In my previous post, I brought you all until the point where I enter Syntel’s premises in the Unit 96 in SDF III in SEEPZ. The date is October 27, 2005 and the occasion is the commencement of training on Mainframe technology for a period of 2 months. The training program was named ITP-Mainframes in Syntel with ITP standing for Induction Training Program. I went into the training room, Room 1. On entering the room, I saw few trainees already seated inside and waiting for a Syntel person to brief us. The room had around 7-8 desks, each desk could accommodate 3 people. So, I expected the batch size to be maximum 24. I sat on the last bench and looked around.
A guy was sitting next to me, he was reading a newspaper. He was wearing glasses but looked calm, confident and seemed to have a nice, pleasant personality. I looked at him and asked about any news in today’s paper. And then started an introduction. He was from a reputed Government engineering college in the Western Suburbs and had done BE in IT. We gelled so quickly and that was the start of a much memorable and cherished friendship. I didn’t realize that a small initiative taken then to speak with him would one day lead to a close friendship later on in life. Lucky to have a great friend in this guy! If he would be reading this, I’m sure he would realize it that it is about him only that I’m discussing here.
Introductions followed on with other trainees as well as time flew by. The first day was relatively lighter on the gray matter inside our heads as it was more about knowing what life at Syntel is, getting some formalities done like opening salary bank accounts and trivial things needed to gear us up for the next 2 months of our training.
We formed our group of friends in the training time with about 8-10 people together. But these groups were not too rigid as we 24 students of the training batch gelled together more as 1 single unit or team as training progressed, especially after the soft skills session on 2 days later on in the training program.
There were some characters in the training batch – a smoking Bengali dude who seemed chilled out, a Indori guy (yes people, there were Indore guys here also ), Marathi manoos from Pune, a bubbly Mallu girl from Mumbai whom we all addressed as Panchali later on with 5 Pandavas of our batch already ready for impressing her, a cute, tall Marathi girl who travelled by in the same train as me, a Mumbai Gujju who was a die-hard Man Utd fan and many more others. Each one of us had a unique ability to involve people together and have fun. Training days were seriously the honeymoon period before the actual joining into the live project started.
The training-in-charge or the faculty, as we now call, was a strict yet knowledgeable guy who was a Parsi in his mid-40s, I think. He was very good at teaching Mainframe technologies like JCL, COBOL, CICS, etc. Plus, there was another faculty who was also teaching us some of these concepts but this other Parsi guy was brilliant. We had periodical quizzes or tests that kept us on our toes. We needed to achieve a minimum of 60% in the training period to be eligible for joining a live project in the company later on. That target of 60% kept me also on my toes as I did well in all the periodical quizzes, tests and other evaluation components.
Mainframe was a new world for a guy like me who had studied open systems and technologies like C, C++, JAVA and UNIX. I was initially apprehensive about transitioning to the world of Mainframes but I had talked about it with my brother-in-law who was working in the same domain and was located onshore in US for around 5-6 years at that time. He assured me of the importance and demand that Mainframe professionals had in the job market. After listening to his well-sound advice, my anxieties were no longer present and I was confident that I would welcome the world of Mainframes in my life with an open mind and learn as much as I can. And I did receive the fruits of it later on – which I will cover more about, in my next post.
This was also the time when my beverage habits changed – relax people, I’m talking about tea and coffee. Prior to my training period, I had 1 cup of tea in the morning at home and 1 in the evening at home. But during my training period, I got used to around 3-4 cups of either tea or coffee that were served to us during the training time of 9 am to 5 pm. At that time, I didn’t mind it as everyone was having the drinks then.
There were 2 canteen type restaurants within the SEEPZ premises which we frequented during the training period – Kay Dee’s and Indian Coffee House (ICH). The food was subsidized due to the location being inside a SEZ, I guess but the quality was nice for that kind of price. Other avenues for having lunch or breakfast, snacks, juices were the canteens of other companies in different buildings inside SEEPZ such as Patni, TCS. Also, there was a better restaurant named Heaven’s inside SEEPZ which had nice food as well. This restaurant had an AC version named Ozone on the first floor of their building and that was the premium slot inside SEEPZ that one could have food in.
SEEPZ was lined up with lots of trees inside and there were many buildings inside – some housing IT companies, some having diamond merchants, some were manufacturing units, etc.
After the training ended at 5 pm, there were Syntel buses leaving for different points in the city and suburbs at 5:30 pm. I took the Andheri bus at 5:30 pm which takes one near the railway station. It was at this time that I came to know that people at Syntel rarely left at 5:30 pm as this time was considered early to leave by many projects. The next round of buses left at 7:30 pm and this slot was the one which carried most of the employees of Syntel working on live projects. The final round of buses left at 9:30 pm and there were many people still travelling at this late time as work was always in excess supply at many projects in Syntel.
Little did I realize that it would be the training period only when I would leave at 5:30 pm with a nice mood and after joining my project, even seeing the sun shining at 5:30 pm would be considered so rare or fortunate by me as I would regularly leave at either 7:30 pm or 9:30 pm in the dark.
The best part of the day was definitely the travel in the train every morning as I synchronized my timing with my friend who came from the southernmost part of the city by the fast train. She also travelled in the first class Gents compartment as I did and that was sheer co-incidence that we met in the train after training had started. We both used to talk a lot and pull each other’s leg by constantly kidding and having some fun talking. Gradually, we became very nice friends and as I said, this was the best time of my day during the training period (of course, the learning on Mainframes was also good from a focus on studying). From our regular meetings, it turned out that she too was a Maharashtrian. We did talk later on in Marathi too. It was so nice a time that I can still remember those days – some memories are meant to last for long.
I’ll cut short the post now, as I plan to elaborate some incidents of my training period that still are fresh in my mind. More would follow on this “Honeymoon Period” as I’ve look back on this thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding experience.
If you feel that I’ve missed out on anything in this post, kindly provide your feedback and I’ll make sure I’ll write it in my next post.
Signing off now. See ya, friends!
