Hyderabad - Old & New - Part III ( IN PROGRESS )

RECAP: Next we were taken to the medical centre, gym and other facilities available to Microsoft employees. I and my friend Aishwarya, excited as we were, checked out our weight and it showed an error (E) sign- at which everyone laughed & said that our weights were beyond the scale.


Hyderabadis have embraced the hi-tech culture & modernisation while staying close to their roots. As we walked out of one the classiest corporate offices in Asia, six of us squeezed into the same rick- that being just one example! In the "somewhat less hi-tech" Mumbai city, more than three people on the same auto rickshaw is illegal; meters are properly installed and regulated on every public transport vehicle. The rules around here weren't really strict and the flavour of a traditional oriental city was clearly visible; which brings me to the main focus of the Part-III of this series-- the old city!


Well, the first thing that inevitably comes to mind as one speaks about old Hyderabad is the famous Biryani- but, to your disappointment, I hate all kinds of rice which aren't plain! So no pulaos, biryanis or fried rice for me (Kashmiri teaher being an exception, though). For all others, I'm sure the Biryani is great. Apart from that, the food was awesome. In fact, even the foud courts at the malls didn't disappoint me, breaking a monotony! Didn't miss the north too much! We had dinner at the Shadaab restaurant in old city which had the ambience of a royal courtroom- A darbaan (royal guard)-style guy greeted us in royasl style as we began to enter

Hyderabad - Old & New - Part II

RECAP: As we entered the building (building # 3 I suppose it was) there were around a 100 other MSPs from all over India. I naturally received much attention as I was from Kashmir. The MSPs were very friendly and all as nervous as I was- that gave us a feeling of solidarity rather than rivalry! As the test was behind schedule, we proceeded towards the cafeteria where we had FREE coffee. We were like, WOW! Microsoft employees can have free coffee and coke all day! But it turns out  that there is much more that makes Microsoft employees loyal to MS- it is the RESPECT & TRUST that they receive that makes them hang on to Microsoft for such a long time.


~~JUST NOTICED THE PICTURES AREN'T LOADING QUITE WELL; PLEASE CLICK TO VIEW FULL~~


There was this guy wearing shorts and a cool T with a notebook in his hand & coding! As we were waiting, a girl in a skinny red top and capri entered the building. The interiors were state-of-the-art and the colors were very cool for a corporate office. The whole place had the ambience of a church- huge, clean and quiet. It was then that I got to know what Microsoft is not!


We finally sat for the test. For the first ten minutes, everyone turned the paper- back & forth (I cannot say anything about the nature of questions as I have signed the non-disclosure agreement). After a while, we relaxed and started writing. I badly screwed the paper- so, no, I wasn't selected. Later, I got to know that only four people got the job!


While the evaluation process was in progress, Mr RajivK (that's his IM name) gave us what we could call, in a normal campus placement, PPT (pre-placement talk)- an overview of Microsoft. He told us what it is like to be a part of Microsoft- especially the influence you have on billions of people, the flexibility in timing and in work area, the perks, etc. I'll describe more of that later. 

The striped black&grey scarf at the back is my head!

When he said, "Its a great feeling when you have billions of people using a product, a part of which you developed. And by the way Visual Studio 2010 was developed 2 floors above you in this building" and that, "If anyone of you has used Visual Studio 2005, most of the code in there was mine" we were awe-struck. At the beginning of his lecture, he expressed his delight at the presence of MSPs from all over India and asked if there was anyone from around Jammu & Kashmir. As I raised my hand, all heads turned back. That's the kind of attention you get as a Kashmiri!


This was followed by some expert sessions on Windows Azure and Windows Phone wherein queries submitted by us beforehand were answered. As the day proceeded, it was getting more interesting. Lunch was served. It goes without saying that the food was great! It had to be- it was Microsoft. As we finished lunch, a bunch of us looked out through a massive glass pane to find a beautiful utopic sight- a small spring surrounded by low hills and naturally growing greenery. We were later told that while building the campus, little or no alteration was done to the natural terrain; which is why the building slants over the natural landscape!

There was a presentation by the Yuva MSP team followed by one on SECURITY- no, not network security- actual security systems used and practices followed by Microsoft on their campuses - GSOC. The presentation was very impressive. You can view it at the given link. Following this, the results were declared- some 8-10 guys (all guys) were short-listed for the interview rounds. And those of us who weren't shortlisted were taken for a tour of the Gachibowli campus.


