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Have been thinking to blog from long time, but as lazy I am, it took me this long. Thought to write about movies, tours, food and nothing went to paper... I mean keyboard.

3:04 the morning - We were coming back from IHOP (which was our choice for the day's coffee place after the New Moon movie), and we just went past Residence Inn... my first home in Atlanta. With less than a week to leave Atlanta, it was a flash of images on my mind. It was a bad editing of sequence as they were too random, but it was exiting. My first stay out of India, or I should say in a new world where I knew none. It was a wonderful feeling before I started here, and it is as wonderful now also. 7 months, 7 new friends, 7 outings, 70 movies... as beautiful as a rainbow.

Even the 'we', friendship with Vivek (or Viveck as my phone book entry says) and Lakshmi, started with just a smile. Probably that day, at breakfast, he felt as alien as I was feeling in Residence Inn (lets say we hail from same Planet 52) and we exchanged a 'familiar' smile - you know, the smile people have when two gulte exchange in Gujarat or two balle balle exchange in Tamil Nadu (not the 'Amway familiar'). Now I am a friend who they think they can spend time with and hang out on weekends. Did I say, Lakshmi makes tea as good as a Saravana Bhavan tea. They have a added advantage with me, they can have their personal talk with no hesitation and I will not get a thing out of their Malayali discussion. Of course the same applies with the Marati discussion Amol and Prajakta can have.

Before talking about Mr&Mrs Amol... meeting Rajesh was a sweet surprise. Out of the alien space, on my second day at work, I saw some one whom I knew (of course, I knew nothing more than the face and name of the face from college). He is here from Infosys, on the same project. Very same day I have friends at work, obviously his friends. He helped me a lot not to feel handicapped without a car, and soon Bharat joined to help me. 3 yr.s of onsite made Rajesh a very good cook, mark in bold that he is veg.

Bharat is also a Infoscion. I should say he has lot of patience, I mean wow... I hit a BMW with Jeep, I drive bad and missed a wreck by an inch on a highway and he still maintains his cool. Yes, he does warn me and teaches me how not to mess with traffic, but with cool head. Not to forget mentioning, he is a very good cook. His chicken item is something to watch out for in the potlucks. Too regular not to miss movies, find him if you need company for a bollywood pic.

Amol is another Infoscion, whom I barely took note of on the first day introductions. The next day when Rajesh introduced us again, it meant like 'now both of you have a new friend'. Later I understood that it is how it sounds when we are at an alien place (remember... we hail from Planet 52). An enthu guy who is in his early thirties but looks as young as me (or do I look as old as him, whatever) and is game for masti anytime. Prajakta, babhi of our team (of-course, except for Amol) in Atlanta (Bharat is a forced bachelor here, so no babhi). A very good cook and fun loving person. When ever she agrees with you, 'I knoowww...' is her word.

Yes, the count is 6 here. Nandan is not in this batch. He was a 'hi-hello' in IIIT, 'Oh hii' in Deloitte. Here we started with 'hi mama... hi macha'. I played tennis for the first time at his place, played cricket for the only time here with his friends. I was lazy not to visit him regularly, but sure that it is a friendship that I can count on.

No, I was not just roaming all the time. I go to work as well, may be I should say I go to fun. Andrew, Evan and Mark made sure that we had fun working there. The workplace was never tense or busy, all that was carried by Andrew. We were having only the fun and cool part. Anthony and Gilson were busy with their work, and they kept suggesting me places to visit. The best part of talking and fun was the Wednesday dinners. Randy, Ravi and Badri + some topic to debate, discuss + Randy coaching me on flirting and dating (live tutorials as well).

Few more names to mention, Sireesha and Prakash, and Mohan. Sireesha was my jr at college, colleague at Deloitte, and Prakash is her husband. We did not meet so often, we had good time together every time we met. Mohan is again another Infoscion in our project. His daughter Minisha is so cute, you would love to have her around.

I know, it makes others feel jealous about my onsite. And I too feel that I am going to miss all this fun. I mean... how often do you get a chance to drive various cars without worrying about insurance, tickets and bad traffic. Probably my next task should be नज़र उतारना or దిష్టి తీయటం for my trip. I will be on it...

PS: I don't know if I should call this blog Atlanta or Life in Atlanta (sounds like the movie title Life in a Metro). Feel free to suggest me one.

PS to PS: I don't know what PS stands for, but I understood from various PS's I came across that such things are written in PS.

PS to 'PS to PS': I know I can 'google' for PS, but no thanks, not interested now.