First trip to Hometown - Part 1

Well.. I have been a bit emotional lately with all the shifting to new city and leaving behind memories and people hustle. And before I could get over that feeling, I am back to the same old lovely green city which has made a mark in my life like no other place. I was extremely happy while shifting to Hyderabad, one main reason of the many being the over whelming feeling of finally moving to my mother land, AP.. (part of which some selfish people are claiming to be Telangana now! ) And "shifting to hometown" was the very same reason that I smartly specified in my exit interview! Though in spite of my infinite efforts to convince myself for the same, a part of me always feared that I was moving away from my hometown! And this fear came to reality when I stepped into Nagpur for the first time after relocating. I told my friend without looking at the station, that it was Nagpur. The recorded sound of "gadi no. 'do saath do ek', hyderabad se nizamuddin jane wali dakshin express, platform no. ek par aa chuki hai..", the kind of people getting down, the stalls visible from the window and it might sound too exaggerated but simply by the air around me I could say I was in Nagpur! When I said the same lines to my friend who kept me a wonderful company throughout the journey with all sorts of serious, funny and emotional stories all night long, he mocked at me! Little did he know, I actually meant it.. (Well, not all but at least a few..)

I am still wondering how the significance of a place changes from person to person.. In my own college I have seen wide variety of opinions about Nagpur. Some think it is just a boring place good enough only to finish engineering and return to their more happening lives at more happening places! Some think it is a calm peaceful place to get settled eventually but not to waste our "jawani ke din". Some do not think of it much, since their world is constrained only inside VNIT campus. While a few like me, give importance to every possible speciality of Nagpur, like the Dinshaws at Sadar that has no substitute in Hyderabad (high quality@low cost) and the delicious Haldirams sweets which make all pure ghee sweets at Hyderabad look OK-OK, and attach emotions with every possible place I have been to, like the college dinshaws (where we used to hang out till 8.29 pm), the Futala lake(whose walls have heard a lot more troubles than even our hostel walls), civil lines ke raaste (where i and a chhotu-motu friend of mine used to love getting lost), the balaji temple (which has relieved me of my tensions whenever i have turned that way), the sitabuldi flyover (which got converted from a phobia to a dream romantic drive), the buldi market (where everything from socks to suits are only a few steps away), the Abhyankar Nagar Square (where in the first half of my stay in Nagpur I used to wait on the signal dreaming about getting admission into VNIT and in the second half I couldn't stop feeling proud for being able to achieve that), and every other restaurant in Nagpur where we have had our mess offs, last lunch, last dinner, birthday parties, farewell parties, job treats and of course the one and only TDS which would not have been renamed top to down sexy if not for our batch.

Oh god.. I have totally drifted from the topic.. Now considering the mood set, it would be impossible for me to get back to the original topic which was supposed to revolve around "Why I was in Nagpur!" where as it revolved and rotated around "How much I missed it!". The original topic would continue soon, keep watching the space..

This one is to Nagpur and to all the Nagpurians I have ever known.. Cheers!!!

Heights of frustration!

This is not the first time, when I have felt like pulling my hair and shouting aloud "Oh God, please spare me". Sitting in a well furnished, posh conference room at Oracle India, Hyderabad and listening to "Why to Automate" presentation, I tried to keep myself involved writing this so that my brain nerves relax a bit and my BP remains normal! And it gets even more frustrating when people ask meaningless doubts and getting into unending arguments simply to come to notice.

This is not the first time that I have faced such rage in a lecture! In college though, I remember, I used to bang my head in Gandhi's class thinking "What is the fool drawing on board and blabbering.. Doesn't he know every book, in fact every chapter has an introduction!" Right now, it is difficult for me to judge which kind of frustration is more frustrating...

Finally on my own..

All the excitement that I had been holding on to for days, the day was finally coming to reality.. Though it did not start quite the way I thought it would but it definitely gave me goose bumps the way it ended or rather I should say the way it continued to date..

