Alphabets of life

It has been more than 7 yrs, since I started my professional journey. The journey started from our capital city Delhi. A small company in south-X, with 12-15 people, just a table with 6 chairs in the name of cafeteria; A.C. didn’t work if the generator was running. The bus fare was Rs 5 from my place but most of the times I paid only 2. Salary was too little to survive for 30 days and that’s how I learned to build credit on others. We were sharing 2 BHK flat at that time; “We” means me and my 5 friends.  As compared to this day, everything was very small at that time; small dreams, small aims and small pockets. But still life was as good as today.

 We had no money to invest in share-market. No-one ever talked about buying a flat. Bikes ran in ‘main’ only in blue moons. Lajpat-Nagar and Sarojni-Nagar market were our favorite places for shopping and Sharma’s Burger was our favorite snacks.  It was only in the first week of month when we used to drink Royal-Challenge and after that each of our party started, at and with “8 PM”. Haldiram aloo bujiya and cucumber salad were the only available chakhna (refreshment) with drinks. But for smoking, I used to take “Classic-Regular” cigarettes only, I don’t know it was because I liked the taste or I used it as a status symbol, whatever. Paras Theater was our favorite multiplex, because sound system was really good and it was close to our house. Fuck-off, the truth is, because this was the cheapest theater. I think we had already implemented the Aamir Khan’s “All is well” theory and that too, 6 yrs before the release of “3 idiots”.

It’s then and now, I am a part of the brand race. I need brand for everything, brand for my work-place, brand for my appearance and most importantly, I need brand for my hunger too. And I really enjoy every part of this lifestyle; eating hygienic food, wearing branded cloths, travelling in my own car. I think this is what I always wished for and I feel proud that I have achieved it. Surely the speed and direction of my journey has changed long back, and my trousers too. Now they all have really big pockets. But I still use the same cigarette brand because I really like its taste.

Definitely, lots of things have changed and I can clearly see them. But I still don’t see any difference in my feelings. Many times I ask myself, has my happiness really multiplied in the same way as my salary? Have I really done something incredible of which I should feel proud? Do I really have any idea about the finishing point of this race?

Every time I get a big “NO” for an answer.

I was happy and I am happy. I had fun and I am having fun. Earlier nobody knew me outside office and still it’s nobody. My identity was a number and still it’s just a number, sometimes my PAN card number, sometimes my license number and sometimes it’s my employee number. I feel I have just added some more numbers in my life by these passing yrs and that’s all I have done.

Today a security guy of my office stopped me and asked to show my ID card which I forgot to bring. This is the same guy who greets me daily and I also say good-morning in reply. I felt bad. “Who am I?” I asked this to myself.

I didn’t have any hard feeling for the security guy because I knew he was just doing his job. And for me also, this was not the first time. So as always I went to the security room where the in-charge issued me one temporary ID card after taking my employee number details. And in a few minutes I was again back into the list of survivals.

But still something was hitting my head very hard and I was trying to find out a pain killer for it but to no success. I was thinking, what will happen if some day somebody will steal all my identity-cards or in case all my numbers got expired?  

Definitely life will not issue a temporary card every time. And in that case how will I prove my existence.

Confused, I asked this question to my heart…………….no Reply.

Kept asking the same question many times.  Still, no reply.

May be, my heart is busy hearing the song of the new released movie “ROBOT” in very high decibels.