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One the eve of Independence Day of our great country India I was all praise to the development and high growth rate. The way our country has surpassed colonial rule and come up with such vigor and glory is commendable.
14th of August was also the day our offices were shutting at 4:30, our buses were going to leave sharp at 4:30 and ferry us back to the comforts of our home.
Or so I thought.
The clock struck 4:30 and my colleagues and me … marched towards the bus, we unsuspecting souls…. Who knew at that point that the evening was going to go horribly wrong?
Well the bus was late (nothing new!) as whenever it rains in Gurgaon, the traffic goes kaput and water clogs as if we are in some shanty slum rather than the high flying DLF Cyber City area that houses the top of the class MNC’s the world has seen… EnY, WNS, Orange, Ericsson etc .. You name it they are there.
The traffic was crawling at the speed of .005 meters/ 20 minutes. Each car was bumper to bumper and everywhere you looked you could see cars, buses and more cars stuck, ofcourse …not moving.
There was an abundance of rain, flared tempers, honking and distress talks over the mobile phones.
Well we waited first in the pouring rain, huddled under an umbrella, with our shoes soaking in water 4:30 turned to 5. “Oh the bus is going to be here any minute” We searched in the lock jaw traffic, we searched in hope, in the anticipation of a miracle that this traffic is going to get better in a few minutes time.
5:30 Heated exchanges, 6:00 Blame game, 6:30 More rain, 7:00 No bus in sight.
Soaking to the bones, our patience run out, we headed towards the food court our spirits down looking for some relief in tea and bread pakoras.
Surprise surprise we managed to share a laugh or two. It’s a marvel how people connect in difficult situations. 7:40 is when we sat in the bus. The traffic crawled till Moti Bagh, 9:30 is when I reached India Gate and then home.
A total of 5 hours washed in the rains.
On the eve of 15th of August 2008, I made a few friends and marveled at my patience and ofcourse learnt a lesson – When it rains, it pours and when it pours don’t you dare come to Gurgaon.
Yes I feel it every Tuesday/ Wednesday. Its a feeling I believe that a lot of working professionals feel. I will like to term it as the Mid Week Crisis.
The mid week Crisis is a feeling of doom, a feeling of not living your life to the fullest, a feeling that says - work is not all important; Oh My GOd what are you doing with your life?! Why are you not travelling? What arent you involved in more activities?
What about some value add to your personal life?? Take a break/ go for a trek/ be more proactive. Explore… etc etc
When you do get hit by this crisis, you call people and you want to find out what are they upto. You want to know if you can join in their activity. You are an eager beaver to connect. You sign into your Facebook account and drop in “Hi” to long forgottn friends and you shamelessly look in their albums.
The day it hits is Wednesday. It is also the day I get most of the calls from my friends … saying – “Lets do something na…” ”We need to!! Life will pass us by…” This is the day most of the plans get made.
The crisis really gets bad when no one calls… when there are no plans… when all you can do is ponder and ponder about how ur life is going to be spent sitting on the 8th Floor of a building that is hell bent on freezing you to death with their AC on full blast and endlessly typing away at your computer and smiling politely to people and and gulping insane amount of coffee down your throat and analysing numbers and coming up with reports that people will read for half a minute and then use to scribble their To Do List for the Weekend and and and ……
The crisis has hit, time to log on to Facebook and pretend – I am living THE life!
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