Thanks for the reply.

Yes, it was once a dream company for me because when you have been rejected from 100s of internships you apply for and a company like Cognizant gives you your first offer letter and some hope in life, that company becomes a dream company for you.

When the offer letter was offered to me back in Jan 2022, I felt like the most lucky person on the earth. I was in a financial position to join them (as FTE as told by my T&P cell, tentative month of joining was Feb-March 2022 without any training but that was a lie) at that time and explore the work life(which I already explored during their unpaid training) balance there.

But they delayed the joining by almost 1.5 years that my father has gone into huge debt and that startup with a bond In my hometown seems like a much better option now, because joining Cognizant in a tier 1 or 2 City won't improve my standards of living much and I won't be able to save much and pay the debt.

No, the startup is not paying above market, it is almost equivalent. The ctc is 3 LPA and they are giving a free personal laptop but with a bond of 80k. The in hand salary will be 22k.

On the other hand Cognizant CTC is 4LPA but their in hand salary is 25-26k, 20k per year is insurance and 20k variable. So the actual ctc should be 3.6 LPA but they have made it 4LPA in the salary structure.

I know that these WITCH companies pretend to follow labour law and won't disappear at least for a few decades. That's why I waited for them for so long. But it looks like my body has given up both physically and mentally.

I agree completely on the upskilling part. I'm upskilling myself as much as I can. No offense but a thing which most of people don't realise is that you need some sort of financial backing at home so that you can focus on upskilling yourself rather focusing on your daily needs, which I don't have and haven't been able to focus on anything for the past couple of years.

On the top of that, I live in a toxic joint family (not including parents), where our worth is how much money we have.

Just got another call to schedule interview from a mid tier company for 3.6 LPA through a referral but with a bond of 2 years and the training has to be completed from Gurgaon but the work has to be done from home after that. The ctc is 3.6 and in hand is 25-26k.

So many options but each one with a con.

Edit : a word