Diary of a Daily Traveler - The Morning trip

Gone were the school days when one had to wake up early in the morning, pack your bags and stand in the chilling winter waiting for the school bus to arrive. Gone were the days were you will be fiddling around, as the bus went round in circles picking up all the folks and finally arrive for the pick-up/drop.

Those days were history (or so I thought !) when we joined the professional world. Now we had the regulated 8:30am (Bangalore) ITPL shuttle to office. But then the life has it's own share of surprises. Things changed (Change is good) and I moved on from Bangalore to Delhi. The posting was at Gurgaon (Haryana) and I was on the other side (no ! not the Dark Side ] of Delhi - located almost near Noida (U.P). This meant that I would have take a shuttle (daily driving the length-and-breadth of Delhi is a strong NO) to reach the Gurgaon office.

A few pages from the diary of a daily traveler - The Morning Trip.

The shuttle is scheduled to arrive at 7:22 AM. Hey ! That's almost at par to the timings we had to follow for school. So started the day. Getting up early in the morning (you don't want to miss the shuttle and drive all the way to office !!) and reaching the pick-up stop in-time. It's quite a wonder we (the working class) standing along with the school kids waiting for their respective shuttle's to arrive. Add-on to that the chilling Delhi winter...7.5 deg. Celsius (just for reference).

The chill is good enough to have any 'chai-wala' (tea vendor) a budding business opportunity. Come to think of it - there lies an opportunity (business scope) the 'chai-wala' to go around (maybe in a cycle) handing out a hot sizzling cup of tea in a earthen cup to the chilled out souls waiting for the shuttle. Ahh... the aroma of hot tea served in the earthen cup is enough to make any person reach out for a cup.

Time flies - and finally our shuttle arrives (Route No: 13). We sincerely hope that none of the co-passengers (past/current or future) suffer from Triskaidekaphobia.

We board the bus and pick out our cosy seats (what ? did I hear some one if we had a/c in the bus to keep the shuttle warm ! yeah - In your dreams !!), cross-check that the windows are slammed shut.

We ensure that not a whiff of cold air can find it's way inside the shuttle. Thus the count down starts as we weave our way picking up the rest of the folks and heard towards Gurgaon. After the initial exchange of pleasantries - most of the co-passengers glide into their morning hangovers.

Some doze off to sleep (well ! we have not heard snoring yet !), some will switch on their personal music players, some of the literate kind will update themselves with the morning news (by reading the newspaper) and off-course some of the more adventurous type will discuss on how to maintain world Earth peace (a.k.a general gossip :-) ).

The shuttle chugs it's way across Delhi (well ! it is almost like Dilli dharshan) towards Haryana. Expected time to arrival is usually 60-90 minutes. Well, that's on a day when the odds are favorable, there are no traffic jams and the shuttle can just slide past.

However, on a not so great day (waving hands !!), the E.T.A to office is a variable that has an unknown value and is dependent on more variables, that are dependent on more variables.

So if we get stuck in a traffic jam (variable x) - the best thing to do is close your eyes and go to sleep. Surely, someone will wake you up when you arrive at Office !!

A bit of maths, back of the envelope scribble:
- for Route 13 it is approximately 65 Kms (40.3 miles) from home to office (Gurgaon)
- at this rate, per day we are covering ~130 Kms (80.7 miles)
- in a year (~22 working days), we will cover ~34320 Kms (21325.4 miles)
- a traveler doing this for ~12 years would have covered 411840 Kms (255905.5 miles) !!!

The average distance from Earth to Moon is 384403 km (238857 miles).

What say - which seems more preferable ? As we drive through the foggy chilly Delhi winter morning, I switch on my music player and start listening to 'Its the Final Countdown' .......

We'are leaving together

But still it's farewell

And maybe we will come back,

To Earth, who can tell ?

(Next the Evening trip back home - Did I tell you about the 'resident' mouse ?)

Gosh ..10 years whizzed past !

It happened on a fine sunny morning in Trivandrum, India many years back ......

