"Hey I got "The Call.", I am going to Kolkata on December 29th. Okay catch you later,Bye."
The line went dead before Ajju could realize what the call was about or even who the caller was. She checked her call log to know that it was Peelu.
"What did she mean?", Ajju kept wondering, when her other sane friends started texting her that they had got their call for training from The Giants Software company they had got job offers through campus placements. Ajju was pretty excited initially because being idle for almost 6 months had changed a lot in her. She had realized being jobless at home invites a lot of raised eyebrows, sometimes even the sarcastic eyebrow hook like the The Rock, loads of advices from "Kid, I care about your future" relatives and also from the "I don't care a thing about you, I am here to ridicule your parents to have a loser like you for a child" strangers, neighborhood children who pose questions like "Akka why you always at home?". As if this wasn't humiliating enough there were her social website friends always jumping up with questions like "Have you got your call?" the minute she logs in.. So she was eagerly waiting for her mail or call or any remote signal from the company, like an alien stranded in the Earth waiting for his call from the Mother Ship.
She opened her inbox for the new message to find 1290 new messages."Screw FB for sending updates of every goddamn possible thing any of my friends had done",an irate Ajju thought. She filtered her mail to get the one she sought and there it was. Her mind was full of other thoughts that she hardly understood the letter. She screamed for her parents who were a lot more excited to get her out of the couch and also out of the house. She called, texted, tweeted, pinged and resorted to every medium of communication to convey the news to all the idiots who sympathized her for not having a job. She was on cloud nine, when suddenly the bubble breaker came in the form of Google,"Hey did you check out the offer letter?".
"Duh...of course I did we are going to Kolkata.",laughed Ajju. She had been dreaming about taking the Metro,Tram,Victoria Palace,Eden Gardens and what not.
"ROFL...no we are not going to Kokata,We are going to Helldia, a ridiculously small town for a software company to have its training which also happens to be a Naxal attacking town."
There was this glass crashing sound in Ajju's heard which unfortunately didn't mute her loud swearing.
"Crap.. I had so much plans for a upgraded metro city not for a town",Ajju cried out.
After a lot of research about Helldia she was convinced she was in deep shit.
After days and nights of Service Agreement editing, printing, preparations,packing,shopping,salonizing,NSR registering,Air ticket hunting and hell lot of work that her lazy butt was not used to doing she was finally ready to take the flight to Kolkata with six of her friends.
Goodbyes where the most cruel thing one has to endure. She was trying hard not to cry, yet her mind lost the control of her tears. The emotions were overwhelming and cannot be described with mere words.
Sappani,CR,Papa,Romance,Singer along with Papa's mom prepared the initial journey to catch the flight.
CR had a relative-friend who worked at the airport and it was because of him that their extremely excess baggage where waived off.
After security check they were waiting for their boarding call and started calling every possible soul to tell that they were leaving. Even after a clear sexy announcement of the gate number the group were still confused about which of the two lines in front of Gate No 2 to stand in. Finally they managed to get in the right queue.
As they left the gate Sappani's face fell down looking at the airline bus.
"Enna macha flightnu sollitu,they are taking us in a bus",said a dejected Sappani..
"Dei the bus will take us to the flight da",said Ajju after a good laugh.
As they ascended the flight, they saw the beautiful air hostess welcoming the passengers as they entered.
"Good evening ,Welcome to Indicome Air",greeted the air hostess.
"Good evening,What is your name?",asked Romance.
The air hostess was taken aback by the question yet manged to answer.
"Machi super la..",sniggered Romance.
Sappani,CR and Romance were all talking loud about how easy the journey is going to be and that they weren't scared at all, but when the flight was about to take off they had their eyes shut tightly, gripping each others hands tightly.Ajju was laughing hard at the guys.The flight journey was pretty boring with Romance calling for the air hostess for water tissues and all.
