Sharmaji sips his morning cup of tea..ciggarette in hand outside his office building. Its been a year and half since he has been following the same routine in the slick industrial area of Gurgaon. This is the ICICI building. He sees fresh faces joining the workforce..smoking their first hundred ciggerates with their first salaries..planning evenings then weekends at local pubs...together they represent the proletariat of new age India. The rupee is getting stronger...the salaries are rising higher...the sensex is doing better.. But all this does not matter to Sharmaji. He has been there done that. He does not want to be held together with the yuppy faces in front of him. He has lost his exuberant self longtime ago. This is not his kind of crowd...he remembers of a similar setting from his youthful times. He remembered a similar time with tea and ciggeratte in hand...days were spent in a shack outside his college campus. Oh they were wonderful times. There was a mishra, a pandey and a tripathi somewhere in the crowd. Sipping innumerable cups...thinking what the future would be like. There were limited pleasures, like the occasional beer from the money saved from the mess bill. And that one night that his hometown buddy Srivastav had managed to flick some biscuits from the Mess hall which lasted for an entire week in his bag. The two of them sharing 2 each at the midnight canteen tea. Those were the days. A year and a half back, he was working in Mumbai...the city that does not sleep...and it didnt let him either. He left it to find a cure for his insomnia. But the three months there with Pandeyji proved to be worthwhile. He has seen the dark sides of that city. He can proudly say - he has seen life. He remembers one of his numerous bus journeys back from work where the thin man sitting one seat ahead in the 351 ltd BEST bus talking to his unknown neighbour. Apparently the thin man's elder brother was an alcoholic. Thin man had to provide for his little 1 BHK household. The members - his aging parents, one alcoholic elder brother with family..and his own little family. How thin man wished to get away from his ordeal...get a better job with a better pay...but he was a low skilled workman. The thin man never could arrive at the possibility of leaving the city itself. But Sharmaji had chosen and that made him feel empowered. All this could have changed if the cute girl working in his office had complied to his advances. Destiny.
If it wasn't for this bright opportunity at Gurgaon...he too would have been left restless by the Mumbai madness. The yuppy faces in front of him don't know what life is. How nice it would be to have all his friends working in Gurgaon...such enjoyment...such possibilities.
Sharmaji takes his last puff of ciggeratte and dumps the remnants of his tea cup inside his mouth...nods at the shopowner..the bill will be cleared in the evening. Takes another look at the new joinees and heaves a sigh..and walks back to his office.
