Musings from a Cubicle

Its 6 pm in one of the many tech parks that are dotted across the city.  These are places that look like an ambitious kid’s wet dream. All those promises of “holistic wellness” in a “high-tech” environment stand fulfilled. The streets in this city are dotted with fashionably dressed people - who, upon careful observation, look like they came out of an assembly line. A whole army of shirt-wearing, tag-carrying people with indifferent expressions on their faces have descended upon the streets. Most of the people in this army – over a smoke or a chai – are complaining. Some smile and joke through their complaints. Others are too tired to maintain that façade. The mood of this army can at best be summed up as a collective shrug, and at worst- a collective sigh.

Among any small group of us “professionals”, one finds people who are into music, into writing, into cricket, and usually,  into the vague idea of being a tycoon someday. Sadly though, there’s only a handful who get really psyched when discussions about that latest CR or piece of code come up. People here, and all around, are really interested in anything except what they do for a living. Why ? Who told them ? Who told us ?  There are exceptions of course, and bowing to societal expectations and expected behaviour patterns, I will call them honourable exceptions.

All these people, all of us – have one thing in common. Tags and access cards that identify us as drone workers in a system that is so alien to most of one's likings and personal aspirations, that it makes one wonder – In the mad race for making money, what has money made us ?

The converts – the ones with around 4+ years of Work-Ex in the “industry” – who have capitulated to the system knowingly or unknowingly will give half-hearted arguments to the effect that the world is not fair and that one has to compromise on a lot of things to make a living. True that. But what is disheartening, is the defeated tone in which the above argument is given. People who are in their twenties have resigned to fate, and given up fighting for what they have wanted to do all their lives. Making people who don’t matter happy, while in the process ruining the most creative years of their lives.

Safety governs our lives. We’ll convince ourselves  of anything provided its glamourous and furthers our “image” in others’ eyes. Never mind the reality. Who cares anyay ? All of us are gifted actors.

We, as a people, have let demand overtake desire and have finally replaced it to mean the same thing. We have let logic defeat beauty. We trampled the arts under the cold wheels of science.  Doing something you want is a sin if it isn’t profitable to your finances or your image. A national psyche of one size fits all has made us a country of drones absolutely unwilling to acknowledge, leave alone respect individuality.

Here, you are successful if you’re a rich doctor, a rich engineer- even a rich thief. “Rich” is the keyword. You’re successful if you get into a premier B-school or a tech-school, land a cushy job and subsequently wear sharp suits and drive german sedans to five star hotels because your fashionable wife’s friends don’t approve of anything else. Never mind if you have High Blood Pressure by the time you’re 30, are reliant on cigarettes to de-stress, and need to be drunk ( on scotch – because that proves you’re rich ) in order to relax. Ah, the good life !

You listened to everyone, but yourself. Congratulations ! Have you arrived ? No. You’ve left. Long ago. In your place stands another you – one whose greatest motivator is fear, the fear of falling in others’ eyes. He has arrived. He’s rich. And believe it or not, you’re sulking.

-          Ayan Bandyopadhyay