"Multiplex"- Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 On Saturday, I was still fast asleep when Arjun called me.

“Hey Priya, wake up and get ready immediately. Enthiran is playing in the Multiplex theater today, let’s watch it”, he said in an urgent tone. 

“Enthiran? What movie is it?”, I asked him.

“Really!! You don’t know about Enthiran - The Robot! It’s Rajnikanth and Aishwarya Rai’s much-awaited movie, directed by the legendary Shankar. The music is by A.R. Rahman.”, he said.

“Oh! Are you talking about Robot!! When’s the show?”, I asked, suddenly excited.

“The afternoon show is at 2 PM, let’s try for the tickets. There’s going to be a very long queue. If we don’t get tickets, let’s try the evening show. “, he said.

“It’s only 10 AM. “, I said.

“It’s Rajnikanth movie”, he said in a slightly annoyed tone, “People are already leaving for the tickets. And as you already know, each person will only get 1 ticket. “

“Are we watching the Tamil version? But how can we understand?”, I asked. Arjun did not reply, I knew he was irritated by my questions.

“I’ll meet you in 30 minutes. Call Myra, I’ll call Anusha”, I said and hung up.

I called up Anusha, informed her the same, and asked her to inform Swati and any of her other friends. 

I turned the kettle on to heat water and got ready at jet speed. I then added milk powder to the hot water in a bowl and loaded it with chocos.  I took the bowl with me and knocked on Myra’s door to check what she was doing. She was having corn flakes and had a comb in her hand. She gave a thumbs up and went back to my room to finish my breakfast. Myra and I had very similar habits and usually took the same time to get ready. Having this coordination with someone was a boon. 

After my hurried breakfast, I knocked on Anusha’s door. I knew she would be ready and as I’d expected, she came out of her room with a wallet in her hands. Swati was also ready. We locked our rooms and hurried downstairs. 

Arjun, Chetan, and Suraj were waiting for us. We said a quick “hi” and started jogging.  Many people were doing the same and we knew where they were all headed. 

                                                                                    *

We finally reached the dome-shaped large theater, which was also called Multiplex. The theater was located in the heart of the campus and was one of the most popular places on campus. The glass dome had ridges on it and the building was surrounded by a clear path full of greenery. It also had a small fountain flowing down the steps. It was an architectural wonder and my favorite place on the campus. 

There was a long queue of about 100 trainees. We looked at the queue in disbelief, it was only 10:40 AM and the movie was in Tamil. I was sure that not everybody understood Tamil in the campus. But the craze for Rajnikanth’s movies had no language barrier. 

“No chance of getting tickets”, Chetan said. 

We ignored him and started walking towards the end of the queue and joined it. The queue was moving very slowly. In about 15 minutes, the queue turned into a circular shape, surrounding the Multiplex building. 

We sat on the clean grounds with our backs against the building. 

A month ago, we were stunned to see the prominent dome-shaped building and stand in its vicinity. Today, we were leaning against it and it felt extremely special.

At about 11:30 AM, we were about 6 feet away from the ticket counter when someone shouted “House Full”. 

All people in the queue started shouting. Management personnel came out of the ticket office and shouted, “Go back”. We were highly disappointed and started complaining. 

One by one, people started going back when I got an idea. I went to the officer and said, “Sir, it’s my friend’s birthday today. He wants to watch the movie today. “

“You came late”, he said in a disinterested voice.

“Sir please let me know when the ticket counter would open for the evening show. Please give us an estimate. We did not have breakfast yet.”, I said pointing to my friends. They all looked at me in suspicion but that look helped. They looked disappointed, hungry, and lost.

The officer said grudgingly, “Come at 1:30”, 

Looking at me, many others started approaching the officer and he waved them off and left. 

“The counter for 6 PM’s show opens at 1:30 PM. Don’t tell anyone.”, I said in an excited tone. The others were elated.

“Maybe he’s lying”, Chetan said. I ignored him.

“We still have 1.5 hours. Let’s have lunch and come back soon”, Myra said. 

“1.5 hour is a long time”, Chetan drawled. 

“Why don’t you go to Loyal World? You can easily pass the 1.5 hours there”, I said to which Myra laughed. 

Arjun, Anusha, and Swati looked at us questioningly but we refused to tell them. I did not feel like sharing our little joke.

