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  Sana had cultivated her skills in application analysis and writing algorithms. She was also good in collecting various project related metrics data and providing statistics. She was good in creating power points and Excel sheets to present the project findings using graphs and charts.

  At coffee break, Sana, Vinay, Ashutosh and Himesh were chatting.

  “There goes our mini boss Satish,” said Himesh.

  “What work Satish do?” asked Vinay.

  “He works as a full-time day trader. He uses office time and company resources to do his day trading job. If someone goes near his seat, he will immediately minimize that browser which shows Stock prices of various companies and immediately maximize that document showing environment configurations,” replied Himesh.

  “What is a day trader?” asked Vinay.

  “A day trader buys and sells stocks within the same day. They are pure play stock traders who always monitor stock prices and buy and sell company shares through online share trading. Doing this work in office time is misusing of office time and violates company HR policy,” said Himesh.

  “I see. All our leave requests are denied. We are told to work on company declared holidays also to avoid billing loss. We are also told to work on Saturdays sometimes. We are also told to stretch two to three hours extra every day. Does that violate any policy?” asked Ashutosh.

  “Who cares about our welfare? No one,” said Himesh.

  Himesh was the second child in the family. He had one elder brother. He grew up in Uduppi. He learned Badminton and soon became adept at playing the game. He participated in various school contests in sports.

  He got good scores in his twelfth grade. He got one hundred ninety in Physics, one hundred ninety eight in Mathematics and one hundred ninety five in Chemistry. In Engineering Entrance Exam he got forty eight out of fifty. He got an Engineering college seat by merit in Bangalore State College.

  Himesh was not choosy about any particular specialization in his undergraduate. He chose Electronics specialization because that was what lot of his school friends picked. He thought he could learn everything about computers outside the college. He had assumed it would take only few months to learn everything about software.

  He enrolled for several computer courses outside college. He had a hard time juggling between his college courses and his outside computer courses. He felt he lacked depth in his knowledge of software and lacked confidence in his technical foundation he had built about computers and software.

  After he completed his degree in Electronics Engineering, he was busy in job hunting. He didn’t have the time as well as the focus needed to acquire computer software knowledge that was in demand in market then. He attended a course in Unix System Administration.

  Himesh had dreamed of going to US and landing on a job with a one-hundred thousand US dollar a year salary package. Because of the economic recession, there were not any consultancy agencies recruiting for US.

  He received email broadcasts from Indians already in US telling people not to leave their existing job in India. The email advised people not to come to US through an agency and search for jobs as the job market in US was very poor.

  Himesh’s dreams were gone. He then attended another course in C and Unix. He felt his knowledge of software was shallow. He attended some interviews but didn’t get selected. The economic recession also took its toll.

  One day he went for a walk-in interview with Holtezent after his roommate told him. He thought it would be as usual he won’t be selected. He casually attended the interview without getting stressed out about the outcome. The interview panel evaluated his aptitude in problem solving skills. They also found he could not answer many technical questions related to C and Unix. They finally decided to select him for his aptitude and his attitude.

  Chapter 11

  “Every day Ashutosh will come, he will do his work and he will leave. He doesn’t get involved in any other matter except project work. He doesn’t open up and talk about himself. I have never heard him sing his song yet. Why is he like that?” asked Himesh to Vinay.

  “There is a certain air of maturity about him. He seems to be patient and full of control the way he works and over the work he does. I have never seen anyone like him. As you said, yes he comes every day, does his work and go. He rarely takes leave. And he talks only about project work. He doesn’t mingle much with others except occasionally,” said Vinay.

  “I like the way he works. He is undeterred with any unknowns involved in the work assigned to him. He doesn’t seem to get intimidated by anyone. I have seen him stand his ground about effort estimations and the actual hours he took to complete the work. He is unwavering and doesn’t give a damn about who thinks what about him,” said Vinay.

  “There is something strange about him. When he looks at me, he looks like he can read my mind. Is it possible? Can anyone read a person’s mind just like that? And yet he tries to mask everything about him. One day he looked at me and smiled. I asked him ‘What?’ He said ‘Nothing’. I feel he hides something. He deliberately does something and knows what would come. Is he a puzzle or he plays puzzle with others?” said Himesh.

  “Himesh calm down. You should not try to understand everything. Certain things are better left like that. We simply don’t have that experience to understand some people beyond certain level neither should we try to judge them anyway. If we still do so, those would be only our prejudices of them,” said Vinay.

  Ashutosh has around seven years experience in IT industry. In the beginning of his career he went to UK through a consultancy agency which had sponsored his Visa. UK was also already hit with economic slowdown. There were already many people who lost their jobs at the time he arrived in UK. In UK, he could get only contract jobs. The jobs would be anywhere from two months to four months duration.

  Between projects he would be jobless for months. This job insecurity took a toll on his well-being. For months he lived off and paid his rent from his savings. He was anxious and depressed about his future. Sometimes when he was left with nothing, he borrowed from his roommates and later gave them back once he got another contract job. This cycle repeated. At the end, he was not actually saving anything from working in UK.

