An Oasis in the Desert...

These gratifying words, texted to me by a person whom I recently met and took instant liking to, capped an eventful and memorable internship at Trident India Ltd.

The last day was pretty comical; farcical might be a better word. As it was, we hadn't done ourselves any favors by booking a ticket for a 4 pm train from Ludhiana to Delhi, with the final presentation due at 12. Ludhiana is roughly 1.5 hours from Barnala, and the cost-cutting measures imposed by the company ensured that we weren't going to get a company cab to transport us to Ludhiana.

*The Night Before...*

After much deliberations and delays we finally got cracking at the final presentation at around 6 in the evening.
Understimate, we did.
It was hard to concentrate since the prospect of being back home within 24 hours was far too distracting. Anyhow, we are engineers, and we pride ourselves in Jugaad.
So executing our skills, which we have so extensively honed during our 3 years in IIT, to perfection, we were half way through by dinner time.
Dinner took unusually long, with me getting a pratical lecture on civilized eating. The dinner itself was unusual, milk with potato chips, no wonder Tushar and me developed a stomach bug the next day.
The presentation went long into the night, finally finishing at 2 am. Next on the checklist was stuffing, err, I mean packing. Complete child's play, t'was done and dusted in 15 minutes.
2:15am , and it was time to hit the bed, with my mind conjuring up images of the presentation panel giving me a round of applause.

*The Final Day...*

At 9 am sharp, I was in the office waiting for my supervisor. He was very appreciative of the work I had done, and said
"Now all depends on your skill of presentation"
"Ah! thats my speciality", I whispered to myself.

When ever there is a presentation or a viva or any other tricky situation, its almost a given that I'd be first up, my friends would testify that. Surprisingly, I was slotted in last.

Pranav went in first, and we waited for his reviews with bated breath. Out he came, completely drenched in sweat with a sheepish smile spreading right across his face.

"Pakad, pakad ke maar li yarr"

Strangely enough, this acted as a confidence booster for both me and Tushar, human psychology may explain this anomaly, but lets leave it at that.
Our presentation went through without a glitch, the panel almost seemed bored by the time I presented, and I had no intensions of making it interesting for them.
All was done by 2 pm; just a few formalities in the office, followed by a race between me and Tushar. The winner was going to get the priveledge of sitting in the front seat of the cab that was going to drop us to the Ludhiana station. Yes, we had finally managed a transport, but we had to pay from our own pocket.
I sped across with amazing acceleration, and maintianed the lead till the exit, where I stopped, assuming that the race was over. But displaying huge opportunism, Tushar slid past my left shoulder at the exit and took the front seat.
Anyhow, we'll settle this issue once and for all, once we meet again.

Enroute, I cast my mind back to people and events that made this internship worth remembering. It's quite a task, living with the same set of people for such a length of time. The blandness of the place did not help one bit. Consequently, there were misunderstandings, heated arguments and so on. But all were settled amicably, and the fun we had together eclipsed all of that. We did everything from choreography to music compositon to finding deadlier ways of killing mosquitoes. Hayward's 5000 should take some credit for these sudden bursts of creativity, though.

This is the last post under "The Chronicles of Barnala" , I'd be switching to philosophy very soon, so keep checking this space.

Ciao!