On Beautiful Duties And Dutiful Beauties

What left me in the lurk till now were these intervening couple of weeks of countless hours of lethargy poised in suspended gestures of resolve and feigned concern. I have gone through various postures, defining, in aggravating degrees, the intricacies of thinking, vapid ruminations, and in consequence, opinions and decisions that have an absolutely impractical basis. But somehow they were essential in being unrepentant today, as it is just today that matters. The things that are incumbent incite much speculations and arguably consume a lot within us. The present is the dwelling, which is best exhausted productively without the anxious onus of tomorrow. The tomorrow, in foresight comes as an indirect and masked benefit, the assurance of which, couldn't be more jeopardized in its quibbling in the present. Following such self-gratifying spasms, I delved into Utopian frames of unblemished references, that idiosyncrasies and impertinence carved unreasonable niches of imagined comfort. Whether its positioning my book and myself in a certain setting, or its the length of drapes covering the windows, not to miss, in this intimate oblivion, the lighting of the space around me, my efforts of finding that perfect comfort by vacuities like these kept my mind and in effect, my efforts, shuffling repetitively.

The task was to be abreast of the implementing languages that I would be working on, when I get back in that flawless mansion of fevers, horrifying and awesome, where the ethics inside were of someone completely opposite of what fickleness reigns me right now. Adrift in slumber, one afternoon, Vikas, the bearer of the watery eyes, calls me. In a shallow yet anticipatory tone, he spoke of a possibility, that materialized in the advent of this training, so longed now than dreaded. Airs were noiseless, the civilized voices of the staff intoning, controlling pitch and exalting bass, engaged in a technique of almost artistic finesse, of seeming composed to enshroud their true emotions from 'strangers' around, but in contrast to the plaintive visage, trying to modulate voices to convey what they really feel. This superficial incongruity epitomized how meaningfully were all the professional stupors adopted within the basic reflexes of these people. Unattended by such bindings, how the others carried themselves around here, at which I am dazed when its only for a day, appear as a grace perfected after years and months of straitjacketing impulses. Induced by self-consciousness wringing me further by the air-headed churns of my head, I was attending an organization for the first time where its not about thousands of rupees, but millions of dollars, not for yourself, but of a client. However, during a conversation over lunch with Amit it was a reassuring surprise, that HCL in fact was one of the most employee-entrusted companies in the industry today, to the extent of quoting it as a "retirement company", improvising employee amiability with pleasingly flexible policies, which to a capricious evaluator like me, are more satisfying to the conscious than to the purse. On the flip side, its even worse outside!

My first day was unfolding in a typical way, or perhaps it is typical of first days to unfold this way. Conferences, interaction sessions, into which I was left between full-ordered employees, out of pure indecision about staying back or leaving. Nonetheless, I interviewed team leaders, grilled a few by punching out sarcasm to their aging mental agilities, attended a few seminars I wasn't meant to, and bunked the succeeding sessions after being poked at by Vikas, "You're done?". It was a part of the flimsy interactive exercise by their HR monkeys to let "people know each other better, so that when you pass in a corridor, you at least wave a 'Hi' to each other!"....Sigh.... I was about to fall in love with such a philanthropic heart, give or take a two, I could've easily given her greeting cards on calender days, but faces led me away into being what men usually want to be, men of high, though undeserving, tastes. Coming to faces, the place does crawls with fine women. Perhaps the intrigue of female-abstinence doctrine so rigorously practiced by my college, has heightened this uneasiness of 'exposure', but in my own hall, which, by the way is called an ODC*, eyes linger on, and hang for a moment or two on one of the few fine crafts of physique or genes, or a toothsome both in some cases. If, in moments of ambivalent darkness and directional ambiguity, which come often, and I decide to covertly take a break, I ponder on the ponderous and estimate the gorgeous. Categorizing beauty, into natural, acquired and nourished, there arise fine points, which even though out of materialism and unintellectual perceptions, seem to further refine the immaculate statement, "You're Beautiful".

Its easy to deprave from abbreviations and terminologies, avoiding desultory glares from the languorous team leader, lounging on his seat, here I lounge on mine, getting all abstract, non-technical, so to say, in contrast to the hunched backs and frowning countenances, engrossed in unintelligible errors.

Emerging from the first day, the understandings were still embryonic, unfinished to be generalized into a behaviors. Acquiring one of the seats among the cubicles which brought surreal human-farms into my mind on the first time, I am an audience to this one big circus of working, in the process learning, committing, taking flaks and outshining peers. Some uncovered and falsified my views, which were jejune to start with, and some introduced interesting clauses into the legitimate ones. Faces remained the same, but their collection of expressions has expanded into the real world now. Seeing Vikas, Amit, and the others, with whom knowingly and unknowingly I share my ways with, in their new roles, which they have been performing for years now, they attribute to their roles and the surroundings a certain strain of character that contributes to the whole picture, and is an occupation in itself for errants. Each day, I am a witness to a new quiddity of each of them, revealing and resolving their personalities by their effects on other entities, which is whole existence themselves. Vikas, is not so sad after all. There is this informality about him that puts you at ease, and which also lets you misinterpret that subsiding droll as melancholy, and in more staid terms, desecration. Amit looks more of an autocrat and self-oriented than a fraternal functionary. Although, he has his own reservations, on a personal basis he stated the behavioral guidelines that tangentially affect your appraisals, and in the long run affect your conversion rate immensely.

Formally, I am in now. Though surrounded by substantial inexplicableness, unacquainted technologies and hopes for an exodus to reality, there are no colleagues. Just a tacit and serious contract employee, who has been a enlightening help and will continue to be, considering the incubating period of grasping the new knowledge, perilously subjected to my own inefficiency, and a firm, unwavering eye around the gauche arrangement of black fibrous mounds of sitting ducks, pretty, porcine and passable, peeking over the heights of their cubicle walls, their patterns of change, and their affinity to certain other black fibrous mounds. Of course some reserve special attention, the permed hairstyles, neat appearances, mischievous smiles and telling signs of intentions, coquettish and unperturbed, its heartening to find brio and gallant ones amidst all that soundless jazz...



*ODC - Overseas Development Center, (the name itself is defiling to patriotic fervor...). The Inside Scoop: Actually, in the I-Cube (Implying In Introspection) Protocoal (more on the deliberation later...), its: "On Demand Chootias, that's On Demand Business from HCL..."