Friday, June 16, 2006

Hyderabad

In the plane to Hyderabad, I met up with a film director who wanted me to play in one of his movies, but (un)fortunately I did not have a long stay in Hyderabad and had lots to do. I went for a couple touristy visits, including Qutub Shahi Tombs which is a beautiful grave yard with 7 outstanding mausoleums in memory of the 7 Qutub Shahi kings who ruled in the 16 and 17th century in the region.
Then I went to high-tech city in Hyderabad suburbs to enquire for a Masters internship. So I went to Nokia and Microsoft offices, but what a struggle to get in. They would not let me into the buildings unless I had a personal invitation from some one working in the buildings. S o shit I had to work this out and I did. I went to one complex of company offices which had a ground floor restaurant and from there I sneaked in the upper offices of Nokia and Microsoft and at the reception I simulated wanting to talk to some Indian named person, so they looked into the personnel list and hinted me the similar names that I might be making allusion to. So, now I had the names and even some phone numbers, but I still needed to get into the main company buildings and that was still a huge struggle. For two reasons, first I didn't know who I was going to talk to and secondly once I got to the Microsoft building, the security guards called my contact on the mobile number I provided them. Unfortunately, my "contact" was on vacation. But I insisted that I had to talk to his colleague or at least some one at the reception, that I was coming from Switzerland only to talk to this person, that I was leaving the next(this was not a lie though) but there was no way the guards would let me in.
So I kind of threatened them, as I said I was coming for employment, I asked for there names and there ID number and I told them that I would not forget about them. Luckily none dared giving me his ID and let me in to the reception of the building were I had to struggle once again in order to meet someone and finally the doors were opened, drinks offered to me and the colleague of the contact I had came down to me and had a small half an hour talk and explained me the procedure I should follow if I wanted an internship here at Microsoft R&D offices.

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