Fastforward 2 years at Infosys...

Oft said ... first impressions last forever...

My journey with Infosys began on the 28th of August 2005. It took me more than a few days to come to terms with the fact that I was in India, and that too in the sleepy ol' town of Mysore with its 1950's taxis and dosa-idli shops. I was awestruck with the massive building set against a backdrop of serene skies and bright green country side. I felt like a fainéant king, with no intention to study, rather to spend all the while gawking at the obsence luxury that lay sprawling in front of me. Monday , the 29th of August, work as usual... Classes, play assignements and the fear that our hostel would be invaded by a batch from China... the thought itself filled most of us with trepidation... and yes , I am one of those lesser mortal who is guilty of having fostered such feelings.

September 5 2007. The chinese have arrived. This is worth a mention as I should be kicked , over and over again for even have thought so wrong about them folks. At 2 in the night, a tiny young lad walked in profusely apologising for having woken me up. I greeted him , helped him with his bags and realized that we had not yet introduced ourselves. I guess both of uss shared the same apprehension. I then went about asking his name. His reply was remarkable . He said ... You can call me...hmmmm... a short pregnant silence ... Christ ... Only later did I realize that this was a name he had thought up at the spur of the moment. And for the record , we are talking about Ho Chi Hou, a.k.a Baba( the Indian name I gave him, after good ol thalaivar Rajini.), the most sought after Chinese at Mysore.

The 100 odd folks from China are all good friends of mine. We share a lot of nice memories of a lot of crazy things that we did together . The trips to Alleppy and athirampally, to pondicherry , bangalore pubs, sunrise at Marina , and single handedly rounding up all the couple who suddenly disaapeared close to nightfall at the beach at Mahabs , a bus full of us going over to Swathi's place to take a leak...and of course how can I forget all the football and basket ball... hmm fills me with nostalgia.

Cut to sometime in November.... I suddenly find myself in a totally different world. A dry boring world with nothing much to do. Your guess is right ... I was on bench !!!

Cut to January... This was the single best thing that has ever happened in my career.
After pestering Bhaskar (my delivery manager) to assign me some work...any work (.Net developement project, yea right , the ass tat i am , i thought Infosys should not be shy of quality work ) , i was asked to meet up with Arun C.B , the great

We met up at the Lotus fc for a bday party and from then on my life has never been the same.
At this point I would like to mention some of the people who made a lot of difference to me and helped me realize my potentials. Arun , Nithin , Karthik... i salute to u

Within 6 months , i independenltly created tools to cut down a lot of project costs. Fine tuned processes, brought in automation and re-use and incremental innovation and created a casse -study , which was presented in front of the management council.
Within no time, I was being recommended to other projects - Cisco, tyco , ingram , Apple....

Arun has set high hopes on me. He believes in me ,and has taught me to believe in myself and my abilities.
I hope to do well in my life. Nothing can be compared to the exhilaration that I feel when I create something new, when I make my ideas into reality, more-so-ever when they are one of those hare-brained ideas that I always tend to come up with. Arun, you taught me the joy of thinking ! I never realized that I could ...ahem ...Think !

We always used to share this personal joke. Everytime I used to ask him " So Arun , when do you want it done?" he would always have the reply "YESTERDAY ! " Arun, my best friend , has played a great role in moulding me into who I am today. So folks if you are not happy he is the person you have to blame. :P

I have been able to carve a niche for myslef thanks to all these people ... I have been awarded the Reward and Recognition award for Project Exceution and Technical Capability, got into revenue projection for Ingram Micro as well as into Knowledge Management and Employee Satisfaction and Employee Relation (ER) activities.

Currently , for the last 9 months, I have been working on "Aspire " a framework to improve employee satisfaction(ESAT) in my IBU (Business Unit). The Idea has been presented and has now become an IBU level tool.

Hurray, I am proud of my self ,and no I am not vain!

No, I have not mentioned these accomplishments , to bore the reader , nor am i trying to hide this behind a cloak of modesty. My intentions are very simple. I would like to remind myself of this journey ...all the hard work...bits of luck and of all the fun.