First day

It was 4th of December 1994 that I left my Jaipur home, my wife and very young daughter to catch train to Mumbai to embark on a new journey. The journey was to report to UTI Bank’s Central Office at Cuffe Parade, Mumbai the next day that’s on 5th December.

The train was a very prized possession for Jaipuwalas as before its start, there was no direct train between Jaipur and Mumbai and to go to Mumbai, one had to change either at Sawai Madhopur or Delhi. This super fast train was indeed a game changer.

The train reached Mumbai Central sharp at the destined hour of 8.30 AM and I had freshened myself by shaving and having a short bath inside the train itself. I got down, deposited my luggage in the cloakroom and took a cab to Cuffe Parade. The princely sum of Rs46 that I paid for this journey is still fresh in mind. I reported at the office, which was a big change from the well appointed, well set central office of my previous employer. There were few peoples and the work was going on as the office was still not ready. However, I got going to whatever I was supposed to do on Day 1 of my joining.

As the evening fell, I was offered a ride from office to our guest bourse at BKC in a pooled vehicle. I requested the team to drive via Mumbai Central so that I could collect my luggage from the cloakroom.

From sleepy Jaipur to hyper active Mumbai, from an office in Jaipur to an office in high end Maker Towers in upmarket Cuffe Parade, from complacent public sector to highly ambitious private sector, I had embarked on a journey that was to become a roller coaster ride of around 28 years that took me to Kolkata, New Delhi before finally bringing me to Mumbai in 2001 for good is an interesting story that I may tell one of these days through blogs or a book. But as I prepare to retire in few days on 31/5/2022 that would be my last day in Axis, I got pulled towards the memories of my first day!