Happy Retirement!

I had read somewhere that, retirement is the reward after decades of hard work and an opportunity to spend more time with family, to travel, and to do all the things on your bucket list you wanted, but were too busy to do when you are working.  I do not know, if this is an exact description of the state of mind of a retired person.  This would probably vary from individual to individual.  By and large, I think this exactly fits into my idea of retirement.

During the working-phase of my life, I had a never given a thought, as to, what would life be, or what I would do, after retirement; always assuming that the life, as I knew then, would go on and on.  It had never occurred to me, that someday I would get old and bald; no longer required by the company that had employed me; skillsets would age; technologies would change, or there would be a fixed retirement age (which is 60 years in India, now for most of the government and public sector enterprises including banks).  After reality kicked in, and retirement was almost upon me, I realized, that on the day superannuation dawned/resignation submitted, my name would just be a closed entry on the company’s records.  I would be merely acknowledged, as an ex-employee, on exit from the company.  The company which had, until the day prior to my last day at office, commended my work ethics and quality of work delivered; bestowing me with fancy titles, had overnight deleted my ID out of the systems and blocked out, physical access to all of their facilities.  As I happened to visit my beloved office, the next day after my retirement/resignation, I had to request my ex-colleagues to log me in, using their ID and escort me to the department, I had wanted to visit.  All the admiration and respect I had commanded the day prior, amongst my colleagues, had vanished overnight into thin air.  It was literally like, I had become persona non-grata, with the company.

During my working days, weekends and other public holidays were great fun, to go out with the family on social visits or reading or simply enjoying a lazy day at home.  ‘Me-time’ and ‘sleep-time’ were always at a premium during those hectic working days.  Mondays used to be a drudgery due to heavy traffic conditions on the streets and workloads left over from the past week at office.  Immediate bosses and superiors used to reach office early on Mondays brimming with fresh ideas, displaying high energy and vigour; waiting to pick on and browbeat their subordinates with their new ideas.  Their ideas were normally tried out on the middle level Managers, who had, no option, but to nod their heads in agreement, like a bimbo.  If you were to disagree or raise any objection to the boss’s ideas, you were a marked man!  No small favours would be entertained; which were unavoidable in our line of work; like sometimes coming late to the office, leaving office early due to some work or engagement or even during promotion processes; there were always some such frivolous favours that needed the boss’s nod.  Basing on my experience, working life, indeed was a real pain, especially in the middle management; sandwiched between demanding superiors and indifferent subordinates.

After years of waking up early in the day to an alarm clock, it was luxurious in the first few days, post-retirement, to over-sleep for some time and wake up leisurely, with no particular place to go and above all, freedom from routine obligations.  Life was great, no motoring to the office in the terribly mad traffic conditions, no bosses to get shouted at, no subordinates to deal with.  Once the initial euphoria of the post-retirement life passes on, new challenges, arise.   Many, new unforeseen factors come into play.

The biggest challenge would be on the home-front.  People around you, resent your presence at home; especially the women folk (you guessed it!) because you are staying at home, like them, with them, in their hitherto unchallenged domain.  Women folk, generally, do not like or want your presence, day in and day out, around the home space, that they have created and nurtured, over the years.  I can understand their animosity; You see, it is, but, natural when someone who has not been home during the daytimes for years and decades together, suddenly comes alive and tries to mark his attendance at home.  Ladies, please forgive me, I should not have said this, just a slip of the tongueJ.

After the initial challenges, as detailed above, on the home-front wane (you see, the famous Charlie Chaplin quote comes to mind, nothing is permanent in this world, including our troubles or worries or even irritations or fightsJ), comes the new challenge of what to do with the rest of your life.  People with extraordinary passion or energy continue with their life/career pursuits in line with their passions even after their formal retirement; however, for people with no particular skillsets, the daily lazy routine bites.  It is my considered opinion, that nature counter balances this state, generally, by inducing some adverse health condition such as diabetes, or high blood pressure or heart condition or some such debilitating health condition, not necessarily life-threatening conditions or diseases; in order to keep the retiree, busy in life.  The retiree would have some new health challenges on hand to discuss and mope about with his retired group of friends in the neighbourhood parks; exchanging health related advice and discussing ad nausea, the present Indian political scene and current affairs.  As the popular quote goes, ‘Time and tide wait for no man’, time swiftly marches on, relentlessly.  It is soon time to say goodbye to the world, as we know it!

