The Name

"Whats in a name? A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet."
- William Shakespeare
These oft quoted lines suddenly came to mind as I was sitting in the office trying to figure out how best to kill the time before it killed me. The train of thoughts started and I spent the next few minutes trying to figure out the various aspects of my own name .Nishant – That’s what my parents named me (although I later on came to know it hadn’t been there first choice).
I knew that it literally meant “End of Night”. But beyond that knowledge about my own name was zero. Not that I had ever given much thought on this topic. So I did some research on the subject. Google and other sources came up with this info.
“Nishant is a male given name.
The name Nishant is derived from the Sanskrit name for dawn or the end of night. In Sanskrit Nisha means 'Night' and Ant means 'End', Hence Nishant means the end of night or the first ray of the morning sun. Alternatively, Nishant also means the end of darkness of knowledge or a new beginning. This name is mainly used only in India and is fairly uncommon there too.
Nishant is a word in the Hindi dictionary. In some variants of Hindi language, it is also pronounced as Nishanth, though the same is not supported in any dictionary.”
There was a further alternative explanation given there
“Nishant also means a person who never keeps quite himself makes other disturb”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishant_(name)
I liked the second one :P
Anyways, would be quite glad if someone throws some more light on this topic specifically the first appearance of this name. And if a picture could represent the name.

The One Year

Today marked the completion of one year since I arrived in Mumbai to join my first post MBA job at Reliance. Well, this also happens to be my longest stay in any single company (Ok, I only have 2 to choose from). So thought this is a good time for a nice little blog post (been a while since I last posted anything on this blog). So here goes, some glimpses of what the past year has been.

I received a wet welcome to Mumbai. The afternoon I arrived from Patna monsoon struck Mumbai. Reached the guest house to find that I was the very first amongst the 50 joinees to have arrived. Slowly other people also reached there. Caught up with my I-batchmates, made new acquaintances with would be colleagues and renewed one with a fellow summer intern. The first week passed with what seemed to be a lecture series on the various group companies. Followed by a trip to Jamnagar and Hazira plants. The best part of the trip - the Jamnagar mango garden.

In the interim also went house-hunting. This proved to be a lot tougher than initially thought. But finally managed to find a nice penthouse with a view of the Thane creek on one side and the Western Ghats on the other. And I have a pair of roommates to share my first rented flat with me.

Returning to my old industry meant that I regained contact with quite a few of ISM friends. Though over the last year the numbers have dwindled with a series of farewells taking place.

Work life wasnt as hectic as had been imagined. In fact as compared to others it was quite laid back. Though life seems to be getting a busier day by day. The work dynamics also changed quite a bit through the year. The 6 day week is the worst part.

Life outside work. Well nothing much to write about. Malls, Movies, Internet & TV, that is basically it. The last mentioned being the one getting more importance now.

The world wide recession had its effect. Though I wasnt directly affected by it but the impact was visble all around.

So in short thats it. Second job, first apartment, friendships renewed, new colleagues, old friends drifting away (I guess the principle "Out of Sight Out of Mind" applies very much here).

So that was the first year. And now as I enter the second year, life is still uncertain. I dont know where I am headed on this journey called life. But hopefully it will be an interesting journey.