Dipti walked into her boss Abhijit’s office. “Hey Abhijit, do you have a couple of minutes, wanted to discuss something with you. “Ummm... Give me ten minutes, I’ll come to your seat”. As Dipti walked away, she swore that Abhijit was playing farmville when she walked into his cabin. She realized that when you got to a certain point in your career the company paid you for the privilege of being able to goof off in an office of your own, in complete privacy. You still did what you did when you were in a cubicle, that is to send out resumes, check personal email and play farmville. Only now you did it with complete impunity and in privacy.
Abhijit walked into Dipti’s cubicle two hours later not bothering to apologize at all. “So, tell me”. His voice had a grating quality to it and it got on Dipti’s nerves even more today. She was irritated on the day because she hadn’t had a proper hot water bath in the morning. She blamed the following people for this not in any particular order; the head of the electricity company of Karnataka, lady luck and the prime minister of India.
“I wanted to discuss leave plans with you Abhijit”. “Leave!”, said Abhijit and made sure that he was heard at least in a five cubicle radius. “Yes leave, Abhhijit, I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept”. Sarcasm however was lost on Abhijit like it would be on most software bosses. Instead it was taken literally and mistaken for arrogance. It wasn’t arrogance in this case however. It was sheer exasperation combined with crabbiness that was the result of working at a dead end job for three years. “I’d like to take two weeks off in June”. “Two weeks” screamed Abhijit. “I don’t remember the last time I took two days off. In fact I think it’s been two years since I’ve put leave”. “Wow, you must be sitting on a pot of gold with all that leave encashment money huh? Anyways, I don’t see why it should be a problem. We’ve just released B3C3R1Z567HU and we don’t have anything planned for the next two months”. “I am better informed of company plans and policy that you are my dear Dips”, said Abhijit. Dipti hated it when he called her Dips. Not even her best friend called her that. She didn’t tell him that however. “Anyways, it doesn’t matter, do I get the time off or not? I need two weeks”. “Ok, let’s see!” said Abhijit, "Apply for it in Toolmatic. I’ll talk to Gagan and let you know”. “When will you let me know? I need to concretize my travel plans”. She didn’t believe for a moment that she’d used the work 'concretized' in a sentence. Uggh. She had to get away from here. Fast. “Oh! you’re going to be out of Bangalore? What happens if some urgent issue comes up? Who will take care of any HPCI’s?” “Well I assume, since you’re running this fancy corporate setup and all, you’d be able to take care of it? I’ve also noticed that there happens to be more than one person working in our team. Which would logically lead me to the rather startling conclusion, that, wait for it, someone else could take care of H(fucking)PCI’s”? She didn’t say the f word though. Though she allowed a big enough gap between the H and P to say it inside her head. Sarcasm again. Lost again on the unfairer and dumber sex. “I have got to know today Abhijit, I need to finalize my travel plans”. “Ok, you go ahead and book your tickets, we can always get them cancelled if something comes up.” “No, I cannot get them cancelled Abhijit, I’ll lose a ton of money on the cancellation charge; something I’m sure that our company’s not going to pick up. Anyways, let me know by evening max when you'll approve it”.
A reportee, giving her manager a task was hard to digest for Abhijit. Especially when the reportee was of the female variety and very pretty. “I can’t tell you today evening”. “When can you tell me then? Tomorrow? If that’s not possible, I’ll talk to Gagan myself. Since you seem to be so busy nowadays”. This conversation was backfiring for Abhijit as did most conversations with Dipti. “OK”, he cut Dipti off mid sentence. “Put leave in toolmatic, we’ll see what we can do”. So saying, he walked away. Dipti was convinced that this was victory and set about sending resumes and playing farmville with renewed vigor.