Coming to my plans, it had always been my dream that I would travel around the world and visit interesting places, post-retirement.  Come retirement, many of the post-retirement plans remain only on paper.  Our travel plans kept on postponing due to one reason or the other.  Nothing moved forward.  Life remained in a limbo.  The upside of this, however, is money to that extent has been saved, which would come in handy for a rainy day, especially if you are living off a pension, like me!

Boyhood Memories

It was a time like no other; the wonderful times that I had, as a young boy, growing up in the sixties and seventies.  Boyhood memories, with all its carefree charm, wondrous, playful, fun-filled life, has a special place in my heart.  Looking back, I was blissfully unaware, of what life had in store for me, down the line, just a few years ahead.

The games, we played as youngsters, had some typically funny names; although same or similar games with minor variations existed all over the country.  Just off the cuff, I remember a few names, (of course, in local lingo) such as, lagory, soorchand, icepies, gilli-dandlu, bugri, goli, tyre aata (typically a motorbike or moped tyre was used with the help of a stick or sometimes even the palm was used to roll the tyre on the streets); and of course, the ubiquitous gully cricket, generally played with tennis ball. Sometimes as a substitute for tennis balls, a rubber ball; or a sponge ball; or a cork ball; or even balls made from the produce of trees that bore red flowers in autumn, were used. You see, the frequent use of tennis balls was a costly affair and moreover, the tennis balls, had a tendency to lose its woollen exterior, very early, and turn into a bald, hard rubber ball.

The cricket bats, sometimes, were just flat wood planks shaped in the form of a cricket bat; cheap cricket bats were available in plenty in sports stores specially meant for playing cricket with tennis balls or rubber balls alone.  These bats, more often than not, broke when played with hard balls. 

For ‘wickets’, three stones were placed as ‘wicket’ markers at both ends; sometimes the three ‘wickets’ were marked on a wall, drawn with red-brick pieces or charcoal pieces. 

We could not afford to buy the 'wickets' or balls and bats ourselves; most of the time, we were dependent on some benevolent sponsors.  Many a time, the balls disappeared into the roadside sewers or drains or even house gardens, from where retrieval was not possible.  The boys who got us new balls, were considered to be important patrons and given special privileges, like batting first.

Playing one or the other games with boys of similar ages, during all times of the day was our main pastime; come rain or hot sun shine; the weather gods, never bothered us.  As cheeky boys, we were in the habit of sneaking away from home, sometimes even during the hot midday sun, away from the prying eyes of the parents.  All that was needed to start a game, was just a companion of similar age to play and an empty street, bereft of traffic.  Each game had a unique flavour to it and all the boys and girls of my generation knew each of the above games, by heart.

I am not sure, if the millennial generation has even heard the names of these games.  I think, many of these games have simply disappeared into antiquity, may be, they are lost forever.  Please don’t get me wrong; I am not making out a case that the games should be revived and the youngsters of today should start playing them.  Each generation of youngsters have their own way of choosing a pastime.  The present-day generation are all for video games and app-related games on their mobile phones and play stations; which are available aplenty and have probably replaced the physical games to a great extent; you hardly see youngsters playing on the streets, these days; the latest craze in the app category, it seems, is the game Pokémon Go.  Sometimes, makes me wonder how the games for youngsters get invented and how they get caught on, in the popular imagination of each generation.

Many of the games we played, required plenty of spare time and open spaces.  Luckily for us, as young boys of seventies, we had all the time in the world and many of the streets in Bangalore were free of traffic; there was very scarce movement of traffic all around Bangalore; most of the vehicular traffic was, just cycles and two-wheelers.  Cars were few and far between; mostly owned by few people, who could afford them.  This reminds me, there were only three major companies manufacturing cars in India.  The regal-looking, Ambassador; Fiat, later named as Premier Padmini and of course, the cute small car of those times, the Standard Herald. All these cars were manufactured in collaboration with UK or Italy.  Japanese cars, which we see, all around us, in plenty, these days, were unknown in India in the sixties and seventies.

As a young boy, I loved the Ambassador car and fervently wished to own the car, some day.  That, however, remained a dream, unfulfilled!  Of course, it never occurred to me, at that point in time, that the Ambassador car, would one day become a relic of the past, soon to be confined to the dustbin of history (or remain only as Kolkata taxisJ). 

