The compartment was filling up, the yellow bulbs had almost given up to the luminescent tubes of the AC coaches which left very little power for the redundant. Come let me set a rendezvous with one more paradox; yes, the S3 coach of Puri – Howrah express apparently looked no better than an old testament of yesteryear glory and pride, which has forgotten the meaning of sheen. Ignorance has become the new sobriquet but still runs on the rail to exhibit the glittering contour of growth.
Girls and women didn’t have much options in terms of clothing no matter how sticky and clammy it was, but we guys wore stuffs which were short and had customized slits, thus invited the gusty wind through the section which portrayed as a smuggled passage of ultimate sense of satisfaction rather than loud sight. The bay in which i had my berth booked had two more likes of young breed like me, (was bit sceptical using the thought of “Similar breed” because of malapropism). One seemed to be the protégé and the other at the helm of the same discipline. They were caught in the whirlpool of techno functional discussion. Just don’t remember how they initiated the whole thing because by the time i seated next to them they were already mulling over subjects and facts which ostensibly looked devoid of head and tail to me but still managed to surpass the undercurrent. The express was not very consistent with its speed, it came to gradual halt or just propelled itself when it saw some colours other than green but there was no stopping for them. The protagonist sat on my left with his legs clasped close to his torso and the character that provided with all the required impetus to make him roar and soar was placed diagonally opposite to me. Thus while i heard him with all ears i also managed to freeze those flabbergasted countenances from the other side. Taking into account that it is the same express that transcends the same route frequently, i found it to be much bewildered compared to our bay commander –in charge. He was akin to any other protagonist with his ubiquitous presence.
Long back, some sort of antagonistic system virus breached within me since then i have always had problem with system compatibility but still i could convincingly make out through their overt discussion that both of them belong to the newly touted silicon valley of east India (Bhubaneswar). He relaxed his legs and started some programme on which he is working currently, threw some code at his avid partner to deduce, probably he knew but never had sooo much time. Therefore, it was more like a game of squash; he was hitting the human wall harder and faster with every clue and the wall just gave it back with almost same veracity for him to do the honour. The protagonist was a clear overnight star in his work like some of our bollywood stars, he was just in the 2nd year of his profession but exhibited likes of a veteran. He was playing to the gallery about his position in the office team, how in no time he has become the cynosure of all eyes, about his significant contributions which were no less than the blue prints of the recent projects. How he shoved the resplendent onsite chance to London just because he didn’t like the manager who was a heck of a person. His placid partner was a new recruit in the same company and needed some time to find that saddle which his just senior was already boosting off. As a witness to this berserk plot, i can only lament, “The colt in disguise of an avid listener didn’t have the best of practices of breaking into a derby horse by his groom”.
The express started galloping with some heavy rattling clamour of the rails with the sparkling shiny wheels; night was flourishing so there was some relief for those blur yellow bulbs overcastted by cobwebs when those tiring hands started to put the black knobs in reverse direction one after another. By now the listener had ceased popping intermitting replies because his amplitude of thoughts and believes seemed nothing more than pygmies against the protagonist’s gigantism. One of our bay members couldn’t have it any more and forced the protagonist to move from his only and original position so that he could lift the middle berth and lay. Even I climbed the other middle berth of the same bay laid on my right side but just couldn’t avoid him. I sensed my perception changing fast; at the onset, i thought him and his mental faculties to be more polished and cultivated but now this sort of exaggeration was eroding the glitter and gave a barren look. “Down under” mock interview session was on but ironically, it was he who played both the interviewee and the interviewer. Of late, he was visiting the top B school campuses in the quest of management knowledge and he enlightened our dark bay into a management conference room; he framed questions and craned out answers like an orator who was delivering his favourite lines from his much-loved text. I found it hard to control my smirk at his vehement performance couldn’t he salvage the same for some big day or moment. Sitting there, he was flogging the policy makers for drafting salary fitments by which they would never be able to siphon the maximum out of techies like him. I jutted out my neck to get a glimpse of the protégé who was just underneath me on the lower berth; he laded prostrate eyes half closed just giving the commander in chief some back up to finish the remaining programmes. Hey i can’t wait anymore to bestow him with the cult image of paradox or the machine that ejaculates only shock, Half of the HR professional from IT was after his coveted knowledge arsenal everybody wanted him to give a small pie with which they will build that extra edge. But he wanted some real respite thus he is planning strategically to elope donning the mantle of a B school student.( All my HR friends how does it fell? Do you really wana hire such a talent for your company and then do helicopter surveillance to preserve him?? or would you mind keeping your stable empty for some time unless you get somebody just average).
