In my opinion..: "Zoom Out" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries

After the class photo, the three of us stayed at the GEC2 building for a while. Neither of us said anything. Then we started walking back to the hostel.

That night, everyone at our dinner table was silent. We wanted the night to pass quickly so that we could get our placement results the following day. After dinner, a few people went out for long walks. I wanted to be alone for a while. I wanted to make up my mind in case I was posted to the Bangalore location. So, I instructed my friends not to wake me up until the results are out. I was planning on sleeping until someone calls me with the results.

After going back to the hostel, I looked at my luxury hostel room and felt pride. I’ve made it so far! Wish I got posted to Hyderabad, it would make life so much easier. “Greed has no limits”, I scolded myself. Finally, I put on TV, watched it for a while, and slept early without calling my parents. I sent them a message saying that I’d call them with the results tomorrow.

In the morning I woke up to a phone call.

“Results will be out anytime soon”, Arjun said.

“I know that Arjun. Are they out yet?”, I asked with my teeth clenched.

“Sorry for disturbing you”, he said and hung up immediately.

I was furious. I looked at the watch, it was 8 AM. Without a second thought, I fell asleep.

Within 10 minutes, my phone chimed. It was a message.

“Sorry. I guess Arjun disturbed your sleep”, it was Anusha.

I woke up and sat on my bed. How did Anusha know about Arjun’s call?

I called her up.

“Are you all together?”, I asked her.

“Yes, we woke up early and decided to meet for an early breakfast.”, she said.

“Is Myra around?”, I asked her.

“No, she’s also in her room. Only 6 of us are here at Arena. Join us if you want”, she said and hung up.

Suddenly, a new feeling dawned on me. I realized that after a few days, we could no longer meet whenever we wanted to. We couldn’t barge into our friends’ hostel rooms, we couldn’t borrow each other’s clothes, we couldn’t make breakfast using kettle water, nor could we pack for vacations together. As Arjun said, there was no point fussing over something we did not have control over. I sent a message to Myra asking her to wake up. I got ready as quickly as I could, walked to Myra’s door, and knocked it. She opened the door. She wore the top that we’d gifted her for her birthday.

“It’s for good luck”, she said.

In about 30 minutes, we reached the Arena food court and approached our friends. In some time, more people joined us. We ordered unlimited snacks, teas, and coffees. Yes, we all wanted to wait together.

Finally, someone said, “The results are out.” And we all rushed to our classroom. With trembling hands, I switched on the computer and opened my email. There was an email with the subject: “Placement Results”. I opened it quickly and skimmed the content. I saw the words “Hyderabad” and I relaxed. I read the email now, more carefully.

“…….Your posting location is Hyderabad STP…..”. My heart took a giant leap. Still silent, I looked at Anusha, Swati, and Rishi. She was in disbelief.

“Hyderabad”, she mouthed without smiling. When I enquired about Rishi and Swati, she nodded as if saying “Hyderabad”. I then looked at Arjun and Myra. They were seated in front of me. I was most scared to ask them. Their results would affect me as much as they’d affect them.

I kept looking at them as if saying “Palat palat” (DDLJ style). Arjun was the first to turn around. He gave me a thumbs up and mouthed Hyderabad. I did the same. I then pointed at Myra. We both looked at Myra. She turned around, she had a strained expression and said “Hyderabad”. I gave a sigh of relief and immediately walked towards her.

“Chetan got Bangalore”, she said and turned towards the screen. She continued looking at his email. I did not know what to say and patted her back. Arjun stood with us silently.

The morning passed by quickly, meeting people and congratulating one another. In the afternoon, we decided to go to Mysore town and shop for gifts for our families and friends. Almost everybody was headed to the saree stores for buying “Mysore silk sarees”. I bought two silk sarees, for my mom and aunt. I had just finished paying for them when I saw someone lurking around. I knew who it was even without seeing them. I collected my purchases and walked towards a corner.

“Chetan”, I said.

“Hi Priya. I saw you and had expected Myra around.”, he said.

“No, she’s not here. She’s in the adjacent store”, I said.

“Thank God. “, he said. He had a saree in his hand.

“This is for Myra. It’s a secret.”, he said. I smiled and walked out of the store. Myra was shopping for Chetan in the adjacent store.

“So, there’s a future”, Arjun said.

I jumped in fear.

“I did not see you there. You shouldn’t sneak up on people like this.”, I scolded and then added, “Yes, I do see a future.”

In the night, we all had dinner at our favorite food court on the campus, “Fiesta”. We then went for a long walk on the campus. It was 3 AM when we walked back to our hostels. The next day, we woke up early and had breakfast at “Oasis”. I then asked Anusha and Rishi if they could meet me for coffee. Myra was meeting Chetan. Arjun was meeting his hostel friends.

Anusha, Rishi, and I had coffee. While Anusha and I were feeling sad, Rishi was highly practical and said, “Oh! Stop feeling bad. We’re all going to work on the same campus in Hyderabad”. We ignored him completely and continued with our “we’ll miss campus” talk.

After lunch, we headed to the ECC office to complete all formalities and hand over our id tags (orange color). We were all given black tags which in Infosys terms meant “Infoscions”, and not trainees anymore. We took extreme pride at this moment and took umpteen pictures on the campus with black tags.

Myra, Arjun, and I then walked to the Multiplex, ECC building, swimming pool, bowling alley, and Loyal World. From there, we took bicycles and went to the GEC1, GEC2, and Gazebo. We then walked to the cricket ground and finally Arena.

“Let’s have ‘Kaapi Nirvana’ one last time here”, I said and they laughed.

There were so many memories attached to the campus.

For dinner, all our college friends headed to “The Golden Grass” restaurant and had a sumptuous dinner. Everybody from our college got placed in Hyderabad, we were all very happy and started discussing job prospects in Hyderabad.

After dinner, we walked on the campus for a very long time. If we were tired, we did not complain. Around 12, we walked to the GEC2. Almost everybody on the campus gathered there. There was no celebration as such but at 12, we all shouted “Happy New Year” in unison. We walked back to our rooms in some time and retired to bed. We had to catch a flight from Bangalore the following morning and we had to leave the campus by 7 AM. At 6:20 AM, we all gathered in front of our hostels with our luggage. A few golf carts were insight. Chetan and Suraj were in one of those carts. They were traveling with us to Bangalore, their families stayed in Bangalore. We got onto the golf cart, placed all our luggage, and started to the main gate. On our way to the main gate, I could see the whole campus zooming out of view. Tears were rolling down my cheeks and after a while, I couldn’t see anything. Myra patted me. She was weeping too. I heard a sniff from Arjun. We got down the golf cart, placed our luggage in the minibus. Most of our college friends were in the same state as us. Finally, it was time to leave. Everybody was looking at the gates for one last time. But in my case, I couldn’t get myself to look at the campus.

If I’d look at it another time, I’d never be able to leave it.