Happy Days

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(All the actors are talent search contest winners)

This weekend we went back in time via T's nostalgia to his college days. We went and saw a Telugu movie called "Happy Days" written and directed by Sekhar Kammula. An excellent movie for the simple reason that it could have been any of our college stories. A nice fun filled motion picture which brought back vivid memories to T. He was drawing parallels between many situations in the movie to things that actually happened to him and his friends in their college.

Unfortunately it did nothing great to me. I could see it almost like another fairy tale. My college days, am sad to say, were not that much fun as one would usually have. I had a few good friends and one lovely soul-sister but it dint lead me to any "paradis enchanté"! I had a sub-normal four years of engineering college spent mainly in class and in day dreaming. Every morning would be filled with self-pity for having to go and "waste" my time listening to lecturers who I never learnt much from. Every evening I was more than happy to come back home. The highlight of my collge life was the time R and I would chat unceasingly, for hours together, in front of my gate every evening after getting back from college. One might wonder what we had to talk so much about. Trust me, so did we. But we found topics as varied as college romance (other people's ofcourse) and rocket science to talk about. I am not exactly sure what brought us together but we stuck fast from day 1 in that college. Spotting us separate (apart from practical exam time) was almost like finding a lone penguin in Antartica. We might have had some name calling behind our backs but did we care! I did go to engineering college with the fond hope that I would find my life's direction but after four years of electronics I still find it difficult to fathom the direction of electricity.

What I missed in college I gained at my first work place, Ivega. That place was more like my alma mater. Ivega instilled courage in me, a sense of purpose and got me acquainted with a very good set of people. I wont exaggerate to say I shone as an extrovert here but I did get out of my shell. I began to enjoy life. I looked forward to "office" everyday. I was part of a group of like minded people. We shared laughter, joy, sadness and tensions together. I could talk openly with these people and rest assured that they would not be judgemental about me. My dressing sense improved! (And for those from Ivega reading this, yes, you can imagine how much worse it should have been before.) The coffee/tea breaks on the terrace cafeteria were enough to drive our blues away. We poked fun at each other and others outside the group but conscience never reared its head! The bread-butter-jam and bread-omlettes were manna for our starvation. Looking back I feel we did eat a lot or was it just to spend some time together away from work? We complained and wailed about bosses and their tyranny but at the end of the day not one of us shirked away from responsibilities. Appraisals were always thought of as a magic trick. Now you see the money or promotion and now you dont. "Because according to our expectation from you, you had to do more than just our expectations." I never went to any of the office parties and there was atleast one person who missed me. I cried on the last day at Ivega. I still remember it more fondly than school or college. Ivega gave me gifts of love (literally), friendship, happiness, confidence, compassion, envy, anxiety, shame, and most importantly salary. Even today I thank my intuition for paving the way for me to join a startup like Ivega and not a company with a sea of people. R was the reason why I went to write the test at Ivega, a company I had never heard of before, and whaddaya know I met my T there! First day first batch and the first thing he told me was "(Hee hee hee) Err I think they are calling out your name wrong" and I had replied "(Grrrr) No, that is my name" and had thought "What a jerk!". Well its another story that we remain together now and for the rest of our lives ;)