Those were the days IV

Later there was an announcement, inter batch cricket tournament. So we had cricket teams finalised from each batch, all the logistic was finalised and the teams were set to play. The match was held on Saturday, guys playing and gals acting as cheer leaders. But as it turned out, I was the only female from our batch who sat in the audience cheering our team. Goes without saying, I was looking to our batch winning, at the least going till the finals. We won the first two league matches, but lost the 3rd one. All of the boys were tired and a tad dejected on losing the match. As most of them were playing after a long period, without any practice, each had some excuse for their bad performance. Nevertheless it was an exciting morning for me, to watch some live cricket action. I also met some of the other CET folks who had not joined TCS. Once the team was packed off from the games, everyone was hungry and looking forward to some hot piping food. As it turned out everyone was a non vegetarian, me being the lone person favouring ghaaspoos (vegetarian) food and was left with little choices. Everyone was to treat me as I was the only person there to cheer a losing team! With a treat due, we headed to our base camp, Phillip.

The gang was tired from a whole day match in the sun and looking to rest. Sunday, we all/ the entire batch went to “Shangumugam Park" . It was a huge lake, with a big shell structure placed in the middle. Now was time for some photo ops. Those were not the days of digital camera where one went about clicking pictures with scant regard for cost. We needed the film to click the pictures and also incur the additional cost to process them. To add to all this very few amongst us had camera, therefore we all ended up sharing a camera, the costs and the incidentals. Girls didn’t have a camera to themselves.
“Hey Mukesh, a picture of the 5 of us please”. I ventured
“Hum Panch comes on TV, and those females are more fun and comic compared to you guys”.
I turned around, it had to be Mickey he never missed a chance to go one up on us, rather me.
However I realised later that he was a better photographer than others. After a sightseeing round, we followed our staple diet of an antakashiri game. Guys vs gals it had to be. This had become the norm de rigour of our class, any where any time time-pass game for us. Did I mention it was the guys who won the game, Mickey had come to their rescue. Or I should say we let them win some game at the least if not cricket.
Back to Phillip, we now had more people, the T59 batch for our company. Classes were going on as usual and it was time for another weekend. The plan this time was to go to Kovalam beach. It was a very beautiful and clean beach, especially after seeing the juhu beach in mumbai, kovalam was a big surprise, very clean, and sandy beach. The journey itself was very breathtaking, coconut palms surrounding the beach and the clean water. One must see the beach in the sunlight as well as the night time. Each time is an experience unto itself.
Need to mention one thing, TVM had become an ocean of TCSers with so many batches joining every week, you were bound to meet someone known anywhere everywhere during the weekends. Kovalam was no exception.
Jatin, Mickey, Mukesh, Guru (a close four some), Madhuri, Rashi and a whole lot of us headed to the beach. Being a Saturday, the beach was pretty crowded. We all removed our watches, purses and dumped them in my purse and headed to the beach. I had the dubious distinction of carrying the biggest purse hence the place holder for everyone especially Mickey, I could always see him standing, watch in his hand, keep my watch. No please nothing.
The beach was good fun, we were all splashing water, running around and playing.
Suddenly some one tapped me and I just casually asked
“Tcs ER” ?
Somehow I had assumed everyone out there was a tcser or maybe he had seen me in the tcs canteen?
And it had become a standard routine. You meet anyone, ask them which batch are you from and go on.
However it turned out, they were some strangers and Mickey just came around and seeing him, the stranger just went away.
Guys preferred to go to the deep water, leaving us far behind. After that incident, however we all stayed close enough.
We had some photo ops, tamasha and fun and after dispersing the watches back to everyone, we all headed to Phillip. Mickey however didn’t join us back as he had prior commitments. I was very much looking forward to a bike ride with him, but it seemed elusive. Gradually our classes were getting difficult and did I mention tests, we had surprise tests, quizzes, et all.