First day @ Wipro

After being in hibernation for the past six months, it was more than a rude shock to me. The hustle and bustle of the place reminded me of video snippets i had seen of times square. People were rushing/ scrambling towards entry points manned by security guards(who were working for more than what they have been paid for ...i will come to that shortly). The incessant flow of buses, cars and bikes was proving to be a more than a handful for the traffic regulators, but they seemed to be doing a good job nevertheless.

There i was, standing in front of a section called EC 4. The bevy of buildings inside the fenced zone left me stunned for the initial few minutes. The facade of one of the buildings was awe inspiring. I had been to places where development was the by word and had witnessed magnificent structures first hand. But this was the first time i was going to part of it, the first time i am going to be in the thick of things and after a looong looong time i genuinely felt elated.

I slotted myself into the queue which was winding for almost 50 yards from the entry point and within a minute i found myself being scrutinized by a couple of security personnel. One of them crooned his neck to inspect my temporary id card and found fault at once. It was lop sided and he had a problem with that! I didn’t really understand what was so wrong with that but complied nevertheless. As if this wasn’t enough a second security guard wanted to examine a couple of books i was clinging on to. Hello guys ...do i look like some fanatic who just crossed across the border with the sole purpose of decimating EC 4 wipro.

With the rather annoying security checks completed, i made my way, with the company of close friends, to the assembly location. It wasn’t that difficult a task given the fact that whole lot of wipro placed students( or should i be calling them colleagues) had the same joining date. The entire walk from entry gate to the assembly venue was pleasant to say the least. Landscaped gardens, well laid platforms and organized movement of both vehicular and homosapien traffic was pleasing on the eye and was in stark contrast to the chaos that reigned outside.

The familiar faces inside the auditorium was a reassuring sight. It was also the time when many of us exchanged pleasantries and caught up with friends whom we had not seen for some time. Usual lectures followed and then it was time for some surprises.

A small group (which included me) was severed from the entire lot and escorted to labs. A stocky man came along and gave the clichéd “due to business requirements” reason for allotting us to the different stream than the rest of the batch. Most of us weren’t even listening to what he was trying to convey and probably had anticipated that we would be divided into small chunks and that was when the real shock came. We would be facing the much feared FRP test (which had sky high minimum threshold) in just a week. There was pin drop silence when we heard that the much dreaded FRP test was due in just about a week. Adding insult to injury was the fact that FRP was waived off for rest of the batch.

The rest of the day was interspersed between coaching periods and coding programs for generating sine series and recursive factorial programs! It was 8 at night ( 8 isn’t exactly evening is it) when i left for home and it will be a day i cherish in my memory for some time to come.