WONDER DAYS!

The Journey towards an untraveled, unknown and unpredictable road began on 20th of Feb'07...
I reached the airport and was received by my dads friend, who dropped me off to the place of our accommodation . I was relieved and happy to see that we were provided a villa- a bungalow with 4 rooms, 2 for each girl, it had a TV sofas beds tables etc etc.

I was left alone in an unknown place amidst unknown people. My mind and heart was full of apprehensions. I wasn't sure If i'll be able to survive the long two months that lay ahead of me.

To add more to my dismay, a girl who was to be my roommate came-in, and I thought that she had a little attitude problem and that we might not gel well.

Then I went down to get a sim card for myself, and thats when i met my first friend in ilp- annishika.

It was a great relief to meet her, as I thought I had found someone I clould remain with and spend the rest of the days .

As night took over, I started feeling more lonesome and depressed at the thought of being far away in the state of Orissa far away from family and friends. Nidhi, my roommate, came in much later after arranging a stay for her brother. We talked a bit and then dozed off to sleep.

Next day morning, we were to report to the ILP campus at 7:45AM.. So, we hurridely got ready and boarded the bus. There, I met another girl , which I dint know at that time , would be one among the close frds i would have by the end of 2 months. Munmun her name was.

It was a very different feeling as it was the first day at work for all of us. We were no more students. But professionals working in Indias biggest IT company. There was a certain kind of behavior expected from us, and I wondered if we'll be able to match up to it.

Nevertheless, the day went on, and we had a series of lectures on various aspects of the corporate world, and specifically the ILP. In the course of which I made a few more friends. Some of us clicked instantly. Groups were made by the end of the three day induction program, where a coulpe of Delhi'ites remained together and so did the northies and southies. I also figured out that my roomie was no whr close to being a quite girl or the one with attitude. She was sweet, cool, talkitive and extremely wonderful. I was lucky to have her in my room!

We were a group of 8 girls to beign with, who hung around together. Me, anni, munmun, nidhi, mishki( the cutiepie) richa, pragya and khushboo.

Then came the weekend, and all of us made plans to go for a movie ( though none of us were still at peace with the fact of being in bhubaneshwar)A nice evening was spent at CCD after a nice and a light movie. All in all , we enjoyed each others company and were relieved at having each other .

Then began the journey of unforgettable events and indelible memories.

We were all divided into separate batches and I was the only one of the 8 in mine.

Again my thoughts started wandering . I felt lonesome during the first few days in the class.

But then, I met this girl Chitra( my bestest buddy today) and we instantly clicked with each other. It never felt as if we were new frds and had just met. She made me feel important, and good and we shared an awesome frd'ship thereafter.

One person that I have to talk about apart from these is 'Sumeet Lodha' this name can make me smile even in the worst of my mood. And this guy is a gem in the real sense of the word- a total sweetheart.

My teddy as I call him , has been a source of happiness for me throughout the ILP. One of My best buddies.

The other people I hung out with in my class, were Neha, Shilpy, Rajib, Tarun, Mandhar and Subhash.

All of them were v nice people, and grt frds too.

So in contrast to my earlier fears that I might not make any frds, here I had 2 big groups of frds, All of whom i was in love with!

Then came the next weekend, and a huge gang of us decided to go to Chilika- a lake of clear waters and dolphins. It was the clearest lakes I have ever seen in India- we could see the dolphins deep below the blue waters- truly an amazing sight.I will not go into the description of the trip or it will take me another few pages to narrate it. But the bottom line is that it was hell lot of a fun! Lots of food, fun and masti which included music( guitars songs n more..). Besides we got to know a lot of other guys from the batch.

The weekdays used to keep us all very busy and occupied with a lot of studies, assignments and work.

And the weekend was brining the first big exam! I was scared to death, cos I belong to a research background, and here I was surrounded with all the high fundoo IT books in the world and all IT engineers around me. I was sure I would flunk.

Through out the Weekend we were burning the midnight lamp.... gave the exam on monday and also to my relief and proud passed it with a n E-3 score. ( which is good considering my batchmates who got an E-2 inspite of being from an IT background.)..I know they will kill m eon readin this;)

the next term, was a new one, as it not only made me learn a lot of new subjects at workplace but also gave me new and most cherished of all frd.(s)

we met this gang of guys- and decided to go with them for our next trip to konark.

We knew them and spoke to them, but never went out with them and so were skeptical about the whole thing. But as the day went by, we realized that som eof those guys were simply too sweet and nice.

Abhishek, jayesh, onkar , ranjeet and sharda are a few that i can name at the moment. The trip was a success, and we once again had a fun of our lifetime.

