Atrocities of a real Life...

Om Sai Ram What I am about to explicate here is one excruciatingly irreparable segment from the life of a girl named Ela. This is just an elaboration of what I saw or felt and, trust me, no one can ever feel what this brave girl has been through and has faced during that time or may be still braving the after effects of that tragedy. It was in May ‘08 when I got to know that Ela’s father had some minor illness but being a typical Indian I also share this mentality that nothing is bad enough until the term “hospital” barges into conversation. And to my utmost dismay, the term barged in within a week. Ela was extremely worried as it was difficult for her to balance between her duties at home and her MBA training which required full attention. Moreover it was the wellness of her dad in question (whom she affectionately referred to as papaji) that multiplied the tension factor by the powers of ten. Ela’s dad, as I had once met and observed, was a very rational man who knew pretty well how to manage relations and keep the family happy. He wasn’t much of a speaker though. There was a kind of telepathic connection between him and Ela and may be that’s why Ela was always aware about the pressures and tensions that he was going through. Although he tried to hide them with a calm and smiling face but she always knew. Ela’s dad’s illness continued to be a matter of worry for more than a month now. She discussed it with me and I suggested her to take him to AIIMS (considering the repute of the institute) but her family had some eminent connections in GR hospital and that is where they took him. Although everyone in Ela’s family had complete faith in the doctors of Ganga Ram hospital but somewhere deep inside Ela was insecure. She wanted another opinion and therefore got wholeheartedly involved in getting her dad’s reports checked to every bigshot that she could lay her hands upon…including AIIMS…but fate has something else in store…something more abominable. Uncle’s health deteriorated day by day. His weight reduced promptly and he was not able to stand or even talk for long. Imagine a full grown man, who had the stamina to work day in day out for his family’s wellbeing, looking like a teenaged mal-nourished boy lying on a hospital bed. Doctors said that he is suffering from some kind of lung disease and the bacteria of which has spread inside the stomach and hence he cannot consume anything solid. He was kept on a liquid diet along with strong antibiotics and what not in the hospital’s medical store house. God knows if they were actually curing the man or just inflating the hospital’s monetary account. Anyways, the treatment showed very minor improvement in Uncle’s health within a week (I still doubt if he was actually improving or was it the action of steroids). As soon as doctors noticed the improvement, they discharged him and referred him for complete bed rest at home. Uncle got shifted form hospital to his home…apart from this nothing changed…diet and medicines were still the same…just the experienced doctors and nurses got replaced by un-experienced and panicked house members. May be the hospital had some more money to munch from other patients who were waiting for a bed to get empty in the hospital. The house members did everything within their powers to take Uncle’s care but the magnitude of the problem was much bigger. Ela used to talk to her dad, knowing that he is listening at all times. Sometimes when he spoke he just asked about his kids (Ela and her younger brother) and about their studies… not once did he mention about his pain, his misery, nor about the cannibal that was eating him from within. Ela could figure out the pain but she never expressed it in front of her anguished mother. She spent her lone hours reciting Sai Baba’s name, questioning him why is this happening to her dad, asking why it is not her instead of her dad….weeping quietly so that no one can hear. In front of everyone she was always a pillar of support, the most sensible person around…till date, I imagine what the source of support was for the otherwise sensitive Ela. One evening it happened that Ela was sitting besides her dad and her mother was preparing supper, rest of the family members where busy in their daily chores. Ela was talking to her dad and he was listening… unable to speak. Somehow Ela got a feeling that her dad is trying to tell her something…something important…but she could not really figure out what. Ela and her mother thought that he was asking for his medicines. They gave him the medicines after his regular liquid diet after which he fell asleep…sound like a child. Everything was ok. Ela, around midnight, came to her dad’s room, pretending to others and even to herself that she is just there to check if he wants anything or not but actually she was there to check if her dad was still breathing…he was. She went back to her room…contended…but still worried. The next morning, all of Ela’s worries sprang to life when she woke to mayhem in her house. She ran to her father’s room…her uncle told her that her dad has been unconscious…they didn’t know since when…it was then that she realized that her father was having some serious problem the previous day…he was trying to tell them about it…trying to give a hint that he require doctors…but could not because of his helplessness…he wasn’t asleep after dinner…he