At around 10.20 they reached Kolkata Airport. They were all pretty excited about how to survive in this place with no knowledge about Bangla or even basics of Hindi.Their only safety net was Papa and her Urdu speaking skills.They managed to find the driver that Ajju's dad had arranged to take them to his office guest house in Alipur. They had asked for a bigger bandwagon,but all the driver guy could get was a Versa which wouldn't even hold their luggage. With great effort they managed to get all their luggage and also Papa, Papa's mum and CR into the car and they drove off.
Sappani,Ajju,Singer and Romance managed with a little Hindi and English and found a taxi. The car ride was scary coz of the fact that they were in a new city,hardly understood what others said, it was 11.30 in the night and they did not know where the place is. The cabbie kept driving circles around New Alipur and finally Romance spotted the Versa standing in front of a Red colour building. The taxi driver demanded twice the cab fare as that's the rule in Kolkata. The lot grudgingly payed 300 rupees and cursed him in Tamil.
Papa and her mom snuggled into the room that was for the girls and Ajju and Singer decided to chat with the guys for sometime They ended up chatting the entire night and in the morning they got ready as soon as possible to reach the airport to get the bus arranged by the company to take them to Helldia. The cold was really biting for they had been used to the hot climate of TN.
They reached the airport to find Salma-Salma their friend who had hopes of getting a train to Kolkata to reduce the expenses but ended up having the most expensive travel through last minute flight booking. They also met their other friends who had wisely taken the morning flight. Ajju was so relieved to see EM, her best friend but not so happy to be pushing her over sized luggage. At that difficult time she felt someone tapping her shoulder.
"Hi, you here for Helldia Training right, which college are you from?",piped up Stna.
"Half-Moon",murmured Ajju who was panting hard pushing that baggage of EM.
Stna who thought Ajju was being plain bitchy steered Kuttan away from the group.Ajju was thoroughly irritated by EM who was running up and down getting associates names for the bus journey instead of minding her luggage. Finally they got into on of the bus which Stna and Kuttan carefully avoided.The bus journey was really funny given the fact that they were spotting each and every thing on the road.
"Hey look Kolkata cars,Malls,McD poster".
"Haven't you seen that in Chennai you moron".
"Hey look Howrah bridge, that I haven't seen in Chennai".
"This is Howrah Bridge?It looked a lot different in the movies,bigger and better",said Ajju who was really disappointed to see the shrunken bridge.
"Hey not that side ,this side of the road idiot",laughed EM
"Adanna pathen",smiled Ajju.
The journey extended into the bumpy country roads and after 6 hours of torturous bus ride they reached Helldia, which looked more like a very very big factory with many heavy machinery here and there. After another two hours of going around the town because of the driver's exceptional knowledge of roads Ajju spotted a signboard that said Helldia Institute of Technology, the college where their training where apparently held.
They reached the place and were informed that they will be allocated hostels for their stay during training. There were 3 hostels for girls and one for guys. The girls were all really worried about whether they'll get to stay in the same hostel as their friends. Ajju and EM got allocated in the same hostel so did their other friends, but in other rooms. After a abysmal dinner they got ready for another short bus journey to the hostel. Ajju was helped by Tintu who carried her luggage to her room 104. After a while the door burst open and there stood Stna.
"So are we gonna be like roomies?",said Stna sounding disapproving.
"I guess..",fumbled Ajju clearly wanting stay away from this girl whom she thought was a typical Chennai scene party, the very group she hates.
After a few lame conversations she realized actually this girl isn't that bad. They heard some hustle and bustle outside their room. when they came out they saw many people where shifting their rooms and wondered why not they swap their rooms also. Ajju was a lot comfortable staying in the ground floor so she suggested Stna swap rooms with EM so she'll be next door to Kuttan. Salma-Salma and Thaj, classmates of Ajju decided to camp in the same room with Ajju. They were chatting and gossiping about stuff they hardly spoke in college.
As they were about to sleep,Ajju thought about the last two days and laughed how a lazy couch potato got her ass working to come all the way to Helldia. She was hoping for a great time ahead.With that positive mental note she decided to sleep. Places do bring people together.
