Great Impact

I went to Pune on Tuesday and Wednesday this week (This was written on Sept 10, 2006) which has made me continue my blog on Pune days. I realized that these memories, which are vividly running through my head, have to be written down. It is like a feeling that’s felt when a lightning flashes through the dark rainy night, a feeling of awe and a hope to see the spectacular sight again. Shoba and I finally found Platinum. It was a huge conference hall that could accommodate about 100 people. I have always been a back bencher. So, characteristically I went to the last row to sit. I found that the right side of the conference hall was occupied by the boys and the left side by the girls. This is the usual behavior of college students on the 1^st day. Soon, there were many people walking into this room and it looked like the 9^th semester of Engineering. A pretty looking lady entered the classroom (I prefer calling it a ‘Classroom’) and looking at her attire anyone would have guessed that she was a HR. She introduced herself as “Shweta” and, like a typical first day, asked us to introduce ourselves. Shweta is still the most talked about girl by all my Pune friends. “How is Shweta doing? I heard she is getting married; Please tell me it is just a rumor” are some of the first few questions asked by a Pune trained but Hyderabad or Bangalore posted guy asks when he meets a friend working at PDC.

“PLATINUM”, the name itself says it all. That was an abode of BWB group. No, I won’t tell you what BWB is right now. At least, the curiosity to know what that is will make you read on. As, the last benchers of Platinum, we were pretty infamous for all the noise and famous for our friendship. There are a lot of instances that made the bond grow, made it deeper and made me feel lucky. IMPACT Sessions: This was when it all began…..the beginning of a journey into the joyful memorable days. IMPACT is a 3 day session conducted to take the college students into the corporate world! (This was the purpose which never got served. I felt like a school kid after this!). The first game was called “BINGO”. We were made to run around to gather signatures against some actions that were printed. Getting 30 signatures in 1 minute was a tough job. There were some speaking sessions, some sessions in which we watched videos of how to handshake, how to ask questions and how to sit on a chair when the chair is not letting you do it (!). There was game calling “POT THE BALL” in which we realized that Shoba was a born politician . There was a game where we needed to close our eyes and form a human (not chain but) square. That was when Purvesha and I were yelling at Sankshep not knowing he wasn’t allowed to talk. There was this humorous business letter session in which our team was to write a letter to the PM requesting him to grant 3 days leave to Shrikanth as he had to attend his engagement. It was rejected once (and obviously the engagement could not go on without him!). We spent most of the time laughing at the topic and teasing Shrikanth. When there was 5 mins left we just gave the pen and huge drawing sheet to Vinay. Vinay drew this beautiful letter (I used the word “drew” because the letter looked like a piece of art more than just a letter. His handwriting is excellent) which was voted the best amongst the 5 letters written by other teams.

We were to prepare scripts and enact dramas in about an hour’s time. There were a few plays that cannot be forgotten. One such play is the one where Ganesh was a husband and Mansi was his wife. Mansi yelled at Ganesh all though out the drama and Ganesh has decided he won’t get married (in real life) till he buys 3 TVs. There was a play in which Mukul was a boss who constantly talked on phone and his dialogue “Hello Baby” is famous till date. In the same session Krishna acted like this South Indian angry boss with a Mallu accent which was hilarious. One more comical play was about a head on collision of a truck (driven by Ashutosh) and a Merc (driven by Sankshep) and how these two drivers sorted out the fight. The tone and voice of Ashu and Sanky was very well modulated and their expressions were just right to make us all laugh till the end of the play; and kept us smiling all thought that day. There was an introduction round in which we have to form pairs and give the introduction of the other. Sonal Premi became the daughter of Azim when she was introduced as “Sonal Premji”. Arjun came up to the stage and said “Hi friends, meet my latest friend …mmmm ….Sh…Shhhh…. He is from Mumbai. His name is Aaa….mmm….Shhhh” and a voice from the audience said “Srikanth”. We all laughed like crazy. Then, when Arjun was ending his introduction he said “So, this is what I know about my new friend Srinath” which triggered a roar of laughter in the classroom. Jayendranath was angered when Ganesh called him a pumpkin while introducing him, and when it was Jonny’s turn to introduce Ganesh , with all the rage and fury he had inside him , he called him “Carrot” (he he he ). That’s what we call Ganesh from then on.

“Dream Company” was the topic of the project that we needed to do and this was the last session of our Impact classes. We even made logos and models of the Logos for our dream company. We did this project with so much energy and oomph that the trainer was impressed by our batch. There was a sad feeling when the Impact classes ended because we thought the fun had ended too, but little did we know that fun had just begun.

Don’t you worry; I won’t be explaining the other days of my training as exhaustively as I have done here. It is because I don’t remember being awake in those classes.