As fate would have it, my boyhood days were soon cut short due to the prolonged illness and subsequent demise of my father; this forced me to grow up overnight and assume the mantle of a responsible adult. However, the wonderful, fun-filled memories of my boyhood days, still remain with me and regale me in my present out-of-work, retired state!

Work is Worship!

I go back in time when “work” was considered to be a serious form of worship.  Serious workaholics strongly believed in the idiom, “Work is Worship” and toiled day in and day out. Most of these workaholics were “seen” to be good leaders and successful people.  The names of these people were often quoted, as shining examples to emulate and to motivate the younger generation to work harder.  For anybody who was seen taking a break or just relaxing in-between office work, their acts were considered blasphemous. Back in the eighties, during the early stages of my banking career, I had a nagging suspicion that the Bank had assigned some senior executives solely to keep a close watch on the young employees who had been recruited in hordes in all nationalized banks post the bank nationalization phase in the late sixties and early seventies in India.  Recruitment took place in Banks in thousands, in the late seventies and early eighties, very much like the mass recruitment we see in Software and Services Companies these days.  I suspect, some of the senior executives in Banks were ordained by Bank management to go around their Head Office / Main office building in the Bank just to catch the youngsters in the act of chatting among themselves standing near the staircases or loitering here and there or just “whiling away” their precious “work” time in the office canteens. I remember being remonstrated a few times by senior executives to go back to respective work stations and complete the “work” instead of wasting time.  Working late was considered the norm with employees putting in extra hours of “work” beyond their stipulated working hours.  Sitting late would fetch the employees the required additional marks in their annual appraisals which was considered a “must” for promotions!

The youngsters in Banks who had been freshly recruited from various colleges had carried over their baggage in forming groups of like-minded individuals for sharing experiences and discussing their work-life occurrences standing near the staircases.  The atmosphere in the Head Office of the Bank was buzzing with activity.  Young people were seen milling all around the Head Office or their Main Offices with enthusiasm.  There was so much energy and freshness around the Bank environment, which is in sharp contrast to what we see in the nationalized Banks today.  Pardon me, while I say that most of the nationalized Bank employees today appear all too tired, dull and old, ready to pack up their bags at the drop of a hat, once and for all, either to opt for voluntary retirement or wait for attaining superannuation.   Since there was the mass recruitment of employees in the early eighties, now there appears to be the mass exit of employees occurring in nationalized Banks these days.

Coming back to the topic at hand, we hear the refrain “work life balance” being bandied about constantly these days; used synonymous with the IT and other services’ employees who work around the clock, 24/7, catering to their “clients” from around the world.  These days the term of yore, “work is worship” seem to be almost absent.  It is now all about teamwork and making greater use of technology.  Great ideas and inspiration seem to be the buzzword.  People have realized the darker side of slogging 24/7; with the pervasive lifestyle, related health issues cropping up; employees not having quality time for families; and many other negative factors in the society catching up, to show up, the ill effects of working too much at the cost of their personal life.  Personal life gets disrupted with too much focus on “work” and nothing else, in between.

“All work and no play make Jack a dull boy”, seems to be the mantra these days; in the process, companies are urging their employees to have a perfect work-life balance.  The big multinational companies, software, services and otherwise, have all provided for various facilities within their Headquarters each looking more and more like college campuses rather than companies where people need to “work” for generating profits for these companies.  It appears that Google HQ has Group cooking classes or coffee tasting arranged for its employees; bikes are provided to employees to move around the campus; Cafes galore within the campuses; group fitness classes with A class Gym facilities and much more are provided to their employees.  Facebook HQ, on the other hand, have many other wonderful facilities for its employees; company store–filled with FB apparel and items; it seems they even have foxes on campus, real ones, with specially designated fox-habitat area, and the campus certified for wild-life; video arcade for employees to hang out; many fast food restaurants filled with Burgers, pizzas, burritos, sushi, sweet shops, coffee shops, vending machines filled with snacks and beverages. All free. An interior swing for employees to “chill” in the playground near to the mini-kitchen.  Lots of electric cars in the parking lot.  Apple, it appears have designed their new HQ in a unique circular style reminiscent of their iPod, iPhone and iPad.  Their new campus will include a cafe for 3,000 sitting people; be surrounded by extensive landscaping, and offer parking both underground and a parking structure.  Media reports widely describe the new structure as "spaceship".  Other facilities include a 1,000-seat auditorium, 300,000 square feet of R&D facilities, a fitness center; an orchard, and a dedicated generating plant as the primary source of electricity (powered by natural gas and other more environmentally sound means); with a gorgeous courtyard in the middle, and a lot more.  What else, next?  Your imagination is as good as mine!  With all these wonderful facilities’ available, where do the employees find time to complete their required “work” hours, in between all the recreation and fun?