 We had a quick lunch at the Magna food court in GEC2. During lunch, we decided to inform our college friends about the ticket counter. We sent an email to our college group.

At about 1:20 PM, we reached the Multiplex. I was tensed about the ticket counter, what if the officer does not open it? In about 5 minutes, 10 of our college mates joined us. Only our group was at the Multiplex. I reached the counter tentatively and knocked on it.

“5 minutes”, the officer replied. I sighed with relief. 

In about 5 minutes, the officer opened the counter and we got the best seats and an entire row for ourselves. 

Elated with our tickets in hand, we all regrouped again at 5:30 in the evening. There was a queue to get into the theater and everyone was talking excitedly. 

“The movie is a hit”, someone said.

At last, it was our turn to enter the theater. The inside of the theater was very noisy and it seemed very crowded, despite the huge hall, high ceiling, and about 300-400 seats. We reached our seats after a very long time and sat in our row. 

The movie started with huge applause and when Rajnikanth came on screen, people went mad and screamed until their voices went sore. The movie was in Tamil, which I did not understand. There were no subtitles either, but we understood the context and did not mind the language barrier. We were enjoying the festive atmosphere which was very infectious. When the Robot-Rajnikanth danced to the “Arima Arima” song (title song), the crowd roared, whistled, and clapped so hard that I couldn’t hear anything for the next 2 minutes. 

The multiplex management expected decorum from the trainees but there no laws where Rajnikanth was involved.

2.5 hours later, we all walked out of the theater feeling jubilant. 

Watching such a highly engaging, super-hit movie in one of the country’s best theaters is indeed one of our best experiences to date…

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

"Loyal World" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 The next day, I reached class and took my seat. 

"Who do you think is going to take today’s session?”, I asked Anusha.

“Should be Gaurav”, Anusha said. We’d decided not to address him as “Sir” because he was a temporary instructor.

Right on cue, Gaurav entered the classroom. 

An email popped up – it was from Myra, with Arjun in cc.

“Enjoy the class”, it said. 

I smiled and showed Anusha the email. She gave a big smile.

Gaurav suddenly looked at the two of us, we must’ve looked very silly. 

“Good morning”, Anusha said and smiled.

He gave us a dubious smile, but nevertheless, he smiled at us. That was enough for the day :D

“Congrats”, said another email. It was from Arjun. He must have seen our entire exchange, he sat in the first row too. 

“Silence”, Gaurav said. The class started settling in. He then took attendance and switched to the session.

Gaurav covered some important concepts and the session went well. He was a good teacher. 

After the session, we had a long break and decided to go to Gazebo to have bun samosa. Myra and I had run out of groceries in our hostel room and did not have breakfast that morning. Chetan, Suraj, Arjun, Anusha and Swati joined us too. Seeing us all go, another college friend of ours, Rishi also joined us. Rishi sat between Anusha and Swati, we spoke occasionally during practice sessions. 

“Is something going on with the instructor?”, he asked Anusha and me.

I was shell-shocked. I did not expect this to be so obvious. I instinctively looked at Anusha which he did not miss.

“Then, something’s definitely going on”, he said and started laughing.

“No, what do you think is going on?”, Anusha shouted at him.

“Raising your voice doesn’t prove your point right. If you’re getting defensive, then am sure something is going on”, he said. 

“No, there’s nothing of that sort”, I resorted to a very calm voice and gave him a serene smile. 

“Your pretentious calmness further proves my point.”, Rishi said and started laughing. The others joined him and of all, Chetan’s laugh was the loudest. 

“So stupid”, he said. I turned around and glared at him. He was walking with Myra, Arjun, and Suraj. There’s definitely some rivalry going on between him and me, I was sure of that.

I sent a text to Anusha which said, “We need to be careful, Rishi seems to be very observant”. She checked her text and nodded to me. 

We reached Gazebo and ordered bun samosas. 

“Hey Myra, let’s go to Loyal World today. We need to buy groceries”, I said and regretted it instantly.

Chetan said that he’d join us. The whole while, he’s been smirking at Anusha and me and was not letting the Gaurav thing go. This was all okay, but going to the “Loyal World” supermarket was like “me” time and I did not want him there as well. 

The "Loyal World" supermarket was located in the ECC building beside Multiplex and was always busy. However, we’d discovered some timings when it had less traffic and often spent a long time there -choosing, checking, and buying our favorite ready-to-eat items. 

