Stepping into the real world

Immediate period after college life is the toughest as we get to see the real face of the world, cunning and honest (surprisingly!!!), cowardly and brave, selfish and selfless and many more characters will play their acts very seriously. Most of you may agree this view, like all of you, I had my time to undergo this period, It was always in my mind for last few months to reach my friends with a blog, they shall help me to value my journey till now, like "yearly audits" (sounds like retiring ain't it? but am not), Well, This part of my life was (is?) meaningful, I somehow materialized my knowledge and experience, it gave me guts to fight tough in any field I was into. I borrow the words of Jim Carey "Bruce Almighty", 'I have corrected few wrongs of my life'. Now, will get into the story.....

By mid of June '04, I started from Coimbatore to Bangalore with the very common dreams of many Engineering graduates. I had nothing more than a phone number of my close friend Vicky's' house owner, not even his address, by the way Vicky was also searching for a job and staying in BTM layout-2. After handfull failures in campus interviews and with the hurted ego the train journey couldn't be much better. I was accompanied by my ex-schoolmates having their appointment orders in reputed MNCs, I didn't get involved in the chat as I was lost in the memories of the mistakes committed during college days. Well, there were plenty to remember so time passed quickly, by that time train already reached Bangalore. My ex-schoolmates were given company accommodation for few days.I said bye to them, and called Vicky on house owners' mobile number to pick me from the railway station. Till this point of life I was just a happy frog in the Coimbatore 'well'.... everything in life was easy in the shadows of home.

I got an accommodation as a paying guest in the same house where he was staying. That night I slept well dreaming about ORACLE walk-in the next day. I wasn't even aware that there would be 1000's of grads who might turnout for few opportunities opened. I went to dairy circle - ORACLE office 15 mins before the scheduled walk-in at 9 AM, I was happy to see no crowd (thinking I was an early bird), but, misteriously gate was closed and the campus looked like a battle field, resumes and pencils scattered around. It took me a while to understand and imagine what might have happened there, in the very place I was standing, there were 1000s of fresh graduates rushing to register for written test, which flared up tension around and securities disposed the crowd with some man handling. I felt like standing on line of fire.

I started understanding the difficulties of many unemployed guys (just by participation), passing a day with meager spending was breath-holding experience (that time I had account for every dinominations of 100 bucks). During those three months in Bangalore, I got used to walk long roads searching for destiny... destination. Sometimes I walked 8Kms to reach interview location (in deep streets, where postman struggles to reach) thinking that very next road will lead to right address. Many times I got frustrated and feared about failure, I always felt loneliness and unsafe. After attending UTI telecom's interview in August '04, I have decided to shift my search from Bangalore to Chennai as my close friends were working there. I knew onething for sure that they can support me till I get a job.

My trip to Chennai was memorable and as believed I got connected with good network of job seekers for knowing the new opportunities around. I felt relaxed and saw few movies (though interviews were scheduled in the next mornings). One sudden day I got a call from UTI Telecom with an offer, but it wasn't my favour so couldn't join them. Then I appeared for MBT (TechMahindra) and left to Coimbatore for Diwali celebration (huh, celebrations for other and crackers firing in body).... I had planned to join in a mainframe course at Trivandrum, if I don't make the last interview attended. But, Life is full of surprises and one of that was waiting for me.

Will elaborate in the next blog...

Note: I request you to forgive me for the grammar and punctuation mistakes because I am very poor in it and I promise to improve my writing skill in the future blogs.