To me the most beautiful words in Dictionary are hope and dream. While in one of my earlier blog I wrote about hope, let this one start with the other one - Dream. So, what's dream? When I wanted a proper definition of dream, thefreedictionary.com suggested that "dream" is a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Oh! so technical, isn't it? But when Martin Luther King Junior in his famous speech, uttered the phrase, "I have a dream", he obviously meant something else - some condition or achievement that is longed for; or, in simple language, an aspiration. Yes my story starts with dreams as in aspirations that we bear and tread across the drudgeries of life.
Youngsters have great dreams and they follow it. So did I when I was in college. Dreamt about a decent job that will pay me 15 thousand rupees a month. And I can fulfill my basic needs, like food, shelter, etc etc. But then these days we hear lot about derailment. Refer the case of what happened to the Howrah Kalka mail a few days ago. And so happened to my dreams. My dreams got derailed simply. Now I know that a 15-thousand-rupees-a-month salary is not enough. Time has changed, so has changed the prices of what we call the essential commodities. And as a result, we need to earn money, more than what we thought would be sufficient, a few years ago. And to make provision for hassle free access to essential commodities of life, we ourselves got commoditized in the job. Boss treats us with the same amount of compassion he grants for PC/Printer/Office furniture. They are like accessories that help him in his work. He doesn't allow them to go home, at 6. If he needs to do something till 10 pm, he needs the PC to be on till that time. If he needs the printer to give a print at 7:30 pm in the evening, and the next set at 11:30 pm at night, the printer really cant go off in between. Can it? No, it stays on throughout. So do we. He may ask us to do something, he may not. But the work culture in this city of joy is in conjunction with our ranks as nothing but accessories. And at the end the MNCs are paying these accessories at an excessive rate. Not 15, buddy, you may get 50 thousand bucks, wow! but do you get time to spend that hefty some? No, its more than enough if you get some time to take a sound sleep. You thought you need food, shelter and all. You get it now. Pizzas from Pizzahut, Burgers from MacD. You have a pot belly. You really don't worry for food. But your mind is dead. It's not getting its food - mental pabulum - the food for the hungry mind. You get an air conditioned flat to be in. But strife in job-life balance makes you a hapless kid searching for a shelter of peace. Dream was that, and reality is this. Derailed, dreams are following their ill fate.
It was time when we college students thought that staying awake through whole of the night was fun. Maggi and chai at the nearest dhaba, Surfing free of cost in the air conditioned and less crowded college computer labs, the gossips among hostel mates - add these things to that, and it would be awesome. We believed, night was the best time to stay awake and work. It's not that guys would just pass time and do no real work. We would really work on occasions like the penultimate night before Semester exams. And we dreamt, ek baar paas hone do, fir to job mei masti hi masti. Let's get out of this college, and wonderland is awaiting us in office. But man proposes, God disposes. And we are in that wonderland finally. The first few days are orientation programmes. With a pocket full of money, we start feeling like the real king. And then the corporate ovates us with punch cards, we tag it around our neck as if it's a garland made of 1-kg of gold. The chest heaves in and bulges enormously with a sense of pride felt never before. A few days passes peacefully, the year turns, and the same tag is like a shackle for an en-caged and domesticated pet kept with the corporate. And we do petty things, or we wait for the next order to come. And the clock goes tick-tick-tick. Oh god, we see its quarter to midnight! Now the heart cries to end the day, oops end the night. And the clock goes on tick tick tick. Exhausted, we reminisce the days spent in college and the nights spent sleepless. And we appeal to our ill fate, leave me please, I want to home before the dawn.
Then we thought, we need freedom, we need to get out of college, ASAP. Who wants to study again boss, we need job. Now we need some kind of respect in job that we do. Engineers galore are like scapegoats at the altar of corporate growth and sheer profitability. And they being available in bounty, is no better than accessories we buy by paying an affordable price. We yearn for jobs that gives you dignity, we try to grow bigger, we yearn for an MBA degree to adorn our CV. And we are ready to take up school for that - again - the coveted b-school. We felt like handsome hunks, and wanted gorgeous guls beside us - girlfriends - having one is good, having more is better. And now we see relationships are on the verge of extinction because of the trying jobs. like the count of number of tigers in the country, and we mark the number of days expected to be safe for us to maintain a healthy relation without getting time for date/chat/mere phone call -14 days 11 hours - if you go at a stretch bogged down in job and sparing no time for her, she will be gone.
