shock of their life.

They were taken to their grandparents who took their charge and started looking after them from then. The kids by now had learnt that their life was not as gifted as their friends. But they had to learn to live and to fight all odds, to succeed in life.

402-A was gradually declared a haunted house as the people around often complained that they heard human voices coming from the locked house. And that they heard sounds – of Rita singing - her husband laughing – the (already disconnected) landline phone ringing – and so on.  

Sound of Calm

In water pool – wide and blue
I let my self go afloat
Lying on the surface – all let loose
Gazing up  – Like abandoned boat

With water swinging by my back
And bubbly waves singing up there
I feel a warmth of stream that flows
And lub-dub of my heartbeat clear

My ears rest under the surface blue
Eyes open under the cloudy sky
I feel my breath and blood all through
And soul going up – up one note high 

The pristine pool that holds me high
Whispers by my soul so blue
‘Stop running hopping wide around
The gift of calm ‘s inside of You’

Murphy's Law in Recruitment Drives

I am an IT professional with a handful of experience now on appearing in interviews.  I reside in the city popularly nick named as ‘the IT hub of India’. But one cannot be sure here that he or she would be selected even after a hunky-dory performance in interview. Not because of one’s flop show, but quite often because of a sloppy recruitment process and management.

Not only I, but few others of my acquaintances too have had this irksome experience of being a part of some sagging recruitment drive. I once had a telephonic round of interview scheduled at 10 am on a weekday. I had taken permission of the project manager of my erstwhile organization to come late to office that day, obviously not to attend the interview but for an ‘urgent personal work’. I at my residence was ready and set for the call. The interviewer was punctual enough to ring me up at dot ten. The interview went well. It was one of my dream companies to work with. The interviewer’s response by the end was quite positive. But a protocol is, they do not declare then, if the candidate has been selected or rejected.  So I was not apprised of my result at that time. I waited till the weekend. The very next Monday I received a mail from the recruitment team, ‘since you did not attend the scheduled interview, it has been marked as null and void. Please re-schedule your appointment’.

This was one example. Another not so happening event happened when I was called for a face to face interview in another company. As was expected, I along with a bunch of other candidates for different skill sets had reached the venue on time, i.e. 9 am. The interview didn’t start even till lunch time. We were patiently waiting for it to begin at the least, forget about the wait for our individual turns. On inquiring, one of the volunteers said the interview panel has not yet arrived.

 As if this was not enough to outrage our restless souls, another one fibbed, the panel is interviewing another set of candidates. We were wondering if they were interviewing some ghostly null set, as we - the union of candidates that was sitting together - were the only ones in the entire set. In a while another volunteer reported - panel has left for lunch, we could break too, for next half an hour.

Clutching our emotions together, we left for lunch and came back in another half an hour. We were told to further wait for few more minutes. And the interview finally began. I was eagerly and later lethargically waiting for the call. It was only 5 pm when I realized there is something wrong. I should have been called by then. My bad for a late response. On inquiring I found they had somehow misplaced my resume, which I had submitted in the morning. The candidates were being called in the order they had submitted their resume. But my call never came. They apologized, but my peeved mind was in no mood to entertain any further nuisance. By the time they managed my entry to the interview hall, it was the time for the panel to call for the day. I was genteelly requested to leave and was apologized for the discomfort.

These are couple of the most common problems faced now and then, during recruitment drives. And unfortunately these incidents keep repeating and go unnoticed. Not sure where the lag is, but the needy and unfortunate candidates are at times punished in disguise due to sagging recruitment management process.

Not to forget, there definitely are the lucky chaps who do not get to suffer so much on these events and do crack the interviews without any hassle, just by dint of their talent and proper delivery. But as the Murphy’s law goes - Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

This is quite apprehensive that the recruitment drive cannot be made completely lucid. But a little more clarity and docility in these processes need to be heeded better by the recruitment teams of most of the renowned organizations. For such pesky and troublesome incidents prove to be bane for the few talented but unfortunate lots.

Cheers to the Mothers !!

The 2 month old baby –  that was shielded by his mother who jumped off 5^th floor upon the outbreak of that super earthquake in Nepal – would have hardly realized the gravity of this matter.

A journalist was trying to interview that mother in grief. She had to get one of her legs amputated as it was severely damaged and had wounds that were fatal. Though she could not be interviewed, the journalist later described about her –  she used to live in a tall building. When the sudden quake struck, she saw her apartment swinging like a pendulum, and she was inside it. It took her few seconds to realize that it was an earthquake – a major one. She hurried to her baby sleeping in the cradle. Took him and ran towards the balcony to jump off, without ado. She knew she had no time to take the stairs, five floors down.

She tightly hugged her baby and jumped off, leaving the consequences in the hands of God. To a great surprise, she was still alive down there, with a crushed leg and broken back. But to a greater surprise, the baby was fine with a minor bruise – such was the shield of her arms.

This is the mother-child bond, stronger than the strongest of bonds. Just like that innocent infant, many of us ignore the fact that our mothers have borne innumerable pains just to see us smile. The purity of a mother’s love is undefined.

Thanks to the God for creating mothers, and to the USA – for bringing up the idea of mother’s day celebration. I wish a very happy mother’s day to all the mothers. Let’s celebrate it in our own best ways, whether or not our mothers are there with us! A mere convey of love and respect through words or through some other creative gesture may mean a lot to them! Let us not miss to make them feel special, on this special day!

Once an Infoscion, Always an Infoscion

5 January 2011 – Infosys came to our campus and selected a bunch of students for internship batch. We were super-elated and excited to enter the corporate world. We, the final semester students had been given the task to work with Infosys and submit the project in college by the end of that semester. 

