GAIL - Parting letter

First Job, Getting married, Buying first car and Becoming father ... these are certainly some of the most joyous moments in anybody's life. In my case, I shared all these happy moments with my colleagues from GAIL. These wonderful friend of mine certainly deserved a better parting letter from my side but I could manage only what follows in the next paragraph. I believe to some extent it does reflect the true place for GAILians in my heart.

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"It feels as if it was only yesterday when on the fateful day of Monday the 1st of July 2002, I’d joined GAIL (I) Ltd at Noida as GET(E&C). Five years latter, I believe that my association with GAIL has channeled the exuberance and enthusiasm of a young & fresh out of college student to somewhat responsible professional which I think I’m today.

In the hindsight, when I reflect upon the time that I’ve spent in GAIL, I find that there are mostly happy memories. I consider myself fortunate that I always got supportive bosses who encouraged learning and gave freedom to experiment and grow. I got wonderful friends like you.

However, I also believe in a line from movie Black, “Life is like an Ice-cream, enjoy it before it melts” and that there is life beyond what I’m doing here in GAIL.
With this in mind, now after spending exactly five years in this wonderful organization, I’ve decided to take a break from 09:15 a.m. to 05:45 p.m. work life and become a student again. For the next 16 months, I shall be challenging myself with new goal of sailing through the academic rigors of 16 months full time MBA degree from ASIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, MANILA.

Working in GAIL, and having the opportunity to meet you is an experience, I’ll cherish throughout my life.

Again, with all these technical advancements, this world is becoming smaller with each passing day, which forces me to believe that “Kahin kisi roz, kisi na kisi mod pe, ham fir milenge jaroor”.

Till then, adios."
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GAIL (INDIA) LIMITED

I should have written this post exactly a month back, when I'd resigned from GAIL after completing exactly five years of service, but my procrastinating nature is to blame that I'm writting it today. Never mind even if I'm late, the organization I worked with for 5 years must find a mention on my blog.

Though I do believe in the saying, "Whatever god does, he does it for good" I find it very hard to understand what was so good about graduating from IITG in the year 2002. May be I'll discover it in the years to come!

2002 was the year when dotcom bubble burst was affecting the placement scene at IITs and other colleges of India.

Our seniors used to have the luxury of choosing best role and profile amongst the multiple job offers, but class of 2002 was finding it tough to get even a single job. Already two months had passed since placement exercise had begun, and I was still jobless. The list of companies yet to visit our insti for placements was going down very fast and with this my fear of walking out from IIT without a job was mounting. I was simply not ready for this ignominious situation.

And then one evening I heard that ECE and CSE students are invited to attend PPT (Pre Placement Talk) by GAIL. This was the first time that I heard this word, "GAIL" which became my identity for the next five years.

Never ever, not even in my worst dreams I'd thought that I'll work for a PSU, but then there are many other things which I'd never envisaged but they happened.

GAIL (I) Limted or Gas Authority of India Limited (http://gailonline.com/) , as it was known in the year 2002 is one of the most efficiently managed Public Sector Enterprise of Govt of india. As the name suggest, till sometime back it used to had the authority vested in it by Govt of India for exclusive Natural Gas marketting in India which was its main source of Revenue. However during past few years, it has diversified into the realm of Petrochemicals production, LPG production and transportation, Oil & Gas exploration, Consultancy and Telecom. I was recruited for its Telecom Subsidiary GAILTEL whose area of operation is bandwidth marketting.

During my stay in GAIL, I saw the business of GAILTE increasing from the initial level of a meagre STM-1 and a single customer base Bharti to present level of 5000 E1s and a customer base of more than 50 mobile operators, Pvt companies and ISPs.