How times are A-changing.  The workers of the world, rejoice!  Sitting late in Offices is now considered passé.  Life seems to have come full circle for the workers of the world, who were once viewed with suspicion and had to be reined in to be more productive with catchy phrases such as “Work is Worship” as a means of motivation.  Retaining employees was unheard of, in our earlier days; there were no retention policies to retain talented youngsters by providing facilities, including employee stock options.  Workers were considered mere “automatons” or “robots” working at the pleasure of the employers; the loyal “employees” of yesteryear were threatened with more stringent working hours and bad reviews if they did not “fall in line” with the management philosophy of work, work and more work.  What a “royal fall” for the employer managements, it has been!  Who has had the last laugh, now, the “workers” or the “employer managements”, your guess is as good as mine!

The Irony of Life

“The irony of human condition is that we are so focused on reaching some point in our journey, some happiness, or some goal, that we seem to forget that the journey itself is where life happens!"   

                                                                                                                     "Author unknown”

Attending job interviews is a challenging prospect for most people; however, for Rahul, job interviews had been a smooth sailing affair, so far, as he had performed fairly well in many of the interviews, he had faced in his lifetime.  However, every time Rahul attended a job interview, he had to go through lot of background preparation and new learning or unlearning processes, based on his previous experiences, in anticipation of the interview.  He had to understand the organization, the role, the background of the company, their financials and many more such important information gleaned from internet sources or from some ex-colleagues who had worked in that company.  The purpose of a job interview was deploying right people into the right job.  Only if the interviewers had this in mind during the selection process, many of the unpleasant or irrelevant questions posed during the interview could be avoided; again, the interview process, in general, threw open many candidates who lacked the technical or required skills to operate proficiently in his/her role.  Still the interviewers had to go through the entire process for selection of the best candidate, among the list of finalized candidates appearing for the interview.

When the interviewers, sometimes asked stock questions, for which there could be no ready factual responses, Rahul had ended up making up stories around them; which in most cases, was an imaginary answer or plain guess work, not always convincing. The one question that the interviewers invariably asked was, 'If you are selected, how do you think you will be able to transform this company or bring a new perspective into the job?’.  How can a sane person who does not know the “ABC” of the organization, seriously answer such questions?  All that the candidate knew for certain was the position for which he had applied for and the first impressions he had gained on his interactions with the company personnel such as the receptionist or the HR Department official; other than that, there was nothing noteworthy for him to assess and answer such question.

Another question, the interviewers generally asked was, ‘What do you think are your weaknesses?’. As if anybody, in their right senses, would open up before the interview committee and discuss their innermost fears or apprehensions regarding their own shortcomings.  However, if one, did mention their weaknesses honestly, what if they rejected the candidate based on the responses.  Honesty is a rare virtue, but then, how many of them appreciate the human value attributes of the candidate, in an interview process.  Again, there were some standard questions, interviewers were prone to ask.  For example, ‘Why do you want to join this company’.  Rahul was not sure how he would reply to such questions.  If he had indicated that he was unable to cope with the pressures of the present company he was working with or he did not like his current boss, what would be the reaction of the interviewers.  Would they still select him as a job prospect, because he had not lied and spoken the truth? 

Most of the interviews Rahul had faced were for seeking jobs during the later years in his life.  Like they say, life had begun after 30 for Rahul; after he had upgraded his professional qualifications and migrated to the Middle East.  During the earlier phase of his life in India, he did not venture out much to seek jobs, nor were there any jobs on offer during the pre-liberalization period of the economy in India.  He had this strange lethargy and not belonging to the "aspiration" generation, he was not keen in seeking jobs or positions in life.  Quite content with the IT Operations Specialist job he had with a Private Company in India, Rahul was quite happy in the 9 to 5 routine.  There was no job stress or pressure on performance.  He just did his routine job and went home without any worries or pressures.  As there were less work pressures, he had a nice peaceful sleep.  Life motto, at that stage of his life was simple living and more simple thinking; he had no illusions or aspirations on his own skill sets.