At around 5PM, we started to Loyal World. “We” in the sense: Myra, Arjun, Chetan, Suraj, and I (Chetan was always followed by Suraj). The class usually did not disperse until 6 PM and people usually finished all the problems and then left for the day. We, however, did not finish our assignments for the day yet but the instructor hardly checked our work. 

5 – 6 PM was usually the best time to go to Loyal World. We reached the store and headed off in different directions. I went straight to the ready-to-eat section and picked up Kellogg’s Chocos. I then started browsing the store. There were rows full of groceries. You could find everything and anything in this store. As the campus had about 10,000 people, one can estimate the product range and quantity. The store itself was not very huge but it had everything available.

I picked up some ready-to-eat noodles, chips, biscuits, and fruits. 

I was just heading to the toiletries section when I saw something unusual. Chetan and Suraj were reading the instructions written on a sanitary napkin packet. Suraj was holding it in a secretive manner. I was startled, I did not know how to respond. I immediately went to Myra, signaled her to be quiet, and led her to that section. To my luck, they were still reading. Myra looked stunned, she looked at me silently and then laughed at them loudly. They both jumped and threw the packet.

“Is there so much to read on that packet?”, she said and left the section. 

I stayed back and laughed for an extra minute. I’d taken my revenge on Chetan for laughing at me that afternoon. He seemed to have understood it and looked angry.

We soon went to the billing section, paid for our groceries, and started to the hostel. 

On reaching the hostel, we bid bye to the boys and just before they started leaving, I said to Chetan “Want to visit the Loyal world any time soon? “. Myra and I laughed while Chetan and Suraj looked sheepish. Arjun looked confused.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow, Arjun”, I said and left the place, feeling satisfied…

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

"Killer Smile" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 After the weekend in Bangalore, we were too tired to go to the office on Monday. However, we did not have the liberty of skipping classes and dragged ourselves to the class, right on time at 8:59 AM.

There was a new instructor and he looked very young, hardly 5-6 years older than us. 

“He’s a temporary replacement for the Professor, his name is Gaurav”, Anusha told me.

The temp instructor recorded attendance and then displayed the session’s slides. He looked very scholarly and had a serious temperament. After a few slides, there was a code snippet on the slide which we had to fix. He asked us all to open a particular software and came to our row to check if the app was working on our machines. It was working as expected on my machine and while leaving, he smiled at me. I was suddenly thrown off by his smile, he looked contrastingly handsome. It was as if his whole face lightened up with his smile. That was killer!! I suddenly became conscious of my disheveled hair; we had jogged all the way to the class.  I could do nothing then to straighten it up. 

Gaurav then went to check Anusha’s screen. He looked extremely serious with no trace of a smile. I started wondering if he really had that smile or if I’d imagined it. He then gave a thumbs up to Anusha and gave that smile again! I looked at Anusha and laughed at her expression– unlike me, she couldn’t conceal her feelings. She looked at me thunderstruck and we soon started giggling. I don’t think I’d giggled since a very long time. 

Gaurav resumed the class again and we both started looking at him in a different light. And we had a valid reason to listen to his class, so why not? We were waiting for him to smile again. At a particular moment, when he turned sideways, he looked like the actor Hrithik Roshan from the movie, Guzarish because of his beard (not features-wise). 

“Guzarish”, I said to Anusha.

She immediately understood and stifled a laugh. 

The bell rang soon and we groaned.

When he was leaving the class, Anusha started singing: “Tu meri adhuri.. “ from the movie “Ghajini” and I joined her. We loudly said the word “hey Guzaarish” in the song and laughed out loud. 

It was a Iot of fun doing it with a friend. 

I said to Anusha, “Finally, we got the perks of sitting in the first row”…

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

"Jailed in Jaya Nagar" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 “What plans this weekend?”, Myra had sent us an email. We were in the classroom and a Database practice session was going on. Usually, the practice sessions did not require our full attention, we just had to finish the assigned tasks during the session.  

“Nothing specific, why?”, I replied. 

“I might have to go to Bangalore to visit my aunt this weekend. Do you guys want to join? We can start to Bangalore on Saturday early morning, stay at her place on Saturday and start back to the campus on Sunday morning”, Myra’s email said.

