i woke up, and i was in microsoft!

last night's dream was funky. i dreamed that i started working someplace new, a place with white walls and a white cubicle-maze and white desks. everything white. but a kinda dirtyish white.

and on the first day, in between orientation and induction sessions, a thick envelope of papers arrived at my desk. it was an offer letter. to start working at microsoft. with the join date of that day itself. and a 20% pay hike.

i called the number on the offer letter immediately, and told them that i just received the offer, and will join tomorrow.

a blurry episode of taking a flight to a different city followed, and i awoke in a hotel the next morning, and walked to the office.

as i entered, the guy who was supposed to show me around spotted me. the ground floor had a lawn around the building, with chairs and tables set up, and small groups of people conducting informal meetings at some of them. as we walked around, he told me which team each of the groups were from. there was the mobile team, the live team, the .net team, and so on... all of them about my age, rather brightly and casually dressed, and they all seemed rather relaxed.

till finally, we came to a largeish table that wasn't exactly in the lawn, but rather, in a glass-walled room that was open on one side to it. about five or seven older looking guys at it. in the middle, with a laptop, was steve ballmer, with a wolverine beard. my escort-cum-teammate said this is the windows team, the team i'll be working with: "the biggest and baddest chunk of microsoft".

he called out to them, and said i was the new guy, and a couple of them left the table and walked with us into this conference room that was full of PCs lying about, looking rather dumpy with wires running across the table and even on the chairs.

they did a quick presentation, and asked a few questions. one question i remember was they asked for the full form of some acronym. i guessed three of the four letters, which they said is good.

then, my escort said that since it's my first day, they want to keep it light, so we should go for a drive. we picked up cans of sodas from the vending machine, and my teammate and i were joined by this girl in an orange top and blue denims, who said we should go for a drive in her car. a sleek, funky convertible. before we got in, the guy handed me my official phone (a windows mobile), and while getting in the car, he said i can swap my personal phone for an iphone. i told him i'd rather have an android, and he said that's perfectly fine too, and said he saw a galaxy s2 lying around today.

we drove around for a bit, and it definitely didn't seem like anything i've imagined i'd see in india. cobblestoned narrowish streets, a lake on one side, glass buildings on the other. we drove back, and it was evening.

apparently people like to stand around and chill out at a big balcony around sunset. my teammate led me there, introduced me to a few people, and then moved off. people were opening beers all around, and i (inexplicably) fished out a quarter of vodka from my pocket.

when i was about to pour a drink, i noticed a girl standing in the corner, alone. looking intently at me. she was pretty, and quite nicely dressed, but looking rather disheveled at the moment. i remembered seeing her earlier that day. she was one of the receptionists. that's when i looked outside and realized it was drizzling and overcast. and she looked drenched.

behind her, there were a group of girls chit-chatting. as i poured my drink, one of the girls walked over to me and introduced herself. she asked me if i'm a regular drinker, because apparently i didn't know how to pour my drink. she said she'd have poured my drink for me, if i hadn't done so myself. i wordlessly held her gaze for a moment, smiled, and emptied the rest of the quarter into the glass.

and that's when i woke up.

ps: i'm surprised i remember this amount of detail of the dream!

sunrise at matheran

it's been years since i've been to matheran. it used to be my favourite ride, be it rain or shine. usually, just to the entrance of matheran (dasturi point), for a cup of tea, and back home.

so when my friend said she really wanted to go on a night ride, plans were hastily made. she proposed pune, but i insisted that matheran would be more fun :)

i left home a little past 3am, and her other friends dropped her by car at kala nagar at around 3:45, right after i had my first cup of chai for the day.

we rode via sion-vashi-palm beach-uran road-jnpt road-panvel circle.

another chai break at panvel circle. we we beginning to feel chilly. neither of us were prepared for the cold, but that made the ride all the more fun :D

rode to matheran via chowk (mumbai-pune highway). made it there at 5:45am.

chit-chatted until the sky lightened up, when i took out my phone and clicked a few memories :)







since the tea-stall at the entrance wouldn't open till almost 2 hours later, we decided to grab breakfast on the way back... this time, sonali had a chance to see the ghats we had just climbed in the dark :)



it was still chilly when se stopped at badlapur for breafast, but the sun warmed us up as much as the hot chai and sizzling-hot potato bhaji (with the dynamite chutney) did :)





finally, i reached sonali to thane, and rode off on another adventure... a 100 km ride, to spend my weekend at a remote village in thane that's not even on the map :D

falling anywhere

i love electronica because it lets me attach my own feelings to words. i'm currently listening to "falling anywhere" by kyau & albert, and this is the imagery it conjures:

cruising along at a happy speed, you watch the scenery change from desolation to light greenery. you slow down, anticipating a change. suddenly, the road peaks and then dips, and you find yourself riding downhill into the most beautiful meadows, a breathtaking valley like you've never seen before :)