January at Ahmedabad(Integration)

Home is where heart is.Having being under the conception,that I'd left mine in Mumbai for almost a month,the 3 day visit back made me realized that mine had shifted base to Ahmedabad.The journey back to Ahmedabad didnt seem as gloomy as it did the first time around.
Travelling with pals means no sleep.And reached 'home' at like 5 in the morning left us no time to sleep in the morning either.

Like promised,I got home-made chicken for savangs,who'd been missing home-made food.The only problem being those lazy asses were in deep sleep,and were in no mood to wake up that early.I'd been eyeing the chicken for as long as I could remember,and that sexy thing was trying to seduce me into gluttony.I tried to look at it like a stream of System.out statements,that is what probably saved it from me.
Danny Boy was the first to respond to the array of missed calls and called me over to the canteen.The situation didn't change much there either,as the two of us kept staring at the food,while waiting for the others.5-10 mins of waiting and dozen calls and messages later,we lost our patience and started hogging along with few others.

After probably the delicious breakfast in like a month,and still dazed,I got ready for the 1st day of the Integration Phase.Though all my fellow Mumbaikars were there with me,the fact that RP,BP,Danny weren't gonna be there wasn't all that pleasing.
Early to the 'Learning Room',we waited for our new facilitator,as I prayed for the person to be a hot chick ;).
To everyone's surprise,a boy not older than us,whom no one had ever seen before,entered the room.Before anyone could understand hey kon 'ale',pawan ke jhoke jaise,the lad introduced himself as our facilitator.Though he wasn't a hot chick like I wanted him to be,he seemed like a nice no kit-kit guy,and I'd make do with that.The shy guy was then made to(forced to) sing later.
After fun and games came java sessions,during which I made up for my loss of sleep from the previous night.

The initial few days were nothing more than java and few songs.God,how I missed those A-44 days.It was only after a week or so that everyone really gelled in and sessions started becoming fun.'Maar hi dalogey' and 'Mafia' were the two most frequently used words in the class.Soon chocolate boy also started joining us for our "sessions". All this and occasional frivolous mails to RP and the rest made the Integration Phase seem worthwhile.
Evening shifts were alloted to batches.No more getting up in the cold morning.Tuck yourself in the blanket till 10.Get up,have a nice breakfast,play football,have lunch and then office.And theres more.Evening shift meant office for 7 hours and salary for 9 hours worth of "work".Life couldn't have been any better !
A weekend trip to Diu,was the icing on the cake.It also made two new people enter our batch,viz.,Pressy and Nelly.

But,the very next week,our heaven was taken away from us,when after enjoying a week of evening shift,we were made to work in the general shift again.Zaina !
The night of 25th marked the 1st Gig of AHD-10 batch.Armed with 2 guitars,a makeshift drum kit with a C# snare,a tabla and 20-odd vocalist,we screamed,yelled,sweared and sang our way into the night,and also into the guard's ears.He was quick to respond with his usual dialogue of,"Aapka employee id do".But a session of singing and he melted like butter,and left without bothering to note down our ids."Bass awaaz kam rakho",was his advice and we continued yelling to the strumming and drumming.
Still the soft skills sessions full of fun,mafia and maar hi dalogey kept us company with chocolate boy's java sessions.
Weekend meant a time to step out into the city.Some went shopping,others went for movie.An awesome movie,a bite of Subway after months and a half decent laser show,marked our last weekend of being dependent,as the following week was going to be our first salary day.

31st January 2011,was a special day for all of us.Our first salary was to be credited on that day.Finally,after almost 45 days of waiting,our accounts were finally ready to get rid of the size zero diet.Excited,we all logged into our accounts,but to our disappointment,our accounts didn't hog the way we expected them to.The next 10-15 mins were mostly cries of swears and disappointment,as people were trying to figure out where exactly the money had gone.(6 months on,the story still remains the same).
Disappointed,angry,denounced,I tried to console myself,as though not what I expected it to be,it still was,and will always be my 'First Pay Slip',and we headed out,to splurge our first salary :).

