First Anniversary..

** This is an e-mail I had sent to my colleagues on completing one year in PLI (Pragati Leadership Institute)

Dear All,
Today I complete one year being a part of ‘Pragati Family’.

I found it really difficult and almost impossible to sum up my gratitude in a thank you note.

So in a state of pure joy for this accomplishment I wish to take liberty to share this write up which I had written a couple of weeks ago.

The other day while I was sitting with an old hostel friend, who is now employed in the booming IT industry, we discussed about our jobs amongst many other things.

He was expressing our transition from real freedom to assumed freedom. I am here talking about our transition from our college to the big competitive corporate world. He was comparing the good old days of hostel with his experiences of the so called glamorous and fun filled IT industry.

The days we used to linger around spacious hot open grounds and noisy class rooms. Those days when with just 100 Rs. in pocket we used to plan the whole week within that budget. But now we wander along the well cleaned, fully air-conditioned corridors with about five to six credit cards in our pocket planning where to swipe the cards. Credit cards eagerly waiting to eat next month's salary. Financially we just moved on from a lower level financial stability to a higher level of viscous financial instability.

It’s difficult to believe that it was just couple of years ago 100 Rs. seemed to be thousands and now even thousands seems to be nothing.

College canteen, cutting chai at our own chaiwallah were our favorite hot spots where we spent hours together, having a hearty chat with our buddies forgetting the whole world. Today Café Coffee Day, Mochas, Baristas have taken those places. With mostly numbers, deadlines and targets being the reason of conversation.

What a coffee cost 5Rs couple of years back has now gone up to 50Rs a cup and yet its tasteless, meaningless.

Those precious days where we used to laugh for nothing, even when we failed in our papers because we got 30 marks for an empty paper. But now we rarely smile except the smile for the forward we just received or the smile to your our colleagues to impress them.

Hate and Ego were words unheard in those days. You smash or hit your friend for some reason and the next moment you walk along him with hands on his shoulders. But now you don’t like the guy sitting beside you because he's getting a salary 10k greater than you or he's always being appreciated by your Boss. True friends are hard to find here!


In college if some one talked bad about our college we found our blood boiling inside even though we didn't like our principal.

But here loyalty is the lost word; we just look for opportunities to criticize our company.

We had seen the late nights only on the eve of the exam, when we relied on a friend to wake us at 1or 2am. The only time tension ever grappled was when we were just entering the examination hall to realize that we forgot to revise an important question that my friend had suggested will surely appear on this exam. But today you work at least 5 days a week till 1 or 2 in the night to deliver something to your unknown client who is at US or UK. You are aimlessly typing at the useless word document that your Boss asked you to finish with his tailor made smile.

Tension, stress and migraine being an integral, inseparable part of us!

With calls from home and your eye lids eager to kiss each other; you promise them to allow it a little later.

My friend ended his monologue with an analogy where he said “It seems I have been in my own desert where I have realized that I am running away from the warmth of the Oasis to chase a mirage. A mirage that has lots of promises, but it’s still just a mirage. When I turn back I find thousands chasing that mirage with an ID card around their neck. I wish them all the best.”

Once finished he looked at me for a nod or a sigh as affirmation.

I smiled.

I continue to smile even now while I write this piece.

Only if I could resonate with his experience or agree with him!

Writing all this to celebrate my first anniversary with Pragati where I have an experience which doesn’t match with anything that my friend accounted for.

Thank you all for your love, care, guidance and most importantly friendship during these 12 months which gives me a reason to smile.

It has truly been a blessed and wonderful year!

Yours truly,
anish menon

PS: I joined Pragati Leadership Institute on the 28th February, 2007.