I've been to India many times--more than any other country. There are 7 VISA's on my old and new passport, but I've only visited 6 times.
The first VISA, which was also my first visa in my first passport as an adult went in to vain, because the trip got cancelled. The whole team was supposed to visit Darjeeling, but as some of guys did not get the visa, the idea got canned.
Now that I am looking back, none of the visits were personal trips.
My first overseas visit as an adult came in the form of the "Sales and Marketing Meet" of GP S&M team. Oh hey, I thought someone once warned me about abbreviating sales and marketing, but I did that anyway.
That was a great trip where I interacted with many colleagues from other units with whom I had zero interaction. It was a great follow up to the same event taking place one year earlier in Coxsbazar. That trip actually made it difficult for me to leave GP about 7-8 months later.
After leaving GP due to some exaggeratedly famous reasons, I arrived in BL and had the opportunity of launching the e-voucher service, and also the good fortune of attending the annual customer meet of Bharti Telesoft (now Conviva) for three, consecutive years. These things happened in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Afterwards, I got to visit Shillong again with my marketing colleagues of banglalink. That was a very, very memorable trip for different reasons. I can look back and laugh, as well as feel bemused(!), thanks to the eclectic events that took place during that phase. This trip happened in 2012 if I my memory doesn't betray me.
So here I am, after almost 2 years, back in India, and this time, under a dramatically changed situation.
This time I have a 1 year long multiple entry visa, and I am working in an Indian company. My Hindi is hilariously poor as always, but I can at least make do with some basic communication. I can actually claim that I understand Hindi quite well, but the same can't be said for speaking.
Whenever I am having a pre-planned conversation, things go somewhat okay. But whenever I am confronted with a new scenario, I am mostly stumped.
As an example, when I visited the CLM factory of Airtel in Maneshar, the security card asked me "Aap ke paas liftup hain?". I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, so I said no. Then he wanted to check my bag, and instantly he exclaimed "Ei hi to liftup hain, mujhe iss ka number note karna parega".
So he lifted up my poor, lenovo "Liftup" and noted down the number from its rear end. The conversation reminded me of a recent Bollywood flick I really enjoyed, which features a lot of dancing cars.
So here I am today, after ending the week long exercise with some of the brilliant minds of Airtel HQ. I will be leaving New Delhi soon to join the Hyderabad office for another 2 week long induction.