30 folks (just of of college) came from all over India and landed at Philips International (in front of ChinChu dhaba) near Medical College Trivandrum. First they had a fight with Col. Nair on wanting to moving out of Philips International to some other place but finally decided to stay on.... Who wanted to leave the appam egg-curry and the roof top cricket matches.

Thus on Mar/22/1999 the T75 batch formation took place.

Gosh ! 10 years seems to have just whizzed past !!!

1st International Maitree Photography Contest 2008

The Fly in (to B.I.A)

As promised, the arrival experience to Bangalore International Airport is as follows.


This was the day when I was flying into the Bangalore International Airport (from Delhi). Had read reviews and had also being told that the departure was always good but the arrivals does bring in bad experiences. Well, this was my first arrival at the Bangalore International Airport (after the old H.A.L Airport was decommissioned).

Had an early morning flight out of Delhi (6:45 AM Indigo, from Delhi to Bangalore). Being a Sunday there was not much of traffic congestion in Delhi, so the flight did take off on time (for a change else there is usually a waiting list of 8-10 aircraft's waiting for takeoff from the Delhi Airport). The flight was uneventful and landed at Bangalore 5 min(s) ahead of schedule. The arrival time was 9:35 AM and it actually landed and we were off-board by 9:30 AM.


The Pilot himself announced that with the new Bangalore International Airport coming up, the arrivals are always on time - with no need to circle the city (Bangalore) for the Air Traffic Controller to provide the clear passage when an available slot would be available in the old H.A.L Airport and the flight could land. Well, that does not ATC are out of job - they did give the clearance and it came without any delay.

Thus the flight landed. Unfortunately the aero-bridges were already full. So the Indigo flight taxied to a place on the tarmac where the Indigo attendants were waiting for the flight. The arrival lounge is large (really large as compared to the old H.A.L Airport). One thing that provides a bit of an hindrance is that the arrivals of all the flights finally channelizes to a corridor. Becomes a bit of packed when many passengers have arrived and as usual they are rushing for the Baggage claims. Else, it is superbly designed.

The conveyor belts are in total 7 (compared to the H.A.L Airport that had only 3 conveyor belts). The rumour (as heard) was sometimes passengers had to wait 30-40 mins for the baggage's to arrive. The arrival/baggage claim lounge is so large that while we waited for the baggage - wondering when it would turn up - the silence was stunning !

But, call it luck (or what!), the baggage conveyor belt started off in 10 Min's..and the baggage's started rolling. I took a time stock - it was ~9:45 AM. Was relieved to see the bag roll out after five more minutes. It was 9:50 AM (not much of a rush - as it was a Sunday morning, so probably not much of incoming traffic into the Bangalore International Airport). Off-course, after the Baggage claim the Red-Channel and Green-Channel greets you - well, but were flying domestic. A lot of hawk-eyed cops and Customs officials (I suppose - as they were in dark suits) screened the outgoing passengers - for possible victims for Red-Channel.


Had seen earlier that the B.I.A.L - a/c VOLVO's departed on the hour, so when the baggage was collected and I exited the Airport - had around 5 min(s) to catch the a/c Volvo. Off-course, you will be met with free-lance Taxi drivers looking for a ride - if not walk on. The Pre-Paid taxi stand will be at your Left and the a/c Volvo Bus stand will be at your Right. They are both equidistant...must say, a nicely thought design. The best part is you can take the trolley all the way till the bus-boarding. No need to drag/pull/carry the luggage's if one is planning to take the Volvo.

The good thing is even the BMTC folks (dressed in White) - the official Volvo dress code, will be standing and directing the passengers to the awaiting Volvo's. Thus boarded the Volvo (BIAL-3, International Airport to Jeevanbhima Nagar) and started off at exactly 10:00 AM. Not bad, not bad at all. The journey was a 1:30 hr ride (as mentioned in the bmtc charts) and thus arrived at Jeevanbhima Nagar at 11:30 AM. Not to be forgotten, the Volvo conductor was quite courteous and helped out the passengers with the baggage's storage's, and coordinated dropping the passengers near auto-stops for easier next level transit.