had fainted. They rushed him to Ganga Ram hospital again where he was immediately shifted into the ICU…Intensive care was what was required from the beginning but he had been discharged…how come? After examination, doctors told the dolorous family that the viral infection which was contained in the stomach until the day Ela’s dad was discharged has now engulfed his entire torso from within and has reached his throat within two days…marring his speech completely. Ela cursed herself for not being able to identify such an indication from her dad…on the other hand; the doctors who discharged her dad were quite professional in hiding their fault behind medical terms and procedures. The doctors were not able to operate on Ela’s dad because being on liquid diet and taking strong medicines has made him very feeble and his body could not have sustained the pressure of an operation. His body required blood. Everyone in Ela’s family had a diabetic history and hence doctors did not allow them to donate blood…Phones dangled…everyone called everyone they knew…Ela called me and her other friends. I reached the hospital with another friend of mine, Gaurav. We gave our names for blood donation but mine was rejected as I suffered from hepatitis three months back and hence could not donate blood for at least a year…I felt really helpless… I tried to make Ela smile with my silly on-the-spot jokes while Gaurav went for the donation…she smiled…but with weeping eyes. During that period whenever Ela smiled, accidentally, she thought that she is not allowed to smile in that condition and her eyes became wet…the smile used to get vanish within a span of seconds…not even minutes. No improvement was noted in uncle’s health for days and one day I got the news that he has been shifted to artificial respiration as he was not able to breath because of the cannibal feasting within him…I had heard that only miracles help a person to come back for artificial respiration…I was expecting one…every one was. Ela spent around 15 hours a day…yes 15 hours…for several days reciting Sai chalisa for that miracle to happen…that was her faith…it still is. I never wanted to leave Ela with all the despair that she was facing…Although I was not of much help but still I just wanted to be there…with her. When conditions became constant…not improved but constant…I left for my college in kurukshetra. Two days since I left, our classes started in full flow; I noticed Ela’s missed call on my mobile phone when I came back to my room. A sense of relief passed through me, assuming prematurely that some miracle has happened and uncle’s condition has improved now. Immediately, I called Ela to ask about the situation…for once, no one picked up. I called again. This time someone picked…it was Ela…but I could not understand anything because of loud noise…may be disturbance in network of an STD call…may be road traffic. I held the phone as close as possible to my ear. It was not any disturbance or traffic noise…it was people crying… shrieking loud voices in the background…then a sobbing sound that tore my heart into shreds…a sound that I could recognize anywhere…it was Ela’s. Then I spoke, keeping my fingers, heart, mind crossed that it should not be what the loud signs on a phone call were indicating…I was expecting something else, something magically else…I was just not comfortable to hear what my bloody mind has already figured out…What happened Ela? Why are you crying? What is all that noise? I was sounding so foolish…even to myself…not wanting to know the answer to my own question. She gave a loud cry…unable to breathe…then holding her anguish to answer…she said “Mere papaji nahi rahe dush”… My ears felt numb… I felt that if somehow these past 45 seconds get subtracted from my life, I would not call Ela at that time…not for her sake…but for mine…being brutally selfish. I disconnected the call. We went to Ela’s home the very next day, wanting to lessen her despair but being helpless. Finally we met her, she wasn’t weeping. She was just consoling her mother and brother against the wrath of that deplorable incident. Somehow she managed to contain her misery within herself but I knew that it was imploding within her. She sat with us in her room where the sound of Sai baba’s bhajans were mildly but continuously emanating from a player… No one spoke anything…Ela sat with numb, swollen eyes and tried not to let the tears cross the borders of her eyelids… but they did every now and then. It is going to be almost 8 months to that despairing incident now and Ela’s life has achieved its normalcy again but that fateful incident has created a black hole in her life. Whatever she may do to fill it, but it will never get filled. She has taken all the responsibilities as the family head that her father unwillingly left on her fragile shoulders and I am proud to say that she is carrying them off better than any of us who might boast of our maturity and capability to handle such situations… I can bet on it blindly…because somewhere and somehow I know, I just know that her father is still with her and is blessing her with all his aesthesia, sanity and patience. The absence is just physical. People like me can just write about this or can just be by her side for times to come but people like her actually prove that they can cast the hardships of life into a statue of their achievements….. God bless her!!

