Ah, it has been a week since I last posted. Since I’m back in Hyderabad, it’s been pretty busy with work. I haven’t forgotten however to also do fun stuff too though 🙂 Last time I was here, 8 years ago, I visited monuments. Now I want to visit the people I was working with.
A first thing I remark, is that I’m a lot more used to all the honking outside. There is still a lot of noise, but it’s affecting me (seemingly?) less.
Let’s first talk a bit about work. I was very popular on Monday due to the amount of chocolate I took with me. Little do they know that I still haven’t emptied my chocolate treasure cache 🙂 There will be more on the way !
I had very good talks with everybody here and could get some clear indications about feelings or expectations that play within the team. In general, a very positive picture is painted. There is a great cohesion in the team. They work well together and are not afraid to ask for help when needed, even towards the Belgians. They also notice a very high level of professionalism where mistakes are not fatal but are discussed in a professional way without personal attacks. Of course, there are some areas of improvement. As far as it’s feasible, I’m passing these along.
I also enjoy the talks with the new team manager, Rakesh. He’s open and it seems we are on the same line for a lot of suggestions and observations. I feel that the Indian part of the team will grow a lot under his guidance. This will help us a lot both in Belgium and India. That’s not to say that the previous team manager did a bad job. On the contrary, I had a good collaboration with Anindya the whole time he was team manager.
Some more things about the workplace itself. There are more engaging activities here than in Belgium. In Belgium, we tend to go to work and that’s about it. Here they have several fun activities organized by the local management. Right before I came, there was cubicle decoration day. Every group decorated their cubicles in a certain theme. All 4 subteams of the Server Platforms choose a mountain theme. With Linux, they defended the mountains from invasion. There was even an army camp including a guard that had you at gunshot 😉
They also celebrate Annual Day on which they have a blast reminding themselves the start of the company. This year, it’s rumored that even Jef Colruyt will attend the celebrations !
Oh yes, and a manager we had closer contact with (Mouli) left on Tuesday to start working in Bangalore. He was also keeping Danny and me company in Case Colruyt for those last days.
What you see on his chin is typical for these types of celebrations here in India. You get ‘decorated’ with some of the celebration cake 😉
But I don’t want to bore you with work details. I’m sure you’re more interested in what I did on a personal level.
Well, after the last post, I spend the first couple of days orienting myself toward Hyderabad. It’s India, just like Dharamsala, but a lot more crowded and rushed. I miss the possibility to go quiet for a while. Being in a much warmer climate, there is also less greenery. But it’s far from scorched. There is a lot of effort to keep trees here.
The noise and all the impressions when you drive around did hit me the first couple of days. Together with very high concentration levels at work, Monday through Wednesday were very hard on my energy levels. Being that busy at work, I can’t keep my practices up as I did in Belgium. So I was down from time to time. Hopefully this wasn’t to visible. Although, it must have been because Rakesh told me clearly to go to the yoga session on Wednesday: every day, people can go to a yoga session at work between 5 and 6 ! Wonderful India 🙂
As for outside of work those days, it was mainly spend with thinking about the next meal. Danny and I went out to Ohri’s on Monday. Even though it wasn’t Ohri’s itself but called Rubaiyat, it was under the same manager. Rubaiyat is the a-la-carte restaurant while Ohri’s is the buffet one. The decor was splendid. It seemed very 1001-night Arabic to me. The food was also very good. I especially liked the sauteed broccoli (Tandoori Broccoli).
Tuesday we cooked spaghetti ourselves in the apartment. Wednesday I went out with the colleagues to a hipster bar in the area. We had some food there (lots and lots of meat but all very tender and within my limits of spicy). I took advantage to indulge in mocktails (having a small headache and sore throat and thus not wanting alcohol). There was a life band there which performed popular music.
Thursday was a holiday here. Telangana Formation Day. Two years ago, the state of Andhra Pradesh split into two and this is celebrated. I took a day off and did … nothing. And that did good !!! Well, to be honest, I did go out to the mall in the afternoon to do some shopping. Believe it or not, that actually did me good. Maybe there is something to say for shopping therapy 😉
Yesterday evening I had a quiet night. Danny is off to Goa during the long weekend so I have the apartment to myself. That’s till tomorrow morning at least. So I did some light cooking (rice, paneer and carrots) and some reading. I found out that I could download a lot of classics on my phone, so I’m now reading Sherlock Holmes. That’s great fun. Since the copyright is expired, it’s even all legal.
Today I started off early to go to a breakfast place with Siva, Bharani and Ash in Pooni hotel. They had very good idli’s there ! I really want to make these at home. I had 4 idli’s, 1 dosa and 1/2 of a poori. The latter is great fun since it looks like a blown up pancake. But don’t mistake yourself (as I did). It’s a quite filling dish ! The breakfast place we went to was a hotel hidden in the city itself. You wouldn’t say that they had such a great kitchen on the outside. We even got to look in the kitchen how they made their own idli batters and poori’s.
Fun thing is you get the flatten it before eating 🙂
It does look like a Cylon Basestar from the original Battlestar Galactica series.
We then went to necklace road and walked a bit to digest the breakfast because … at 10:30 we showed up at Santosh’s place. He’s living in a nice apartment in an area that’s clearly under good development. A very good investment towards the future.
Together with his very charming wife Varsha, we prepared a lunch. To be honest, I mostly watched what she did. It’s amazing how much work goes into preparing a good lunch. E.g. marinade the chicken, fry it, take it out of the pan, bake the spices and drumsticks in that oil, put the chicken back. And that’s just one of the dishes that was prepared.
I really like the box she keeps them in.
Needless to day, it was a real joy to eat all of that good stuff. And it really was good. Thank you Santosh and Varsha to give me that opportunity.
Some of their neighbors, a good college friend of Santosh, also dropped in. We had a good time chatting and looking at some of the wedding pictures.
All too soon, we left to visit Roshan, another colleague, who lives very close to Santosh. There I was also treated to generous Indian hospitality. Roshans’ mother and sister were staying for a while so it was good to see everyone. Roshan’s wife is expecting a baby very soon. She’s also very anxious to visit Belgium when Roshan goes there. If she saw any chance of doing it, she would jump on it, I’m sure. That gave us some good opportunities to tease her a bit, which she took very well.
This visit was very short (sorry Roshan) and now I realize I didn’t take any pictures.
I must say I had a great time getting to know the people and the partners behind the colleagues. I’m looking forward to visiting Sandeep and Sravanth tomorrow. It will be more pleasant memories to cherish, I’m sure.
With all the eating today, I wasn’t very hungry at night so just had a mango, banana and some cashew nuts.
PS: I’m going to post the text right now but will fill in with some pictures later.
Edit: the pictures are up now. Enjoy !!