After moving to the Middle East, he had settled down in one of the big four Audit and Consultancy firm with their Information Security Department which had offered him a decent salary.  Rahul was not pleased with his current job, though; the main reason was that his immediate Manager, was not a very considerate and understanding person. The Manager’s life motto seemed to be, to just harass his subordinates’ day in and day out to squeeze work and blow their minds with his wisdom.  He, probably, derived sadistic pleasure in bullying and underrating the performances of persons reporting to him.   Rahul stayed on the lookout for better opportunities, mainly to avoid daily friction with his Manager.  He badly wanted mental peace and a change in work atmosphere.  There were some job offers in the initial days and he did attend a few interviews, but none of them progressed into a concrete job offer.  One fine day, Rahul was invited for an interview for the position of Head of Information Security with a Retail Bank proposing to establish themselves in the Middle East region.  The Head of Risk Management, a person of Indian origin, was known to him and he was on the lookout for a fellow Indian with considerable experience, to report to him.  Rahul had appropriate work experience and right credentials for the position.  He was invited for the Interview at 1.00 PM, one afternoon.  Rahul took time off from his regular work schedule, informed his immediate senior that he had some personal work, and left his office as early as possible.  By the time he reached the Office where his interview was scheduled, the clock showed 1.15 PM.  The interviewers had already gathered in the interview room and the receptionist directed him to hurry along.  Rahul stepped into the interview room, sweating a little and apologizing for being late.  He could see that there were three of them seated in a round table.  The person of Indian origin, who was known to Rahul, was looking at him with slight disapproval, as he was a little late for the interview.  Rahul could feel that his confidence level was a bit low and the interview did not go that well. He wanted the interview to end as soon as possible.  After some few minutes, which had appeared to him as an interminably long period, the interviewers concluded their questions.  Rahul thanked them and literally sprinted out from the interview room with relief writ all over him.  He wanted to forget that he had appeared for this interview.

Rahul had a surprise in store the next day; he was informed that he had been selected for the position of Head of Information Security by the Retail Bank which had interviewed him.  Rahul was shocked albeit pleasantly, that in spite of his bad performance in the interview, he had been selected to the position.  He thought that, may be, the contact person, who had known him, had influenced the selection process.  Rahul was asked to submit his credentials the next day at the Bank’s main office.  When he went to submit his credentials the next day to the Human Resources Department, he was told that the Head of Risk Management (the person of Indian origin known to him), who had interviewed him the previous day had resigned from the Bank, and yesterday was his last day at the Bank.  This was news to him and he felt strangely disturbed because this was the person to whom he was supposed to report to, in his new position as Head of Information Security.  Rahul did not know what to say.  The Human Resources Head, who was a Middle East national, informed him confidentially, that the person who had interviewed him the previous day, had joined the big four Audit and Consultancy firm for which Rahul was presently working.  Yesterday, the day of his interview, was his last day.  Rahul wondered at the irony of the situation.  Rahul was planning to quit his firm to join this Bank, whereas his would-be boss, the interviewer, had already put in his papers and quit the Bank to join his current firm.

Rahul, then went to on discuss his contract terms with the HR Department.  The terms of employment were good and very well acceptable to Rahul.  He was asked to join the Bank as early as possible.  Rahul was happy with the salary raise he had bargained for and, most of all, relieved that he could escape from the clutches of his Manager, his immediate boss.  The very next day Rahul submitted his resignation with his current firm.  After the lapse of a month, as planned, Rahul reported to the new Bank after serving his notice period. 