Luckily, the auto driver did not charge much to travel to Vinayaka Nagar - very short distance !! - and was thus home by 11:45 AM. Over review of the arrival at B.I.A and the connecting transportation - will give a 8/10.

However, with rising prices of Aviation Fuel, B.I.A planning to add on an additional passenger tax (on top of what is already available) for all domestic/international to recover the new Airport usage, the rising cost of inflation - the Flight ticket prices are sky-rocketing.

Thinking of trying out the good old Rajdhani next time !! :-)

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Found this blog site which searching. It says Applaud.Appreciate.Complain, but truly there are some good blogs on intra-company as well as inter-company happenings.

Memoirs of ONMS Saga (Part 3)

Well, then all good things come to an end. The time came for me to return offshore too. The last men standing (well before that) moved on to a Paying Guest apartment near the Holmdel Office.

It was like walking distance from the Office. This paying guest apartment (owned by a Chinese named Joy !!) was then host to self (for a few weeks), Anjan, Gopi, Suyog. We can say that Gopi took the full advantage of staying Paying Guest apartment, and Joy's favourite was Gopi !! Aaah..The Gopi-Joy saga is a different story altogether. This was to be followed by the arrival of Murali Malepati, Prasad Pillai and Abinesh Raghavan - and the return to the once beloved locality 'Eatoncrest Apartments, Eatontown'.

Well, returned to Offshore and met all the folks/pillars who had started the Project. Additionally Client employees were also induced, and the TCS and Alcatel-Lucent (then it was called Lucent) folks - all used to operate from ITPL. Still remember the day when, 50 Dell Latitude D610 laptops arrived from Singapore and were dumped on our floor (it said To: Partha !!) for follow-up allocation to the OMS team at ITPL.

That was one heck of an allocation, ensuring that all the folks who were supposed to get the laptops were assigned one, doing a stock inventory and off-course marking the laptop Tag IDs assigned to the folks. Then to have a Lucent employee sign-off on the allocation...cause at the end of the day, we are still Contractors. Huh !

Then came the expected news....we (some part of ONMS was OMS team) were moving to wilderness. The wilderness (well this was the year 2003) was Bannerghatta Road (very close to Bannerghatta National Park known for its elephant, gaur, leopard, jackal, fox, wild pig, sloth bear, sambar, spotted deer, barking deer, common langur, bonnet macaque, porcupine and the hare !!). The Office was nicknamed - LBC - Lucent Bannerghatta Campus. So the move did happen.....and then started the cross-country travel from as far as K.R. Puram (we were lucky..we were near Kemp Fort, Airport Rd) to Bannerghatta Road.

Travel was treacherous...there were Taxi shuttles that one person used to initiate and pick up folks en route. On our route the starter was KNP. He would start from Ulsoor, and on way pick up self, Rammohan (from Kemp Fort, Airport Road) and Barnali (from BTM).

That reminds me...one of the female associates in our project was then code-named 'Mafia' - know why ? The female associate was well know in arranging parties and ensuring sponsors were enrolled and more in extracting the funds/contribution for the party. Parties were never a problem when our 'Mafia' was around.

Then came a project called - Migration. It started as a two page concept of migrating a Legacy system to a new product and became a huge beast that will go on for the years to come (actually still going on !!) involving at least "n"-folks [Self, Gopi, Suyog, Bharat, Sushma, Kishore, Srabani, Supriya, Divya, KB Siva, Rohit, Hugar, Tarun, Vishal ...too name a few]. Had to travel again for Migration support.Well, to keep it short lets say Migration support from Onsite was a test of patience - as Offshore migration folks kept dropping off the radar (business calls it attrition) or were moved to support other projects.

Finally, returned back to home sweet home and met a 'almost' completely new team. Many of the start-up "pillars" had fallen to the word attrition/transfer etc. etc. and only a few remained. It was like me being a new joiner walking into the ITPL floor :-) Met new folks of the current ONMS team.