“Yes da, I’m going alone”, Dipti told Plural over lunch in the company cafeteria. “I don’t see why that’s such a problem”. Plural was Dipti’s colleague and possibly only friend at work. He’d been in the company a lot longer than Dipti and seemed to be much better adjusted to the software world than she was. Everyone liked him and he’d been rated “Exceeded expectations” three times in a row. He had a reputation of being very cool under pressure and in general was well ensconced into what was still a very unfamiliar and uncomfortable setting for Dipti. In a private moment he had actually admitted to Dipti that the reason that he was so good under pressure was that deep down, he didn’t give a shit about anything. Not about whether the product shipped on time, whether the company was doing well, or whether anything changed at all. Philosophically Dipti didn’t get that kind of approach. Not wanting much out of life suggested mediocrity to Dipti. She’d discussed this many times with Plural but Plural insisted that at the end of the day his approach towards life and doing things was much better than anyone else. He said that the only thing that he wanted at the end of the day was to be happy. He said this so often that it irritated the shit out of Dipti. Dipti felt that she was meant to do much more with life than she was accomplishing in NotSoft IT solutions. She tolerated Plural however, because she didn’t want to lose the only friend she had at office. And he was good for other things as well.
“So you want to go to Leh all by yourself?” Plural asked Dipti. “Yup” said Dipti. She enjoyed watching people react when she told them she was off on a vacation across the country all on her own. She was even more determined now that some of people had actually advised her against it. Ever since she’d seen a documentary on Ladakh on TV she’d wanted to go there. She was fascinated when she’d seen lush greenery turning into a cold barren desert at 15000 feet. The landscape looked as though it had been dropped there from another planet.
“That’s fantastic”, said Plural. “I’ve always wanted to go there myself. You beat me to it bitch”. “Yeah, if that asshole bastard Abhijit approves my vacation”, she growled.
“Don’t worry, he will. There’s no reason for him not to. There’s nothing for us to do for the next month at least. Go enjoy yourself. The next B4 beta release isn’t coming up at least for… ”, he stopped mid-sentence because of the frown on Dipti’s face. Tech talk wasn’t allowed during any of their lunch conversations. It drove Dipti mad how well-adjusted Plural seemed in this environment. He was far more intelligent than that. It just seemed to her like he’d accepted his lot in life.
“Yeah, I’ll try”, said Dipti. But she wasn’t really going there to enjoy herself. Her goals were much loftier. She wanted to study Buddhism, live in a monastery, look for the Yeti, milk yaks, discover the meaning of life and find peace, not necessarily in the same order. What she didn’t know that she would in fact find at least two of the things she was looking for at the end of the trip.
Chapter four
As Dipti sat in the German bakery and ate Yak cheese along with bread, she stared at the mountains all around her and felt quite at peace. She congratulated herself on making it all the way here all on her own. Leh was a lovely town; everything was catered to the firangs who thronged there, which unfortunately meant that Indian tourists were treated with disdain in their own country.
But Dipti didn't mind. At least she wasn't ogled and groped at here. Dipti's plan was to spend two or three days in Leh and then head towards Pangong Tso. Pangong Tso (Tso - the tibetian word for lake) was a salt water lake nestled between India and China at a height of 15000 feet above sea level. In winter, it got so cold there that the lake froze over despite the fact that it was made up of salt water. Dipti wanted to go there by herself unfettered by the irritating tourists that seemed to be all around her.
So she found an almost broken down gypsy that would take her to Pangong.The driver however assured her that it was in tip-top shape and would get them there in no time. It was to be a two day trip which would turn into two weeks. But Dipti didn't know that. Yet. She would find out soon. They set out from Leh early in the morning and drove past the Shey and Thiksey monasteries through the most spectacular vistas that Dipti had ever seen in her life. Her driver Jamyang was a pleasant enough chap who didn't find it the least bit odd that Dipti wanted the entire jeep to herself and was traveling alone. Dipti liked him for this. They didn't talk at all while he was driving; Jamyang constantly hummed to himself and Dipti stared out of the window constantly. They stopped from time to time to eat masala Maggi mixed with chillies and drink tea. After about 7 hours of driving they were still about an hour away from Pangong and that's when it happened. The suspension of the Gypsy that had been groaning and protesting against the hill roads for the past seven hours gave out with a big wail and the car veered off the road and went crashing down the mountain. For some odd reason Dipti had been wearing her seat belt . Jamyang was dead when the car turned turtle the third time.
