Strangers, yet not so

                We meet so many people in the span of a day. We may not even realize that we do. We even converse with them, it usually is only a few lines, but conversation nevertheless. By people, I mean the book shop person, the lift person, the mama who sits at the library entrance, the conductor on the bus, why even the bhaji wala!

But some days, these conversations go beyond the lines that you would use everyday. Some days, it goes beyond the small talk that you indulge in everyday.

Like one of the days, I was buying a book at Bhavan's book stall, the place I've been buying books for the past 5 years. There is one incredibly grumpy, always irritated old man at the cashier counter who has always asked me to stop talking to whoever is with me and buy the books and leave. So, I'm usually not enthusiastic about standing at the counter for too long as I can't not talk. :P

But then, one of the other days, besides mentioning the fact that I've been a customer for almost 5 years (I was surprised he knew that! ) he started talking about how they have been right outside the college for 50 years and while people earned away by unfair means, his shop has remained the same old humble shop. He also spoke about students coming back from America with a foreign wife and showing around the college.(He also let me return my books worth Rs 2000 15 days after the deadline..the advantages of being a regular customer I tell you :D )

Another incident with the mochi. This family owns a slipper shop on the roadside as well as a vegetable cart. The lady of the family handles the vegetable sales and there is no time that I have bought something from her when she hasn't given something extra as goodwill. Always a handful of curry leaves with lemon, a bunch of coriander leaves with ginger, 50 more gms of ginger when buying 100 gms of it. Also the rangoli powder in case of festivals. They will give you that knowing smile and you probably know nothing about them but there is this vendor-customer connect between the two.

Yet another incident. 3 years ago, the day I had got admission into this institute of mine, I was really surprised on my way back home in the rickshaw. The driver asked me about my marks and admission and all of that and  also spoke about his son who was doing his diploma and how he would want admission into an engineering college the next year. He asked me if I would do a favour and tell him the cut offs for my college and gave me his number, didn't ask for mine. I somehow didn't dismiss it and actually searched the whole year on every notice board for cut offs but in vain. But finally when I did find, I made it a point to call him up and tell him. He was so happy and said that he used to wonder every time when he passed by my building if I had forgotten about this. Almost 2 months later, when I had totally forgotten about all of this, this very person called back to inform me (he had stored my number as I had called him on his mobile phone) that his son got into Saboo Siddik with an aggregate of 86% and thanked me profusely for having informed him. I wouldn't recognize him if I ever saw him again but then this incident proves how random people are related somehow by small incidents like these.

How can we forget those BEST bus drivers who see you running across the road and stop an extra 5 seconds for you to reach and get into the bus?! They don't even know you, they might have had a bad day but yet they'll wait for you the day you are so late for college and you end up thanking them so much.

Leave aside people you may meet just once and never meet again. Consider people who are your colleagues, who you have spoken to so less often but still they are people you see everyday. One of my practicals in which there is this one professor who absolutely hates me( at least hated me in the last semester) was the invigilator. I was so terrified of the practical exam because of him. When I did get the experiment, an easy one at that, one of "the people" I spoke about asked me not to show the experiment within 5 minutes as the professor might screw my case. When I got done with my vivas with no hassles( I was so terrified before entering his cabin, I tried taking long breaths to calm me down :O), another person came up to me and said that it was surprising yet good that the professor did nothing troublesome. (Thank God, he had forgotten my face! ) I was so surprised, the fact that they would approach me and tell this, my faith in people instilled back again.

Being in IEEE the last year, I can name and thank all the watchmen, the library mama and the lift mama as well for being so supportive and going out of their way in their own ways to help us out whenever we had an event on the weekends.

I can keep narrating incidents like these. The whole point is that people are so cynical about the world around us. We pity ourselves for the state we are in. We complain that people are money minded, only looking for materialistic gains. These are incidents that show us that people despite all the things happening in their life sometimes do go out of their way to make someone else's life better, in a small way maybe, for no gain, just for the mental satisfaction. But then we dismiss them as nothing. We shouldn't. As it is things like these, which help us restore our faith back in people and realize the world isn't too bad a place to live in either.

