The gate was half closed. I slowly opened it and stepped inside. The lawn was green enough, the sun shining fully around. In between all the greenery stood a small building, which looked like a slightly bigger house. My feet touched the cold, white marble steps and led me to the Veranda and again to a sitting room. I felt very naive, I was going to enter a world, unknown.
***
Amal has this crazy habit of changing his mobile number so frequently. Friends usually start saving his number with the name, “Amal”. When next number comes, it becomes “Amal1” and so on. Since this count started becoming endless, any normal human being would either think of throwing his number away, or finding any other easier option to track this. I too first thought of deleting him altogether. Since its nearly impossible, I started saving his latest number as “Amal.latest”. No need to say, most of the times, this is a variable.
One week back, during a coffee time in Poornam food court, I got a call from this “Amal.latest”, “Hey do you know the specialty of today?” Keeping in mind the “enmity” between us, and the extent of gimmicks he would play on me, I took a cautious step and said – “No, I don’t know”. “idiot!! This is the day we joined Poornam” .. “Oh yes!!”
What was the first thing that rushed to my mind, I still am not sure. Anyway, that was four years before I first opened the gate and entered Poornam.
********
The lobby was filled with a few faces. One guy who had hair like “Calvin” looked up with a knowing smile, I guessed he was Amal. We were coming from the same college, but we hadn’t ever met in college!!
I turned and scanned the rest of the people. A girl will all smiles, was walking around and talking to people who looked like the employees already working there. “Wow”, I thought. I always admired people who can talk freely to strangers. I had to yet realize that she was Jisha and she had a lot of acquaintances there because her brother was senior employee in Poornam.
Little did I know that these two people were going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
Two shining eyes and a naughty smile, sat by the side – Renjith. Two serious faces sat straight in a sofa – Aroop and Jipson. They turned out to be the energy store of our team later. How wrong are we in in judging people at times!!
These were the army with which we started our 15 days training in Poornam.
*********
Life in Poornam had different flavors each day from then onwards. When I look back, I know I am no longer the naive girl who stepped into Poornam on 19th November, 2003. Mostly, when we write about Poornam, what stands out is the family atmosphere and the fun involved – The instant jokes, friends, forum threads, celebrations, and so on. Jokes apart, I know that I am a better person because of Poornam. Probably, a better human being too. Four years after, I am proud that I am part of Poornam…
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