Trains and me

My tryst with Indian Railways continues unabated. For sometime now, she has been annoyed with me. As a consequence, whenever I am on time, the train is late and if I am late, the train is on time. If only she would understand, that being late everyday isn't exactly making me very popular among my colleagues, perhaps she would take pity upon me and commiserate. I have now come to accept that being packed like a molecule in the train is normal and days when I do get a seat in the train, I sniff the air with suspicion. I have realized that days when I am hungry, no one will sell 'jhaalmuri' and just when I call for the man who sells those pretty hair clips, he will get off the train, in search of greater fortune. It has now become a practice to give away my seat to nameless strangers, whose suffering seems far greater than mine and while away my time listening to the tales of sorrow that my co-passengers recount.

It has been raining all day and last night too. The trains were late last night and they stopped running this morning. I came to office in a car with a gora (a guest of Baba's) who insisted on being informed about my salary, 'working' hours and how many days a week I 'worked'. It is difficult to explain to someone who has been installing heavy electrical machinery all his life that I earn my livelihood by pretending to work.

The weather has undergone a drastic change. No one would have imagined that it would rain so much at this time of the year. There is a new building coming up, next to ours and because of the rain, construction work had to be stopped. We took a walk this afternoon among the muck and it was fun stepping into the puddle, getting my clothes soiled. How I wish we'd never grow up, never have to behave like prim and proper adults; never have to wear the right clothes for the occasion, the right expression on our faces as the situation demanded.

Its Holi tomorrow and I don't think I’m going to take part in it. None of my friends are here. They're all gone in search of greener pastures, yellow sunshine. Is red the colour of success? Maybe, blue is the colour of confidence. Green should be the color of ambition. Yellow for joy. Whoa! Its spring time and its raining- what greater misery could there be?

Born Again

Three days ago I completed a year of work. From the looks of it, I haven't really done much of work for the last 365 days. For example, I did not learn to pretend that I was working hard when there was no work. I did not learn to stay back after work and check mails, just to be physically present and make my boss happy. I did not learn to smoke a cigarette or two and have a nice chat with the seniors. When I completed my work on time, I did not learn to advertise it with a loudspeaker. When somebody asked me for help, I did not tell everyone that I was teaching an ignorant colleague the tricks of the trade.

In the days to come, I will have to learn to be more "pro-active". I have to actively seek solutions to the problems of my organization and apply lateral thinking to provide answers to emerging technologies. In order to promote a healthy competitive environment, I must learn the art of effective communication with an aim to progressing the interests of my company and siphon the mercury up to the highest level of the customer satisfaction index. Remedial measures shall be taken to upgrade my know-how with esoteric knowledge transfer sessions that will gauge my learning effectiveness and the subsequent profit to the company on the whole. I must build myself and my fellow associates to become valuable and indispensable resources to the organization, so that together we create a synergy that will help to build cutting edge technologies.

A day ago I grew a year older.....perhaps not wiser still........