“Sure, why not?”, Arjun replied.

“Is it okay if we visit your aunt’s place? Can we go to any places nearby?”, I asked.

“Yes, it’s absolutely fine if you accompany me. Regarding places to visit, I cannot promise that.”, came her reply.

I was excited about this trip, I had visited Bangalore when I was little but never later. Also, the training was getting tougher and it was time to cool off some steam.

*

On Saturday at 6AM, we boarded a bus to Bangalore from the CBS (Central Bus Station) in Mysore. The bus journey felt very quick and we reached the Majestic Bus Station of Bangalore in about 3 hours. 

The bus station was extremely busy and Arjun guided us to a different part of the station. He had done some research on local transportation for this trip.

“Let’s take a bus, we are new here and don’t want to trust the autos or taxis”, he said to us. We nodded.

A local BMTC bus came by and Arjun pointed towards it. We followed him. He then asked the conductor, “Jaya Nagar, 5^th block?”, 

“Houdu” (yes), the conductor replied in Kannada.

We took three tickets and since we were the first ones to get into it, we got nice seats. The bus got full in the next few minutes and we were glad to have hurried up. The bus started and took us through the roads of Bangalore. The first impression that I got about Bangalore was – it had wide roads and it’s a busy place. 

About 35 minutes later, the conductor shouted, “5^th block”, and we got down.

“Your aunt’s place is just 5-minute walk from here”, Arjun said.

We started walking and were admiring the serenity of that area. It had the city vibe, yet it was so peaceful. It was a residential area.

We reached her aunt’s place in no time. She stayed in apartments and it was a very large area and had lots of greenery. 

Her aunt received us and was very happy to see Myra. She then greeted us, asked us to get refreshed and have breakfast. We joined her in the dining room in about 15 minutes, she’s made dosas for breakfast. 

“So aunty, how long have you been staying here”, I asked her.

“I moved into this apartment 5 years ago. But I’ve stayed in Jaya Nagar all my life. It’s a wonderful area and has seen so much growth in the last 10 years”, she said.

“This does seem like a very large place”, Myra replied.

“Does this area indeed have 10 blocks, aunty?”, Arjun asked. Whenever Arjun does research, he likes to show off.

“Yes, it does. Jaya Nagar is one of the first planned neighborhoods of Bangalore. All the blocks except the 3^rd and 4^th blocks are residential blocks. The third and fourth blocks are commercial blocks. Earlier I used to stay in the 6^th block. It’s a nice residential area too.”, she said.

“Sounds interesting. Is it, in general, a rich neighborhood?”, Myra asked.

“Yes and no, I would say it’s a mix. But this area does have lavish homes of celebrities. For example, your Infosys Chairman, Narayana Murthy also has a place here. “, she said. We felt excited, Mr.Murthy could be here nearby !!

“And many more cricketers, actors, and celebrities”, she added, laughing at our excitement and handing us filter coffee.

“Why don’t you guys go to dinner today, 3th and 4^th block have nice restaurants”, she said.

“Nice idea, aunty”, Myra replied. 

I took a sip of the filter coffee, it was heaven.

“Thanks for the coffee aunty, it’s quite refreshing”, I replied.

Myra and aunty slowly started getting into their family issues; Arjun and I excused ourselves on the pretext of searching restaurants for dinner and took our coffees to the living room. 

“I don’t think we have time to explore Bangalore this time, let’s explore Jayanagar and leave early for dinner”, Arjun suggested.

I agreed and we started looking for restaurants. A place called “Central Jail”, caught my eye. It’s a prison-themed restaurant where we can pretend to eat like inmates for fun. We decided to go to this place for dinner.

We had a simple home-cooked lunch in the afternoon and went for a walk in the neighborhood. It was a lovely place and was very peaceful. By 7 in the evening, we started to the restaurant and reached in about 30 minutes. 

The place was hilarious. A prison-uniform-clad mannequin was at the entrance of the restaurant. Inside the place, the walls were plastered with posters which said “Most Wanted”.

We entered inside, there were booths in chained-up jail cells, guns hanging from the ceiling, etc., and many more creative props. 

We chose a cell and ordered food from it. The whole thing felt very unique and we had a splendid time that evening……

The next day on our trip back to Mysore, we were discussing our trip when an idea struck me. I decided to implement it on Anusha, who was very naïve sometimes.