Saw that the PP (Party primes) had gone into hibernation ! It was work-work-and-work all day.

Thus started (actually re-initiated) the Project Parties, Account Potluck, Project Outings and off course the on-floor celebrations/fun. Not to miss, taking over the reins of the ONMS project too. All that next time.

To be continued.....

Memoirs of ONMS Saga (Part 2)

Errata to Part 1: (Thanks to Prasad G) - Coke Car belonged to Prasad, Partha, Surya, Gopi and Praveen. The Pepsi Car belonged to Rammohan, Badami, Murali and Yugandar. Such is the Pepsi-Coke tale..

Clarification to Part 1: (Query from Sushma) - Oh ! the 'badami' story - the 'badami' turned out to be a 'he'. Well - that was my first contact to Nagaraj Badami. Luck or Karma :-(

Those were the times when induction training was in full flow. Moreover, we did not have laptops. Returns from office used to be quite late and we used to envy anyone who used to say 'See You tomorrow' by 6-7 in the evening.

Even in the mornings there used to frequent trips to office - as telecons were placed quite early in the morning (7am) with teams from Japan/India. But then Red Hill, Lucent office was only 20 min(s) away - not like the current Murray Hill office which is around 1.30 hr(s) away from Eatontown.

From our perch at the Eatontown apartment (25B), we once saw - across the parking lot - one of Group 4 climb into their 1st floor (indian : ground floor) apartment through their open Kitchen window. Seems they had locked themselves out of their apartment. Not to be outdone, later we heard rumours - that another of our colleagues, who had locked themselves out, do a repeat performance to their 2nd Floor apartment (indian: first floor).

Guess what - one of the adventurous types seems to have climbed the pipe, entered through the open Rest Room window and unlocked the apartment ! Hmm...so much for community security....

Off course, weekends were for what they were. Usually a three car caravan will be doing a tail-gating around - travelling places. Then again - there was a protocol...the cars used to follow each other. In case any other car got in between (in the high-way), our (one of three) car used to de-accelerate so that this other car would change lanes and pass. So much for the car following protocol. Remember the time, when we (Thanks to Gopi - our lead car Navigator) took a wrong turn into 'Middletown' !!

Later that 'Middletown' (well, there was an equivalent place close to our house also) - happened to be ~100 miles away from home. After taking the wrong turn, we parked on the kerb to ask directions from a 911 car already parked - with flashing lights. Guess Three cars suddenly parking around the 911 car must have done something - as suddenly the flashing lights were switched off. God ! we did not know what to do...so we risked it and decided to enquire somewhere else...

Then started the competition for the Best Navigator Award. The cause was championed by the Group 4 basically and then seconded by Group 8. Finally after a lot of group discussion, secret ballots, campaign and what not - we choose Praveen (a.k.a KNP) as the Best Navigator. But, KNP still will surely say that he is not the 'best' navigator.

By the way (for your information), KNP also became famous for his 'Yellow Dal' (thanks to Badami) which almost everybody in Eatontown has devoured. Well, let us say - there were no options !!

More folks joined in. Which off course meant more celebrations, parties and entertainment at Onsite.

The more the better. By this time, the Offshore team had also got created. New people joined the team, new folks came to Onsite. More folks came on board (onsite) - Subhojit Dasgupta, Ramasame K, Bhavana Adhiyal, Mehaboob, Giri, Roshen, Santosh, Abhay, Suyog, Prasad, Abhinesh. Offshore team also started growing - Anamika, Dharma, Sripradha, Navin etc.

And then there was the cost-cutting and the Offshore-Onsite and vice-versa rotations. Some of the folks choose a different county for taking new apartments..we still remember real-estate agents gullible words..."we have the Beach"...

As more and more folks shifted to Offshore, there were lease breakages/re-shuffling of folks and furniture [:-)] ....as we consolidated the heads and the apartments....and finally 25B, Eatoncrest Dr.,Eatontown became the ONMS HQ.

To be continued....