Doing No Evil

I have always had a thing for lifts.When I was little, the ones at my Dad's office in Madurai had very unsightly grills, almost never worked and yet, were highly revered. Even today,when I stand in glass walled escalators or the ones that are as large as rooms, my brain kicks in to an awe mode. The sudden jilt in the pit of my stomach when I go up one brings back a lot of memories of all the other things I used to fancy as a kid; like new Enid Blyton books or fresh Tinkle Digests or long pink pencils that had a pony tail like fluffy thing attached to the end. Though I have outgrown the pencil attachment, I still fancy the lifts.

For this particular reason, I was strangely excited to see a dedicated lift "lobby" out here at Omega building in Hyderabad. Omega stands in the hi-tech city as one of those massive buildings and strangely without any indication that it housed Google inside. Not many people know about Google being here, and definitely not the fact that, this is the second largest office after the headquarters at Mountain View.

My mother with all her good intentions had wanted to me stop wearing "those vulgar jeans things" and in her sweet(not!) own way had insisted on formal cotton Salwars. There I was in a neat, largely CIT-ish salwar and waiting with enormous anticipation of my "office buddy" to walk in. People kept zipping in through the glass doors, with long confident strides and were clutching their laptops as they tossed their heads stylishly.I knew things were going to take a ninety degree turn and be absolutely phase shifted the moment I saw the signature colourful Google on the walls.

It was like a Harry Potter-waiting-for-sorting-hat-to-call-out-his-name moment. Surprisingly, this was the first thing given to me in the office.

Though they call this thing as a Noogler cap, which all the newbies have to wear, this contraption is generally known as the beanie. Readers of this blog should know my historical association with the beanie .

I am not going to rave about the office though

it is absolutely rave-able.

The cafeteria menus I have sent out to friends have created quite a stir and people have just stopped short of threatening murder and have limited themselves to send in hate mails.

Somehow, all this luxury is overwhelming. I have not opened my purse ever since I came to Hyderabad. So, today when I went to watch Raavanan at this hi-fi theater, I was rather amused to see that I couldn't bring myself to buy a can of coke as I have gotten the "every-imaginable- drink- is- free- at- office"notion etched in my mind; in a week at that! Boy,life is going to be tough later on. I should refer to my "no-fan" pages at CIT, occasionally, to keep in touch with the grim reality that lurks just outside the impermeable bubble that Google is.