“We were jailed yesterday”, I told an astounded Anusha and cooked up a serious story. I then showed her some pictures – the three of us had long and sad faces and we were beyond jail gates.

She was very sympathetic but within a few seconds, she said,

“But wait a minute! How did the jailer agree to take so many pictures of you three?”, she said, scowling.

I did not stop laughing for the next 5 minutes...

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

“I Too Had a Love Story” - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 Prelude: This chapter is dedicated to the novel “I too had a love story” by Ravinder Singh

                                    *

Tired after our trip to Chamundi Hills, Arjun and I were glad that we did not have any other plans for the day. Myra, on the other hand, had dinner plans with Chetan. We reached the hostel by 5 PM and went back to our respective rooms. 

After 2 hours or so, someone knocked on my door. It was Myra. She had a Fastrack watch in her hand, it was one of the gifts that Arjun and I got for her. I had totally forgotten about the gifts.

“This is so good”, she said. Before I could say something, she grabbed my hand and took me to her room. The closet that she never used was open. In it, there were a couple of hangers with some clothes hanged; the whole arrangement looked like a mannequin. The hanger mannequin had a lovely top and a pair of jeans on. There were sneakers at the mannequin’s supposed feet. As our hanger mannequin lacked hands, there were a few accessories such as a bracelet, clutch, etc. placed in the closet. 

“This feels so special”, she said. 

“Glad you liked it”, I smiled. 

“I’ll wear the top and jeans that you guys gifted for today’s dinner”, she said.

I looked at her bed, a lovely dress was on it.

“No, save it for another day. For today’s dinner, that dress would be lovely. Now, get ready, have a good time, and let’s meet tomorrow”, I said. 

                                     *

The next morning, we three met for breakfast. Myra had a book in her hand. The title of the book was “I too had a love story”. 

“Let me guess, Chetan gave you that book for your birthday?”, I said.

“Yes, he did. I think I exaggerated my reading habits. Why don’t you guys read this book and let me know? If it’s good, I’ll read it. “, she said. Arjun and I were the readers of the group. Arjun took the book and started flipping pages of the book.

“It looks like a cheesy love story, which is not my favorite genre. Priya will read it”, Arjun said.

“I would love to read it. In fact, I’ll read it today”, I said.

It was Sunday and I did have time to read it. 

We planned to meet for lunch and dispersed.

                                    *

I sat down with the book and flipped the pages. It was a small read, it was about 200 pages. I read about the author and acknowledgments.  I was thrilled to find out that he was a fellow Infoscion. He started his career in Infosys and later started writing books. 

I started reading the book, which was an absolute page-turner. It was a love story, had interesting characters and extremely interesting dialogues. I just couldn’t put it down. 

Suddenly the phone rang and it annoyed me. Arjun had called me, it was lunchtime. I said impatiently that I was not hungry and would skip lunch.  

“You’re reading the book, aren’t you?”, Arjun said.

“Yes, I am in the middle of it. It’s very interesting. I will call you guys after finishing it”, I said quickly. 

“Just come for 15 mins and have a quick lunch”, he insisted.

“You don’t get it, do you?”, I said and hung up the call.

I had already lost a few minutes. 

I started reading the book and in about 30 minutes or so, Myra knocked on my door. She simply handed me a sandwich, juice and left. Our understanding was beyond words.

I put down the food on the table and resumed reading the book. I read on and on and on. After an hour or so, I put down the book and hid my face in my hands. After a minute, I started bawling loudly. The book had moved me so much that I just couldn’t stop weeping. The story was quite emotional. I wept for about 20 minutes. I then went straight to Myra’s room and knocked on her door. I thrust the book in her hand. 

“Read it… NOW”, I ordered, weeping all the while. She looked stunned for a second and then looked at the book.

“I’ll start immediately”, she said. 

After 3 hours, she knocked on my door with tears in her eyes. We wept together. 

We then headed to dinner with our tear-laden faces. Arjun was surprised to see us like that. Myra gave him the book, “Read it NOW”, she ordered him. We had a quick dinner and dispersed.

After 3 hours or so, nearly at midnight when I was half asleep, I got a call from Arjun. He was crying. 

“I know, it’s okay”, I said. 

The next week, the book was passed onto Anusha, Swati, Sravya, Sirisha, and almost every other person we knew. Some of them hardly ever read books but they all read this one.