Selection @ IDBI Bank

Where do I start??? Everyone knows about the nervous, nail biting and hair pulling moments taking place when a company announces to visit for campus recruitment in an infant college that has its second batch of MBA students rolling out…That too in a year that has witnessed the biggest ever financial crunch, an atrocious terrorist strike on the financial capital, and emergence of war with a country that has nothing to lose and is raring to attack. The company, in question here, is IDBI…a semi-government firm that neither gives letter of regrets after selection nor does it issue pink slips after recruitments… “Oh My God, is that right??? Such job security in this absolutely insecure era of workmanship… I have to get this job of assistant manager anyhow”… this was the supposed secretive idea that was ping-ponging in the cerebrum of every single of the 44 MBA students that were appearing for the GD and subsequent interview to be taken by the IDBI big shots who were coming in from Mumbai to select we-don’t-know-how many people. The week prior to the D-day witnessed people getting paranoid to know almost everything related to MBA…which, I suppose, entails… err…almost the ENTIRE KNOWLEDGE OF THE BUSINESS WORLD…that too in a couple of days. Everyone, including myself, was woolgathering that somehow some genius, may be by mistake, invented a capsule that, on consumption, can give my otherwise dull brain an overview of EVERYTHING that has been happening EVERYWHERE in the past 20 years… rest all, I will manage myself. But alas, no such “self-updating general knowledge pill” was or will be there for our rescue. So, finally, after analyzing that we cannot become even the adopted children of the farthest relative of Philip Kotler in the time that we had for our preparations, we planned to hone our GD skills by indulging into discussions that would start sensibly with a sane, opinion based topic such as should India trade with China?, Are living-in relationships ethical?, T20 or test cricket? etc. But somewhere in the back of our minds we remembered that we are wearing bundies and not formals and that we are in our free-to-speak-anything hostel rooms and not in some GD hall… and may be that’s why all our sane GD sessions got their conclusions with jape and humorous endings such as “baba ji ka ghanta” and “GD ki batti bana ke andar lelo”….and hence there goes our honed up skills down the drains of an untimely but refreshing humor.. Finally, the D-day arrived. Every one of us got utmost formally dressed by applying every cosmetic that we had as if the Interviewers are not coming to select managers for IDBI but coming to organize a “swayamvar” for us to marry their pretty daughters with a promise to give dowry that would be sufficient enough to sustain our entire family for the rest of lifetime. Anyways, we were seated and then… the interviewers arrived… three of them… three MEN… three SERIOUS men… three serious, LEARNED men…three serious, learned and STRATEGIC men… strategic because they smartly divided 44 students in a batch of three and every one of the interviewers was to conduct a GD with one group, simultaneously… No wastage of time… Man!!! they were in for some serious recruitment… When I got to know the topic of discussion for my group, I thought I was doomed, most of us did. Our Moderator spoke in impeccable English… “Your topic of discussion is Good Governance and Polity”… Someone flinched… Silence followed… what was this??? I mean we have been preparing an opinion based topic, some yes/no kind of a deal all that while and what we have here is a f**king topic of debate… I thought… everyone did, their faces showed… Many people did not even understand if it was quality or polity… "Excuse me sir, is that quality or polity??" I heard my self blurting out; trying to come into notice but it was immediately followed by a feeling of regret… After that, the so-called discussion that took place seemed more of like the export market of Chawri bazaar where only the person having the maximum audibility can sell his item while others sit and watch… but I think we all gave a tough fight, even to ourselves. The results were announced after a while, I had cleared the GD. No surprise, 33 out of 44 did. The month was December, the day was 18th and it was supposed to be cold but thanks to global warming and then my GD clearance, that I was sweating like hell from inside… worst part, you cannot counter the itch because it will spoil the crease of clothes. The first interviewee went inside….23 minutes. The second one went in immediately after the first came out….19 minutes. A while later… 10 students through, the average time of an interview fell from 20 minutes to 12 minutes… I suppose they analyzed the caliber of the students of our class… Every tick that the second’s arm of the clock made after an interviewee went inside, every second that brought my turn closer, pushed my heart into the depths of haywire thoughts about the degree of subjective knowledge that my classmates are being asked. Someone discussed that they asked him about financial leverage…I did not know it… then someone said study capital budgeting… Never heard of it… then the sound of inventory control came… No idea goddamn!!! …isn’t there anything being asked that I know?? Then I overheard a girl telling that she was asked to tell about her family background… wow…this one I knew… that too not only mine, I knew her’s as well.. 25 students through and the average interview time had fallen to 6-7 minutes per interviewee… 8 students left… I was second last…ironically and coincidently, in perfect coordination with my position in class with respect to my marks. At last, my turn came… Quivering, I went towards the Interview room… reciting the broken verses of Hanuman Chalisa that I could remember… but carrying a smile on my face, as I had read in the interview guide… I opened the door. “Good Afternoon Sir, may I come in??”... … Err… did I forgot to say please? I was allowed to sit… nothing special!! The very first question came… “Dushyant, tell us something about yourself”… expected!! I told all the positive points… Confidently The second question came… “Tell us about your family background”… I smiled and explained… I could have told the entire family background of any pretty girl in my class… not a big deal!!