January at Ahmedabad(Induction)

As new year began,half the people were at Mt.Abu having time of the life at almost sub zero temperatures,while the others were still at Ahmedabad,working really hard trying to get a hang of MVC architecture.
Bored with being in the office on new years,we headed to Akshardham.Awesome architecture and the best freaking laser show I've seen.

Back from an awesome weekend,everyone was back to work,trying to meet the coding deadline.Few lost souls like yours truly,RP & BP were still busy with double entendre.Par aaisa karna allowed hai ? Allowed hai,allowed hai.These words soon became shibboleth of A44.
Amidst the chaos technical sessions of coding,documentation were soft-skills sessions with awesome plays.One particular really struck a note with the people when Swamy said to Mr.Wang,that he'll open if he wants to open.Swamy was the highlight of the play,as the escort in the play was willing to offer him any services he wanted.

In between all of this came the moment all of us were waiting for,the posting details.One by one places were listed with the number of vacancies,with Mumbai nowhere in sight.The best they say is always saved for the last.Mumbai,there it was.Good things come in small packages.In this case,the small package being the number of vacancies.Only 70 seats for 120 Mumbaikars.As we headed to the auditorium for a briefing on the whole thing,half the people were already in tears,as if they had been already told that they were going to be in those 50 who were not going to get posted in Mumbai."Why is it always us? Previous batch had 70 odd seats for only 30 Mumbaikars.",was what every third person was saying. The session got over,but the tears didn't.
Back to the rooms,I kept on convincing RP,BP to stick with me and apply for Mumbai,but they were adamant of going to Bengaluru.In a last valiant effort,I tried to make them opt for Java,but they were again not willing to settle for anything which required coding.I prayed and entered my choices and hoped for the best.

The following week was full of hoaxes about posting.Not bothered much,we continued our daily routine of songs,jokes,coding,documentation,fixing errors one by one,as our tester Chabdaji kept finding loop holes in the code.
The time had come,our weeks hardwork put into the coding was finally put to test.Our facilitator started entering erroneous data,but was always showed a proper error message(Daddys home baby !).Tired from extensive testing,he finally asked us if there are any errors in our codes that we hadn't fixed.Its like asking,is Osama hiding in your country? Anyway,he still pointed out some errors int the documentation,which he wanted us to fix by the next deadline.Whatever!
Evenings were the best part during those days.Though we enjoyed as hell during the sessions,football in the evenings was the real deal.

With the week nearly coming to an end,the day everyone was waiting for was had arrived,as the lady held the results for the form we had 'feel'ed.One by one she started calling out names.The sheet was almost over,but still no sign of my name.For the first time I'd become nervous.Not Kochi,not Kochi,not Kochi is what my mind kept saying all that while.Finally,she uttered my name and said Java-Mumbai.Punched the air,and mailed my brother about the same.
Though most we happy with their choices,some of them we left throughly disappointed,not getting either their preferred choice of stream or city.Some of them didn't even have their names in the list.
Excited with my posting,I rushed out to know where others had been posted to.Almost all my fellow Mumbaikars had been posted to Mumbai.

Counting the last few days of the induction phase,I tried to enjoy as much as I could.Our trio continued with our banter,annoying mumma,cracking stupid meaningless,double meaning jokes,singing weird songs.Had never enjoyed so much.Some of them laughed so hard that their " 'Teeths' were showing ".
Having completed with the case study and still one day left of the induction phase,we decided what we wondered what could we possibly do on the last day.But,surprise surprise,there was an announcement,"Test hai kal".Though of them were not much worried about it,RP seemed tensed,as for him,test is hard.
Despite not having studied anything,the test was quite easy,and RP wondered had he done the right thing by opting for BI over Java.
Post the test,we had a viva and we officially done with the 'Induction Phase'.

EOD,and we were off to the hostel,packing bag(s) full of clothes to be washed,as weekend this time around was going to be in Mumbai for us.