Category: Blog

Chapter 2:
The final year winded smoothly, with fewer subjects, project work and lots of time advicing juniors. In April 2006, my college days got over. I was spending the last big vacation in my native place, when I received a call from the HR of Cognizant asking me to join the next day. I packed my bags and  reached Chennai the same day night.
When I told Sri and Soms over phone that I got a call from HR, they too got eager and called up HR. To our surprise, they were also allowed to come the same day. On that Friday morning, clad in complete formals, there we were in TCO office, where destiny had brought us. The office seemed like a palace. We were not even allowed inside and had to wait at the security gate. We felt proud then seeing the tight security in office. Anyone wearing a company tag commanded respect from us. We were taken to the Academy block and given loads of papers to be autographed by us. Who knows what it was, the HR person told us to turn to each page and place a sign in the specified places. Once done, we were asked to come to Tidel Park for orientation on Monday. We also has a medical examination that very day. The gals (figures in our slang) were good, but most of them where my college.  So we didn’t care much about them. We knew we will get to see more people in the office than these girls. (One point to be noted here is that all three of us had no girl friends, the sad part of the story, but we manage to give the feeling that we didn’t want a girl friend).
In Tidel, it was just a full day of lecture, getting introduced to the ‘Exceeding customer expectation’ band wagon of Cognizant. One session that interested us was when they had all the lights out and asked each guy to take a seat next to a gal. But as fate would have it, again, I got to sit next to my class mate and when I turned to see who else was next to her, it was Soms. Cursing badly, we made it past the session and was back. We had no residence here in Chennai, so we got the Pallavaram office accomodation. We were a happy lot though many complained about the food and water.
Getting into the Siruseri Academy and seeing the facilities, we felt we were truly in the dream destination. The automatic coffee vending machine, the small pool at the academy with seats around it, the lighting, the feel inside an air-conditioned office, the boot polisher were all new to us. We felt we were on top of the world. Training was a honeymoon period. Fun, food, girls, mock tests, mock projects. It was as if we were being paid for attending college. We were not sure on what to do with the two point salary we got then. We wore the tag everywhere in the evening. When in formals and shoes, the textile shops which once would not serve us, showed interest in allowing us to window shop. With money came everything. But all joy should come to an end and so the training ended and we as lucky for Soms and Sri to be on the same project. But I was alone in a new project. I had to move to Navallur and they were in TCO. By now, we had our residences in the IT Hub, Thiruvanmiyur. Those were wonderful days.

Disclaimer:
The places and figures presented in this story are real. The story is out of imagination and is fictitious based on real events.

Epilogue:
I am Rajesh. I am going to narrate a few years of my life. It is spun around three characters, Rajesh (me), Soms and Sri. Both my friends from my college.  It is altogether a different story how we became friends, but that we are now. This story starts from the 3rd year of our college life.

Chapter 1:
It was the peak of summer in Chennai in the year 2005. I, Soms and Sri were all seated in out hostel rooms in MIT(Not Massacheuts but Madras Institute of Technology, Anna University). We were cursing the sun for having out sweat out the day preparing for our placements. With 3 years of college life already wasted in culturals and chats, we were trying to cope up with the studies which we had missed the previous years. Though we had battled out in 12th standard to get into Anna University, studying was not for us. We desperately needed to attend the campus interview, as none of us three had any aspirations on GATE or GRE. We never has the pressure on us though. On May 27, 2005, in the afternoon, after our lunch in the mess, Sri was solving out Aps from R.K.Agarwal and puzzles from Shakuntala Devi. Soms as usual was sleeping hearing to his Rock Gods AC-DC, Metallica playing. I was seated in the bed wondering whether to join Sri or Soms.
Our placement representatives had gone for a discussion with the Placement Cell. In the evening they came and informed us the slot of companies. It turned out that placement started from May 29 and went through June 15, with a company turning up everyday. The first on the list was Cognizant, followed by Tata, Infosys and Wipro, the top recruiters. 3/4 th of the 3rd year students were aspiring to get into one of these four companies.
With just 2 days to go, we were bound shopping that evening, getting the needed business formals, tie and stuff. That night, we had resources pouring out from everywhere. Everyone was busy. Sri was busy brushing us C, I and Soms immersed in Puzzles wondering what in the world does one get in solving puzzles that the companies wanted to get it. The next day meant serious business with getting the long forgotten shoes polished, certificates and files in place. Also our class members had a secret meeting in our class sorting out the strategy for the next day.
May 29 dawned. It was the day when we attended our dream company, Cognizant. (It was a dream then, as our seniors here at Cognizant told us that it was headquartered in US, and offered many onsite offers to its employees). Written exams went fine. We had enough lime juice and water packets to get through the heat in the CEG campus. Results of the written exam were out and all three of us were selected in the 1100 selected that day. The next day was the interview. We just could get enough sleep that day with all the anxiety. After 10 minutes of interview and waiting in the University auditorium for 3 hours, the results were out. 504 were selected and it was a dream come true for the three of us. We were selected and we can enjoy the rest of the college days. Thus we landed a offer from Cognizant, a dream conquered.