Dramatis Personae

As a purposeless youngster, as an inconsiderate student of engineering who is less than twelve months away from joining in a flesh and blood race of money, politics and positions and most irritatingly as a capricious and frivolous holidayer, my guardians in a vicious tandem with my parents ensnared me in a training program with another one of those Business Standard ranked, Business Week lauded and treacherously conceived companies, an IT Major, and a place where I really woke up to the real world, HCL Technologies, with capitals where it shall suffice to pander to its super sized multi billion dollar ego.
Stepping into climate where what I do and speak would actually have an impact on my surroundings, in an unforgiving way, I was brain-fed and wounded mentally in the attempt, that how the picture inside would be and how essential was it for me to wear a formal pant, which like handkerchiefs has been a sartorial rarity since school. In my peculiar, Indianized and partially dysfunctional household, there is an acute quagmire when such important events arrive in any of the family member's life. This one was officially tagged, "my first day at office". At this juncture, everything and anything I do is contrived around some traditional and now insignificant facts since morning, that "I will be late on my first day", "that they will know what a mistake they have made" and above all, "you have defeated us in grooming you". What adds the Sharmas at No. 42-6 touch to this is their own constant hankering since morning after me. Dad was late for office on purpose, getting the son ready for this momentous occasion. Mom, though she has her holidays, administers her own barrage of admonishments with the characteristic lilt of a teacher, and as an unsaid rule, nobody, and its never came to her explaining to us that, Nobody forges sarcasm from that. Under such grueling does this XL sized clown gets ready for his first trip down the aisle. I felt like a bride this morning, cheers mommy, cheers daddy, you've been great!

Now, that the pen was in its proper place, the shoes could see me clearly and when it was getting too hot and they decided it was enough marination requisite for the first day, dad's car with of course dad in the driver's seat, dropped me off at their building. A silent, breathing and internally displaced creature. The place had a light brown - cream exterior theme to it, the receptionist had a cute voice that had many males lecherously attaching an 'h' with it. How cute! The reflecting floor tiles supported a world where "what's to be done", and "how its to be done" and most importantly", "there is always a proper channel", were the guiding undercurrents. Professionalism in its truest sense, leather shoes clapping noiselessly with the floor carrying quarries each unique yet so ubiquitious, Spanish designed dustbins that could easily double up as centerpieces for your drawing room, twin tone upholstery and whispers ran the ODC wing of HCL operations. The essential elements remaining the same, it beamed upon me what do people really mean by "the feel" of the company and "the soul" of the organization, that every center, every BPO, every treadmill like this where millions from semi rural India flock each day towards employment hubs like Noida, Gurgaon etc has its own culture, just like a cornered civilization incorporating their unique work culture and pace at which work progresses. Again being more microscopic, I could infer that each center differs from the other, whether its the lively lunch hour or the "I mean business" clacks of the boots on the spotless marble floor, this spirit enthuses something more than an attitude in you. You become guided, a complex mixture of your ethos, self awareness and work. Every person to cross my vision had a work to finish, a job to do and whether its my own imagination due my own feeling of being out of place, everyone had to leave, soon.

As my contact, a motivated and efficacious personality, Amit Srivastava led me into this labyrinth of unspoken communication where "you-oughtta-know", my entire career flashed past my neurotic and myopic foresight. If not half true, I realized what it meant, to work for someone else and to work for yourself. He straightaway whisked me for a coffee, a very quiet area where busy, engrossed people were taking a dire break to read the headlines on chest high tables strewn with every daily in the market. With five kinds of beverages to choose from, Amit told me about the extra perks and facilities that came with being a cow. A gym, company-monitored bill paying facility, and an ATM diversified across all banks. We had just taken the coffee out of the Nescafe dispenser brewing a host of hot beverages, and then follow the code, whispers. While fleeting down the glistening corridors, there was a large poster of their current client, Comverse, who handles more than 60% of the voice mailing facilities across the world. Hortatory facts and laudatory accounts followed when I asked about this "other company's" billboard sized hoarding within the offices of a cabalistic industry. Through his intricate references to OSS and ODCs, I learnt where my feet are going to tread within this manhole. All this within two or three sips of the dispensed coffee, a haggardly individual, sleeves folded up, as if to bely the impression that the weight of the world was on his shoulders slipped behind me, sifting paper cups quickly and keeping them under the nozzle. This seemed second nature to him, brisking towards this refreshment center, dispensing coffee, nodding to a couple of people around him, the choice of that being random and a function of the load of the day. Through his swift motion, he looked at me with one eye, sensing the unmistakable stench of fresh meat, and asked me my name, "I'm sorry, I forgot your name...". I tried to be courteous and self confident at the same time, although the cup was still coming down after my fourth sip, and said, "I'm Ravi...".

