Life nahi hai laddoo

After innumerable requests (total=3) I decided to post something. I could no longer stand the naarebaazi, jathebaazi and the hunger strikes, no actually I saw the date on the last post and decided its time to prevent the 3 people to stop checking as well.

Well what has made the one of the most vela person on earth almost abandon her virtual personality.

Summers. This is what 2 months of interning in a company is called in MBA land. Genius did I hear you say about the person thinking up that name? We have winters as well.

At the starting of the week
At summit talks you'll hear them speak
It's only Monday
Negotiations breaking down
See those leaders start to frown
It's sword and gun day

So after 23 years, 3 months 21 days of muft ki roti todna I officially entered a work place.
For those who aren’t obsessed and don’t follow my life meticulously am a sales intern at GE money. No Chinese drums, war dance greeted me on day 1. The guard stopped me and said “sar is busy”. Finally sar aka my guide appeared. After initial niceties he told me about my project and asked me to familiarize with the telecalling process.

So off I went thinking how I would “understand” the process sipping coffee in an air conditioned room. An auto+train+bus ride later I was handed over a telephone, a list of names and asked to make 25 applications by Saturday. And there was no AC.

You remember the last time you politely asked a telecaller to #$%^ off and leave you in peace or do you remember the time you timepassed by asking about all the features of the product over and over again and then in the end with sadistic pleasure replied oh-but-am-not-interested. Well I was that telecaller.

Now what a internship teaches you is life skills not job skills. For example what I learnt in week 1 wasn’t the fancy models I made on excel but

1. Never board Borivili slow/fast at peak hours. You will never manage to get off at Andheri. If you try really hard you may be forced to leave your left hand and your purse behind.
2. Real life bull whip effect: you leave 5 minutes late from your room. You miss your regular bus. Next one comes after 15 minutes. The queue at station increases by 10 times. You end up boarding the train after the train after your regular train. You end up 45 minutes late.
3. There is a concept of shared taxis to get around Nariman Point.
4. Maker chambers which house Reliance are spread over 5 mammoth buildings and don’t let anyone fool you that Raheja chambers are right behind that. You gotta walk around it, no jumping fences.

You could be sitting taking lunch
The news will hit you like a punch
It's only Tuesday

Week 2 I moved onto managerial work. Yes sipping coffee in AC rooms.
I am doing it with a management trainee from XLRI.

MT: do a VLookup.
At that time we were waiting for a printout.
D_grail: ya, I don’t see any printout. I think the printer’s not working.
MT : I ll check that out. You do the VLookup.
D_grail: But I just looked.
MT : VLookup on Excel.
D_grail: of course.

Bring me the drillers, excavators to help earth swallow me up!

MT: make a pivot table.
D_grail: sure (grinning)

(MT leaves. D_grail ashen. Presses F1 maniacally.)

Guide and D_grail sitting together.
Guide: so how do find working for GE?
D_grail: good.
Guide : how do you find sales?
D_grail:good.
Guide: blah blah blah?
D_grail:good.
Guide: blah blah?
D_grail:good.
Guide: what do you want in life?
D_grail:(silence accentuated by stupid grin fixated on face)

You never thought we'd go to war
After all the things we saw
It's April Fools' day

Week 3. implementation. Phase 1.
D_grail storms into new office.
D_grail(thinking): move over. Am gonna make this system optimize. Am goona do in a week what your incompetence would let you do in all these months.
D_grail(saying): Can I use that computer? I need net access. Also please unlock it.

You hear a whistling overhead
Are you alive or are you dead?
It's only Thursday
You feel a shaking on the ground
A billion candles burn around
Is it your birthday?

Week 4 commences from tomorrow. Truth be told I enjoy what I m doing even though I leave for office at 7.30 and come back at 9.30. I don’t sit around sipping coffee in an Ac room looking at excel. I go to the craziest of locations and I know the entire Mumbai local layout by heart now. Sales as I have been repeatedly told these past 3 weeks and I have found true with each passing day isn’t about sweet talking your way, about Porter’s five forces, about Kotler and waterfall models. Its plain common sense and managing people. Your people are your only assets. If they perform your numbers look good. They fib, they fake, and they take it easy your numbers take it easy too.

Next week I work alone for a couple of days. F1 key is gonna have a busy time.

The race

Aakhir zindagi ki daud main bhaag ke jaana kahan hai..

Agar yahin jeena hai to marna kya hai?

After 10 months in the city these 3 weeks have shown me the real Mumbai. It’s a mad world where people just hurry by furiously. When you walk toward a station a sea of people would be coming at you. Their expressions passive. Their eyes seeing some space far beyond you. You are invisible. Over the weeks I have found my pace increasing to that manic level, to catch the next train, the next bus. Because if I wait I ll miss that bus and I will have to wait. Wait. Am too busy to wait in this endless race.

As I leave home for the day at 7.30 am. I travel for an hour and half. Often by all 3 means available to me. Auto. Train. Bus. On the same day. I reach my destination where I plonk myself before a computer. The phone an extension of my ears.
I eat greasy hotel food and pay in 3 digits for it everyday.
I leave work at 8pm. Do the train+bus routine again.

People shove and push you in the hurry. But am learning. Yesterday I shoved an old man walking ahead of me. He was slowing me down. I would have missed my bus. Immediately as I pushed ahead of him our eyes met and a pang of guilt surged through. But there was no time for guilt. I had to hurry.

I reach home at 9.30. home. My empty room in a comparatively empty hostel . I mix myself a Tang and check my mail. Dad calls me prompt on time. But am too tired to reply to his queries of how my day went. He wants to know how his only offspring is coping with work. But I get irritated. It was ok I snap. Am tired I say before I hang up.

I drag myself to the mess. Where I don’t feel or pay attention to what I eat. I listen to some music and fall asleep. The next day breaks too soon.

6 days. Week after week.

People who said life’s about the journey and not the destination can take a hike. Time to smell the flowers. I only smell the sweat of my co passengers.
I love my work. I get up without any alarm. I think about what I will do the next day.
I do not realize the existence of Sundays.

Yet as I sit in the window seat and see the buildings fly past, I wonder if my life is too?