my first day in hyderabad,reporting and a warm welcome

27th march, 2007

6.30 am. The bus reached Ameerpet stop and I got down with all my belongings and searched for the phone booth to give a call to Ryan, my colleague at Hyderabad with who I was at induction program in Mumbai. Back in Mumbai, Ryan assured me that he would pick me up at ameerpet. I was absolutely new to this city and knew no one other than my own. I called him a couple of times and no response. I called his mother and she gave me an address. I went there. Thanks to the auto driver who was with me all the while. The roads which were wearing a sleepy look when I boarded down looked busy by 7.30 and there was no sign of him. Tension started creeping into my nerves and I was running out of the limited cash that I had. All that I had was some 50 bucks which got over on calls to Ryan and my home. More worst was the situation I was in. with the entire luggage and no where to go, wandering in the streets, my nose started to bleed-icing over the cake!

“Last try”, I thought at around 8.00 am and once again dialed Ryan’s number. It rang and this time he responded. He was asleep and here my sleep went for a toss! Finally he came and I went with him to his friend’s room at Punjagutta .I decided to rest for a while before we moved to office which we did not do. I took rest for the whole day and was ready for the next day.

The next day, I woke up early and got ready. I did not know the route to office and waited for Ryan to pick me up. Again late. However we went and the day started. We met Mahesh Natrajan, the regional head for AP region. Had interaction with him and then were introduced to the team- Arnab, Pathik, Sunil, Sharath, Shirram,Vamshi,Raghavan,Lakshmi,Vani,Praveen,Sharad jr. and the other new joiners- Rupali,Nithin,Aman.

The first day went making enquiries about the operational issues and by interacting with all the staff members. Mahesh sir was not there and in the evening at 5.30pm, I and Ryan decided to sign off for the day and informed Vani and moved out.

The next day however we were given a warm welcome by Mahesh sir for not being in office till the closing hours and were warned against such activities again.