In an officious manner, he asked me to come inside. Where? I didn't know. Amit beside me, guided me to their 'hall', or so it seemed. Like an impervious mule, I followed him, with the coffee still in my hand. A wry smile on his face, beaconed my misdemeanor. "Throw it!", he fired under his breath. And without a look ahead, I hurried back to one of the Spanish designed dustbins, throwing the cup, a long stream of the drink spilling due to the fall, with a couple of drops adorning the shirt of a "fellow" worker. In this weird haste, the abundance and insignificance of these perks became clear, it is, after all strictly business! Amit and me separated ways as he swiped his card for access in the hall, guarded by two giant and thick glass doors. I was now under the jurisdiction of the Republic of OSS, and my reporting commander would be Mr. Handler, I still don't know his name though, but he seemed to be a pretty accommodating and tolerant individual. Standing on one corner of the air conditioned expanse, the array of cubicles seemed like harvest fields, where you were a vegetable and creative juices were to be extracted dry from your head. The high ceiling held luminous lighting, soft for employee comfort and copious for bright visibility, if at all you go numb with work and antipathy and bang your head on a broad pillar smack in the middle of the hall. When all this surreal imagery was just beginning to bloat, Mr. Handler appeared and directed me one of the conference rooms on the left. Amit was nowhere to be seen, he would be, I thought, catching up on his quota of work hours, ensconced in his chair and plugging back the suction pump to his ears.

Inside, he began, as I try to give him all my mental shrapnel, while I was sitting beside the glass door, etched translucent to the chest level, so that whenever you could see an attractive bust pass by, you have to stand up to see her face, or in most cases be glad that she wouldn't know as you approximate her. On the other side, superimposed on a clear white board, with tired eyes, he asked me about my alma mater. With an odd co-incidence, good or bad, is still yet to be unraveled, he was also from the same lineage of institutes, the one from Haryana, and from this came my first clue about the man with the tired eyes. A little check list was created, about what all should he assume that I know. I wasn't exactly an irresolute wimp, or was I making an effort not to be so, wasn't clear, when he wrote NIT below REC on the board, and then corrected by writing NIT on top, and I made my over whelming comment about the irony of the precedence, that in some cases the degradation was the reality. He shrugged it off as a perception, but that wasn't entirely my point, was it? My two seconds of fame were over.
Asking about my fluency in one Java, which is not a drink or an island off the coast of India to the uninitiated, I shrank like a callow novice, basking as I did, banking cheekily on the novelty factor, presenting a hopeful picture about how assuredly I am catching up on Java and how confident was I with core Java. All through this while, something wasn't the same. The conference room had all the essentials to equate it with a class room, but it didn't feel like one, the markers were their, the duster was there, the chairs were there, but I had changed. The loose jeans wasn't there, the unstrapped sandals had been supplanted by the more civilized pair of shoes, and I couldn't smile for no reason, be there, attentive and scrutinizing to everything volleyed at me. This was not one of those interactions with a new tuition teacher, this was workplace. A new outlook generated out of thin air, that of respect, that within all these hankering beings around, who so dreaded an extra hour at work, maybe a handful respected what they do, and what all code is scrapped and compiled on those monitors really made a difference to someone somewhere around the world. For once, those furrows on the forehead of Mr. Handler reflected not a grinding mortar of work but the tension of sincerity about maintaining a server that handled voice mails of half a million people of Israel.