As per his letter of appointment to the new Bank, he would be directly reporting to the Head of Risk Management. On his first day in his new job, Rahul was ecstatic and happy with the Bank environment. The Bank had a pleasant atmosphere and he had a beautifully decorated office, all to himself.  The perks included a Personal Secretary, as well.  After an hour or so, into his new job, Rahul was informed to meet the Head of Risk Management, his new boss, as soon as possible.  Rahul had not met the Head of Risk Management, his new boss, till now.  He only knew that the person of Indian origin, who had interviewed him had resigned and Rahul was under the impression that the position was still vacant.  However, it appeared that the Bank had filled the position immediately and hired a new person.  As he had received a summons from the Head of Risk Management, he thought this was a good opportunity to go and meet with his new boss; and get acquainted with him.  Rahul, hurried to the Head of Risk Management’s office which was situated on a different floor in the same building.   He was asked to wait for a few minutes as the Risk Management Head was in a short meeting.  After a few minutes, the meeting was over and the Head of Risk Management was free.  Rahul went into the office of Head of Risk Management, with a smile pasted on his face.  He wanted to create a good impression and appear pleasant while meeting his new boss for the first time.  The Head of Risk Management, presently looked up, stood up with his hand outstretched and a broad smile on his face. Rahul’s face had gone ashen, with dismay and shock writ all over his face, as there stood in front of him, his old Manager from his earlier Audit and Consultancy firm.  He was the new Head of Risk Management!  He also later came to know that this new Head of Risk Management, his old boss, was instrumental in selecting him for this position and not his contact, the person of Indian origin, as he had presumed earlier.  Rahul had learnt a new lesson in the supreme irony of life!

When I dabbled in Dramatics at School

Many of us would remember our school days with a tinge of nostalgia.  The days, when we, as school boys were carefree and life was great fun.  Well, some of the days were not really that good.  The bad days in school would be when we were asked to complete homework by the next day on a topic which we knew nothing or little about; we had to read the entire chapter or lesson in detail to undertake the homework; or when we were asked to stand up on the bench for apparently speaking to the boy seated next to you, while the fault was entirely of the other boy.  The other boy who actually spoke to you first would get away, while you would get caught while whispering back to him on his query or laughing at some joke the boy had cracked.  If you argued with your Teacher that the entire fault was with the boy sitting next to you, the Teacher would increase the quantum of punishment and the other boy would become your sworn enemy for betraying him and giving him away.  Well, the life of a young boy in school had its own pitfalls.

There were other times, when as a school boy, I wondered, why were we asked to memorise a complete poem and recite it in front of the class.  When the poem was clearly printed in the text book, what was the need to memorise and recite the same poem, once again.  If one made mistakes in reciting the poem, the whole class laughed.  When it was the other students’ turn to recite a poem and they committed some mistakes, we laughed louder to make them understand what the ‘shame’ part of it meant.

In the mind of a young school boy, ‘grown-ups’ were almost always a source of envy, because they did not have to attend school; they only had some office job to attend, where they paid you handsomely in return.  You could buy any number of ice creams or chocolate treats with the money earned and no one would dare question an adult on his choice of purchases. As a school boy, I always felt that the boys were at a disadvantage, compared to the ‘grown-ups’, who had everything going for them.  Of course, now as a ‘grown-up’, I feel differently; life as a school boy was the best of times, in one’s life.

I am reminded of an incident when I was in 4^th or 5^th standard; the class Teacher had asked us to enact a drama for the ‘School Day’ function.  One of the boys in our group took the initiative.  He knew the story of Emperor Akbar by heart and he had suggested that, we stage the drama of Emperor Akbar.  The boy who had taken the lead, wanted to play the main role of Emperor Akbar.  Most of the other boys in our group had no objection to this, as none of us had any experience in staging a drama.  Moreover, the boy who was to play the lead actor was taller and well-built, compared to the other puny little boys in the group.  One fine day, we all arranged to meet at the home of the lead actor.  The home of this lead actor, had an open porch in the front of his house.  This place was quite convenient to stage our drama rehearsals.  I had, albeit, reluctantly agreed that my role would be that of guard who would stand in front of Emperor Akbar’s throne.  My role had very few sentences to recite; hailing the Emperor, whenever he appears on the stage and announcing the name of the visitor to the assembly.  I had to loudly announce at the top of my voice, ‘Hail the Lord and Master, Emperor Akbar’ or something to that effect.  My role was to always remain as the main guard and attendant of Emperor Akbar.  I was told that my role is important as I would appear in every scene, whenever Emperor Akbar took centre stage.  I felt pleased when I was told this.  My role did not need much rehearsals, which was a good thing.  I did not have the patience to read through the drama scripts or dialogues and mug them up, word by word, at rehearsals.   We had prepared dialogues sheet, actor-wise, by writing down the dialogues on a page in the school note book.  Each actor had to memorise his part of the dialogues from the pages torn out from the school note book.

