Fantastic Four!

Yes...they really are....And then I couldn’t think of a better name as well. We came together sometime in the year 2004 when we started working together for the same client. Why we can be called the Fantastic Four is also because of the individuality we brought with us which helped us blend as a team...Rather well...

VINIE ALEX
‘Good things come in small packages’ holds good for her and how. So much so that couple of us created an ad for her..endorsing the Beetle! She can be aptly called ‘Ms.Fantastic’. A high energy person who would guide, motivate, take to task and of course entertain the other three all day long. Her day would begin with missing calls on her mobile which would strangely be on silent when in a noisy Bangalore auto but have a loud tone in the most important of meetings. She realized much later that we were the pranksters behind some of her crazy tones during those meetings. The best were and in fact still are her Vinie-isms! Ones which only she can think of but would end up making us laugh all day long. So much so that we had to dedicate a board to record the gems and take stock of! In fact the word Saala was popularized by her much before the song Pappu cant dance saala! Currently rocking it in Times of India, Bangalore.

RAJIV CHATTERJEE
A passionate, enthusiastic, work hard party harder yet humble person whos adventure stories can easily be part of Bollywood flicks. An absolute charmer that he is he had a way with his clients in Tanishq He would make work place smokey and of course lively with his mimicry of one and all. Five years and going strong at the place he joined, Lowe Worldwide, Bangalore.

PUNEET GILL (NEETI)
A true blue Punjabi kudi…sweet straight forward, hard working, enjoying life. And forthright…won’t take even a second to call a spade a spade. Learnt a few important lessons from her. Currently with Rediffusion YR in Namma Bengalooru.

FINALLY ME
The latest entrant and completing the quartet. Would call myself hard working and a never say die person. Had been there for over 5 years working and enjoying every moment on Britannia before I was told that am being shifted keeping my interests in mind. Later realized the story was something else. Took the people above me to task but then realized it was an opportunity to succeed with a new challenge.

While we had our own traits and styles but we really gelled as a team over the next year or so. At work, on holidays and at parties alike. I still remember some of those late nights and the Holi we all celebrated together. What kept us going net net was we enjoyed what we were doing. And then Vinie-isms were always there to keep us going! Come Nov 2005 and we all went our own different ways. We did manage to keep in touch but then that was limited to one odd phone call, a message on chat here and there. And the quartet hadn’t met since late 2005. That’s almost 4 years!

It was May 1st and a long weekend. I happened to be in Bangalore and so were Vinie, Rajiv and Neeti. After a lot of laboring we met at Neeti’s place. The minute I met Neeti we started chatting about our good old days. On our way to pick up Vinie we were hoping to have some Vinie-isms during the ‘reunion’. And we did have one or two. Once Rajiv joined it was a complete down the memory lane and whos up to what session. We all shared about our lives personal and professional. For once I felt like we were back in the good old days. While this was just the first of many more such jamming sessions to come but I would definitely cherish it for a long time to come…