They all had a similar reaction. We were all extremely proud because the author was a fellow Infoscion.

I grudgingly thanked Chetan for introducing us all to such a lovely book. He looked extremely pleased with himself.

Note: Don’t you want to know why we’d all wept after reading the book? Then, please read “I too had a love story”, by Ravinder Singh, an Infoscion. (I say the last part with a lot of pride) 

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

"Hillside Getaway" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 It was finally Myra’s birthday that Saturday and we were glad that it was during the weekend. We'd planned a cake cutting for her at the Oasis food court on Friday night at 12 AM. We wanted to plan a surprise getaway for the weekend but sixth sense told us to ask her what she wanted to do for her birthday. When we asked her, she said that she wanted to visit the holy Chamundi Hills with just the two of us: Arjun and I.

On Friday, all our college mates plus Chetan and Suraj gathered for the cake cutting. There were about 25 of us and it was a nice celebration. Her birthday was the first birthday in our group at Mysore and not one person missed it. It was also nice to see many other cake cuttings happening around and Myra got wished by almost everybody in the food court. 

We all dispersed after the cake cutting. I wished Myra “Happy Birthday” once again and retired to bed. We had plans of visiting the Chamundi Hills the following day and had to wake up early. She had plans of meeting Chetan for dinner. I could see him itching to ask her if he could join us but she was firm with her decision. 

The next morning, we woke up early. I packed all the gifts that Arjun and I had bought for her. I then went to her room on the pretext of borrowing clothes and placed all her gifts in a closet that she never used. We wanted to give her gifts throughout the day but it would be a lot to carry them.

We wore traditional attire and boarded the bus from Infosys bus stand to CBS (Central Bus stand) of Mysore. From there we hired a taxi to reach atop the Chamundi Hills. Tourists can also take the bus to reach the hilltop but there’s also a trekking option of climbing 1000 steps. 

We got into the taxi and slowly it started ascending the hill. There were a lot of twists and turns but I could see the view getting better at every turn. 

“What are the famous places here?”, Myra asked us.

We had done a lot of research and couldn’t wait to show off.

“First you have the famous 16-foot-tall Nandi statue. It is halfway from the bottom. Then there’s the actual Chamundeswari temple on the hilltop. The statue of Mahishasura is also famous”, I said.

“Tourists usually first go to the temple and on the way back, at about halfway down, they visit the Nandi statue. There’s also a viewpoint there”, Arjun said.

“You two have done your research”, said an impressed Myra.

We reached the hilltop. It was surreal. If the weather in Mysore was good, on the hilltop, it was perfect. And there was the actual temple which was golden yellow in color and had a quadrangular shape. 

The darshan line was not long and the idol of Goddess Chamundi was spectacular. The three of us were particularly silent that day, maybe we were just lost in our own thoughts or we were just taking it all in. After the darshan, we bought some idols and little gifts for our family. 

Coming out of the temple, we walked towards the large statue of Mahishasura who demonized people and got ultimately lost his life in the hands of Goddess Chamundi. The statue of Mahishasura had a sword in one hand and a serpent in another. 

We took pictures of the idol and got into the taxi. Halfway down, we got down at the statue of Nandi. It was beautiful and a lot of people spent a good amount of time near it. 

There was a nice viewpoint where a lot of people took pictures. The three of us stood looking at the view. It was like meditation.

“Happy Birthday Myra”, Arjun and I shouted from there. Myra had tears in her eyes. 

We then got back to the taxi and went to a restaurant called RRR. It served local South Indian meals. We had lunch and none of us said much. Guess we were having an out-of-the-world experience. 

On our way back to the campus, Myra hugged the two of us and did not let go for a long time…

--To be Continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

GEC 1 & GEC 2 (Global Education Centers) - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

After the creepy stare from Chetan yesterday, I decided to keep an eye on him. If things get difficult to manage, I’d ask for Arjun’s help.

It was Sunday and having stayed in the hostel yesterday, I wanted to explore the campus. I asked Myra and Arjun to which they said yes and we decided to go exploring after lunch. 

We had a quick lunch in the Oasis food court along with a few of our college mates. We told them of our plan and amongst them, Anusha and Swati wanted to join us. 

“Do you have a plan?”, Swati asked us.