He left me for myself for a said fifteen minutes, where in the meanwhile he would get in touch with the HR department for putting an extra sack of fodder and I would resort to more imagining. Unencumbered by my inhibitions for a while, where I wasn't supposed to be directed, for the first time ever, I had a window into the eternal humdrum of a corporate world. Knowing that I would be reporting to Mr. Handler, a Project Manager (PM for me), I could sense what would be between me and him for the ensuing 60 days. A special courtesy, a superiority out of position and out of sheer gratitude would always have to be an underlying caveat whenever I would object to him, whenever in the following couple of months he would disapprove and I would make an interesting remark. This man with tired eyes, would be looking after my progress, without any previous commitments and this weighed upon me as a cornerstone of self analysis. The very fact that what he was doing was what he was supposed to do, precluded his acceptance to add one more furrow on his forehead just because of my follies, and like all trainers, he expected the worst.

A half an hour later, of which each second seemed like freeze frames from a sting operation I surmised countless sizes and saw several faces, tensed, confused, mocking, sarcastic and in general, work oriented. What their lives could be outside this pillory, what were their likes and dislikes, how much time had they spent here, all such vacuities made no distinctions once they were inside, everybody looked the same, behind the same task, with unanimous force. In between, a undiluted observer of my thoughts had been a friend of mine in Chennai, a call to whom had brought back some circulation back to my mouth. My handler arrives, and in a non committal tone, asks for my preferences for the joining date. To be a part of such a surreal environment was both challenging and soused with high skepticism for me, and even as I said as soon as possible, I could imagine me rushing down these hallways, abreast with other more acclimatized people and imbibing these values within myself, circulating the wheels of life to another destination to which I shall be late, where I would misbehave, screw up and perform. I wonder what the good days and bad days amount to here. Knowing well I have to hold on my own, how readily or how reluctantly would this place accept me with all my anomalies as an inconsistent human being vis-a-vis the uncompromising environment was the biggest question that stands above all else.

When I came out of that room, Amit appeared as he rises from his seat, revealing his sanctum in this sea of plastic and machinery. Mr Handler takes another route, pausing for a brief second to exchange a nod with him. A complete cup of coffee followed after that, garnished with more inspiring technical speak from Amit, gloating how essential was his part of the code, and how Japan secretly went a loss of millions when a week ago a server got shut down. Being at an abundance in Noida, HCL has seven offices, between which cabs shuttle regularly. On the huge iron gate at the entrance, one guard enquired with him about the timings of the gym. He had two missing molars and a huge feathery moustache, the standard intimidating look. Some enlightening conversation later Amit told him about his routine just to familiarize him with the gym. "I take a jog there, though I don't lift weights!". The guard responded, his moustache quivering as he spoke and making a circular motion with him arms, "How big is it?". Gauging the misunderstanding, Amit clarified, "There's a machine!". To this the guard was hardly surprised at the magnitude of his misunderstanding.

Getting inside a cab, HCL emblazoned in big blue font on its doors, was another departure from the carefree life so far. The cab dropped me off at a branch near my house, even though I tried to put forward my convenience indirectly. The driver's irrational response made it clear, and as I got down at this other branch it became clear. As soon as I got down, within the buzz of officers around, five come forward and board the empty cab. With a start, it smokes away to some other office. There is no time. Schedules have to be attuned to be as efficient as clockwork. In this corporate private methodology, work is paramount. Personal comforts are bearable as long as it does not have a conflict with your performance. Around me stood other office goers, half of whom probably weren't even a part of HCL, visitors, relatives on hold, interviewees and maybe trainees. I felt like a part of a system, glimpses of which will bring forth strange tangibilities, and to which I have to submit, one day or the other.

Although. I'd love to differ.





All characters and incidents mentioned above are not concoctions and imaginations. They are accurate descriptions of real world situations and events. Any claim of resemblance can only be corroborated with the above testament. Hence, the author encourages empathizing with his cause, although which is entirely for himself. He apologizes and expresses helplessness at being such a self centred bastard.