Big Boss Season 1 – (My Pangeans)

The moment I listen to these words Big Boss. I am showered with the memory of Big Boss season-1 in which I was one of the participants. The most rocking ever. It all started with my come back to Pangea after the deceitful return of venturing my opportunities outside Pangea. I owe a big thank to Anthony who helped me get in again and bestowed in me the confidence and waved me to “The” most important project of Pangea. Few people in Pangea where selected for that project and the list was out much before I joined Pangea. My entry in the project was like a wild card entry on a 1st day ( I know according to the rule book of Big Boss there is no wild card on the 1st day but I just want to honor myself by adding a feature to my cap.)
We all were sent to our old office back in Makers Chamber. There were mixed reactions of people who had come there. Amongst the people in the project there were very few I knew and the rest where like completely novel to me. My manager was Miss Rachita Maker, till some point of time in life I was surviving under the impression that she is in some way connected to the person who owns Makers Chamber. Rachita was the person who was the tipping point for my journey with Pangea she was the person who interviewed me.

Day 1

I wish I could name the project. Confidentiality is the vertebrae of legal profession and wish to profess the same…..so I better restrain or rather abstain myself from doing so. We had a person named Mr. Seth flying from US to tender us the required training. And we in turn were responsible to carve the product well and present the fantastic work product with no mistake. even a comma or a full stop; I think I should stop it now. The day before Anthony told me to be at the office at 9.00 am sharp. After the formal round of introduction by Anthony the training session started. The training commenced in a common board room which was multi functional and multi dimensional, Oh! I got a term for that, “optimum utilization of a resource”

Now about our work stations and why I call it “Big Boss”, bound by the obligation of our clients, our work station where setup in a room which was completely under vigilance a strange eye was always watching us through a closed circuit television. Moreover we where not allowed to take our cell phone or any device which would help virtual transmission of data. Now completely a big boss scenario, add to the flavor we where 13 characters in the project when it took off.

The organic growth

The training session went on for almost a week’s time and everyone was organically growing with the project, individually, and as team. I meet few new people whom I had seen around in office and had never spoken to. We all hold a pre-conceived notion about a person before even we could speak to them and a project like this helped break that barrier. I had never known so many people better at the same time. Man it was an experience and I think it holds true for everyone who was part of that project. Finally the project started and we where glued to our machines, the catch of this project was there were dual monitors to every CPU and two people at a time where supposed to work on a document. This was almost like a dual headed person, which created a lot of problems initially, but was later discovered as device of mutual connection and understanding. For people who disliked it was more of ‘Do it’ thing without an excuse.

Topics of discussion

As much as we had fun in the project, the work we did was a task in itself, and to get it off what can be better than a sutta break. Almost everyone in the team was a suttebaz except the few, who eventually joined the group as passive smokers. This was the place with sutta and some exquisite range of coffees served by our own Laljibhai. We also had a sutta art which was engrafted on one of the walls. Big Boss season was the topic of discussion and everyone had his/her own favorite character, some how people started identifying each other as characters of BB. Rivya (Rakhi Sawant) with her nautanki-baz jokes, songs and episodes almost kick-started the session and she used to make sure that everyone present there was involved in it. By just saying “Suno Na”. The only person who disliked discussion about the holy topic of BB was Nimish; he dislikes things that are commonly liked, thus making him a distinguished character. And later the topic moved from latest news to someone’s mental impression to anything and everything.

I still remember Maniti sharing her Mom’s & Dad’s romantic time especially the song “hai hai yeh majburi” and also the trip. Maniti and her fatal words were just like greeting and no one could ever feel bad about them. And to shake off the boredom there was a punch line “Zindagi Zandua”. The standard answer for any question which was raised to Kamal was standard………………”Standard Hai”

@ Work

At our work stations everyone was dedicated, working to finish the project successfully. I had the pleasure of meeting the fastest human being ever Vicky (Meghana). Vicky had finished everything almost in half time and we realized it when we saw the logs at the end of the day. She was just too good and I think 20% of the project was done by Vicky and her partner initially. Her skill undoubtedly made her the QA and she was given the liberty to work individually. Anumeha always helped me with ratifications. We made a template which was used as a precedent for copy pasting sessions. There where few catch word which we eventually found out “consent unreasonably withheld”, “15 days”, “weather” my team would surely know what it means. I had a Google account which indicated the date of birth of renowned people; I realized that it was Einstein’s birthday and just thought of celebrating it and celebration turned into a greeting “Happy Birthday Einstein” which most of us share, Vishal’s girlfriend’s birthday is on the same day so he might have had double celebrations.

The Matrix dream

The work started happening with the fullest effect and the so was the review. We all were vigilant about the red slots on the log. It was the time in the project when there was miscommunication of what was conveyed to us. Rachita was pissed off with this and started retaliating to that effect. And this was the topic of discussion that whole day. The day ended in the most trilling way as it used to end on the project. That day was one of the fortunate days when there were no conflicting program on television and I had no interest clashes with my folks. I had the complete freedom of watching the movie (Matrix) in solace. I was completely soaked in the movie (Matrix) and was carefully watching the movie as if I was all set to write a review. I slept with a heavy head, which made me have a Matrix dream that night. The Pangean ship was attached by the agent. We ran and there was a chase. At the end there was some kind of super power and we won. The other day when I came to office. I saw my office folks discussing the same issue. I was embarrassed to share my dream at that time. But as the time went by I was comfortable with this group and I shared my dream with them. Just as the way I was excited they were also excited. The best thing that happened in these days of project was every one was on the same page and could know each other better, which is like an impossible thing in this era.

Foodilicous and fun session

Substantial amount of time in a week was spent together. Everyone was taking care and nurturing the eating habits in the team. It all started with a connoisseur of food undoubtedly Mr. Nimish. He was well abreast of which place serves the best of what. So our lunches included royal cuisines specially ordered from Zaffran, Status, Mc Donald, Relish etc. Almas also treated the whole team with the delicacies made by her mom. The crab biryani was the most rocking thing that I ever had till date…….Almas your mom gets a five star rating. Most of our weekend lunch session happened at Relish. After the heavy lunch sessions the team geared back to work or rather got ready for evening snacks with bhelpuri, papdi chat, Sev Puri, idli and sandwich. The evening times were the most amazing ones…….with the oldies and goldies of 70’s & 80’s we all know what was that session about also the famous dialogue “Na tu atti hai na Maut aati hai”. The thing most shocking then was about Maniti I never thought she would sing old song so melodiously I really appreciate that.


Dangerous Moments and Party scenes

Dear Samrat I hope you are really doing well in UK, dude you are one person who created the history. You had taken that Herculean step for which the whole of Manhood be proud of. (Kidding) Samrat never lost his temper even being a short tempered person, but I don’t know what went wrong that day but whatever………… its life and it happens koi baat nahin….. Laale.
Beedi jalaie, Sutta na mila this was like our national anthems we danced liked as if the song was crafted for us. Can’t write much about the party because after some time at the party I forgot what happened, no one did.

New folks and the end

The project was extended and some new lovely folks where added to the gang.
Nirvan, Reshmi, Sachin, Shefali, Anisha (Melody Queen)….. And forgive me if have missed someone. It was a junior senior scenario for sometime but thing became normal usual and the differences where waived of by time.
And such was the gang and the project ended with lots of fun in frolic, much as the last moment which I missed due to some reasons. But all in all

****THOSE WERE THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE****