This post follows the events of The Journey towards a New Beginning. Adapted from my private journal entry on 10th March, 2015.
As soon as the door was opened, all of us started rushing inside to scavenge for rooms. Although no one has ever admitted, each one of us was on the lookout for the best room at that moment. To claim the rooms that deemed us fit, we pushed in with our luggage and kept them inside the rooms. However, we were interrupted by Mr. Gopal who seemed to me a caretaker of some sorts for the apartments. He was there to give us a small prep-talk on what to do and what not to do.
We learnt from him that the place is a residential complex and people having nothing to do with TCS reside here. TCS had rented quite a many apartments in the complex for accommodating its ILP recruits. Babu was the residential-in-charge, responsible for us, and Gopal was his among his assistants.
He was explaining all this when we heard his signature “Excuse me” for the first time. The apartments itself were great. Not only was it quite spacious, the furnishing and amenities were much more than I had expected. It had geysers, three bathrooms for the six of us, a TV with Dish-TV connection, an Aqua-guard. It even had an intercom! I had done a bit research previously and knew that the apartment would cost around 46 lakh rupees. Regardless, I found the rooms great and beyond expectation.
Gopal demonstrated the use of almost every single gadget. From geyser and aqua-guard to TV remote and windows. He even went on with why not to leave the door ajar or keep the keys on the dining table. It still fails me though regarding why he explained the bolts on bathroom doors and the lock-and-key mechanism on the main door.
After he left, we started checking our rooms and amenities and getting to know each other a bit. Kaushik was the first one who came with his mobile phone. He snapped our pictures and saved them to our contacts. His voice had a tone of humility which was comforting. Rony was called by his nickname as none of his friends used his first name due to its complicated pronunciation. Akhil was from Delhi. He was the only one in our room who could not connect that well with others at first sight. Perhaps, it was because his father was also in town and he’d planned to stay at a hotel for that day.
Kaushik and Rony took the biggest room referred to as A. Saikat and I got room B. While Naveen got in with Akhil into room C. The first two rooms had attached bathrooms while room C did not have any. There was one bathroom just opposite to room C around the corridor which was a replica of the other bathrooms. It turned out later that room A had geyser problems, our room B had damaged bolts on the bathroom door. Although, the latter got fixed within a few hours, Kaushik and Rony never got to bath in geyser water unless they had a different time slot than the rest of us or it was a holiday from office. We also found out that Kaushik and Rony were also on the same flight as me!
The five of us then left the complex to search for local shops and get some food. Unfortunately, options were limited. They were nowhere to be seen! We walked around 1.5 km in each direction from the complex gates and yet all we found was a stationary shop with only biscuits and snacks for food.
I don’t quite remember what we had that day but then again skipping a meal or two at times had never bothered me. That night, we were supposed to have a meeting downstairs with someone from TCS. It was then that we discovered that there were 3 swimming pools inside the complex itself with a game house and club by their side. Regi from TCS was giving us some more of the prep-talk about behaving in the complex, etc. Not all his words reached my ears. Not because I was not interested, but because of the cold wind, which was also making quite some noise.
There were a few assignments which were supposed to be mandatory for us before we get on board. I completed them on my laptop and uploaded the files on TCS NextStep, cross-checked the documents, and then all of us went to bed. As everyone was tired with the journey across the “entire Indian peninsula”, we probably had little trouble falling asleep that night.
(To be continued…)
[UPDATE (25 Dec, 2015): Follow-up posted as First Day of Corporate Life with The Sorting Hat]
2 Replies to “Our Luxurious Abode – Orchid 307”