Friday Funda.......

Every Mumbaikar who works in Infosys Pune looks FWD to Friday... Yes! I know for that matter anyone who is working looks FWD to Friday... looks FWD to the day taht indicates the start of the time they get to relax over the weekend... away from work... deadlines et all.... But an Infoscion from Mumbai working 5 days in Pune looks FWD to the time when s/he can go home, eat good homemade food, relax, chat with parents, play with siblings (I am not sure what do 'only child'ren do, 'coz without banter, the cat fights with your siblings, life feels so incomplete :)..) Also, some unfortunate like me get excited about 48 hours of gettin to watch TV..... So, basically a blissful thot that carries you through the grind of the week....

So, one such Friday I left with a few of my colleagues in a sumo to borivli.... As we were all heading towards a happy 2 day mini-vacation, completely exhausted with the day's work/no work, we passed through the Ghats and tunnels where our only companions, radiosets, stopped working due to lack of range.... So, what do we do? In a sumo, which should ideally carry only 10 ppl, there were already 14 ppl stuffed; so sleeping was out in this discomfort (though many ppl miraculously achieve this feat as well... man they must be exhausted!!!).... this led to general small talk.. "arre aaj client ka call aaya tha... kya useless log hain na... excel sheet ke format mein font size unhe accha nahi laga so he made me sit till 6 and change that font".... This thot (clients being silly) went on for abt 10-15 minutes.... a small lull period and then someone else says, "arre infy kya sachmuch laptop de raha hai 25 years ke complet hone par??"... Big discussion... feasibility analysis.... cost per employee vs profitability of various solutions computed (i doubt if even Mohandas Pai gave any of this so much thot...) blah blah blah.... theories came in, refuted, accepted, lamented upon.... This went on about a good 45 min - an hour... but still there was time to kill with no network as yet....

So, someone asked someone,"XXXX, engineering mein tu vidyalankar gaya that kya??" And those opened doors to a flood of memories which comprise the best time we had in years.... "arre vidyalankar ke siva tu engg degree le hi nahi sakta...".... Someone said, "Vakil ka yaad hai... arre khopadi.. yeh kya hai??".... This guy added,"Viva mein kya vaat lag gaya tha na.... maine jo jo option mein chhoda wohi poocha yaar...."... this got a reply,"arre atleast tujhe jo syllabus mein hai woh poocha.... saala mere TV ke viva mein usne mujhe Zee TV and MTV ki frequencies ke bare men poocha..." Till now, I was a silent spectator to all this but then this person said something that needed my immediate intervention... He said,"tum mumbai university wale engg.... notes se padhte ho.... concepts toh zero hai... na kabhi college attend karte ho aur na kabhi pacticals khud karte ho.... i am so glad i did from pune university... atleast my fundas r clear...." For me it became a case of 'Mumbai University Engg degree' ke doodh ka wasta and I said, "boss, have a viva and give 8 days lead time to both these engg (as in those who are IT working professionals rite now)... and we'll see who does better..." (Ppl who know me, would correctly predict that this would be the only reaction I could give to such a statement :)...) From then on I got incorporated in the small talk (which wasnt a silly small talk anymore... it was something, i realised, every engineer was close to, felt so strongly about....) we spoke abt college cultural festivals, sports' festivals... the fun in organising, the last minute jhols, the boisetrous crowds, the raucous cheering for ur department/college.... thinking of everything taht moment actually gave me goosebumps.... and almost immediately, we all wondered where the hell did all this fun disappear from our lives.... We do have festivals in offices.... we do have sports meets in our office.... then y arent we having so much fun as before..... Got a deluge of answers....
"office ppl can never be your friends like college ppl were...."
"office ppl are never themselves... unke dikhane ke daat alag hote hai aur khane ke aur..."
"office ppl can never come close to u coz if there is an appraisal meeting, they will pull u down and get themselves up..."

All the responses I got were given, i am sure, after personal experiences only.... but i couldnt understand y this change.... I mean arent these same ppl who have 'jigari dosts' and 'langotiya yaars' in college.... then y cant they continue with the same thing in office? cant they get that 'cut throat competition' doesnt actually involve cutting ur peers, ur juniors' throats.... and y is cut throat competition a factor not to make friends here.... as students, did we face any less competition... few seats and hajar applicants.... (for guys even fewer) and yet we made friends.... i am sure this competition is not at the same level (as in colleges) in offices atleast..... but still this divide exists.. WHY????

Finally, I thot that its all abt acceptance.... accepting a person as a whole, as they are.... can you accept that ur senior has to be stern with u at times.... has to order you.... if you can then you can accept him as a friend.... if u do then u would eventually also have fun coz u would be urself in front of him and not pretend to be someone you are not.... can you accept that sometimes it is necessary to make someone look bad inorder to save something in a bigger scheme of things.... if u can, then you can accept that your senior is your friend inspite of a bad evaluation.... can you accept that, you need to be good with everyone but I dont need to be good in a sycophantic way (that other peers outcast you 'coz u r closer just 'coz u lick ur boss's ass) but genuinely good to ppl around.... if yes, then you can be friends' with your peers as well as you seniors.... imagine a scenario.... you were competing in exams and someone beat you and got a better rank than u... may be its coz they had better tutions, better notes, more time or any circumstantial reason..... if you could take that then y not take the fact that ur peer got a better evaluation than u... y does this have to hamper ur friendship with that person? I am not saying the case is that no one has good friends in office.... In fact my father has one of his closest buddies from his office.... but I dunno if the same is the case for ppl in the later generation.... if I take my example, I have formed new friends yes but I am still comfortable with/close to and have loads of fun when I am with my group... then be it college group or school group....

Is this possible, I dont know? Is this too much to ask... I dunno again... All I know is that it takes 2 tango.....

The way I look at this situation in hand is that instead of being genuine only 2 days of the week, I would rather accept this mantra and have an entire week where I am genuine....