You go to bed the previous night with that mixed emotion of negotiating your sentiments that the weekend at Lonavala with friends is over and the prospect of going to work correcction “The Office.” You think of clocking in those man hours(woman too) in that edifice which contains the institution that guarantees you a pay check, that ensures you can spend on food clothing and shelter, the establishment that makes it possible for your parents to say, “Mera bête ke paas naukri hai!” So your task now becomes that much less daunting, after all you do get remunerated on the 1st of each month.
You get out of bed, you brush your teeth clockwise and counterclockwise and scrub your tongue because the advertisements point out that your tooth brush has an added facility that you don’t use, a tongue cleaner! You drink your coffee, read your paper, take a bath and wear your grandfatherish formal clothes to ensure that you are a member in uniform.
You take the bus and then the cab. And then when you need to walk 50 metres to your destination which can be covered by either a 4 minute walk or a 2 minute dash it rains for precisely 3 minutes. Enough time for you to greet your boss drenched and enough time for you to look out the window to see that the sky outside is now clear.
You sit at your table and are met by those friendly glances and the not too friendly glances and those that simply say, “Oh you work here I forgot!” You sit there for the next 8 hours aimlessly staring at your laptop, checking for that new mail which isn’t there. Instead you start to compose official mails to your colleagues and to your boss to let them know that your project has been completed. To which you get those one line replies and to which you need to give half line replies all after a thorough thought process and after choosing the appropriate language, lessons learnt from the letter writing assignments in school. So far Wren and Martin and my English Teacher have taught me well.
The lunch break is the highlight of your day. On a good day you have lunch with your colleagues, on a better day you meet up with your friend. On still better days you are treated to free lunch but on a worse day you need to be content with the prospect of having your home made ‘dabba’ inside the common room trying to make futile conversation.
Then come the small breaks, no not the bathroom and not the water breaks but just the breaks that one takes to ascertain that one still has limbs which can move and that there is daylight out there. More importantly to ascertain that you can talk in the same tone and manner that you did back when you were unemployed. Ah, the glory of small talk and the prospect of understanding how things work through the channels of grapevine!
You then proceed to attend the four man meeting with your senior colleague the deputy head and the big boss. You are not sure how to gauge statements that say, “You’re a brave man to stay out there (on site), hope you learned a lot.” You become circumspect when you here, “You have done good work,” because it is followed by the month schedule which gives you no time.
You come out and then sit there again just trying to do stuff. Trying to be indifferent to everything, trying to wade through the tunnel called ‘the last half hour,’ trying to see if anyone has left his or her desk so you can follow suit, trying to breathe, trying to prepare for ‘The let us get on with it Tuesdays’, The ‘more of the same Wednesdays’, ‘Just take me! Just take me now Thursdays’ but then don’t forget to thank God that ‘It is Friday!’ followed by the party loving twins called ‘Saturday and Sunday.’
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