Chennai Blues - Episode 3

I got up by about 6.15 A.M, took bath in hot water. Got dressed up by about 7.15 A.M had morning tea, couldnt have my breakfast though because I would be running late then. I had a bit of discomfort since there was little bit of congestion in my chest. I walked upto the main street and caught an auto to Tidel Park. The roads were getting busier as time passed by. The auto guy asked for 50 Rs and the journey lasted for about 15 minutes and he left me in front of the Tidel Park gate but on the opposite side of the road. Since one side of the road was blocked of due to the construction work all the traffic was diverted to a single lane. I was in a bit of hurry and crossed to the road and when my right side was clear I jumped only to see a bus from my left in my panic I stepped back a couple of steps and avoided the bus but an auto hit my bag pretty hard and I was pushed front, for a moment I was in a shock and the auto driver was giving me the chilled looks.

I dint look back and seeing it as sign that my corporate life is going to be a mess I proceeded further and entered Tidel park at 7.55 A.M. By looking at others who were entering the area, I understood that I need to get a paper from the counter fill up the details and get it scanned at the second counter. Which I did and procceded to the Ground Floor Auditorium at about 8.10 A.M reached there by about 8.12 A.M and took a seat. After being seated for sometime I saw my old college buddies come by and I sat aside along them. In the meanwhile I could see the CTS guys were bringing a lot of shoulder bags into the room. As soon as all of them were brought in we were addressed by a guy named Vimal. He was welcoming us and the said the session would last from 9.00 A.M to 6.00 P.M. The first thought that went through my mind is "Holy Cow now thats gotta be boring".

After giving us a background on welcoming ceremonies, our 1st addressing came from Col: Jason Peter, now he was the "picture perfect" colonel that we all have in mind. Completly bald with a big moustache. I was thinking "Military guys to tame the animals from College", but the guy was plesant and he was the center head in Siruseri, the C.Academy where we were going to be trained for the next couple of months. Then we were addressed by Chandra the VC of CTS, then there was an addressing by Sairam dont remember which department he was from. Most of the addressing was boring PPTs and most of the things mentioned was not understood atleast by me. There was a coffee break in between sessions and also a free lunch session. After the lunch though a woman came to address us and she said she was from the RNG Department (dont ask me the full form, I remember because she said that word about 100 times) she was having issues I guess, the 1st thing was to put off all the lights and 2nd being to mix the girls and boys audience. All of which took about half an hour. With about 1 hour given to each session, she was finding a real good way to kill time. Then the session started, her voice was not heard towards the end and when someone asked to use the mic, she refused to use the mic saying that "she was uncomfortable" with the mic. I wonder how she made it through the corporate life without ever using a mic. I kind of slept through most of the session. The rest of the session I dont even remember, until the next tea break.

In the meanwhile the condition in my chest was getting worse, the A/C in the room obviously had no control and the room was slowly turning into a frigid zone. I could hold a Cone Ice Cream in my hand for 8 Hours and it still wouldnt melt. By about 5.oo P.M we had addressal by different banks HDFC, CitiBank, Standard Chartered and ICICI. The 1st was HDFC and a lady was presenting the bank's various features and then Citibank came which was again a lady.

Now the senario turned into a bitch fight arena.

HDFC: We have over 100 ATMs in India
CitiBank: Why do you need 100 ATMs, are you going to put your ATM card in each and every machine in India

HDFC: We offer unlimited ATM transactions
CitiBank: Are you going to draw money form ATM 100 times a day ?
....

You get the idea, fighting and blaming each other like kids. The presentation by Standard Chartered and ICICI was pretty straight forward without much actions, just a lot of words thats all. After the bank presentations, it was time for mobile presentations, it was Airtel vs Hutch, again just saying the various offers that they had for corporate plans and that was pretty much the day and we were released for the day.

After walking out of Tidel Park, I managed to catch an auto, the driver asked for Rs 60 to take me from there to the place I stayed I said O.K since I had no other choice. By the time I reached the hostel my chest condition had worsened and I dint know what to do. After dinner I got a call from my family back in Trivandrum, I was so frustrated with the Chest Condition that I said to my parents that I was wasting a lot of money per day on travel etc and then my Mom started crying on the phone and then I was trying to console her in other words it was a disaster. After this I decided to go to bed by that time the person living next room (who was a Keralite) came in and I got up to go and meet him, he adviced me to go see a doctor. It was 10.30 P.M and I asked him where I could meet a doctor at that time of night, he told me that there is a small clinic thats about 5 minutes walk from my place of stay. I thought its not going to cure itself, why not see this doctor. So at 10.30 I got out and went to the clinic. I was standing in a long queue of patients many of them had fever mostly "Chicken Guniea" and then there were a lot of childern with ailments. After about an hour of waiting I finally got to see the doctor. First thing first, I asked him whether he can speak and understand English otherwise the entire diagnosis could end up in disaster. He said "Yes" and I was pretty much relieved, I told him about my ailment and his question to me was whether I had "Headache" or "Fever", I said "No". Afterwards he used his stethoscope and checked my chest, I could see a dramatic change in his facial expression and after he removed the Stethoscope he said I got a real bad infection and it has to be taken care of quickly and he gave me a 3 day course of a mixed antibiotic and said that I have to take it from that very day itself and I should avoid cold water, ice creams, fresh juice and try avoiding sitting in A/C. After he prescribed me the medications I went out and called my parents back and said about the thing, the adviced me to go ahead as the doctor suggested.

So by about 11.45 P.M I got back to the hostel after getting the medication from the main road. But there was one slight problem, my room mates could not do it without A/C and I dint want to force them to shutdown the A/C because of me. So I went to the Living / Dining Room and pulled out two plastic chairs and put them face to face and sat in one and stretched my legs to the other and it was not the most comfortable posture, but I had to sleep that way. I was more tensed about the fact whether I will make it for the induction course the next day.

To Be Continued...