Lashes came closure and locked though tender but anti – porous to all kinds of illumination. All the cumbersome discussion didn’t taunt me any more i just sank in the acute folds of serenity. So it was curtain for him in my theatre the lights of my consciousness was on; dismantling the concocted plots and dousing the self drafted questions with lining of vengenence. Unlikely the train was before time thus most of them was snoring it out but i ensured with my early rise that i craved for my home more than others did. While dismounting from my berth I saw him lying nonchalance, overworked and a fugitive from cognitive driven omnibus. I stepped ahead leaving him to enjoy a tiny sabbatical until the protégé nudged him awake to straighten the skew. Thus, I disembarked from a tech – journey without any iota of tech knowledge.
A year back same time i.e during the first quarter of 2009 (as mentioned in your last blog) you were travelling in an A. C 3 tier compartment and was destined towards a four star hotel in a posh locality. You were much exited at that point of time thinking it to be a fulfillment of your dreams. But that overt desire of yours didn’t actually materialize when you faced the reality by hitting the streets with lots of burden on your shoulders. And today in 2010, you again boarded a train- this was probably not so alluring but this time you already knew that this journey is heading towards your goal and taking you to the roads of success where you can fulfill all your desires by achieving everything you deserve. As I have told you earlier also that people can actually visualize the situations you go through. And as I have the privilege to know you personally, I can even distinguish between the various facial expressions you have under gone at those times. Your vivid descriptions and the clarity with which you present the situations before people, anybody who have not faced those things can also take a ride on your thoughts and sail through their own imaginations. Your “tech-journey” was not much eventful but had all those things which were necessary to keep you glued to the Sleeper class bay which was later on transformed into a “management conference room” even with or without your willingness. The bay in which you have spent quite some time, the bay which saw you rushing inside the train searching for your berth, the bay which saw you sitting quietly sometimes listening to the conversations and sometimes being lost in thoughts of people close to your heart whom you were missing desperately being a home sick person. Why only should I speak about the bay, when you had also developed kind of a liaison with it. You have made a distinction between tradition and growth by describing one as a newly wedded bride and the other as a long drawn home maker. You have seen the bay during enlightened times and during darkness, you have seen it getting lighted up with the deemed old bulbs which were no match against the luminous glory of the tube lights and then again the switches going in reverse directions to send it back to darkness. Although you have come out winning with flying colours fighting with the heat outside by making yourself comfortable with those customized slits, still you couldn’t dodge the bullets of knowledge, or should I say exaggerations from the protagonist beside you- which kept you gaping at the topic in the beginning and then coming into an indifferent conclusion in the end. Your blog was an admixture of the figures of speech describing every minute detail, sometimes by personifying them, sometimes by the use of metaphors and onomatopoeia. But unlike other blogs the main thing it had what I call was IRONY and SARCASM- even though you term it as a paradox. There are various instances which drew my attention and made me go through it more and more. One of it would be your way of questioning the HR’s- “whether they would like to keep the stable empty for sometime time while looking out for an average or would they employ a protagonist under helicopter surveillance”… this reminded me of one of your previous blog titled “white cleavage”, where you had asked the readers – “whether they are a thinking and an imaginative person” and then asking them to “unleash their imagination”. You keep people asking for more by leaving them unanswered. Indeed, your blog was a paradox since you were left sans any “tech-knowledge” even after having a “tech-journey”. But at the end it was very much evident that your tired tender lashes had taught you something which even your vehement consciousness could not.
ReplyDeleteAnother great piece of writing. It was little complicated, but I guess that’s the art of the writer. You have the ability and the talent, and can seriously give competition to other writers.
ReplyDeleteOk coming to this article, I feel the proverb-“Empty vessels sound much”, was just apt for the protagonist. These people should not be given more importance than required. But they speak so much that a lay man thinks he is the intelligent one among them and start giving him undue attention. Technology is such a topic that not many people would have much to say on it in detail, so the conversation get dominated by the techsavvy people. The attention that they receive help these pseudo intelligent people to think high for themselves.
But as you have correctly put it into one sentence that is,“So it was curtain for him in my theatre the light of my consciousness was on”. Wonderfully words were put together and assimilated to create this beautiful sentence. This should always be done when unnecessary things start bothering us for no reason. Isnt it?