Life is calling, where are you? Yes, life is indeed calling, we can see life flowing through busy streets down there, if we peep through the glass walls of our 14 storey offices, but our cell phones are jammed by reckless job. Not getting life's call here in this cage. And everything in life is indeed somewhere else. Somewhere far away - like a distant dream. And we don't dream much these days.
Youngsters have great dreams and they follow it. So did I when I was in college. Dreamt about a decent job that will pay me 15 thousand rupees a month. And I can fulfill my basic needs, like food, shelter, etc etc. But then these days we hear lot about derailment. Refer the case of what happened to the Howrah Kalka mail a few days ago. And so happened to my dreams. My dreams got derailed simply. Now I know that a 15-thousand-rupees-a-month salary is not enough. Time has changed, so has changed the prices of what we call the essential commodities. And as a result, we need to earn money, more than what we thought would be sufficient, a few years ago. And to make provision for hassle free access to essential commodities of life, we ourselves got commoditized in the job. Boss treats us with the same amount of compassion he grants for PC/Printer/Office furniture. They are like accessories that help him in his work. He doesn't allow them to go home, at 6. If he needs to do something till 10 pm, he needs the PC to be on till that time. If he needs the printer to give a print at 7:30 pm in the evening, and the next set at 11:30 pm at night, the printer really cant go off in between. Can it? No, it stays on throughout. So do we. He may ask us to do something, he may not. But the work culture in this city of joy is in conjunction with our ranks as nothing but accessories. And at the end the MNCs are paying these accessories at an excessive rate. Not 15, buddy, you may get 50 thousand bucks, wow! but do you get time to spend that hefty some? No, its more than enough if you get some time to take a sound sleep. You thought you need food, shelter and all. You get it now. Pizzas from Pizzahut, Burgers from MacD. You have a pot belly. You really don't worry for food. But your mind is dead. It's not getting its food - mental pabulum - the food for the hungry mind. You get an air conditioned flat to be in. But strife in job-life balance makes you a hapless kid searching for a shelter of peace. Dream was that, and reality is this. Derailed, dreams are following their ill fate.
It was time when we college students thought that staying awake through whole of the night was fun. Maggi and chai at the nearest dhaba, Surfing free of cost in the air conditioned and less crowded college computer labs, the gossips among hostel mates - add these things to that, and it would be awesome. We believed, night was the best time to stay awake and work. It's not that guys would just pass time and do no real work. We would really work on occasions like the penultimate night before Semester exams. And we dreamt, ek baar paas hone do, fir to job mei masti hi masti. Let's get out of this college, and wonderland is awaiting us in office. But man proposes, God disposes. And we are in that wonderland finally. The first few days are orientation programmes. With a pocket full of money, we start feeling like the real king. And then the corporate ovates us with punch cards, we tag it around our neck as if it's a garland made of 1-kg of gold. The chest heaves in and bulges enormously with a sense of pride felt never before. A few days passes peacefully, the year turns, and the same tag is like a shackle for an en-caged and domesticated pet kept with the corporate. And we do petty things, or we wait for the next order to come. And the clock goes tick-tick-tick. Oh god, we see its quarter to midnight! Now the heart cries to end the day, oops end the night. And the clock goes on tick tick tick. Exhausted, we reminisce the days spent in college and the nights spent sleepless. And we appeal to our ill fate, leave me please, I want to home before the dawn.
Then we thought, we need freedom, we need to get out of college, ASAP. Who wants to study again boss, we need job. Now we need some kind of respect in job that we do. Engineers galore are like scapegoats at the altar of corporate growth and sheer profitability. And they being available in bounty, is no better than accessories we buy by paying an affordable price. We yearn for jobs that gives you dignity, we try to grow bigger, we yearn for an MBA degree to adorn our CV. And we are ready to take up school for that - again - the coveted b-school. We felt like handsome hunks, and wanted gorgeous guls beside us - girlfriends - having one is good, having more is better. And now we see relationships are on the verge of extinction because of the trying jobs. like the count of number of tigers in the country, and we mark the number of days expected to be safe for us to maintain a healthy relation without getting time for date/chat/mere phone call -14 days 11 hours - if you go at a stretch bogged down in job and sparing no time for her, she will be gone.
Life is calling, where are you? Yes, life is indeed calling, we can see life flowing through busy streets down there, if we peep through the glass walls of our 14 storey offices, but our cell phones are jammed by reckless job. Not getting life's call here in this cage. And everything in life is indeed somewhere else. Somewhere far away - like a distant dream. And we don't dream much these days.
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