  He could not get a permanent job as recruiters rejected him after looking at his contract jobs mentioned in his profile. They asked why he had worked in only contract jobs. They assumed he would leave the job and would not stay for long in any particular company. They stereotyped him as a person who would work only in temporary contract jobs and rejected him in interview.

  Because of the temporary nature of the jobs he had held, he was unable to apply for a home loan in India to buy a house. He could not save much as he had to pay for rent during those months when he was jobless.

  After four years in UK, he decided to come back to India and try for jobs here. He had only very little savings left in his bank account. He was unmarried and stayed in a rented house. He was jobless for six months then got a job in an IT startup company. The company was not doing well unable to get business to get going. It finally decided to scale down its workforce. He stayed there until there was a ramp-down in staff in the company and he was let go. He got three month salary for the severance package.

  He attended some courses in SAP application modules using that money. He then got a job in Holtezent and joined this project. He thought once he gets the opportunity he would shift to SAP related work and become a Functional Consultant. He wanted to try within Holtezent. He waited patiently and looked for internal job postings within Holtezent.

  Years of anxiety and depression had toughened his character. He was no longer worried about anything. His fears and anxiety were gone. He grew more and more confident day by day. In his project work, he looked at problems with design and development objectively rather than subjectively. The project related decisions he made were rational and sound and were made after good analysis of the problem at hand. Unlike Himesh, he was not biased with
any particular software. He would not prejudge or dismiss anybody’s ideas without giving it a thought.

  Vinay admired the way he worked. He liked his thought process and the way he looked at solving any problem. When Ashutosh spoke, people listened to his analysis and his approach. He was matured enough to listen to his juniors and get their suggestions. He treated everyone in the team with respect. Vinay treated him as his role model. He wanted to be like him in every way. Vinay and Himesh thought he worked as the real Architect in every way and they treated him as such.

  Chapter 12

  In the evenings, Sana and Vinay would get down from the bus near the Garden Park bus stop where their rented flats were located. They would have some chat for snacks. They would sit outside the Garden Park and talk till 8.30 at night. They would then slowly walk to their flats.

  One evening, they both sat in the Garden Park and started chatting about movies. Sana went through the story of latest movie she had watched last week. She was very excited about what the heroin did in that movie.

  She acted out a scene from the movie showing what the actress did by swinging her hands and looking at Vinay. It was late evening. Their eyes met. He looked deep into her eyes. She slowly blinked. They held their gaze for a longtime. Then her face showed a sudden surprise and then a tiny smile formed around her lips. She immediately lowered her eyes and felt shy.

  Then she said slowly, “What are you doing? Are you trying to become my husband?”

  “Why shouldn’t I try for that?” asked Vinay.

  “I would very much love you to do that,” said Sana.

  He held her hand for a few seconds then lifted it and suddenly kissed her full lips. She released her lips after few seconds.

  “Not here, my dear future husband. Please be patient,” said Sana.

  They both smiled.

  “I wanted you as my wife the day I saw you here in Holtezent,” he said.

  “I was confused whom I will marry in future. I don’t want to marry someone I don’t know and go abroad. My happiness is being right here. I was happy when I saw you here. I hoped you would get interested in me.”

  Vinay then hurriedly kissed her cheek, her nose and upper lips.

  “Careful. Somebody might come,” she giggled. They then walked towards their flats.

  Vinay and Sana always stayed together while at work as well as going out to cafeteria, spending time in library and walking together in the pathways of the gardens. In the bus, during the commute to and from office, they sat next to each other and chatted.

  On Saturdays and Sundays, they both went to malls. They would have lunch in the food court and watch a movie together. On some days, they would have a pizza or a burger at one of the fast-food franchise outlets and chatted for hours. They also adopted talking through eye and hand signals.

  They also chatted till late night using a messenger application in their phones. They discussed in every detail about themselves, what they liked, what they didn’t like, what they wanted to become, what they had become and every topic was discussed in detail. Later they moved on to talk about their family and what their mother liked, what their father liked. And nowadays they talked about when they should marry, how many kids they should have, what names to give to their kids and which area they should rent a house.

  Their friends understood what was going on between Sana and Vinay.

  While they were in Mysore, Vinay went to Sana’s house in the pretext of giving back her books. They would chat for some time in her house. She then showed him her artwork and embroidery.

  Sometimes in the evening Sana went out to meet her friends. She used the opportunity to go to Vinay’s house to call him to go together for a friend’s birthday party. They would create a fake friend’s birthday party to avoid further questions from their parents.

  Their visits and hangouts didn’t go unnoticed with their parents. Questions were raised by the mothers.

  “How come a girl comes to meet Vinay?” asked Vinay’s mother.

  “A boy has come to see Sana,” commented Sana’s mother once.

  Vinay and Sana told they were colleagues working on the same project in the same company. They were close friends and should be treated as such.

  On Thursday, Sana told her parents she would be joining a team outing to Coorg on Friday and come back to Bangalore on Monday morning. She said she would come to Mysore next week. On Friday, Vinay hired a car and with Sana seated on his side he drove the car from Bangalore to Madikeri. They stopped at Channapatna along their way and had a coffee break. They had the delicious Maddur vadda for their breakfast. They then stopped at a restaurant just before Mysore and finished their lunch there.

