"Grenoble to Bangalore - April 10, 2006"

What a day it was!!! A day that put me in the reckoning is what I can write in the hindsight. It does not happen every day that you wake up knowing what’s in store for you and still have a tinge of anxiety, excitement as you wait for it to happen.

It was on last Thursday that I had absolutely no mood to work nor could I gather enough concentration to finish off the work at hand. My situation was so comparable to the typical Bangalore weather that it suddenly rains when the mercury crosses a threshold temperature limit. So much work in the past month or so that my saturation levels had gotten down to its all time low.

My Thursday blues being answered suddenly, when I got a mail from Anne-Caroline, program manager from EMEA, mentioning about the present that she wished to ship to me celebrating the completion of the phase2 of Electronic communication infrastructure setup in SUM (eCISS). Was really grateful for her mail and I thanked her. Also we communicated on Friday as to how she would send it to me from Grenoble, France. Thanks to Soumya, who was fortunately traveling back to Bangalore from Grenoble after her month long onsite stint and readily agreed to bring along the parcel that Anne would give her.

Come weekend, forgot about this and played leather ball cricket after almost 5yrs. Good old memories of hitting helmets with red cherry coming back to me. Of course, altogether different question that I had become a Prasad now from a Srinath, bowling just line and length rather than make the batsmen smell cherry. Feel just great to play good old cricket again rather than just being glued to watching cricket on TV. A good long evening spent with old classmates with a bottle of port wine that I got from Goa on the same day made my saturday complete.

Sunday, yea you guessed it rite!!! My limbs had started creaking up and making noises as if every bone were to break with every step of mine, giving me the memories of those gym days. But pain is enjoyable and especially when it is out of sports after a long time. I hope it doesn’t remain for too long though.

Back to Monday, April the 10th. I eagerly wait for my mailbox to open up and I see nothing special again, but I remind myself of that special parcel from France. I speak to Soumya and fix up 5PM as the time that I would visit her in her office and would pick up the parcel.

Come 4.45 we finished celebrating Vaibhav’s birthday celebration and then I made my headway towards Al-Kareem, Sowmya’s office with Vinay, my partner in crime. Soumya came down from the stairs holding the parcel which looked pretty long.

Took it to my hand, thanked her and took her leave. Feels the world is such a small place, Grenoble and Bangalore. Rather I guess it’s the people in the world who make it small and livable.

Oops sorry, moving away from the topic.

My parcel, it’s a 1982 Chateau Pomone, one of the great French red wines. Almost 25 yrs old, quite an irony that the wine is elder than me. Vinay already making plans of when the bottle is to be opened. Anyways Vinay and his dumb plans… Never mind.

Here’s the masterpiece.The photo of the bottle , not the one with it's owner. Thanks Anne.

Rode back to office and showed it to my teammates with the note that thanked me for my contribution in the project. Hesitantly show it to my manager, who at first thought, that it was something that I was giving him.

Anyways, on seeing the note, he immediately took me to a conference room called his colleagues and highlighted my achievement. It feels just great to see your work being recognized and your colleagues applaud you for the same.

Phew!!! What a day! Friends, never avoid feeling blue, if you are. Never know luck might just be waiting to smile upon.