Though I was able to handle the 'last good bye to friends' scene at Nagpur pretty well but not the 'I miss you' scene at hyderabad very well.. With proper pre-planning I was able to contain myself at the bus stop and left with a smile on every one's faces..

And then in the bus, the thinking Swati came to life all of a sudden and started re-calling all the wonderful moments spent in Nagpur. The early tuition days when I used to run from one class to another, the most rocking four years of VNIT where every day was fun and every night was even more fun and last but not the least the PSL days which though short but had occupied the most significant part of my brain right then.. And strangely it was not the memories of these places that were haunting me but the people associated with these places that were coming back to me. Though most of the people were not even there in Nagpur then but had left their unending impressions on my memories at Nagpur and ultimately the most beautiful phase of my life..

My first step into Hyderabad and I was surrounded by auto waale bhaiyyas and in the typical nawabi tone one of them said "utte main naai aayega na, madam.." and I got the "Man, I am in Hyderabad" feel. Next I go home, paying 400 bucks to the chor auto waala combined with a nice farewell fight and that is when I decided not to use meter autos there after. I take my 4 heavy suitcases inside (man, I really do have a lot of clothes) and then fall down on the sofa to get some breath. And that is when the Hyderabad Times copy on the table caught my eye, that was the second realisation of "Man, I am in Hyderabad"! The day went well with me and my sis sharing the latest crucial updates on personal lives and utilising the last few hours of my freedom watching hangover and twilight. Finally, still not out of the twilight-feeling I went to sleep hoping for a new beginning to a lot many things. And then without alarm I woke up at 6.30 am when the chirping of birds was replaced by the kook-doo-koo of cock! And that was the third realisation of "Man, I am in Hyderabad".

Enough of that feeling, by now it is well ingrained in me. And considering, that for the first time I am relishing on the home made Sankranti sweets, I do not think anything else can intensify the feeling any further.

So speaking about the new city and the new job, there is so much to say..

Experience at Oracle:

1. Infrastructure is grand. From reception to conference room, from sports facilities to gym, even from roads to parking slots, everything is as one dreams of or must have seen on television.

2. Professional life is very well organised, less work hours, more work and a lot more responsibilities and as oracle says, every individual is a self managed team :)

3. The free pantry includes tea, coffee, soup, milk with sugar, milk without sugar, milk powder, dip tea sachets and even cold drinks!!! Haha..

Experience at Hyderabad:

1. Call it regionalism or chauvinism.. I do not care, but I love being surrounded by people talking in telugu, enjoy vicco advertisement in telugu at INOX, listen to telugu songs on radio and see wall posters of Telugu movies. I finally feel like I am at home!

2. The city might not be famous for night life or rather it might not have a night life as such but considering that I am from Nagpur and finally getting my independence I am able to enjoy a much better night life.

3. The first day I drove my vehicle back from station, I fell in love with one thing.. Yes, the roads in the city. No speed breakers, no pot holes, no bumps and no signals.. Just plain, wide roads with a fast moving traffic. So all you need to do is to raise it and keep a hand on breaks :) And the best part is the traffic cops here concentrate on regulating traffic rather than inflow of income!

A lot said and written, something that I cannot deny or try to over shadow by the excitement of my new life is the fact that I am missing my friends back home terribly. I am staying in a well furnished, posh guest house room. If I walk out of the door I have a CCD, a pizza hut and a KFC. And every time I look at these places, it makes me miss them even more. It is not that the people here are bad or difficult to get along with. But only time will help I guess. I am trying to accept this as a law of nature. Whenever I have moved further to the next phase of life, there has always been someone who makes me reconsider my decision and creates a strong impulsion of turning back even if that means turning back from success or progress. Then the thought "how important is professional success" peeps its ugly face and laughs on me. But unable to take any drastic steps, I prefer to go by the flow. I would rather regret for not having done something than for doing something wrong. And in the process I left behind my best friend while leaving junior college, another while leaving VNIT and another while leaving Persistent.. All I am looking forward to, is to find one such friend in Hyderabad.. The earlier I find that ray of light, the faster I will be able to get over this nostalgia..