The line went dead before Ajju could realize what the call was about or even who the caller was. She checked her call log to know that it was Peelu.
"What did she mean?", Ajju kept wondering, when her other sane friends started texting her that they had got their call for training from The Giants Software company they had got job offers through campus placements. Ajju was pretty excited initially because being idle for almost 6 months had changed a lot in her. She had realized being jobless at home invites a lot of raised eyebrows, sometimes even the sarcastic eyebrow hook like the The Rock, loads of advices from "Kid, I care about your future" relatives and also from the "I don't care a thing about you, I am here to ridicule your parents to have a loser like you for a child" strangers, neighborhood children who pose questions like "Akka why you always at home?". As if this wasn't humiliating enough there were her social website friends always jumping up with questions like "Have you got your call?" the minute she logs in.. So she was eagerly waiting for her mail or call or any remote signal from the company, like an alien stranded in the Earth waiting for his call from the Mother Ship.
She opened her inbox for the new message to find 1290 new messages."Screw FB for sending updates of every goddamn possible thing any of my friends had done",an irate Ajju thought. She filtered her mail to get the one she sought and there it was. Her mind was full of other thoughts that she hardly understood the letter. She screamed for her parents who were a lot more excited to get her out of the couch and also out of the house. She called, texted, tweeted, pinged and resorted to every medium of communication to convey the news to all the idiots who sympathized her for not having a job. She was on cloud nine, when suddenly the bubble breaker came in the form of Google,"Hey did you check out the offer letter?".
"Duh...of course I did we are going to Kolkata.",laughed Ajju. She had been dreaming about taking the Metro,Tram,Victoria Palace,Eden Gardens and what not.
"ROFL...no we are not going to Kokata,We are going to Helldia, a ridiculously small town for a software company to have its training which also happens to be a Naxal attacking town."
There was this glass crashing sound in Ajju's heard which unfortunately didn't mute her loud swearing.
"Crap.. I had so much plans for a upgraded metro city not for a town",Ajju cried out.
After a lot of research about Helldia she was convinced she was in deep shit.
After days and nights of Service Agreement editing, printing, preparations,packing,shopping,salonizing,NSR registering,Air ticket hunting and hell lot of work that her lazy butt was not used to doing she was finally ready to take the flight to Kolkata with six of her friends.
Goodbyes where the most cruel thing one has to endure. She was trying hard not to cry, yet her mind lost the control of her tears. The emotions were overwhelming and cannot be described with mere words.
Sappani,CR,Papa,Romance,Singer along with Papa's mom prepared the initial journey to catch the flight.
CR had a relative-friend who worked at the airport and it was because of him that their extremely excess baggage where waived off.
After security check they were waiting for their boarding call and started calling every possible soul to tell that they were leaving. Even after a clear sexy announcement of the gate number the group were still confused about which of the two lines in front of Gate No 2 to stand in. Finally they managed to get in the right queue.
As they left the gate Sappani's face fell down looking at the airline bus.
"Enna macha flightnu sollitu,they are taking us in a bus",said a dejected Sappani..
"Dei the bus will take us to the flight da",said Ajju after a good laugh.
As they ascended the flight, they saw the beautiful air hostess welcoming the passengers as they entered.
"Good evening ,Welcome to Indicome Air",greeted the air hostess.
"Good evening,What is your name?",asked Romance.
The air hostess was taken aback by the question yet manged to answer.
"Machi super la..",sniggered Romance.
Sappani,CR and Romance were all talking loud about how easy the journey is going to be and that they weren't scared at all, but when the flight was about to take off they had their eyes shut tightly, gripping each others hands tightly.Ajju was laughing hard at the guys.The flight journey was pretty boring with Romance calling for the air hostess for water tissues and all.
