The road to Hell!

It’s been probably a year now since I shifted to my new office…things have changed – some from good to bad and some from bad to worse. Well, nothing good happens to me anyway. My raise is minuscule, my responsibilities manifold. But life goes on. From grass and concrete and rubble to tiles, from grey walls to blood red exteriors, from colleagues being fired to new executives hired and from policeman pulling people by the hair to age-old dhabas being evicted from the very foundations – things have changed fast in (and near) my office.

But amidst all these changes, some things remain static like, sweaty colleagues who stink like dead dogs beside the highway, the burps loud and clear after lunch that you can separate easily the muli parantha from the paneer or curd and obnoxious figured lady colleagues donning even more obnoxious apparels that show the liabilities of a healthy life. O yes, I work in HELL! But above these, what had remained static or more appropriately stagnant is the road to this Hell. There is water on this road forever and the faece from the toilets of the factories near the road where hundreds of workers work each day raise a stink that is unbearable. The road, which resembles that of a mire has turned the red soil into black mud and welcomes you everyday as if to say: Still here? Isn’t this enough reason for you to quit…what a loser!

Occasionally good Samaritan factories try to fill the potholes (rather lakes) with rubble making it a driver’s nightmare instead. The sight of creaking cars with huge boulders kissing the floor and breaking axels, wading through the waters seems as if coming to office is more like competing in a dirt rally where only winners make it to the finishing line.

Now I was getting used to this prevailing faece smell, mud and the black water as were the others. Standing on blocks of bricks hungry workers gobbling on chole-bhaturay or rice and curry from the carts beside the road, oblivious to the prevailing stink – I was getting used to this sight each day…but that was till today.

After parking the car carefully and ensuring that my feet don’t land on the muck, I waded through the water from brick to brick ensuring that the shine of my leather shoes remains intact and most importantly that I reach to the attendance register before the cut-off time. While I was entering the office, I saw a couple of mounts of rubble and guys hastily trying to fill the potholes.

Other days I would mark my attendance and come upstairs to by desk, but today was different. Well, had it not been different, I would not have been writing this post. My urge for a packet of biscuits was much more than my urge for starting work early. And as I tried to cross the road towards the small makeshift shop-on-the-bicycle, splash!!! An overexcited worker who was filling the potholes with huge pieces of brick and mortar, let one fall in the puddle near me. I was covered from face to my shoes with flying droplets of the black slush. I let out a shrill cry, fired a volley of abuse at the perpetrator of the crime and hurried back to the washroom, my urge for biscuits buried under the rubble now! After several minutes of washing and cleaning, I still feel colleagues are discussing about how much I stink!

The entire mishap reminds me of Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the Hungarian Biochemist, who had once said, “Water is life’s mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.” I wonder what he meant by ‘life’s matter’!

I intend to go home early, throw all the clothes I’m wearing and scrub my body…probably I will take a medical leave tomorrow.

Living life on life’s terms – going invisible!

There are two things I have mastered in life – one is going invisible when the occasion calls for it and the other blending with the background like a chameleon. While most of my friends and acquaintances will tell you that I’m the most trustworthy person they have ever met, my way of handling crunch situations baffles many and I have been the subject of rebuke and cursing many a time. But I’m a timid man living in a dangerous world, so my first instinct says ‘run’ and my second instinct says ‘negotiate.’ While 90 percent cases I do run or negotiate, only when my reputation as a man is at stake, I do fight back. But these extreme situation seldom happen.

On one such occasion, I blended with the background and saved my skin and that of 3 acquaintances and a cousin of mine. It was in the early nineties and ULFA militancy in Assam was, though not in its peak, dominant. It was the evening of the day before a cousin sister’s marriage in Sivasagar, an ULFA infested district then. Those days marriages were conducted in banquet halls where guests were also provided rooms to stay. On this occasion the banquet hall was probably a couple of kilometers away from my cousin’s place. Another cousin of my age with three friends of his had also come to attend the marriage.

Before dinner all five of us decided to have a drink or two before going to my cousin’s house where dinner was being cooked for about two dozen of family members. After a drink too many, my cousin and his three friends got sloshed. Since the house was just walkable distance we decided to walk, my cousin along with his friends singing and dancing in the streets. Then came an unfortunate cycle-rickshaw, seeing which my cousin and his friends barring one jumped on to the rickshaw. The rickshaw puller protested and cried for help and as I watched them arguing with the rickshaw puller came a jeep full of policemen with batons and rifles in hand. My cousin was pulled by his jacket and thrown into the back of thejeep, another gets a jab on his back with the butt of the rifle and joined my cousin and the third? Where’s he?

As I continued to walk at a leisurely pace pretending I was not with them, came the third running with all might and as he neared us shouted, “police…police…run…run” and continued running followed by another jeep full of policemen. The fourth friend of my cousin who was besides me all this time said, “let’s help them.” Realising that it was no good fighting with the baton-welding law-enforcing system for some acquaintances whom I had met just a couple of hours back, I decided that saving my skin was the best option. So continuing at the same pace, without looking at him I hold his hand and whispered, “if you want you can go. But we will need one person to go home and tell our elders that my cousin and his three friends have been picked by the police…I will be the man…you go ahead and try to save them.” As I completed my sentence, we saw the third victim’s plight. Realizing that the police would catch up with him anyways, he gave up the chase below a blazing street-light enabling the furious policemen to get a good view of the areas in his frail body where they should be hitting.

Seeing this, our good Samaritan friend who just a couple of minutes back wanted to help his friends from the pangs of the dozen of policemen, too said that it was a better idea to inform the elders at home instead. But that was never to be…my cousin and his frightened friends from the back of the jeep called out his name and pleaded for help. I took probably three big steps to break away from the fourth probable victim and walked away into the night. Thankfully my cousin and his friends’ calls for help from me were drowned by the cursing of the police and the ruckus the old vehicles were making.

I soon reached home and gave a full account of how things unfolded adding my own dramatic opinions and feedback so that they swing into action immediately. Thankfully however, realising that they had picked the wrong guys, and that they were not ULFA cadets and were just college-going revelers attending a marriage function, the police dropped the four of them home just as some influential elders were about to go to the police station.

Now my fundas of life are:

• Remember what the flight attendant says: In case of emergency put on the oxygen mask first and then try to help others.
• And remember what Dale Carnegie had said: The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.