I studied in the same school, from grade I to class ten so, I had same set of friends and were quite close. Most of our parents knew each other due to common business or club membership. I still remember few names like Ashwini, Nehal, Saroja, Pinky, Amit P, Amit C, Jayesh, Santoshi, Santhosh and Avinash. It is a great feeling that some of them are still in touch with me, thanks to Orkut. Most of my friends were either Jains or Gujratis. Because of my childhood pals, I picked up Hindi pretty well at an early age, which my parents were quite proud of. On a long run, this language also gave me the confidence to get along with new people and break the ice at a faster pace. Due to my friends circle and also my build up, I was always called as one of them a “Gujju” girl. Fortunately or unfortunately, hardly, I was noted as a Kannadiga. I was quite a sober type of student and never got into any adventure or sports in school. I am a big movie buff and we friends generally used to catch up on most of the Bollywood new movies. I am a great fan of Salman Khan and Aamir Khan.
Post my schooling, I moved to Dharwar with one of my maternal aunts for my college. I joined J.S.S., College Dharwar for pre-university and perceived commerce graduation from Mahila Vidya Peeth, Hubli.
This was the time, when Y2K, E-commerce and Outsourcing were in boom and every other company was venturing into training and placement units across India. Story was not too different in small twin cities, Hubli and Dharwar too. One of my dad’s friend had set up the Medical Transcription training institute and advised my dad to admit me in their training institute, “Sujana Medical Transcription”. I had some great time here, got exposure to Medical terms, pharmaceutical names, it was quite interesting too. This is the place where I met some of my closest friends Rashmi and Kanchana whom I am still in touch with. Though, the company did not do well, nor they could keep up their promise, but we did get good training and confidence to go and explore the world. Since, we had invested enough time and money we (Me and Kanchana) were keen to explore opportunities beyond Hubli and try out options in Bangalore. Kanchana’s sister Vandana, helped us to come to Bangalore and hunt for job. The scenario was not so encouraging then though there was huge instability and uncertainty in the market. Though the hunt was quite hard, we managed to get a job in small medical transcription company in JP Nagar called “Innovations” and thus we landed in Bangalore, the most amazing and exciting moment of our life. We being small town girls, with butler English and not so sophisticated looks, never thought would get through an interview in “Bangalore” it was indeed a big achievement for us and a proud moment for our parents.
Life in Bangalore
With loads of aspirations, hopes and excitement we both landed in Bangalore during the historic September 11, 2001 Week. I still remember the anxiety and nervousness we had on the first day. We reached two days later than we were supposed to so we were quite scared about it too. As we thought, Shivram, the owner of the company said “I thought you will not come, as you did not turn up on the mentioned date”. We had to request him and give explanation why we could not reach on the mentioned date. Eventually, he agreed to take us, but again lesser than the quoted salary. Well, we did not have any choice, but to say Yes.
After job, next issue was the affordable accommodation, where to stay. Vandana knew a retired Brahmin couple in Mahalaxmi Layout who were open to help us. We were quite excited, but they said we can’t give you any privacy or separate rooms, you have to live as family members and if any of their relatives ask, we had to tell, we are Brahmins from their region. We agreed to it, as we were desperately looking for a space. Daily we used to travel from Mahalaxmi Layout to JP Nagar II Phase. We did this for almost a month.
I was with this Innovations for more than two years and each day was a new experience to us, a new world, new work and a city which was unexplored. Every weekend, we all hostel mates used to venture out for Bangalore darshan. This was the time, when I happened to know my best friend Murali who is studying in London now. I also got to know, Aneesh, jyothi, Sushma, Shruthi and some of Murali’s common friends Rajesh and Suma. We all used to be there always for Sunday outings.
Meanwhile in a month or two, we managed to find an affordable decent PG House in JP Nagar only it was called “Sharada Seva Kshetra”, just 10 minutes away from our office. We were tired of traveling almost 3-4 hours everyday and finding a place so nearby was a relief. PG accommodation would cost us around 2.5k without food, though not an affordable cost for us at that time, but something which we could manage to pay.
This is the place where I met my next set of friends like Pecky, Roopa, Kavya, Kavita, Rashmi R and later Rashmi from Hubli also joined us and I was here for more than 2 years. This is where met couple of ambitious people like Pecky who was working with ING Vysya, Roopa who was with Texas Instruments. Because of whom I thought of looking beyond Medical Transcription and that is when I heard of something called Public Relations Officer (PRO). Almost after two years, I started to think on pursuing my further studies in part-time or evening colleges and started hunting for PGD courses with PR specialization. This is where Murali helped me a lot in finding out the colleges as I hardly knew the city and the colleges. With lot of research we learnt only two colleges had that course, Christ College and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Christ College fees was quite high and the college was very far from my hostel. I had to continue with my job too, so considering all this Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan was the best option available. Fortunately, we reached college for enquiry on the last day for admission and we had to organize approximately Rs. 10,000/ - on the same day. This was a big amount for us then. Again, Murali my man Friday, Suma and me managed to succeed in both the ends meet and I got admitted.
During this time, I changed couple of Medical Transcription companies and finally landed in Cbay Systems located in Richmond Circle in between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and college from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. By the time, I used to reach home it used to be 9:30 p.m., sometimes 10 p.m., quite a hectic schedule. The course was beneficial to me, I managed to complete the course in first division and score highest marks in couple of subjects too. For the convocation program, Mr. Veerappa Moily was invited and he felicitated the highest scoring students, I was one among those. My brother and Anil another Cbay friend of mine were present for the occasion.
Post completion of the course, Bhavan’s College never provided placements, but were kind enough to give references and I was referred to Adfactors PR, one of the best places I worked with very employee friendly organization. Interview with Adfactors PR was my first ever professional interview for a professional job unlike Medical Transcription, needless to say quite an amateur one. I was interviewed by Harini Iyengar, Group Head of the Bangalore Branch. I was a girl who knew quite a bit about the subject, but was very enthusiastic and willing to learn new things. Must say Harini is a very friendly and patient boss. She taught some of the important basics of PR, still remember the basics of media and publications J. Manoj, my immediate boss who is foundly called as “Media King” too was very patient with me, who taught me on how to work on the reports and media relations. I worked with Adfactors PR for almost five years and met lot of new people, learnt basics of social etiquette and interacting with people. I happened to meet some cool friends like Manish, Shilpa, Suhana, Vikas, Dileep, Kamna, Mahesh, Robert, Uzma, Sathish, Lokesh, Rajani, the list goes on and on.
The experience and loads of fun I had at this place is never ending. The kind of parties, get-to-gether’s we had. Had amazing experience and lots of fun working with clients like TeamLease, Aspire Systems, Wonderla and Royal Orchid Hotels could hardly be explained in words.
I was always against marriage and thought, marriage is not my cup of tea. It is not at all important and not a must for a girl. I was more like a Tomboy with more of boyish behavior. Matter of time or the persistence of my parents, my attitude towards marriage changed and I was open to looking for options. Finally, I happened to meet my dream boy/life partner Mr. Shashidhar Gowda on the marriage portal, Lingayath.com. We had a courtship of approximately 2.5 years and got married on November 10, 2008. Now, we are anxiously waiting, for the arrival for Avyaktha, our “Dream of life”. I will have much more to share with you all, soon. For more updates and interesting tit bits, do visit this place again!!! See you soon.
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