One Last Rendezvous with Nat

In 2016, 2 years after moving to Chennai, the injuries proved to be too much to cope as a professional Cricket player. I stopped going for the sessions and matches. I did not make much of an effort in meeting Nat although it was in the back of my mind. Not getting through the H1B lottery meant that my hopes of moving to Silicon Valley were fading.

It was around that time Lloyds Banking Group had just become Wipro's client to transform them digitally over the next few years. It was a massive undertaking. It had the best opportunity for web engineers outside of Apple at the time. Having proved myself at Apple, it wasn't hard for me to get into the project. They wanted a group of us to go to London. It wasn't that hard to get into that train either. Once again in my life, a little hobby that I took up during school was about to take me on a different journey. I went though yet another rigorous training for this as I was all set to go to London for a year to work directly with the client in the Lloyds Bank office.

When I signed up for it, the INR-GBP exchange rate was about 80. And I was in that stage in life where I was desperate enough to think that that a £27K Senior role in London was better than a 5LPA one in Bangalore. So I thought for a years assignment, even if I don't manage to save anything, the mere opportunity be go to London was an offer I couldn't refuse.

Having made up my mind about my upcoming career move, I went back to Chennai one final time to wrap up my affairs there. I packed my things including my bike and sent it home. I bid farewell to Vin, Kan and many others. A few days before leaving, I made a last ditch attempt at trying to meet Nat because it was now or never. On her birthday that year, I decided to go straight into her office in Guindy in the hope of finding her. After a few hours of waiting and trying to figure out where in the office she was, we finally met. She was kind enough to have a coffee with me. Exactly 2 years before that day, I had moved to Chennai to revive our relationship, but by the time we met 2 years hence, a goodbye was all that was left to say.

On October 2, I embarked on my 1 year assignment to London.