The rehearsals for the drama went on for almost a month.  We would diligently meet every week end, at the lead actor’s house and stage some part of the drama rehearsal.  I don’t remember we ever enacted the entire drama in one stretch.  The rehearsals were always in bits and parts.  After enacting a few scenes, we would soon get bored with the drama rehearsals and sneak out to play, Cricket.  We were more interested in playing Cricket rather than enacting the drama rehearsals.  All the boys in the group were of the outdoor type and excelled in physical sports rather than displaying dramatics skills at school functions. We, however, assiduously practiced the drama rehearsals, though we were not sure how the drama would be received by the audience.

We were asked by the school Principal to stage a dress rehearsal with the basic props required for the stage, including dresses to be worn by the characters.  We had arranged to rent out some dresses for the characters in the drama.  A decorated chair was arranged for the throne and I remember that I had taken out some flower pots from my home to be kept before Emperor Akbar’s throne.  There were more number of drama entries to be staged from participants of other classes too.  The school Principal, had agreed to watch the dress rehearsals of all the dramas, before giving his approval of the final play/drama selected to be enacted on the function day.

On the day of the dress rehearsal, we were all called on to the stage to display our dramatics talents.   We staged the play of Emperor Akbar in the presence of school Principal, although during the play, some parts and bits were totally forgotten by the drama actors.  There were some awkward silences and few slip ups.  We were all told to speak in a loud voice as there was no microphones on the dress rehearsal day.  I clearly remember that I had shouted at the top of my voice, hailing the Lord and Master Emperor Akbar; my voice had boomed through the empty hall.

We, the actors of the future, were all waiting with bated breath for the Principal’s final approval, which was to be announced the next day on the school notice board.  When we did not see the name of our drama on the notice board, we were all crestfallen.  All our efforts in enacting the great drama of Emperor Akbar had gone down the drain.  We did not have the resourcefulness to meet the Principal again to put forth a request for reconsideration of his decision.  After seeing the plays of other classes staged as part of dress rehearsal, we knew in the heart of our hearts that, our play simply, did not measure up.  We were disappointed that the careers of all the budding actors of our drama had come to a premature end.  Hail the Lord and Master Emperor Akbar! 

The City of Dreams

 Note:  The following narrative is purely fictional arising out of the writer’s imagination.

He had always wanted to visit Bombay as a young man (apologies, it is Mumbai, now; but then, he always remembered Mumbai as Bombay). It had been an intense city to his mind, as his experiences of Bombay in the late seventies (he was in his late teens, at that point in time) were intertwined with a depth of intense feeling, perhaps, melancholy is what came to mind.  Associating Bombay with melancholy is unheard of; in this city of dreams. Perhaps, it was the desolateness and hopelessness, which had pervaded his mind at that point of time, that evoked such strong feelings inside him.

When he first traveled to Bombay by a train from Bangalore, it was raining heavily when he reached the outskirts of Bombay.  The bustling activity in the station had jolted him out of the deep slumber, which he had fallen into while the train had glided slowly into the station. At a station on the outskirts, he had to switch trains and board a local train at about 3 AM in the morning. The local train was overflowing with milkmen and their families loading and unloading huge milk cans into and out of the train.  He had reached his uncle’s place in about ten minutes by the local train.  His first impression of Bombay, was, that the city never sleeps.  People were going about their activity at all times of the day and night.  Many a time, he had wondered when and where do these people sleep, amidst all the hustle and bustle?

For the next few days, he gradually explored the city, as he had nothing much to do.  He had completed his graduation in Bangalore and landed in Mumbai (staying in his uncle’s place on the outskirts of Bombay) in search of a job.  The job searches consisted of merely looking into the columns of Times of India newspaper daily for any suitable opening, which was hard to come by, during the late seventies.

