Diary of a Whacky Girl

Oh Swe, where do I even start? It’s only fair to start from the very beginning. The first time I ever met you was back in 2015, when you were part of Uma’s wider team. We didn’t get to interact a lot, but I remember your smile, the very-genuine-reaching-up-to-your-eyes kinda smile. There were the occasional hi-byes when we crossed paths during the day but don’t quite remember a lot of conversation happening. Cut to June 2022, I join back Barclays, but this time into your team. I didn’t know this until I started, and honestly you were the first best thing that happened to me at that time. I used to tell a lot of people that rejoining Barclays felt a lot like Homecoming, because of all the people, and you are definitely in the top of that list. Somehow the conversations right from the beginning felt very natural, as if some old friends reconnecting after a long gap. What with having a lot of things in common, like, sharing birth years, mat leaves (lol), kiddos sharing same birthday month...

Living in Neyveli, and having most of your extended family settled in Chennai, meant you’d be frequently travelling between Neyveli and Chennai. Since Neyveli didn’t have a proper railway station and the closest one was 2 hours away, our travel to Chennai has always been in buses. The buses usually took about 4.5-5hours to cover the 200km distance. Because we had one of our relatives in Tambaram, we usually got down there. Those were the days when the Mofussil buses used to go through the city, and I believe the bus stand was in Broadway, Parrys.  It was in 2002 (though I had stared at the granite containing the date of opening a zillion times, I couldn’t quite recollect this year and had to google it) that the bus terminus was shifted to Koyambedu, and named as CMBT - Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus. It was humungous to say the least. The local MTC buses were given a good sizeable space in the front, with multiple shelters and behind them was the actual bus terminus with 6 broad pla...