Grindwell Norton Ltd (A Saint-Gobain co.)

Grindwell came to our campus and picked me up when I was in the last year of my engineering studies. I joined as a Business Development Engineer - BDE (another term for Sales Engineer) in Aug 2003. I was required to sell 'abrasives'(don't ask what's that!) to other industries and convince them that in some way (don't know how) my product was better than the others - though many times it proved to be otherwise, but the company paid me good. It brought many firsts to my life - first job, first salary, first visiting card, first air travel, first stay at a 5 star hotel, first elevator ride to the 33rd floor of WTO, first presentation jitters in the board room. On 1st aug 2003, we eight guys from different engineering colleges across the country landed in Mumbai, each with his own set of Bombay Dreams.. which were soon to be shattered!

The company put us up in its 'by the sea shore' plant across the Bombay Harbour for the first few weeks. Then we all moved in different directions for our projects. I travelled to Pune, Aurangabad,  Ahmedabad, Baroda, Rajkot, Surat, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Rohtak, Ludhiana, Jallandhar, Amritsar... the list is endless. BDE now meant Bharat Darshan Engineer!

During this period I worked on various projects on auto-ancillaries of India and on Project Sites in Gujarat.

Calcutta: In june 2004 I was sent to Calcutta on a final posting. The first view of the city was a 100 yellow ambassador taxis running on the Howrah Bridge.. and a question - What good has communism done to this once called the city of joy? As I strived for the next three months living independently, finding accommodation for me and commuting by the crowded but punctual Metro Trains, I found answers to many other questions too - 'How is the city run by the Marwaris who have literally driven Bengalis out of business there', 'What makes this community so unique from the others'. Four out of the five dealers who were under me were Marwari.

But the experience was short lived.. end of august I resigned and came to Pune - where I had to start a new chapter.

Pune: There is something in this city that attracted me to it romantically, since my first visit in sept 2003. Maybe it's the surrounding landscapes - the western ghats, lakes, lonavla, sinhgarh, the sahyadris or just the simplicity in life that it offers which is exactly opposite to Bombay, though being so close to it. I started living with my frens and joined IMS at FC road (the reason why I resigned and came to pune - to prepare for MBA entrance exams).

"Good morning, this is Robert calling from..."

 EXL Services

One industry that fascinated me was the Call Centres - How can people work whole night and that too with just a comp and a phone.. This question was also answered soon. In dec 2004 I realised that I had already spent most of my savings and going by that rate I would be bankrupt in another couple of months. What's the easiest way to fast bucks (of course, within the legal domain!) - Call Centres of course. Who else would pay u 10k bucks each month for just chatting with some dumb people in other countries (yes, they don't know how to switch on a PC) over the phone, sitting in an AC room and with coffee by the side. Though not as rosy, but I was very happy working there. All others around were like me - young, confused, just there by accident! So I did not take long in making some of my best frens for life.

I resigned from EXL in July 2005, after working for nearly seven months, two weeks before my joining date at IIT Kanpur.