“Not really, but we are planning to walk via the Multiplex (dome-shaped building) and also go to the huge Parliament-like building”, I replied.

“The large building is called GEC2, also known as Global Education Center – 2”, Arjun said.

“But the building where we currently have our training is also called GEC, right?”, Myra said,

“Yes, that’s GEC1 and the large building is called GEC2”, Arjun clarified.

“GEC2 spans over a huge area has a musical fountain in front of it which plays music every evening at a scheduled time for a few minutes.”, Anusha told us. 

“Actually, why don’t I get my camera today?”, she said.

“We can do a photoshoot as well. Let’s also wear white, we can click some pictures in front of it?”, I suggested. 

“Okay, let’s regroup in 30 minutes. Not more than that.”, Arjun warned us.

I was quite excited about all of it. 

“How about we invite Chetan?”, Myra said. 

My excitement was burst like a bubble, but on second thoughts as I’ve planned to observe him, I thought, why not?

“Sure, that’s okay with me”, I said. I could see Arjun hesitate for a minute but quickly said yes. When Anusha and Swati looked at us questioningly, I could see Myra looking flushed. 

I diverted their attention by replying instantly “He sits beside Myra, he’s a friend of ours”, I said. 

We all gathered in 30 minutes and started walking along with Multiplex. Myra took a couple of shots of the Multiplex. I could see Chetan and his friend, Suraj walking towards us. We introduced them to Anusha and Swati. 

“Shall we hang out at the pool for a while?”, Chetan suggested. 

“We’ve already been to the pool. I’ve heard of a place called Gazebo near GEC1, our training block. They sell snacks and tea there. Why don’t explore that place?”, I suggested. I wanted to see how he’ll respond to opposition. I was determined to uncover his true side today.

Just as I’d expected, I saw a flicker of annoyance but he agreed right away. 

Myra took a few shots of the ECC building and we walked to our training center GEC1. Although we had our training classes every day at this building, there was something different about visiting it like a tourist. The central block of the building had large pillars in front of it and a few buildings encompassed it. There was a fountain in front of GEC1 but the most striking part of GEC1 was its never-ending rows of stairs. It was a beautiful building and one couldn’t stop admiring it.

We took some candid photographs near GEC1. 

“We visit it every day, what’s so special about it?”, Chetan said to which we all stared at him.

“Look at the architecture Chetan! “, Myra scolded him. He remained quiet. 

“Gazebo is this way”, Arjun changed the topic. 

We reached a hut-like lovely place which had trees all around it and I could see some stalls there. We ordered tea and enquired the vendor about the available snacks.

“Bun Samosa is available, it is very famous here”, he replied.

There were large benches to sit on and we chose a bench. Anusha and Myra had large plates in their hands. Their plates were laden with samosas which were sandwiched between buns, they looked like mini-burgers. The bun samosas were a synonym for delicious and we loved them.

I could see that Chetan and Myra were a little conscious of everyone and weren’t being themselves. Chetan did not speak much after his GEC1 comment. Arjun finished his samosa quickly and was already checking the pictures that we’d clicked.

After we were all done with having the yummy tea and bun samosas, we walked towards a large dome. We could see the GEC2 building even from a distance. 

“This is THE biggest building of this campus”, Chetan said. 

We reached the GEC2 in a few minutes and stood there staring at it. No adjective could do justice to this building. We were speechless. It was an enormous building with a large dome and a massive central structure with Colonial architecture. It had countless small buildings attached to it, giving it the look of a bird with its widespread wings. There was a huge fountain in front of it and patches of greenery everywhere. 

“Woah”, Anusha and Swati said in unison. 

"Yeah, Woah”, I replied.

We all walked quickly towards the building. I wanted to touch it in order to believe that this was all happening. After a few minutes of admiring the structure, we took some pictures and just sat in front of it. We could see many people staring at it like us.

And then suddenly, it started getting dark and more people were appearing. It must be the time for  musical fountain. And within a few minutes, the musical fountain started spouting water in various patterns and also play nice music to compliment it. It was like watching a ballet. 

After 20 minutes or so, we started walking back towards our hostels, speechless after such a surreal experience. 

After reaching the hostel room, I realized that I had more time to keep an eye on Chetan. For now, I just wanted to enjoy this amazing feeling of being on this campus. 

- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.