The three twin buildings spread across a 54 acres lush green campus comprise the MSIDC. The building we were in - building no. 3- is regarded as Asia's most eco-friendly building. We were told that every drop of water leaving the building is recyled. Next, we visited the other two twin buildings. There was plantation all around and yet another building had an ampitheatre sort of thing at the entrance- with graduated stairs leading down to the entrance. I guess they use it as a cultural hub.

Next we were taken to the medical centre, gym and other facilities available to Microsoft employees. I and my friend Aishwarya, excited as we were, checked out our weight and it showed an error (E) sign- at which everyone laughed & said that our weights were beyond the scale :)


READ MY NEXT POST TOMORROW! AS I'M WRITING THIS IN A HURRY, PLEASE BE KIND ENOUGH TO POINT OUT MISTAKES, IF ANY.

Hyderabad - Old & New - Part I

Hey! I've been asked by many people to blog about my trip to Hyderabad. It was a Microsoft employment test and I didn't get through. But I had a chance to visit the MSIDC (Microsoft India Development Center), Microsoft's major development center, next only to their HQs at Redmond, the SalarJung Museum and many more places. But I found these two places particularly awesome. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed at either of these places . And, I'm generally a law-abiding person! You can find some uber-cool photos here at MSIDC Facebook Page


Before I boarded the flight to Hyderabad, I had a typically oriental picture of Hyderabad in mind. As I'm proceeding towards my seat, I see a young woman completing some accounting task I suppose, another guy reading a GMAT prep book, another person using his laptop (doing something meaningful, I suppose). I, for a while, felt I'm in a corporate office. It was more frightening than impressive.


Quite generally, the first thing that you notice about a new city is it's airport. Of course, photography was not allowed. I don't think it is wrong to say that Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi Int'l Airport is among the classiest and most hi-tech! In fact, as I'm writing this, I'm also checking out the official website of the airport and it says, "World's No. 1 Airport". In fact, the carrousel itself was the most hi-tech I've seen in India . The weather was moderate as it was late October. It had rained before I arrived I think, so it was a little humid. But I loved the touch of warm air after months of chill-out at Srinagar. In fact, during the flight, I made the cabin crew increase the temperature twice!


As I entered the city, the clean, wide roads at once appealed to me. I felt happy. The highways and bridges were almost like in Mumbai, just with many more slopes since the terrain is mostly rocky. My friend Farah picked me up at the airport and we drove straight to dinner at a place called Rajdhani. The food was way better than what you would expect towards the south.


The days that followed changed my whole perception of the city. The place where we were putting up is close to the Hi-Tech city area- populated mostly with the corporate work-force- and, hence, officially known as Cyberabad. Cyberabad has the offices of all major IT players like Facebook, Google, Delloite and of course Microsoft- which is located at a place called Gachibowli (the name reminds me of a funny character in a Telugu movie starring Siddharth- too bad I couldn't see Siddhu  ). 


Hyderabad is a strange mix of the hi-tech and the conservative. The first time I found this out was on 21st October, 2010 when I was late for my employment test at Microsoft- I hired an auto but it had no meter- not that we have meters in Srinagar, but I was only expecting to see meters in a city quite like Hyderabad. I could either wait for some more people to share the auto with me or I could pay an exorbitant amount. I did the latter. I ended up paying 100 bucks for a small distance  . I felt duped. Okay, I'm only exxagerating, it wasn't that disheartening!


We arrived at the MSIDC Hyderabad, quite excited and refreshed by the tinge of heritage that the city roads still bear. It was kinda strange to see people from Facebook live - I'm talking about my MSP friends from Facebook. I, for some strange reason, naturally mixed up with the Mumbai gang. We were given visitor badges after verifying our identities from the expected list and we started walking in awe towards the marvellous buildings that are the MSIDC. We read the warning against photography. We did not click any, because we were afraid it might lead to disqualification from the test for which we had worked so hard to be eligible- so naive!


As we entered the building (building # 3 I suppose it was) there were around a 100 other MSPs from all over India. I naturally received much attention as I was from Kashmir. The MSPs were very friendly and all as nervous as I was- that gave us a feeling of solidarity rather than rivalry! As the test was behind schedule, we proceeded towards the cafeteria where we had FREE coffee. We were like, WOW! Microsoft employees can have free coffee and coke all day! But it turns out  that there is much more that makes Microsoft employees loyal to MS- it is the RESPECT & TRUST that they receive that makes them hang on to Microsoft for a long time.


PS: I don't wanna bore you, so, I'll continue my story in the next part. Errors- grammatical or otherwise- should be either pointed out or ignored, but never complained about. I'm very sleepy. Good Night.