  Sometime in the evening they reached Kushal Nagar. They asked around for any home stays nearby and finally went to AM Kumaran Villa. Jitu was the home owner. He looked at them and asked if they were newly married. Vinay lied they were married a few months back. Jitu gave a double bedroom in first floor. Vinay and Sana kept their bags in the room and went down to the dining room. They had coffee and Mysore Bun. Jitu told them about nearby tourist attractions.

  Vinay and Sana started their site seeing. They immediately went to a nearby reservoir which Jitu told them about. It was a huge backwater reservoir. They stood there watching the scenery for some time allowing the strong gushy winds caress and blew around them.

  The next few days Vinay and Sana did not miss a tourist spot nearby Kushal Nagar and Madikeri. They had gone to the elephant camp last night. They went to a hill nearby and bathed in the waterfalls there and ate delicious and fresh home cooked food for lunch and dinner.

  Chapter 13

  “I suspect Anil is an unqualified resource. Not that I’m saying his profile is fake or something. That should be obvious by now. He basically lays out a skeleton of the work assigned to him and then asks people around and gets bits and pieces of his work done for him in his PC. We are indirectly doing his work for him without us realizing it,” said Himesh.

  Anil had obtained a B.Com degree. He had failed in the Chartered Accountant exam. He tried in an Entrance test conducted by a local private bank named Kritika Mercantile Bank and got selected.

  Everything seemed to go well when one day when he was clearing a check, he by mistake credited a transaction to the wrong account. The bank detected the error in the ledger after one week. But it was too late then. They could not revoke the transaction. The credit was lost.

  Bank staff would be held personally accountable for the banking operations assigned to each of them. If there were any errors in transactions, the staff in charge had to compensate with their own money according to the bank’s policy. Anil was given two choices either to pay five lakh rupees to the bank from his own pocket or risk going to jail. He had somehow paid the required money to the bank with the help of his parents.

  He then decided to leave the job unable to bear the risk associated with the job. With his domain skills in Banking, he got a job in Holtezent as a Domain Analyst in the Banking and Financial Services department. He was without project for more than three months. He was getting rejected in many project interviews.

  Inside Holtezent, each project team would conduct its own internal interview to determine the suitability of the employee for the project. Employees who could not get into a project for more than three months would be asked to leave the company. They called it as involuntary resignation. Finally he was forced to join this project or leave the company. The skills required for this project were different from what he had. They told him to re-skill or up-skill. He feared he would face performance issues. Faced with no choice, he joined this project and tried to survive in the project with his wits.

  He befriended Vinay and Himesh. He maintained good working relationship with everyone in the team. He tried to pick up the job but with a weak foundation in IT skills he struggled. He attended many training. He hoped with Vinay and Himesh helping him, he would be able to survive in IT job. Vinay and Himesh, both being energetic
, didn’t seem to mind doing part of his work or spending time guiding him. They liked chatting with him and discussing in general about economy and finance.

  Vinay, Himesh and Ashutosh just finished attending a conference call. They then went to cafeteria for a coffee break.

  “Are you interested to go onsite Vinay?” asked Himesh.

  “I may be interested in future. Right now I have other plans,” said Vinay.

  “Puneet is already bugging for onsite. His visa is ready. He will leave anytime now,” said Ashutosh.

  “He is one lucky fellow. How long is the assignment?” asked Himesh.

  “Not sure. May be anywhere from six months to one year. They can always put him into some work there,” said Ashutosh.

  Puneet always wanted to go onsite. He had dreamed of long-term onsite opportunity within Holtezent. He had bugged Raghu earlier and initiated the visa process. Finally his dream came true. The chance for which he waited for so long was given to him. Raghu was in need of an onsite coordinator to coordinate his multiple projects from Dochamk Bank’s office in US. So he chose to send Puneet for this requirement. Ragu didn’t fully tell him all the requirements of the job.

  Puneet was very excited. He immediately went into daydreaming. He went on a shopping spree. He bought a heavy sweater and coat for the harsh winter cold in US. He bought a rice cooker, clothes and some ready to cook items. With much fanfare he departed to US. He reported to the US office after two days and worked as an Onsite Coordinator for Holtezent from the office of Dochamk Bank.

  Holtezent enacted a policy change requiring all onsite resources to work on Saturdays as well. His Business Engagement Manager aka BEM from Holtezent told him he should divide his time to handle multiple projects. He was told to work thirty percent on one project, twenty percent each on two other projects and another thirty percent for one more project.

  He would suddenly receive some email discussing about some unknown project and his name would pop up in the email out of nowhere. His name in that email would be highlighted. And then he would be roped into that unknown project as well to provide coordination between the client and the offshore team. Life had become like firefighting for him. He had to work as an individual contributor as well as the coordinator for many projects. He could not perform in both of them. He lost focus. He was getting stressed out every day. He was unable to cope up with the pressure from multiple ends.