Thursday, July 2, 2009

Apparently it exists!

If you had one look at the title and were bewildered, then for some context, read 'Huck's hideout'
Apparently it exists! and in our own namma Bengaluru!
If you take a drive down the white field region in Bangalore, it's difficult to miss it, that huge colossal glass marvel called ITPL (International Technology Park Ltd.)
I used to work there a few years ago, when things were much more relaxed. The security guy at the office was like your friendly neighbour. There was a time when he saw me working in one of my erratic work schedule (which stretched to 5:00 AM in those days) and remarked,
'Sir, Don't you have a house to stay?' :)
We had a huge conference room with a state of the art DVD player and I quickly volunteered for the job of finding DVD's to play on friday evenings and we actually had a movie club going out there!
Ahh! Those quaint days were full of fun! Even work was a pleasure to indulge in.
Well I've made a few trips there now and then, but nothing as recent as today and to say it's changed would be a understatement.

I can for one, no longer just walk in. I have to freaking shell out one of my valuable identity cards like a PAN, Passport, License (Yes freaking original), get a crappy visitor's badge in an even crappier plastic shell (and they have the audacity to state that if I lose the badge, then I might have to shell out a 1000 bucks!). They are not done yet. Then you walk through a war-trench like zone and then you sight it finally, the building I need to get into. Now this is a real fortress and today my luck ran out. I was stopped. I had a letter which should have ideally granted me entry, but like I said, my luck ran out and the letter was dated more than a week back, something which the security supervisor didn't like.

'I was sick. realllly really sick. [cough] That's why the letter is dated so'
'Nope. Can't do. Pl. get another letter.'
'[more cough] You mean, I have to go out of ITPL, get a letter again and come back? Isn't that rather harsh, considering what you put me through to come till this point???'
'Well, you could go the cyber cafe in the mall, get a print out and come'
'What about my PAN card? If I don't get in here and get a company seal on this receipt, I can't get back my card!'
'Oh that's easy. We see people like you every day. I will sign in the receipt'
'Is it fine if I get my manager from within the building to come out and vouch for me? I can get the actual person who wrote the initial letter. Will that do?'
'Nope. Can't do.'
(So you trust the letter more than the person? I had a deep urge to explain, to tell him how easy it is to spoof a e-mail printout. You want to play baby? eh?
I suppose he read my mind at this point in time and shook his head again. 'Nope. Can't do'
Damn!)

A chain of phone calls and well my luck turned finally! I got in! into the damn place where the security are trained to simply identify at a split second whether a ID-card is a real one or a fake.

Now if only it rained really hard today, ITPL could well become ITIL (International Technology Island Ltd.)

P.S. On hindsight, this is no where as 'devious' as Huck's hideout! not even close ;)

2 comments:

  1. He he the same security was kind enuf to send me in with a warning "Next time you need to carry a letter" ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. yeah I know! They always have a different set of rules for women! esp pretty ones! #$%#^$^@%

    ReplyDelete