In the search of "Platinum" I found a golden friend

I was standing in the queue for getting an employee pass. Somewhere, from the front of the queue, I heard two people talking in Kannada. Shoba, as soon as she heard the sweet sounding Kannada language, turned towards me and said, “We’ve go company!” I entered into PDC with the employee pass pinned up. When I went to pick up the umbrellas kept near the entrance, I heard the Kannada guys conversing about their train journey. Shoba and I shared an umbrella while these two boys shared another. The Wipro umbrellas are huge and multi-coloured, strong enough to withstand a storm, big enough to shelter 4 people, but never enough in number. I started to walk straight to the tower that looked nice. I had no clue where to go and Shoba came up with this brilliant idea of asking these two Kannada boys. We made friends with the two Kannadigas and the four of us went searching for the conference hall where our induction was to be held. These two guys were my first PDC friends. One of them was Ganesh.

Friendship with Ganesh has been very memorable. I was there with him when he joined Wipro and was there with him when he quit. The 10 months of his friendship seems like 10 years. Our friendship started with the walk in the drizzle on the grass of PDC and I am sure I will be walking along with this dear friend till the end of time. He is now doing his MBA in Mumbai. Mumbai is where he was born and the place he did his schooling. So, besides being a Kannadiga, he was a Mumbaikar.

It makes me wonder, whenever I see Ganesh, how a person can be so jovial and naughty though he has some deep wounds in his heart!!! Ganesh and I traveled back from Hyderabad to Bangalore on 16^th Apr. There was a re-union of my Pune training group in Hyderabad after 7 months of our profound friendship. People traveling back to B’lore (7 of us) could not get seats in the same bus. So, Ganesh and I took the earlier of the two busses while the other 5 started 2 hours after us. This 12 hour bus ride was one of the most unforgettable journeys of my life. Ganesh had no time to wipe his own tears as he was busy consoling me. I wept on his shoulders for more than 4 hours because I dint want to leave my friends and come back to Bangalore. He knew exactly how I was feeling and never yelled at me for over-reacting (I know I should have controlled my tears, but I dint want to….I just wanted to cry it all out). Instead, he made me realize that friends will always be there next to me, just that I should feel their presence, not see.

As Shoba, Ganesh, Amog and I searched, in PDC, for the conference room called “PLATINUM”; we talked about our travel to Pune, where we stay in B’lore, where we were goin to stay in Pune and other topics that new friends talk about.