As i had mentioned in my last post, we had decided to go to the Sanjay gandhi National Park and the kanneri caves near it.It was supposed to be a kind of a trek/hike.We had decided to gather at the andheri station by 9-9.30.But chris,dev and ramesh came very late.almost at 11.00.


We quickly bought tickets to borivli and were on our way.We reached the national park and decided to take a train safari ride.It was a big dissapointment.
Let me tell all who would be making plans for the sanjay gandhi national park that tere are more humans to be seen during the ride than animals.There was also a tiger/lion safari but we decided to give it a miss as we learnt that there was only on lion and some cheetahs(i think in cages).






We then decided to go to the kanneri caves a few kms away through the park.

As we missed the park bus ,and not really knowing how far the caves were ,we decided to walk the distance.We walked for more than 2hrs.



There was a road through the jungle to the caves but it wqas jungle all around-albeit with no animals (atleast we did not come across any) .
The canneri caves were superb.The caves are spread over the entire hill,And are still in good shape.
There are a lot of caves which might have housed people(maybe monks).I cannot really explain the caves.They have to be seen and i tell you,you wont be dissapointed.

That done we travelled back to andheri station.I and jeremy decided to go to dadar as we were told that we get books there for 20% discount.In dadar we both asp.net books.and finally returned to ashoke nagar.

End of a really good day.

19th Jan-Saturday.

Finally our first Saturday in mumbai. Gautam,Ramesh and chris had arrived in mumbai and we all decided to meet in bandra where sylvan and abhishek stayed.
Since we reached a bit early ,i and Jeremy looked around in the shops and found a clothes shop which was given flat 505 off on all their stuff.
I decided to buy a jeans as in mumbai you cannot travel with cotton trousers with all the dust around.Jeremy bough a shirt.Later we all met up and just roamed around bandra.
In the evening sylvan, jeremy and chris went for mass and after that we took a bus to Ashokenagar.
We had already made plans for Sunday.We decided to go to the sanjay gandhi national park and the
kanneri caves there.

17th-18th jan

Our workstations had still not be assigned to us as there was some delay in
generating our email-ids.We did not do much-but read sql and ado.net books and getting bored all the way.There were some sessions held but that was it.

We were in the office from 8.30am to 6pm not doing much work.All around every one was working and when anyone was passing by,they would look at us just reading those fat books throughout the day.
Looking at us any one of us would know that we were bored.

We were already looking forward to our first weekend.

16th Jan - First day @ Deloitte

Finally our first day in the office.We were told to report at 8.45am in tha office.
We did not want to take any chances with the traffic and so went a bit early and reached at about 8.30am.There were two other new joinees who came that day.They though were laterals with atleast 2yrs experience.So we began a long wait for some HR to come and take us in.
I must say it was a long wait.finally the HR came and asked us to fill in a form.We filled it and after some time we were taken in and were shown our places and our team lead.The MD mr.Parag Saigaonkar hadnot come that day so we could not get his signature to put the start the processs of getting us the PI number and email id.until this was done ,we were told that we could not receive our workstations.

So with no pcs we could do not much.Our team lead arranged some sessions on asp.net and sql so that we were atleast doing something.The sessions were good and were taken by a lot of other employees.


The team lead(Rakhi) also gave us some print outs of the datbase erd and some UI and told us to understand the mapping.That was tough b'cause even they did not understand it much.

And so the first ay at the office came to an end.We found out that the company bus was free for interns and that it would leave at 6.00pm.(There are also cabs availbale at 7.30 and 9.30 if u miss the bus).To go to our guest house we had to take the Bandra bus and get down at Seepz in andheri(e) and then take a bus to ashokenagar.we did that and finally reached our guest house.We had also got some books from the company library.We did not read them a single time at home cause we were so tired.

As usual we had dinner and retired for the night.We were hoping that tommorow we would get our pcs We found out that we had to wait a long time.
bye.

15th jan 2008

It was a holiday at deloitte.So we could join only on the the 16th.We found a
laundary near our guest house.The rates for washing clothes is a standard 15rs.
Quite expensive no?So we gave our shirt and pant and then went to L&T area to search for accomodation.i was thinking that this area would be ideal for us as
well as for chris,dev,ramesh as it was near to where we worked.

we found a agent who said that there was a pg accomodation available for 3000rs pm and with some brokerage etc.So we went to see it.When we saw that we were shocked as the 2 bedroom flat that he showed housed about 15people.He said that the entire bldg housed pgs.We didnt say it to him but had rejected it right then.

So.. dissapointed we took a bus to seepz,just to see the place where dev etc would be working.Seeing that we walked a short distance to Akruti business port to meet
Gaurav Dalal.I was very happy to meet my friend from Goa.we had lunch and then we returned back to ashoke nagar-to our guest house.

Then we went to andheri(e)to search for accomodation there.lot of dissapointments there.Then we decided to go to andheri(w).While we were using the railway over-bridge to cross over, we were caught by a guard as we did not have a platform ticket.Both of us had to shell out rs260 as fine.A BIG LESSON LEARNT.

Dissapointed,tired and lighter in the pockets we returned to our guest house and after dinner retired for the night.

My first day in mumbai-14th jan 2008

I and jeremy left goa on the 13th and arrived at thane in the early morning at about 6a.m. As we had to reach marol in andheri(e) we caught a train to kurla and then a bus to marol naka.As it was early morning we had no problem during transport.

Deloitte had allocated to us the company accomodation in Ashoke delux apartments for 2weeks duration by which time we had to find other place to stay.In the guest house we were sharing the flat with another new joinee-Abhinav.He was a lateral joinee with 3 years experience @ cognizant.

We were not supposed to join on that day ,but we still decieded to go to hiranandani i.e in powai to check out the company.We went with abhinav to the comapany.We went by auto and Abhinav showed us a shortcut to take so that the next time the auto guys dont cheat us.Thanks abhinav.

Hiranandani is a posh place with huge buildings,mostly for business purposes.After that we decieded to return back.the bus stop is a bit far.so we walked bach and had to wait for a long time to catch a bus which was going to andheri station.What we did not know that the bus passed through marol naka too.So when we reached marol we got down and went to the guest house.We rested in the afternoon.

Then we deciede to go to Bandra where sylvan and Abhishek stayed.So we met them on our first day in mumbai itself.There we had tea and had something to eat.We returned a bit late in the evening and had a well deserved sleep.It was a long day.I kind of was shocked by so much humanity and continous activity around that keeps your mind was continously alert avoiding traffic etc.

And so ended our first day in mumbai.