Life@D-138, Part-III

I literally enjoyed working at Innodata and whenever I found time, we (me, Saurabh, and Nitu Bhaiya) talked only about Innodata at length and not anything else. Nitu Bhaiya liked English movies a lot and we our usual Bollywood ishtyle, so there was always a tussle between the three of us. He was a software junkie and used to spend sleepless nights while we rested our souls in the heavenly abode of D-138. That place meant a lots to us as we often felt as if we can spend our whole life-time here, much to the agony of our dear landlord. He always objected to our loud-music parties, which were pretty rare and had given us clear instructions that gals are not-at-all allowed in his house, which we often thought of owning.

As my Merc was getting older and older day-by-day, we often discussed the possibility of owning a joint car but to the chagrin of every one of us, we always went against that, considering our background of middle class families. Everyone used to say that how would the partition of such a joint property would take place, once we get married. Marriage was never on our minds but then every middle-class family boy thinks of that one day. The statement goes like: There is no point in remaining happy always, you should get married also. But, due to constant commutation problem, Saurabh decided to purchase a new 150cc mobike and I resolved to get my Merc repaired. Out of these two, one thing happened and the other is till getting to be done. The mobike costed somewhere around 50,000 INR and going by the salaries Innodata paid us, it was all but to get the bike cash-down. So, I offered an investment of 30, 000 INR and the rest was managed by Saurabh. So, me and Saurabh decided to put our hands on a navy blue Bajaj bike but with a condition that we want that to be delivered the same day we will pay the amount. As always, our destiny was against us and the dealer refused to deliver the navy-blue bike the same day, as he quoted some sort of shortage of the much publicized Hamara Bajaj bike. However, the dealer offered a black bike of the same model, which could be ours at once. Son, bang we decided and the black beauty was ours (I mean, Saurabh’s). The commutation problem was going to get solved, much to the disdain of any one of us, as one have to take a rickshaw any way to the office. We rotated turns and everyone enjoyed the rides, both of the black beauty and the rickshaw.

Innodata was about to get a new project that required a new leader to guide. Some guys were called to teach us the nitty-gritty of new project and eventually, choose a leader. I was considered too precious for my project (at least I thought so), so Saurabh was chosen to manage the project and giving him company was a PYT. Both were nominated by the company, which rose our importance of both of us in the organization. Both of us, being roommates, were considered to work very hard for our respective projects and our bosses also showed utter faith in both of us. Our responsibilities went on increasing and so did our liking for our job. We spend almost 12 hours in the office, returning just to have dinner and sleep. At some point of time, we were even called to attend offices at midnight when the servers crashed, considering the fact that our D-138 was located pretty near to Innodata.

Life@D-138....The life moves on !!!!

So, after visits to various other rooms n houses, we three bachelorS designed to make D-138 as our den for the years to come. But the toughest part was yet to come.
In Noida, you are supposed to give one-month notice to your existing land-owner before you vacate the rented accomodation. Bhaiya (the son of D-138 owner), however, has asked us to inform him at the earliest if we are interested at all. So, me and Saurabh had two tasks in hand: negotiating with our existing land-owners and arranging money to give 3-months rent to Bhaiya (one-month running rent and two months security deposit).
We were a group of age about 25 yr. bachelors and the important thing is that we were not earning much at that point of time. We worked in the same company in Noida and there were no immediate plans to hunt for the new one. We never blamed ourselves for this as money hold no importance in our lives at that point of time, We were identified as one of the better employees of our company, who would not leave the company easily and therefore, the management never thought us of giving a decent hike to us. They always referred us to as the "pillars of the company" and we were more-than-happy in that. Our company dealed with content management services and it was really nice working over there for over five and a half years (experts opine that this is too long a period for an engineer for his first job). Since, that was a company that hired many fresh engineers, it happened to be the first jobs of many engineers. The friend circle built over there is as strong as concrete and we are still in touch with many. The company infrastructure excited one and all of our batch. We were enthralled to see the huge arrays of computer workstations, servers, cafeteria and the management block, which was clearly the best as far as aesthetics go. We were given the top floor to sit, which was beautifully designed using orange plywood. We were allotted to sit in rows of four each, having enough private space to interact and talk with each other. As the famous quote says "People leave their managers, not their companies", it suited us as we were lucky to have the best manager in the company as our boss. What a tough nut to crack he was. A thorough professional in approach though, he made us understood the live of an engineer, both professionally as well as socially. Sometimes, we blamed ourselves that we did nothing in our lives as "na naurkri mili na chhokri" approach. However, the "chalta hai" attitude of Indians helped us in continuing our job and at least, moving to a better place to live than those servant quarters.
"Woh lena dosto se paise udhaar....", sang Ali Haidar in his famous song, Purani jeans aur guitar....... Me and Saurabh were very much influenced by this song, which inspired us to take some udhaar from our friends so as to OWN D-138. How we became the self-proclaimed owners of that house, you will come to know. So, we fighted with our existing land-owners over the notice period and again, thinking or Google as our inspiration, me and Saurabh shifted our junk to D-138 within three hours, both helping each other, off course. In the mean while, Nitesh Bhaiya kept on answering the innumerable questions, thrown to him by the land lady. The land lady was a blessed soul as she understood it was tough being a bachelor boy in a lone city, away from home. The land lord, however, was though not such a gifted person as his wife is. He listed us with some rules and regulations, which only Nitesh bhaiya paid any heed to, as were really drained-up after the shifting exercise. After both of them went, we decided to go for a siesta, which was not hard to find by at that time. We decide to set the alarm for 4PM as Nitesh Bhaiya insisted that we hit a Hollywood movie that eveving. We really succeeded in getting his sponsorship for that and he agreed (as if there was any other way to take us along with him to see the movie).