Friday, April 2, 2021

#BlogChatterA2Z: "Bicycles & Bowling Alley": The Infosys, Mysore Diaries

One of the main attractions of the Infosys, Mysore campus is the countless number of bicycles with parking stations located every few meters. Employees can use bicycles at all stations, free of charge.  Finding a bicycle when you really need one is highly impossible. We’d go to any extent for finding one in order to avoid the long walks. 



“Hurry up Priya, we’ve to walk. I don’t see a cycle in view”, Myra said to me.

“Look who found one”, I replied.

Arjun was on a pink Ladybird, looking annoyed. 

“I hate riding this pink bicycle, I wish I could rip off this basket.”, he said, slowing down. Myra and I laughed. Ladybird cycles were always in excess and the boys hated them. 

“At least, you have a bicycle. We’ve to walk for 20 mins. It’s already 8.40, we need to be in class by 9:00”, I said, increasing my pace to a jog.

“Wait, I’ll walk too”, Arjun said and parked his cycle. Another trainee immediately took the cycle and thanked him. 

 “It’s fine, I prefer walking. I feel stupid riding it”, he replied to my glare.


We managed to reach the building where Infosys conducted an induction program. This program lasted for about 6 days, 4 days of which were dedicated to ILI sessions (Infosys Leadership Institute). 

 ILI focuses on group discussions, public speaking, and such. We were divided into different groups in a session; each group was allotted a color and we all got ID tags of that color.  I got an orange tag, so did Myra. Arjun got a green one. 

The ILI sessions passed on quickly, one wouldn’t call them engaging. The interesting aspect of these sessions was meeting people from all over India. I did not travel much before and it was nice to interact with people from the farther end of our country, say, Punjab. Also, we got to hang out with people from our own college. On the whole, there were about 25 trainees from my college and we all had lunch together every day. Obviously, ours was a very noisy table.

“Shall we go to the bowling alley tonight?”, Manish, one of our college mates suggested one day. 

“Does the campus have a bowling alley as well? ", someone replied. I was surprised too.

“Yes, it does and the alley is quite crowded. Let’s make the best out of our free evenings before we run out of these Honeymoon days.  How about we go today? “, Manish suggested. 


It was not a bad idea. We decided to meet at Multiplex, a dome-shaped building which I’ll talk about in one of my future blogs. The three of us, along with some of our friends from the same hostel started together and met everybody else at Multiplex. There was an amazing swimming pool behind the multiplex. We crossed it, entered an adjoining building, which was buzzing with noise. 



“The gym is also here”, Manish said, he was leading us and took us into a large room. 

The bowling alley was not very big like the food courts but it had about 10 bowling lanes. There were screens for reporting scores and a seating area. 



We booked 3 lanes and were surprised with the reasonable pricing. With just the 12 of us in the hall and all the empty space, we started having a good time when suddenly called loudly, 

“Myra”…..

We turned around. It was Chetan, followed by his friend, Suraj. Myra and I looked at each other.

“Can we join you guys for a game?”, he addressed Myra. He had the same intense gaze while looking at her. 

“Maybe another time, we are here with our college friends”, she replied.

“Okay, another time then.”, he said and sat down on one of the sofas. “Please carry on”, he added.

Our college friends enquired about him, but we did not disclose much. We continued playing but something did not feel right and I turned back to look at Chetan. He was staring at us but then caught my eye and smiled at me as if saying, “mind your business”. I immediately turned away; I wanted him to leave.

It started getting busy in the alley and we decided to leave. We were picking our belongings when Chetan started walking towards me, instead of Myra.  He stopped in front of me and leered, “See you soon” and left without saying another word.

Arjun and Myra were furious. I was speechless. What was his problem???

 -- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

14 comments:

  1. These are some fun memories. I would prefer a long walk over cycling anytime though. :-)

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    1. We eventually preferred the long walks too :)
      Thanks for stopping by :)

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  2. I don't know about Infosys but I love Mysore :)

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    Replies
    1. Mysore is a lovely place, I really like the vibe of the city. The Infosys campus in Mysore is legendary. Please try to visit if possible.

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  3. Wow, this story is taking a slow gripping turn, I must say. Now I feel 30 days is a long time to know what is brewing in the Infosys campus, Mysore.

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    Replies
    1. Haha.. Thank you for reading, we had a lot of fun on the campus :) Hope I can do justice to all our experiences for the rest of this month.

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  4. I have visited the Bengaluru campus and loved it.

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    1. That's nice :). I've never been to the Bengaluru campus but hope to visit it one day. I've worked at the Hyderabad campus for 3.5 years and it's beautiful. Infosys campuses are in general are all architectural marvels.

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  5. Thanks for bringing us all those fun memories you had during your stay there.

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    1. Thank you very much :) . If there's one thing that I cannot get over, it's the time spent in the Mysore campus. I am actually reliving the good old days by writing about it.

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  6. Everyone raves about this campus and truly the facilities offered is world class.

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    1. True :), the facilities offered are really world class and I have never come across a place like this. Have you been to the campus?

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  7. Reading this makes me feel like I am there right now. This is such a beautiful start. Can't wait to read the rest 😊

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