Pranita & Pranita

We come across a lot of people having same names. Most famous are Neha, Pooja, Rahul, Shweta, etc. I was named Pranita with one of the reasons that it was unique. And I was the only Pranita in school and was so happy about it until another Pranita joined the school and that too in my sister's class. So then my sister, who always calls me Didi, got to call my name Pranita. And when I use to reply back to her, she had a laugh saying, "You are Didi, Pranita is my friend!” Then there was no other Pranita in my college; neither in junior college nor in degree college. Life moved to CDAC. On the day one of Placement, Ravi Sir said, "There is already a Pranita at Asian Paints, that too from CDAC". Here I was saying to myself, "Shouldn't there be one more Pranita in Asian Paints, that too from CDAC?". Finally I got placed at AP and met my CDAC Super Senior Pranita Rajadhyax. Having two people with same names wasn't a new thing, but we both got to experience the confusion and hilarious events others created for us. At first I was in IT-HR and she was in IT-Sales & Marketing. The day I wore the PFMS crown, it was actually she who received all the mails regarding PFMS issues. And she forwarded those to me mentioning FYI and also highlighted the same to users. She did this for I don't know how many mails. Here people used to ask me queries related to Sales & Marketing and I used to reply as I don't know. I realized the user confusion a bit late. Sanket Dias pinged me for a server ip, to this I said, "I don't know". He exclaimed, "How come you don't know!! Just tell me who will know then?” Here it strike me that this question was meant for her. Hereafter for every chat that sounded alien to me, I asked for, "What application are you asking for?" Because users most on the times do not know our surnames; they just say the one who handles this application. At times on the floor when anyone called Pranita, I used to have a glance (it was like a reflex action) and if it’s any of her friends then I used to get back to my work. Same happened even in washroom. Even for the nickname Prani, both of us used to respond. We used to hang our id cards on the hook. Once in hurry, she took away my id by mistake. I realized this when I saw her id there. Priyanka Salvi was puzzled at this event as to the photos are at least different. I went to Pranita's desk with her id and we had a laugh at this incident. Her friend and my CDAC super senior Nikhil Kulkarni spotted my Parikshak result as one of the background cover of our Parikshak Facebook page; and notified her thinking that it was her. I wasn't on Facebook then, got to know this from her. Days passed by, her desk got changed. She shifted to the row line adjacent to my row. There came a user, he was a manager. He just came to my desk, said "Hi, Pranita", pulled a chair, sat on it, "Let’s start the meeting". I was surprised, "What meeting? I don't even know him". I got the confusion but before I could say anything, he just started off with the points to discuss. I literally had to interrupt him and say, "There's confusion, you have a meeting with Pranita Rajadhyax and I am Pranita Warik". Then all the apology words came out and here I was controlling my laughter with an innocent face. He said, "The reception guy told me to enter the door, to the left and second desk". Even her desk was a row ahead and second one. All this kept on and off, but these were just starters. The main course is yet to begin. She decided to move on from Systems to Human Resources. Here I had been known to almost every HR since I handled HR Applications since I joined AP. Now many HRs thought it’s me getting transferred and they even asked me the same during lunch times . Finally she got transferred as Divisional HR (West). Now the mails started From: Pranita To:Pranita; but this was anyways fine. The funny part was that I was marked in most of the HR mails which were sent out to Divisional HRs and their managers. Here out of the 12 people, I was the odd man out. I was curious of how can this mistake can happen because even when you start typing a name, of course her name would show up first alphabetically. Another case may be that HR mail boxes have my name in the recommended list. Now I had to forward her the mails stating FYI and mentioning the same to the sending HRs. I even got some resumes for recruitment and external agencies recruitment solution mails and I just had to do one thing: click the forward button. All this seems hilarious but the dessert is yet to serve. It’s her birthday on 29th March; she is at her Divisional Office. Here on Systems floor, all started greeting me, "Happy birthday, Bday girl" in the Pantry. I thought it as a prank at first but it was not, and I could not say anything else but thanks, looking at the innocent faces. It didn't stop here; a bunch of more colleagues came to my desk to wish me. I was enjoying all this, who doesn't want to celebrate birthday twice a year. At last I had to reveal the truth and promised all to forward their wishes to Pranita via WhatsApp. Even she was amazed hearing all this. Last October, as usual I was doing my work on SF and I searched for Pranita in the employee search box. Like always I used the down arrow to go to my record. I did not see her name, on checking further I realized that she had left AP just a day prior. And then I was thinking of all the above fun which would not be experienced anymore.