I joined my first company Cognizant, in September of 2007 at Chennai. The induction took around a couple of days and we were sent for our training immediately. The training days took us back to some of our least memorable days, those that of our Intermediate Days, when all we did was slog our backsides off.  Also, we were not allowed to have any leaves during the 3 ½ month training schedule. If anyone has a genuine emergency, he had to fall back on the days and had to complete them behind his batch mates, so not many took the hassle to sneak away a day or two.

I waited around 3 months after my college to get my joining date, but little did I expect the nature of the training sessions. The whole ordeal of having to wake up at 6:30 to catch a bus at 7:15,so that I can be at the office by 8, followed by 4 hours of classroom training and practical sessions in the afternoon, all in a city that was as hot as it was depressing,  was very taxing and a bit disappointing to be frank.

So, when I finally managed to scrape through all the required training hours, barely getting the scores to pass the subjects, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I took the first available train out of Chennai on that Friday, even though I didn’t have any reservation. Merely the thought of no more training sessions, acted like a balm over all my fissures and I called all my friends in Hyderabad informing them of my arrival. One of my close friends, who was working at Bangalore at that time also said that he will be coming along, and I slipped into a satisfied sleep on the cold, hard floor in the compartment, next to the wash basin.

The next morning I woke up on a berth, I had no idea how I got it, and saw that the train was completely deserted. I took my bag and reached my friends’ room directly, to find that all of them were sleeping. I knocked the door a couple of times, but no one seemed to move. I went out, had tea and breakfast, and brought them some. One of my friends, Rajesh woke up groggily, probably the smell of the steaming idlis and dosas stirred his nostrils through the open window. We managed to wake up all others, and by that time Nagesh, my Bangalore friend also joined us.

By the time everyone was ready, it was around 10 AM, but no one had a plan. So, we randomly decided to visit all the places we never visited. Even after living in Hyderabad for quite some time, we came up with more than 10 important places that we never visited. We started with the most obvious one, Ramoji Film City. At RFC, time flew away like a breeze. We were amazed to see how many locations we saw in movies were from the Film City. The bus tour was decent, but it is a case of too much in too little time. There was a Live Action Performance of a Western Movie Action scene that was so good that I can recall it till date, and the evening was topped off with a roller coaster ride when I literally had my heart in my mouth. The physical activity was unprecedented for me in the previous four months, and I got to bed quite sore in all the muscles.

The next day was equally hectic. The plan was to visit Runway 9, a place to go karting, and play bowling all afternoon and head towards the railway station to go back to our job locations. Go Karting was great, learning how to do it, and bumping into each other for fun, but in the end, it again felt like too little and finished too soon. Bowling was a personal disaster for me as I finished last, but I could defend myself that it was the first time I ever played. It was only 3 PM when we finished bowling, and had some more time to kill. We went to the Snow World, and everyone let go like crazy, throwing snowballs at each other, sliding down from a cliff, playing kabaddi in snow and finally dropping on the floor exhausted.


Two of my friends came to the Secunderabad station to drop me off, and with a slightly heavy heart I got into the train. As the train left them back, I called saying that we should meet often. Though, the next day was a Monday, I felt that was a weekend I spent well, that I could cherish and treasure for a long time. The whole experience made me look forward to the Monday.  

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This post is written for Look Up Stories: Together by Housing.com