He bought a second class season train pass for the entire month from the part of the city (where he was residing) to the centre of the city that was, Victoria Terminus, called VT, those days.  After his morning breakfast, he had set himself a daily routine of boarding the train and travelling to VT station.  From there on, he had no place to go.  He explored the city walking alone from the VT station to the nearby places that he fancied, mostly in the direction of the Arabian Sea, which was quite near to the station; this was at a walking distance of half hour, at the most.  Sometimes he walked down to Crawford Market or to Colaba.  His regular walks within the vicinity of the VT station had become a sort of daily ritual.  Being young and alone in Bombay with hardly any money, can be quite exhausting and excruciating.  The lonely walks created an intense feeling of disenchantment in his mind.  Just looking at the Sea intently, while lazily strolling on the sands of a beach, alone, can be a rather jolting and tiring experience.  Once this daily job of staring at the Sea was done, he used to hurry back by the late afternoon local train to the part of the city, where he was staying with his uncle, after partaking of a light meal in a nearby cafe.

The experience of boarding and alighting from the local trains in Bombay, was, in itself, a huge and scary experience.  Luckily for him, he used to board the train after the mad office rush was over in the morning times and even before the evening office rush started, he used to travel back to his place of stay.  He had learnt the trick of avoiding the rush hour on the local trains as it was a physical impossibility to get into or get out of the train during those mad rush hours.  One had to be a seasoned veteran of Bombay to master the tricks of boarding and alighting from the local trains during peak hours.  He was not quite there, yet.

In the first few days, he used to watch this mad rush of humanity, boarding and alighting from the local trains, with amusement.  After a few days, the amazement faded away and it was fast becoming normal routine with him, as well.  He wouldn’t call himself an expert, in this activity, though he had a few close calls, a couple of times.  It had almost felt that his end had come, during those times, when he was left dangling, hanging without any support holding on to the ledge of the train doors.  He had miraculously scraped through, surviving those terrifying moments.  He could now say, that he was lucky to be alive.

The vast sea of humanity, that is Bombay, is an experience, in itself, that one can never get over.  The sheer number of people, in every direction you look at, is just mind-boggling. Despite the vast number of people, the place can be humbling and quite lonely.  Being a shy and reticent person, he had difficulty in striking acquaintances in the trains or at the beaches.  He stood staring, sometimes, at the various moods of the Arabian Sea, the dirt and remains it carried to the shore; huge ships and trawlers were visible at a distance.  He was devoid of human company and wanted someone with whom he could share his thoughts and the situation he had put himself in.

One sunny morning, during one of his long walks on the Seashore, he came very close to striking friendship with a beautiful girl, who appeared to be of his own age.  She had a dog with her.  He first thought that she smiled at him, though this was more of his imagination, playing tricks on his mind.  She was slowing down as she approached him.  The girl was of medium height, wearing a smart dress with long hairs flowing down her neck.  He was tempted to strike a conversation with this girl as she was comely in appearance and was alone; other than the dog, she was holding on to, at the other end of the leash.  As she neared him, he remarked that the dog she owned, looked beautiful and he asked her, what was the breed of the dog. She replied something, which he couldn't remember now.  What actually he wanted to say to her was that she looked beautiful and would she be friends with him.  It was an awkward moment.  The girl was looking at him inquiringly, as she paused right in front of him.  She appeared more beautiful now and her eyes were sparkling; she had long eye lashes. There was a hint of a smile on her face, as she looked at him.  He was dumbstruck and could hardly speak another word; as the girl came near him, her close presence and the perfume she wore held him in a mesmerizing spell.  He was speechless, staring dumbly at her.  He let go of the moment.  The girl walked away slightly disappointed.  He kept on staring after the girl, as she disappeared in a distance.  He had a strange feeling, perhaps, he thought this was what people called love at first sight.

From that moment on, his mind was in a strange whirl.  His mind was racing with mixed emotions, unable to fathom what was happening in his mind.  He desperately wanted another opportunity to just see this girl, even for a moment.  During his entire stay, of nearly an year in Bombay, he never came across this girl again.  A strange sort of hopelessness had swept over him, disappointed in his own shy and reticent nature; adding to his hopeless situation was the fact that he could never find a job in Bombay during his long stay, in the city.  People called it the city of dreams, but, not to his mind.  He returned to Bangalore, shortly afterwards, empty handed.

The story of life is not without its strange twists and turns.  It turned out that the girl he fleetingly met on a beach in Bombay, so many years ago, was to become his life partner.  She is married to him now.  They had met in a common relative’s home during a function, several years later after their first meeting in Mumbai.   She still chides him about his dumbstruck stare on the beach, whenever they chance to visit Mumbai.