Astha Sharma

When the COVID-19 stuck on mankind, I was in Shanghai, China. As it is said, fate doesn’t care about our plans and hence what followed after that was unimaginable to everyone.

I was born and raised in the steel city, Jamshedpur Jharkhand. After school, I moved to Orrisa for engineering. I was an ECE student but as luck would have been, I landed an IT Job. I struggled initially as it wasn’t what I thought but then I started liking IT Job. I worked on different projects in Infosys and that gave me chance to move to new places. One of those opportunity that I received was getting an onsite project at Shanghai, China.

My case was a bit peculiar as I had chosen to go to China on an onsite project and everybody around me was a bit skeptical about the decision. I felt that people are very accustomed in our country to going on onsite projects if it is the US, UK or Canada, etc. but China holds a different perception altogether maybe because of the Indo-China relationship. From my experience of working in Chennai for about 3 years as a north Indian, I had learned over-ruling prejudice about places. I, for myself, loved Chennai as it was so vibrant. Hence, I went on with my decision and landed in Shanghai. It was exciting to experience the vast Chinese culture. The people there were always helpful despite sometimes not understanding English. I would say it totally broke the stereotypical image of the country; we have in our minds. Shanghai is the business capital of China and hence very advance in technology though having a touch of Chinese tradition here and there.

But as the COVID cases started rising, I had to rush back to India. The situation grew difficult and I had to leave in haste.  The experience I had in Shanghai was overwhelming, and I wish could have spent more time there. I believe my career in IT will give me more opportunities like this. I switched to a different company about a month ago but working for more than 6 years in Infosys, I have kept all the fond memories close to my heart. I hope the pandemic gets over soon and can’t wait to go back to normalcy.

Total Work Experience : 6.6 (Infosys)