GEC 2 - Mysore

31 January 2011 – We reached Infosys Mysore campus. As we entered the Infy arena through the main gate, our jaws dropped with the phenomenal beauty of Mysore campus. As we advanced through the green terrain of THE campus, the gigantic GEC 2 building came by our way. I thought to myself, “This must be a delegatory meeting office. I wish I get a chance to visit the 'monument' at least once during my stay here.” This enormous parliament-shaped building was inaugurated by Sonia Gandhi. The very next day we were informed, we would have our classes in THAT very grand building. I need not explain the thrill that ran down my veins, hearing this.

The hostels were no less than some five star hotels. We were the blessed lots previledged to have got this Infosys Mysore training. The classroom sessions were grilling and of course fruitful. The exam result days used to be super heated ones. Some students used to manage an A grade always, that would amaze me throughout. I managed to cross this storm of tests and finally completed the project assigned to us.

Architecture at its best - Multiplex in Mysore campus

We went back to college, appeared for the final exam and presented our respective projects in the practicals. After the completion of college, went back to our homes, where in few days we got another call to Mysore campus for ILI trainings.

25 July 2011 – We reached Mysore campus. Attended these trainings for few days and finally got our postings across the DC's. I got a posting to Bhubaneswar. That was not my first choice. Nevertheless I packed up and got ready for a new journey.

29 August 2011 – Landed Bhubaneswar. We had got a week long accommodation in the campus guest house, equipped with facilities. We were to meet our unit heads by 10 am. I along with others in my unit, got ready and went to the building we were called. We had a short induction by our SPM and were allocated different projects and teams. I got my cubicle allocated with my manager sitting in the very next cubicle. This was disappointing for sure, but manageable.

Team outing from Bhubaneswar to Gopalpur sea beach

I had to work for Amex account which has a lion's share in the revenue of Infosys. I was given a couple of forms like non-disclosure agreement and work station agreement to sign, scan and submit to my manager. Some more similar formalities that I do not remember. Next few days I got busy attending some unnecessary Amex trainings which I really hated, but had to complete as a part of getting on-boarded.

11 September 2011- We had a unit outing to Puri sea beach. I was not acquainted with many folks of our unit before that. But this outing for sure got me some great friends!

A team outing in Bhubaneswar

For around a month I attended KT and project training and hence my work kicked off. Bhubaneswar has a hot weather. Outside office, the summers used to be unbearable. This was one and perhaps the only bad, I recollect from my stint in this place. The winters used to be short and pleasant. The Infosys Bhubaneswar DC was a small one, compared to Bangalore and Pune. But I really liked it as the DC head count was just around 4k , which was quite small compared to 25K+ in the other big DC's. 
 

Volunteering Infy-driven Campus Connect programme

I worked on a middleware technology. I was placed in a support project, where our work used to revolve around tickets. We used to get some tickets with different severity, and were supposed to resolve them in the stipulated time. During my stay at Bhubaneswar, I got two wonderful teams to work with. One was my team that taught me the middleware technology and the other was the one where I brought this middleware project for support. Learnt a lot about work and life. Each and every member of the teams I met, left something or the other for me to learn. The managers were great, quite approachable.

Enjoying Cycling in the beautiful Infy campus

In an Amex support project one needs to resolve the issues encountered in live card transactions. The support timelines are strictly followed 24 X 7. The support person on shift is required to remain on-the-toes all the time. I spent a long time in this project with wonderful team-mates that were very cooperative. But after a span I realised the need to change my portfolio to coding and development. For this matter I arranged multiple meetings with my manager, but all in vain. The manager always had a reason to postpone my release from this project. He was probably bound in some protocols which he had to abide. So excused from my end :) !

After an experience of about 2.5 years I got a middleware development project in Bangalore. My manager agreed to my release and approved my transfer. These months in Bhubaneswar were definitely enriching that helped me getting transformed to a new level. But a lot more was yet in line for me, probably waiting at my new destination. The beautiful time with ups and downs had come to an end, leaving memories I would cherish always.

30 November 2013 – Landed Bangalore. Another chapter began. Joined the development team with whom I sometimes used to interact while at Bhubaneswar in the support project. It was the same extended team, but with the coding portfolio. Learnt different coding aspects and SDLC. I do not want to make this look like a CV, so would not elaborate my work and professional learnings here :) .

\This one was a huge team with around 40 members. It was a different experience altogether. The leads, both at offshore as well as at on-site were brilliant and great to work with. Many in the team were the south Indians who were great to be friends with. Team spirit was high and commendable.

We once also went to a resort nearby and had a hell of fun. We had games, lunch and different team building activities. It was a day long trip and everyone enjoyed to the core.

But within this year many folks left Infy as they had other plans for their future. At the same time we had new folks joining us. It was a great experience seeing freshers catching up with an awesome pace and becoming at par with the seniors in many aspects. Learning from the less experienced too has a different flavour and has its own charm.

Towards the end of the year we had a new team built within the existing team. I was part of it. This team was called 'Loyalty', as it dealt with Loyalty Rewards and Recognition processes of Amex. With around five folks we worked and played together. It was again enriching and worth cherishing. I would definitely miss the team and my best of wishes are always there with them. 

Ethnic Day celebrated with Bangalore team

It's time now to say bye.

But the byes are always good, as they mean there is always a good chance to meet again, some time, with new thoughts and ideas. Infosys, my first company has given me a lot. As they say, once an Infoscion, always an Infoscion. And I am proudly going out with the essence of perseverance and quality, that Infosys has taught me.

It feels nostalgic, at the same time exciting, as a new world is waiting with doors wide open.

Signing Off,

Rashi

LWD in Infosys – 24 December 2014.