We went to the temple and then had lunch in a stinky restaurant and then finally reached the most awaited of all places – Chandrabhaga Beach!!

The most brilliant beach I have seen so far. I t has such strong currents that it can take away a person and gulp him down in minutes. And still, We all ( stupidly brave ) held hands and went right inside the beach. The currents could sweep us all of, but we still kept holding on to each other in th emiddle of the beach! I must say, It took away all of the tiredness that had accumulated during the day.

It was time to return home, and thats when I met the most dumbling dufferling sweetheart friend I have today.

It was on our way back in the bus that i met him. He came n sat next to me, and we chatted about all the things in the world, for 3 hours till we reached home. So at the end of the trip, I had made a best friend, some one Iam going to cherish having for the rest of my life.

Then the following one month passed really quickly, as me abhi, and others would hang out together.

Specially me and abhishek .. we could talk for hours tirelessly. I remem,ber this particular day, when I was in no mood of going back to the villa, as all my roomies had a night shift and i was free after a day shift.

Me ranjeet and abhishek letf office, and sat at a chabutra near our villas. We kept sitting there and talkin for almost 2 hours. Ranjeet came as a total surprise to me. I had never thought that such a sweet person lay beneath him. He made me laugh like crazy that day. I still laugh thinking of his funny ways and jokes. After that me and abhi went to udipi ( how can i forget to mention about UDIPI-i shall do that in just a moment.) and sat agian for over an hour, after which we took a long walk of again an hours... Huh!! so much of talkin and so much of walking!! It was awesome in every way!

UDIPI : well it was a small dingy hotel, where u get nothing but south indian food like idli dosa uttapam and pooris., Along with some burnt Tea and horribly strong coffee.

Also let me tell u , this was the place because of which we could survive our two months at bhubaneshwar! The coolest hang out place for all.... a place that gave us food at untimely hours and Tea when we needed it the most. I never thought I'll ver say this at that time, but I miss this place the most. U could almost always find us there on the mornings of weekends all cuddled up in a corner drinkin Tea n eating idly with dreamy eyes and tired minds.

Weeks passed on and we had many such trips to places like puri, jagannath temple , nico park etc etc.....then came the last one week of our stay at ILP. By this time we were all soo attached to each other and so used to each other that it gave me shivers to think that we'll all part ways in just a week more. I have not mentioned 80% of the things here, if i did , one would know y we felt that way.

I forgot to talk about all the hard hours in the lab where we worked on our projects, based on which we were going to be given our ratings for the first quarter. From morning 8 to night 10 , we slogged , wokrd on the saturday sundays too.... and still took some time off, for fun!! but we enjoyed all the fun in the lab too..as we were free and thr was no one to really watch us, we work ed on our own terms, and that made it a lot of fun.

I also forgot to mention about my worst days- the time when i felt sick! It was the most horrible kind of stomach pain I have ever had. It was so bad, that I had to be admitted in the hospital, and givena whole lot of injections , drips and medication. It was then that i saw the real side of my roomies..mishki nidhi and mummun..they took so much care of me absolutely selflessly..... ! My illness kept bothering me again n again during the ilp and still does, but it made no diff to my fun :)

coming back to the last week of our ilp. I t was on the 2^nd last day of ilp that me and abhishek went shopping to buy gifts for our moms.. Its a different feelin when u shop for ur parents from ur first salary, and we too could feel the same joy. Both of us got a beautiful saree for our moms. We could nt wait to c it on our mothers. WE then went for a dinner at ginger., a place where i wanted to go since the begining but could not go cos of a lack of enthusiasm in my frds for eatin gout!

It was again a memorable outing.

On the last day, after we all received our appointment letters, We all decided to write some memos for the people who matter to us. And so we exchanged letters and memos and oneliners about each other whcih made us all v senti and sad...but it soon vanished when we started a huge photosession.... of the entire class, and of our group . We clicked photos in every pose possible, acting like one bunch of smart dudes.

I guess, I wont be able to put in everything here, and so I will stop. I have not described the relationship i shared with half my frs, the kind of people they were, my experience at work, my facilitators, all the cribbing we did about almost everything at ilp..n a lot more...!! But I guess ill write some other day about small incidents that have made a mark in my life.. some other time!

For now all I can say is, That when I had joined ILP I had never imagined that I will end up having such fond memories.... that would last me a lifetime...and make such wonderful friends whom ill cherish throughout. And today i feel very happy for being a part of the ILP BBSR feb'07.

Signing off,
With lots of love
Sakshi Shrivastava