A dream called CorpApps...a journey called iGATE...

After having decided to move on I’d always savored on the day to have written my final mail. This heading had been buzzing around, in some corner of my sub-conscious mind, and why not?? ,as it aptly describes my experience at iGATE.. J
A dream called CorpApps:
Recession days!! (FBP08 batch-8th-Jan 09)….we were out of the training after a tough fight and lost 8 of our friends to the excruciating screening process of the training. That was a day of mixed emotions, the road ahead was tougher , we had to prove our mettle to get into projects…and one fine day 5 of us were selected in the prestigious GE projects….My team was ….and is still called Corpapps……. It was this place which taught me many things, both on professional and personal levels….The grooming was so refined and round the clock that the culture became integrated to my personality and refined it by the day…….I’d seen my seniors saying one line before they moved on.. “There can be no team like Corp Apps” and I see myself saying the same while I leave….Proud to be a corp-Apian ;)
A Journey called iGATE:
iGATE has been very special to me in very special ways(Yeas just like VVS laxman ;)). I was undergoing a very tough phase when I was selected in iGATE, and since then everything had fallen into place. Be it getting onboard during recession or getting into a hot skill project. It has always been my lucky charm. I’ll remember it for the security guards who are so very dedicated and alert….for the cab services….who perform under such pressure…Polar Bear ice-cream..The Akshara project....campus..the DJ party..TGIMs…the folks at Cafeteria who maintain it with such smoothness, the office boys for their dutifulness,…iOlympiad football finals …people on the floor… in short everyone around, who is always there to extend a helping hand .…..they have been my inspiration .What is common with anyone who has been at iGATE is co-ordination, humility and above all “ work with a smile”…which I think is a rare thing to achieve and could be seen here.
So here I am signing off with a box-full of memories and wishing iGATE all the very best not only as a brand but also as a special place to be J
Kind Regards,
Akshat Joshi
(Emp id:711669)
Email: akshatjoshi28@gmail.com
Blog: www.pgsfromthepast.blogspot.com
Phone: 9739100246

The Bridge of Hope

Days, Weeks and months go by…
From January to the October Sky…
November , December come and go….like a fairy riding the rainbow…
Another year, another mile…..in our journey like the Nile…
Which meanders through the sandy terrain…
Giving hope to the ones in pain….
The bridge of hope is what we walk… over the creek across the path
And when a fellow mate says good bye…who chooses to disappear in the sands of time…
I see myself on my knees….faithless, tired and so weak
I raise my head for one last time….to see a glimpse on the other side…
There is an old woman working in her shop…..preparing sweets for those who crossed…
She has wrinkles and her hands shiver…..as she cleans the shop and carries the chair….
There is no ending to her faith…in the good lord who had taken away her children (I intended to write mate here but he is still alive :))…
She waves at me from the far off shore…….like the mother encouraging a new born to roar..
“This is what the bridge of hope is!!!”….….I suddenly realize….
Connecting the darkness to the bright side(of life)
I stand on my feet awake and calm….looking around like the white swan….
My bite of enlighten…. resides in those sweets….
Across the bridge, beside the beach….
I say my goodbyes to the lost soul… Whom I’d mourned so deeply though…..
It’s time now to walk the path….which led me to that sweet shop :)

The Windsor Knot.

The Mac-daddy of all tie knots is what the youtube video said about the Windsor Knot.
It is hard core old school. Which reminds me of the good old school days when we had to beg the boarders to do it for us, an art which was known by the few and made them hailed by mere mortals like us. This incompetency was like a thorn in my flesh for ages now , and it struck me off-late to learn it over the youtube.
The Algo is as follows:
1. Cross
2. Rabbit
3. Half cross
4. Half rabbit
5. Roll
6. Rabbit
7. Google
And I remember the Instructor saying wallah :D we have the windssor knot prepared.
Three cheers for me !! :)

