Upon request from couple of my best buddies I am posting this one yet again!
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At 7.30am,packed in a bus, that was suffocating already, carrying more than the required number, with windows tightly shut to prevent the rain water hitting & wetting the faces of the window-seaters, jam-packed with people finding happiness in even an inch of space that they can get their feet on – I found myself staring at the crowd in the bus…Heavy imported laptops slinging from their shoulders, assorted with massive jackets making wuish-wuish sounds, lunch kit, office bags & other stuffs to make the place even more crammed and ineligible to breathe-in and breathe-out.With all those sleepy and grim looking faces filled in that dimly lit corporate bus, it gives me an impression of a bunch of automatons being transported from one site to another for some technical enhancements on to those expressionless flat faces…
The first site being taken to would be: The so-called Office.I sincerely don’t believe that site would provide the missing expressions on the faces of these androids…but I am sure they would obtain at least half-of-what-they-want in the name of peace & happiness when they reach their next Site:-HOME! – Say in 8, 9, 10, 12 hrs from now…
Yet for all those that live away from their homes and are put-up in hostels or PGs or be it C/O platforms it doesn’t stop there either as their struggle for life proceeds after office hours.. Struggle for food, struggle for sleep, struggle for privacy, struggle for freedom & peace and all the other assorted troubles that would prop up when one is forced to live in a common-place.
On a constructive note, No other field except IT in today’s scenario is as well-heeled with bags and bags of dollars…Giving you a head-start at:
1. Free monetary flows (with instant loans & EMI’s following pursuit)
2. Plush living with the possession of a spacious triple bedroom apartment in the heart-of-a-most-happening software city.
3. A sophisticated air conditioned car parked at your portico.
4. A bunch of cards that you swipe-in to get to anything, anywhere and anytime
5. A mail sent to your team with a list of acclaims and accolades from your top management for your sweat-n-blood.
Such perfection has definitely got to do with at least a minimum amount of sacrifices…Here goes the top six of the eternal list…
- Residual remains of being a work alcoholic – sucking out all ur energy cells.
- Receding/Graying hairlines.
- Traces of faintly skewed brains (mind?).
- Over-worked eyes behind those high powered lenses – which you very smartly call as anti-glare glasses.
- Permanently dark (ened) circles bearing eyes that are gone way inside their respective sockets.
- Uneven, ill maintained and shapeless and unhealthy body conditions are one the most prominent diseases for being a s/w pro for a relatively long time…
Well, when I say relatively long time, I strongly believe that “ONE” full year under the same type of work would also create the sufficient damage that would make you a perfect “whatever-you-are” as described above!
Multi-lingual crowd from all four directions of the country bringing in their drawl to add to the dashboard which is already overloaded with too many linguistic theories set-out by the majority crowd or localities.
Paragraphs to sentences to words, you are so conscious every time you utter a single sentence of the local language because you don’t know the language yet you would want to learn and speak to please the people around or with the only notion of getting their understanding in a better way comparatively.
At the end of the day, the entire group has a common way of talking; credit goes to the contributors from different parts of India as specified below…
Simply South:
Yellow becomes “Ellow”
Number becomes “Nem-ber”
Air becomes “Ye-air”
One becomes “Vone”
Twenty becomes “Tonty”
Account becomes “Yec-count”
Nostalgic North/the rest of the India:
Veg. becomes “bheg”
Potato becomes “Batata/o”
Parent becomes “Pay-rent”
Oh come on becomes “Arey Yaar”
Oh yes becomes “haan naaa”
Hey listen becomes "Arey suno naa"
What I would like to say is becomes “What I would like to say ki”
These transient yet practical inabilities of human-mind get into this doggedness with issues in a quick click of the fingers seeking out for alternate ways of communication.
So I have a veritable buffet of:
1) Juveniles who prefer to indulge in meaningless emoticon exchange.
2) Their marginally more intelligent brethren who walk with a boulder-sized regional chip declaring a diabolic nature over the other clan members, not caring a shred about the folks from the rest of the country.
Anyways, over and beyond all this…there comes an onsite opportunity that dives you in with full energy to get accustomed to this, like how a treasure is waiting for the man who’s playing the hunt game facing hardships and difficulties, only to seek the gold & in our case to seek the foreign currency and the glimpse and sniff of the overseas air which would add value to one’s resume on their achievements column…but no one has the guts to mention as a foot note the things that they had to forego for achieving what’s on their papers do they?
They don’t talk about the number of insomniac nights they spent in an alien country having no sign or feel of home to pour out or share the sad things or the happy moments…Number of times they had to brace themselves up from not breaking down every time they were ill-treated as if they were some down-trodden or menial things belonging to the lower order world...
Well they wouldn’t…would they? Would you?
Cos, it’s a world of gamble….and every man wants to speculate.
Hmmm…now that explains it all…. Monetary needs that forays all the other emotional and sentimental needs….
A vicious circle though…..this is why people don’t mind being zombie’s from the “land of androids” transported from the source to their destination and vice versa.
A hope…The hope that keeps every man alive…A hope is a target. It’s an aspiration... it’s a fire of desire…it’s a goal post that you draw for yourself!
Hope of achieving the best in you in your short span of life – that is what it is and that is where the whole world is heading to……
On that very thought….I resign for now.
3 comments:
Migosh!
Interesting read....
DD
@dame's diary: Thanks Maam! :-)
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