Microsoft-The end of it

        I just don't feel like changing what I originally thought of it. This title came in the last week of my internship. Now when I sit to finish what I intended writing, it seems it isn't the end after all but a whole new beginning.

I remember the last time I wrote about my internship. I knew nothing of what I had to do. I didn't know how I was gonna fare. I didn't know if I was worth the internship. But I was very sure I'll make myself worth it. Those 8 weeks were difficult. But weird enough, they were equally fun. (yes, I don't mind confessing I love coding, call me a geek if you want :P ). And never ever try to uninstall SQLServer, it is such a pain that I can't even explain how much. Plus I had to do it thrice, making it the first time I had to sit beyond 12 in office. (Blame the cab system, which drops you to your home whatever time may be :P )

The internship was even awesome'r' because of the other interns. We got to know each other pretty well I must say, making that one of the main reasons why we wanted to come back more than anything else at all. All those group lunches, group dinners, stupid banter, coffee breaks and sometimes even serious doubts and discussions really mattered a lot. (Must thank the seniors for the unofficial facebook group, that really helped us know each other much before we were even there). Not to forget, those late night movies as well!

Talking of late night movies, to be out at wee hours of the day was definitely a first for me. Never have I even dared to ask, forget enter out of the house beyond 10. But there, this happened as I got to work at my best time (yes, I'm a nocturnal person, an owl would ideally be my animagus if I think of it) and even late night movies. None of this a secret from home makes it the icing on the cake. No objection would be a cherry on the top. Why, when my deadline for the presentation got advanced and a time came when I had to do my project right from scratch in one night (yes, that did happen and trust me, I wasn't ever more confident that I could finish it, just a gut feeling I had, didn't even know why), I actually sat till 4.15 a.m. and was wide awake when I came back at 8 to complete the project, managed to add a few finishing touches as well which I hadn't added in the previous version. The project was ready right at half an hour before the presentation.

But anyway, when you're a girl with overprotective parents, this kind of gives you that independent feeling ,you know, something I wasn't sure I was ready for, definitely sure my parents weren't. But then, they suddenly seemed to have felt that their girl has grown up to make her own decisions whilst I was there which made me really happy, as they did think I was responsible for myself. Considering its my first time all by myself, I found that a big deal.


I had awesome team mates without whom I doubt I would ever have reached the completion of my project and I'm not even exaggerating. If it wasn't for my manager's encouraging words, I wouldn't have ever imagined myself completing in a night what took me 5 weeks. If it wasn't for my mentor's support, I doubt I would have had thought I could sit myself through. But that's ok, I made sure I thanked all of them profusely when I left and also informed them that I got the job and that I attributed part of my success to all of them.

Its not even sunk in yet and I'm not at all saying this because everyone says this. Of course it was crazy to hear the words "you're hired" after a very dramatic pause; but still, the fact that I am going there next year, the fact that I have indeed got a 10 lakh odd job(although that hardly matters), the fact that I indeed am so lucky in so many ways... Things have been going in the right way, rather the perfect way ever since my 11th std now and every time I take a new step I wonder if its the end of my lucky stretch. Guess this wasn't either. Never did I work with the intention of getting the job, of course finally everyone wants it but the internship meant much more to me, much more than I have ever imagined. It meant me knowing that I can push my limits to achieve what had seemed impossible to me by my own self, it meant me knowing for sure that I am meant for coding and me saying 'I like coding' is not a farce, it meant that, I reiterate; with practically nothing technical on my resume, I could actually come to live a computer engineer's dream.

So I am a jobless person the following year but to reminisce about the past 3 years( now I am emotional 4th year old person and I'll be ranting about missing everything in a few months I think ), Microsoft IT for the next year at least and of course, really really happy to be back with all the people that I missed so much whilst I was there. I think I have spoken too much about Microsoft now, I'm bored and I'll be back to usual Preeti post in some time. Till then, tada!