Lakshya Continued.....

Before going to Chennai, I requested for a week at Bangalore to "Meet the Team". I was given this opportunity... Working out of Bangalore for 1 week from May 6th - 13th 2006 was a breakthrough for me... .It gave me my first Lakshya..... This was to work in Bangalore... The feel of working in Infosys Bangalore was something special... I felt that I was working in a corporate environment there, as compared to Infosys Mysore which gave a more "College Culture" sort of feeling...

I finally got back to Chennai.... Knowing well that it would be next to impossible to get back to Bangalore as long as I was with Infosys....

MCity life was hectic - the most hectic part being the travel. The thing with me is - if I don't like something about what or where I am, I hate everything about the place. This is called Selective Perception in behaviourial sciences, where you look at only certain factors of a thing and judge the whole thing on those factors..... Well... In my first 1 month in Chennai I did not have much work... Just 4 hours a day atmost.... The feeling of frustration began seeping in... And I decided to give CAT with full swing..... However, the decision remained at that - I did not do much to actually go about cracking CAT.....

Writing mock CATs in Chennai was a pain... I used to walk from my home in interior Tambaram for 1 km before reaching the auto stand, from where I would take an auto for 50 rupees to the railway station, from where I would take a train (1 hour journey) to Nungambakkam, from where I would take a shared auto for ten rupees to a particular location from where I would walk for 10 minutes before reaching Stella Maris College - the centre for IMS exams.. Wasn't particularly useful to be so dead tired before giving the test...

I began going through the motions... Not performing well but still going through the process daily...

And then there was this day when there was a CL mock test..... I walked through a big crowd at Mambalam... There was barely enough space for my feet in the ground...... And standing amongst that crowd of thousands, my second Lakshya came into focus.... It came as suddenly as a flash of light, and it appeared to me as though there was nothing else for me to do... I had to get into a premier B School and get out of the crowd....

Now my 2 Lakshyas were interlinked to an extent - I saw no way by which I could continue to be in Chennai and also get into a top B School.....

And then SharePoint Portal happened..... That was probably one of the two most significant breakthroughs I had in my Infosys career..... I was asked to take up a stagnant project for the Finance team of Infosys on SharePoint Portal Server.... Somehow, I saw myself being in Bangalore at the end of this project, if I could deliver my everything to this... This would probably appear as a joke to anyone who could actually transfer me to Bangalore... But I dreamt of it... And I visualized it happening........

I fought really hard on SPS, exploring every nook and corner of the Internet for information that would help me improve my knowledge on the subject..... And at the same time, I kept pushing for a post in Bangalore.. Though I never directly asked for it, I made it evident that it was more useful to have me in Bangalore.... And I think it was logical - the work I was doing, and the work I was probably better at, could be done better in Bangalore than in Chennai... I felt that I needed a feel of "What the Finance Team really wants" before giving them an application...

I visualized my first Lakshya very often - getting a phone call from Rahul Dokania saying "Come over to Bangalore now".... Slowly my dreams were fading away though, as there was no such response for a long time...

After 1.5 months of struggle and perseverance, I received a phone call from Namita Grover... She was my team leader (now an APM). Though I wasn't working much on BIZPLAN those days, I was still in touch with her... She called and asked me how SPS was going on... It was a casual talk, until I got the DREAM question from her - She asked me whether I would be interested in working in Bangalore..... My answer was instantaneous - give me one evening's notice and I will wrap everything in Chennai and come..... She told me that she would get back to me soon... There was no response whatsoever for the next half month, and when I made a call to Namita Grover she said she could not promise a date, and that it might even take 6 - 8 months more...... Though this was a setback, there was some respite, as my delivery manager called me to Bangalore for 2 weeks for taking client requirements for SPS... So I felt my dream was partially fulfilled..... Maybe I was not destined to get back to Bangalore under the Infosys Banner.....

I had reconciled to being content with 2 weeks in Bangalore, when Rahul Dokania contacted me after a period of around 2 months..... With a ping on Windows Messenger, asking me whether I could take a call from him...... There was a triumphant feeling within me, an inkling of it only, but relatively it meant a lot...... He asked me straight..... "When can you come to Bangalore?" My answer, as I had always imagined it was, "I can come tomorrow!!!". And it happened..... 2 days from the call, I packed everything in Chennai and was off to Bangalore..... My first Lakshya was fulfilled....

I will never in my life forget that warm deep breath I took when I put my first foot down on the platform on Bangalore railway station...... It was the BEST moment of my very personal life...... It probably meant more to me than Ajay Sood, Rahul Dokania, and Namita Grover together could ever imagine..... 24th August 2006.... That day will remain with me even when I breathe my last.....


To be continued...