Shayar ke Dohe ;)

humari ye ada humari ye wafa....humara ye style....sabko pani karde jaisay river nile,
jalim hai jamana......jalim hai aapki smile.....munaabhai foreign gaye to circuit short ho gaya bhai,
Office main hum gaye to kya pata chale hamien yara.....boss hamara doston, hai kamzori ka mara.
hai kamzori ka mara wo , karta na samne baat....peet peechay chaku ghope...log usko kehte smart....
humne bhi tamanche nikale....udankhatole pe huay sawar....apni shayari se zalim....kar diye humne bhi do do haat :D
aisi hai hamari dastan....dukhbhari story for the while...jaisay Musharaf ki qawaidi...qawalli banke samne ayi...
nadani hamein aati nahi , firki ki tarah kartein hain baad.....hyderabadi istyle main hum hain lucknowi nawab ;)

-Aadab arz hai :D

Examination Blues

Another lazy morning.....11:00 a.m. on the clock.
Figuring out what to do next...was something that struck me off.
My head was spinning with debit and credit,ratios and balance sheets.
and trial balance of my state was like "Sugar witthout sweet" ;)
As per an ancient hostel saying, when the examination fever hits...
going to the moon and coming back, happens like a quick fix :))

I need an inspiration, or a kick on my butt to be precise...
to pass this financial hurdle without any debts by my side... :D
(P.S: I haven't started with OB, shall be dedicating a separate prose for the same.
may the OB gods be kind to me-Amen)

...And then the OB gods appeared in my dream...
they recited their versus of high performing teams..
In Desi if I say the idea was so damn simple,
I needed the Junta with me to do a little Jingle and mingle ;)

Now it comes upon us, to show the lessons that we have learnt.
In OB,PM and finance to see if good marks are earned :)

Parle bisucits and the Legend of Rahul Singh:

It's early morning and I'm hunger struck.I've tried a mouthful of dry cornfalkes, handful of sugar, bournvita and verociously searched for some food article in the room, but all I could get is despair.Hunger is more than a torturous curse.I'd realised this during my hostel days.Seeing a packet of Parle-G in a forgotten corner had risen the spirits of the gods within( no it's not exaggeratiion).
I re-fule my water bottel, unplug the wires connected to my laptop, the blogger within has awakened and some thing is about to flood out, and within the
comforts of my blanket I narrate the incident of Parle biscuit and the Legend of Rahul Singh:

Odd semesters are held during the winters, which are bitterly cold in Northern India. It was one such winter night.
The lands of greater noida wore a blanket of mist and fog and tempreatures dipped to as low as 5 degrees. While the students shivered in their cosy beds,

cursing themselves to have finished reading a page so that they'll have to move their fingers, or getting up for dinners or loos.It was late night and a pestered
soul named Akshat Joshi grew increasingly uneasy in his room. Reason: He was hungry.
It is important to know what hunger is.It really is.One of the most important takeaways of living in the hostel was that we came to know what hunger was.
Young hostel boys are smart.
We use to get small Parle biscuit packets with tea during the suppers. Which the boys saved for the night.
As the college was located by the expressway and the area around was quite deserted, we had to keep our rations saved to encounter hunger during the night.
But on that fateful night I didn't notice that I had nothing left with me.I groaned with uneasiness, my hunger was increasing, it's a difficult feeling to explain,
it was increasingly torturous, slow death I'll say, just like the snake cunningly hisssesssssss at the small mice dropped in his cage knowing that he shall ravish him with
a single venemous shot. I begged for something to eat from my room-mate.But he had managed to kill his hunger, a trait of a normal EC student who doesn't have time to realise
that he needs to carry out normal life processes other than studies.. :DD phew..!!
I stumbled outside into the corridors, knocked madly at the gates of friends and juniors, begging them for "something to eat".The response was
an honest and helpless "NO" until I knocked the gates of Room No 215.
Rahul was a friend good enough to be looked uppon in times of such dier emergency.I was just giving it a try, may be he had something he could share with his poor friend.
And just the magician pulls a rabbit out of the Hat. Rahul pulled out a couple of Parle biscuits which he was saving over the days.
It was a moment of redemption for me. Some of the rare moments in life when you actually wish for something and it happens the very next moment (Another such moment was my selection in iGATE)
It also shows the kindness of my friend who was willing to share something which was of use to him.Something which I'll always remember and try to adapt.