When Dipti came to, all she could make out was that she was in someplace dark; some kind of cave possibly. It felt like she was injured, only slightly though, and was unconscious most of the time.
Chapter five
"That was quite a scare you gave me you know", Dipti said to the hairy creature that was sitting next to her making her masala maggi.
The Yeti had seen the crash from afar and saved Dipti. Needless to say that Dipti was shocked out of her wits when she saw him for the first time but he had a calming influence on her immediately. There was something about his eyes that told Dipti immediately that she was safe and nothing bad would happen to her. The Yeti nursed Dipti to health but it was still some time before Dipti would be able to walk back into civilization.
"Why do you want to get rid of me"?
"I'd rather be by myself. I hate people. At least I hate what people have become now. My time was nice", said the Yeti.
"How old are you anyways?", asked Dipti. "In human years, I'm at least 10000 years old... I think".
"You don't seriously expect me to believe that do you? That would mean that you were around during the Mahabharata huh", Dipti chuckled.
"Well, yes and no. I was away in China at the time.". "Hmmm, travel a lot do you?", said Dipti, "You must have accumulated a ton of frequent flier miles huh!"
"Not if you do the flying yourself", said the yeti as he jumped into the air and flew so high up in the sky that Dipti could hardly see him any more.
Chapter five
"So why do you live like a hermit anyways, you should come back with me to Bangalore, you'd be famous!".
"You know, recently, I was in China, two thousand of your human years ago I think, and I met this monk. He wanted to come back to India and meet this buddy of mine. My buddy's name was Sid. Sid, really had it figured out. He really tried to reach out to people and help them. They did listen for a while, but soon forgot. It just seems to me that humans have completely lost it.
Much before that, I used to work for this guy. He was the man! Those were the times, we fought for what we believed in, you know. We were young idealistic and foolish. We were faithful to our ideals. To our gods! To my god!
All the values that he stood for though, truth, compassion, nobility seem to have been forgotten completely. My blood boiled when I realized that his name was being used by a gang of goons to terrorize innocent women recently.
That's when I realized, 'm better off living here, if I were in Bangalore I think I'd kill off half the population.
"Yeah, you should start with the software engineers first", said Dipti. "Anyways, I don't think you should lose faith in humanity just yet; there are still a lot of good people in the world"
Chapter six
"Dipti, it's time that you got going".
"Yes, it is, and don't worry, I won't tell any one about you".
"I know. Jai Shri Ram", said the Yeti as he smiled back at her.
"Jai Shri Ram", said Dipti as she waved her final goodbye to the Yeti. She had found peace. For now.
Even though the story is 6 chapters long, it had totally captured my attention throughout!
ReplyDeleteAll I'd say is that you should continue writing like this. :). Liked it.
Hmmm. I love to criticize. Pardon me if you find me saying things you don't like.
ReplyDelete"The man from earth" had a very similar story line. I hope the concept was not taken from there.
I din't like the way you mixed "kill auto drivers in Bangalore" humor(?) which are your opinions and imposed them on the supposed compassionate Yeti.
About the auto drivers. Not that I personally like them, but I just started thinking about why we all abuse them. They don't make a lot of money, you know. And India is one of the most affordable places in the world when it comes to private transport. They can get on our nerves, sometimes. But really, forgive and forget.
I had a bad day, sorry for leaving a weird, incomplete comment.
By, the way, the idea germinated from a random comment some arbit guy made on a rediff message board a long time ago. That the "Yeti" is actually ....
ReplyDeleteI am sorry, I did not accuse you of anything. Just that the 2 ideas seemed very similar, so I asked you if you were inspired by it. Its certainly possible that 2 similar ideas spring up parallelly at the same time (the Newton-Leibnitz Calculus thingy).
ReplyDelete