They listened carefully. Third Question came… “Dushyant, what would excite you the most, professionally, when you’ll enter the market?”… Pun came into my mind but this time I remembered where I was… I answered smartly… I know it. The Fourth… “Thank you Dushyant, You may leave; kindly send Surinder inside” … I opened my mouth to answer but nothing came out… It was not a question… My interview was over… I saw my watch… the duration was 2 minutes and 20 seconds… Only !!! I knew I had done well but with respect to the nature of questions that they asked me as compared to what they have asked others… there was nothing that I couldn’t have done well. Tension started to seep in again… I think I am out, but how could I be out? I told everything they asked… My cerebrum, cerebellum and medulla started a group discussion inside my skull on “Will they select Dushyant or not?”…and trust me, this was purely opinion based. Mithun, who was already placed in a reputed firm, was there for support. He told me something that helped the curls of my tension to straighten… not completely though. Just then, the three serious, learned and strategic men came into the waiting hall with a paper in hand… the paper that had our destinies written on it… our dreams… it contained the fruit of our two year long exile that we have subjected ourselves to in Kurukshetra…

They started calling out the names of selected candidates… I crossed my fingers so tightly that they looked like the danger sign… heart pounding… eyes closed… ears alert like sound sensors…

They called out 13 names…

Mine was 8th …!!!

DAASTAAN-E-MBA

Aao Sunau tumhe MBA ki kahani, Teachers jahan karte poori manmaani,
Assignments aur presentations talle dabate humko, Jaise pyaase se koi cheene paani. 

Ek hamare Vinod chacha, Accounts Ka inko sab kuch ata,
DONT TAAK, DONT TAAK karte rehte, Par har bachcha confuse ho jata. 


Business Ethics padhati Meenu Madam, Par English ka pata inhe na eve na adam,
Dhakke se hume concepts pilati, Bachche kuch pooche to gussa ho jati.


Tau ne to har hadh hai todi, Statistics se hai sarhadh jodi,
Class ko samajhte hain jang-e-maidaan, Shayari suna suna lete hamari jaan. 


Sapna madam lagti sabko pyaari, Especially jis din pehene wo sari,
Padhati hain C++ muh zabani, Lekin kaayal karti humko inki awaaz aur jawani.


Business Communication padhati Neenu madam, Students pe comment maarti har dum, Fundey inke hain bilkul clear, Bachcho ki hain ye sabse dear. 


HR hai Walia madam ka department, Selective hai inka har student,
Facial expression inke sab reflect kar jaate, Jinse adhiktar bachche hain ghabraate. 


Marketing se hai har ladke ne sapna joda, Aarti madam ne jisko apne gusse se toda,
Mood swings inke jaise mumbai ki baarish, Par har bachche ki job lagwana hai inki khwahish. 


Bhattu aur Philip ji hain hamare chairpersons, Kaam hai jinka lena saari tension,
Har kisi ko meethi ghutti pilatey, Placements ka poocho to inke tote udd jaate. 

Ye hai NIT KKR mein MBA ki kahani, Jahan teachers karte poori manmaani,
Kuch aur teachers bhi hain yahan, Lekin unki taang aaj nahi kheechi jaani… :)