The Lost World….

The days were blackened with misery and pain….
As I laid my head on the window pane….
Thinking about the sunshine days…..
of youth and glory….of love and pain….
Is this the end? I asked myself…..
Of unknown adventures and mortal gains…
Of blind trust and unshaken faith…
Of selfless friendship, which stood through the tides…
Of unknown relations which never said good bye….
The world has changed and the people too….
And Joe doesn’t know what to do?
But he shall continue, as he did in the good old times….
Try to make his poems rhyme…
But Joe will one day have to accept….
The irony with life,people and the rest …
That every thing calls for a constant change….
Loosing the present like the falling rain….
Which travels from the heavens to the ground…..
bleaching it wet and disappearing …. In the unknown World
…The Lost world…..

A Perfect Sunday

It’s been one of those days, which one would write as an essay topic and land up topping the exam.
Yes it’s been a perfect Sunday, everything has been celebrating the day it seems.It all started off with a busy hectic Saturday night. Friends, outing and no time for myself. My stockings were begging for a weekend wash, as all the 10 pairs I had, were either trying to come out from the stinky odur that the previous week’s hot water dip had somehow managed to suppress or they had inherited some odur from their peers. It was high time, I had to stop living in denial and do something about this grave issue ;).
So I woke after midnight half asleep and switched on the geyser. It seemed as if some tormented soul had got into my body and was making me wash my clothes. Kudos to Mr. Issac Newton who defined inertia as the degree of an object to continue in it’s current state, and guess what guys I was in dynamic Inertia. By 2:00 hrs Sunday morning I was done washing my clothes,I had washed them with surf and rinsed again with water, for those of you who haven’t had any hands on eperience in washing clothes ,that was a herculean effort.Phew quite a lot of washing it seems. So I slept sometime I don’t remember. My sleep occasionally broke up by ringing of my phone or chirping of birds. But I managed to mainatain my inertial state and woke up at 14:00hrs :).
I had more than 24hrs before I could start my Monday (Yep, I had to go in the noon). So my Sunday was all set to begin and what better way than to listen to “Linkin Park”.
The rough office schedule and living with the frustration of leading a life of an ideal or idol s/w engineer ( far away from home, no GF, no sense of humor, etc.etc…) was inspiring me to listen to something like this. It was indeed a spiritually and mentally uplifting experience listening to them after such along time. It was soothing and I felt nice and pissed off :)


........To Be continued.........

A distant dream...

I was sleeping in my bed.
dreaming about an unknown spec...
of a memory of my past...
which had caused me pain and wrath...
I begged for mercy and tried to run........
from the nightmare,into a group of Huns....
who chased me down like a dog...
and pestered me with bows and swords......
I was frightened and terrified......
seeked protection more than demise....
and against my hope I held out my hand....
for some divine mercy to land......
what happened next is a miracle I know...
A prayer got answered with a subtle flow....
I felt a gentle touch,and a joy within...
which made me cry and dance like the spring....
The Huns disappeared as the Sun rose high.....
above the dark clouds, across the sky....
I smelt a scent of something divine.....which guided me to a holy shrine....
and as I knelt besides the stone.....
to share my sorrow with the blessing unknown...
The Sun started to turn blinding bright....
It was nothin but me opening my eyes
there was comfort and kindness in her arms....
which gently took away all my qualms
they caressed me with tender and affection
something which I seeked but was under repression.
It was a moment with no sense of time..............
and then I saw myself again near the holy shrine.. :)