At around 10.20 they reached Kolkata Airport. They were all pretty excited about how to survive in this place with no knowledge about Bangla or even basics of Hindi.Their only safety net was Papa and her Urdu speaking skills.They managed to find the driver that Ajju's dad had arranged to take them to his office guest house in Alipur. They had asked for a bigger bandwagon,but all the driver guy could get was a Versa which wouldn't even hold their luggage. With great effort they managed to get all their luggage and also Papa, Papa's mum and CR into the car and they drove off.
Sappani,Ajju,Singer and Romance managed with a little Hindi and English and found a taxi. The car ride was scary coz of the fact that they were in a new city,hardly understood what others said, it was 11.30 in the night and they did not know where the place is. The cabbie kept driving circles around New Alipur and finally Romance spotted the Versa standing in front of a Red colour building. The taxi driver demanded twice the cab fare as that's the rule in Kolkata. The lot grudgingly payed 300 rupees and cursed him in Tamil.
Papa and her mom snuggled into the room that was for the girls and Ajju and Singer decided to chat with the guys for sometime They ended up chatting the entire night and in the morning they got ready as soon as possible to reach the airport to get the bus arranged by the company to take them to Helldia. The cold was really biting for they had been used to the hot climate of TN.
They reached the airport to find Salma-Salma their friend who had hopes of getting a train to Kolkata to reduce the expenses but ended up having the most expensive travel through last minute flight booking. They also met their other friends who had wisely taken the morning flight. Ajju was so relieved to see EM, her best friend but not so happy to be pushing her over sized luggage. At that difficult time she felt someone tapping her shoulder.
"Hi, you here for Helldia Training right, which college are you from?",piped up Stna.
"Half-Moon",murmured Ajju who was panting hard pushing that baggage of EM.
Stna who thought Ajju was being plain bitchy steered Kuttan away from the group.Ajju was thoroughly irritated by EM who was running up and down getting associates names for the bus journey instead of minding her luggage. Finally they got into on of the bus which Stna and Kuttan carefully avoided.The bus journey was really funny given the fact that they were spotting each and every thing on the road.
"Hey look Kolkata cars,Malls,McD poster".
"Haven't you seen that in Chennai you moron".
"Hey look Howrah bridge, that I haven't seen in Chennai".
"This is Howrah Bridge?It looked a lot different in the movies,bigger and better",said Ajju who was really disappointed to see the shrunken bridge.
"Hey not that side ,this side of the road idiot",laughed EM
"Adanna pathen",smiled Ajju.
The journey extended into the bumpy country roads and after 6 hours of torturous bus ride they reached Helldia, which looked more like a very very big factory with many heavy machinery here and there. After another two hours of going around the town because of the driver's exceptional knowledge of roads Ajju spotted a signboard that said Helldia Institute of Technology, the college where their training where apparently held.
They reached the place and were informed that they will be allocated hostels for their stay during training. There were 3 hostels for girls and one for guys. The girls were all really worried about whether they'll get to stay in the same hostel as their friends. Ajju and EM got allocated in the same hostel so did their other friends, but in other rooms. After a abysmal dinner they got ready for another short bus journey to the hostel. Ajju was helped by Tintu who carried her luggage to her room 104. After a while the door burst open and there stood Stna.
"So are we gonna be like roomies?",said Stna sounding disapproving.
"I guess..",fumbled Ajju clearly wanting stay away from this girl whom she thought was a typical Chennai scene party, the very group she hates.
After a few lame conversations she realized actually this girl isn't that bad. They heard some hustle and bustle outside their room. when they came out they saw many people where shifting their rooms and wondered why not they swap their rooms also. Ajju was a lot comfortable staying in the ground floor so she suggested Stna swap rooms with EM so she'll be next door to Kuttan. Salma-Salma and Thaj, classmates of Ajju decided to camp in the same room with Ajju. They were chatting and gossiping about stuff they hardly spoke in college.
As they were about to sleep,Ajju thought about the last two days and laughed how a lazy couch potato got her ass working to come all the way to Helldia. She was hoping for a great time ahead.With that positive mental note she decided to sleep. Places do bring people together.
