My First Day at Work

Someone was talking about Mumbai on TV today, somehow that created a chain of thoughts, that lead to think about wat happened on the day I landed first time in Mumbai. I had cleared interviews of 2 companies, had to take up freshers training from Mumbai. So started off from my village to Hyderabad, where I had to give an interview for one more company, from which i had to head to Mumbai.


All my knowledge about the cities was, whatever I had seen on Doordarsan and newspapers. Still remember the day on 18th Nov 2004 Rathnakar finding a seat for me on the Mumbai train leaving from Nampally Railway Station around 4PM. I had no reservation, as I didn't want to waste half the money my dad had given me, for next one month's expenses on a damn Indian Railways sleeper class train ticket and couldn't forget the fact that he would have borrowed that money from multiple people in the Village. 


One guy travelling with his family was kind enough to give some space on the seat where luggage is kept in Second class seater coach. When he asked me about where I'm getting down, thats when the entire confusion started. My understanding was, I can get down in Mumbai and go to Anderi East, Chandivali, as given in the Address by the company, but that guy asked if I had to get down in Thane or Dadar or Central (Mumbai Stations on Central line). I had no clue where I need to get gown, so some big minds around started discussing which is the nearest station to go to Anderi East, thought may be this is one way of spending time, as we can't sleep on seats where we are sitting and we need to divert our mind somehow not to think about the problem caused by those wooden railed seats.


Around 4AM in the morning, I got down at Dadar station, which I got to know later was the right choice. Now my biggest problem is how to get to the Anderi East, when I checked with people around (there were tons of people in station at 4AM), they asked me to get on to the western line and take Local to Anderi. I still remember standing on the platform thinking which way the train is going to go and looking at a guy preparing flower garland with the speed, I had never seen before, and he came with me in the same train, he was on the way to sell the flowers. My first journey in Mumbai itself gave me an idea about how hard people work there for their Dreams, later saw that everyone in Mumbai has a dream they are living for, which is not seen in any other city in India.


Using a coin telephone booth called up my classmate Rohit Makam, disturbing his sleep, who was already there going through the training program, and guys on training program know how hard it is to sleep. He asked me to come to the Office building, which was odd as time was still around 5AM and he stays some 1.5 KMs away from Office. I took an auto after my failed attempts to read the Bus boards and reached office. There I was standing on the other side of road facing Office building, THE Oberoi estate gardens. I wasn't tired as I was very much used to physical strain by working in mango plantation, but for sure would have been looking shabby, as I had no sense on how to dress (still don't know) and had traveled in a crowded train for 12 hrs. All this shabbiness didn't stop my Friend Pradip Jadav from introducing himself, he was also standing there before office at 6AM (no clue why :)) he was the first batch mate I met, but later go to meet lot of good people. After 15 minutes Rohit came, I asked why I had to go to office, when his flat is somewhere else, then understood that he had no idea that I can afford a 30Rs Auto fare. We went to his flat, so that I can clean myself of the Train smell, which I hate even now, and that may be the reason I don't like travelling in Train.




When I came out of the bathroom after bath, Rohit asked me about how I took bath without any bucket or mug or shower, but just had European Toilet in that room, till the time he asked me that question, I had no idea that, watever I thought was hand shower is something else. I didn't reply to him, just smiled and haven't told anyone how I took bath till now (smart guys can understand how :) ). Rohit and myself went to Office and it was same first day which every software engineer would have gone through nothing different. But life and world around has changed so much, and lot of it is for good and all the people helped me are happy, so am I.