Technopark, according to techies who work on campus, is one of the best places in the city to observe the rains. “From high up on the balconies and rooftops of buildings on campus, turn the head to one side and you can see the rain clouds blanketing the sea. Turn to the other side and you can catch the rain clouds hugging the Western Ghats. Look down and you can observe how the rain falls in the Park’s little ‘forest’! It’s fascinating to observe how, in a matter of seconds after it starts to rain, the campuses extensive green cover, turns emerald green,” says techie Ashok Mohan, who works in Tejaswini building.
Blogger and techie Sethunath Unnikrishnan Nair says: “Nila, from the fifth floor up, too offers a panoramic view of the rain.” No wonder that Technopark has many rain lovers, especially given the frequency of posts and photos of Technopark in the deluge that have been appearing on Facebook pages and blogs recently. Several techies say that they’ve now taken to spending tea breaks gazing out of the windows, in total commune with nature.
Perhaps the most enthusiastic of the lot are the techies from North India. Almost all of them, be it six months or six years into the job in Technopark, literally gush about the rains in Kerala and how different is it from that in their home towns.
“I’ve never seen rains like this before I came to Kerala,” says software engineer Shivani Gupta, who hails from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. “It’s very different from what I’m used to back home. There is nothing continuous about the rains in Meerut; it just pours for a couple of hours, causes all sorts of chaos and the climate goes back to being unbearably hot. Kerala in the rains is beautiful and pleasant,” adds the techie who has been working in an MNC for the past three years. “Kerala’s fantastic climate in the rains is one of the reasons why I want to settle down here,” she says.
Fellow Meerut native Prateek Dyani too is fascinated by Kerala’s climate and also wants to settle down here. “Back home it’s either hot or cold, there’s no in between climate like there is in Kerala. When it rains in U.P, it’s usually a storm and you won’t have time to enjoy it. One of my favourite things to do when it rains here is go for a ride on my bike from Technopark down to Shangumughom beach,” he says.
Bhopal native Prateek Srivastava, a senior software engineer, meanwhile, has been living in the city for three years now and continues to be enamoured by the rains. “The first year I was here, it rained for 36 hours non-stop! It was an amazing feeling. North India in the rains is dull and grey. Kerala in the rains is fresh and green. I used to spend hours watching the rain here. Once, again in my first year here, I recall jerking awake at 2 a.m. by a loud sound – much to my delight it was pouring outside. Now, I’m sort of used to it and this year, I’m sad to see the lacklustre monsoon,” he says.
That said, most of these techies, say that they wish they had more time to enjoy the rain. Techie Sheetal Kumari from Jharkand, who has been working in Technopark for the past six years, says: “The rainy season here is much like it is at home and makes me quite nostalgic. Other than the weekends, though we don’t get much time to revel in it.”
