2 Friends-Part 1

2 Friends
This was one of those crazy days. Days on which you have a sense of déjà vu, a feeling of been here done that. I was sitting on the railway platform covering myself in the shades that allowed the water to seep through their pores and giving me the feel of a drizzle. I grew up on the lanes of Panvel, my father a mill worker in Jyoti Textiles. He was a hard worker, a toiler who sweated till his brows smelt of asphalt.


In the factory there was a union of the workers. He was of course obligated to join it against his own will. He saw the union as a chain on his aspirations. The leader often a bully would dictate terms to the management through his clout amongst the workers and finally strike a deal that would benefit him and let the other workers remain where they were(as workers). It was basically increasing the bourgeois jurisdiction right into the union.


My father thought he was better of negotiating for a higher salary, bonus and incentives on his own. Often he felt the incentives didn’t amount to much for him and rarely reflected his performance on the factory floor. He felt that his hard work was not getting the notice that it needed while he was made to share the weight of his non performing workers. He worked harder put in two shifts and he saw his boss upgrade from a Porsche to a Mercedes. Why didn’t he benefit from his improvement he felt? His union leader quelled his mouth by adding two more terms in his next strike clause. He lost his cool one day and went to his employer. The HR didn’t bother to entertain him and half the people whom he worked for and used to sign his cheque month after month didn’t know who he was. He was as the peon said known by his ID card no. 007. The number I thought reflected on his personality ironically. He went to work the same way every day in the morning at 7 am to the factory. But on this particular day his walk carried an unhurried and an unassured manner. A calm demeanour bore testimony through his face. He would not be a hard worker pushing the envelope from today but a worker who would just go and collect the cheque on the end of every month and do his duty to the bare minimum.


My poor father had to contend with a unionism of another kind which by all means conceivable for the men of this world is relatable-(his home). Working hard when he would come back on the first of every month with his salary my mother would get her nonexistent bill for the household chores(adding 1% each month like a fixed bonus for 10 years), my sister plaguing him with personal care products to make her skin fairer and help her outwit (or should I say outbeautify) her more illustrious friends at school and myself a good for nothing college going confused soul(at that time) who was rejected by the academic establishment that had declared me an outcaste who needed to vent his anger by doing mundane slacking at the neighbourhood coffee house with his pseudo intellectual friends. What would happen with our lives we didn’t know but we were definitely concerned about the attack at the Tiananmen Square.


On my 25th birthday my father told me something that changed my life. It was his retirement day from the mill and his best friends had assembled (the union was conspicuous by its absence since a retired employee was an added diversion to the funds that they should get). They all spoke as if it was a condolence ceremony rather than a retirement one. “My friend” a worker who was 5 junior to my dad said “would not be amongst us from tomorrow”. I wondered what was up with these people. Then my father came on the dais and said “I don’t regret what I did but I could have been better. I worked hard toiled harder and yet saw men who didn’t even know me utilise the fruits of my labour. I sometimes wonder for whom I worked and for whom was I supposed to work. Was it for my boss, for society, for my union, for the company, for my wife’s bangles, for my daughters fashion quotient, for my son’s incompetence or ------ (a pause)? I worked for myself. Yet it took me an entire sentence, hell an entire life to realise that. I don’t have any regrets. Oh shit I do have regret. I wish I became the floor manager for I knew the best of the material and shop floor activities better than my superiors. I wish I was promoted to the post of an officer so that I could supervise the standards that I had set so meticulously in my work. I wish I had become a manager so I could influence every factor that could have added the latest machinery and made the brows of us workers less tiresome. I wish I owned the -------“. He was stopped. Speak no more for even the walls would have ears said a guy who was eavesdropping himself with a humping back. Well my father concluded in a fashion that even Vajpayee would have been proud of. I just have a regret. I didn’t lead my life for myself but for some stupid people. For my success I would credit no one and for my failures I wouldn’t blame anyone. I just have one advice today and that is for my son who is amongst us and for all the sons of my colleagues. “It is not your fault if you are born poor, but it is yours and yours alone if you die so.” Thus he got down from the dais.


Well since I kept invoking the union leader so consistently (without using expletives that I feel obligated to use but wouldn’t) I would throw some light on him too. Well he was a giantly man, fair for a man of his profession, well built by the force of nature and a man with a ruddy countenance. His walrus like moustache easily added a royal flavour to his persona and was the subject of attention at the end of every meal at the workers canteen. He had a son named Ravi. Ravi was a law abiding (laws laid down by his dad of course) son who would follow his father’s instruction just like students in a march past would follow their PT sir’s call. I sometimes wondered if he was a programmed android who was remotely operated by his father. A father who must have been a masquerading scientist leading a parallel life at night. How dumb of me!! A union leader and an innovator in the same breath, well that is quite an oxymoron.


So Ravi was my playmate, my chuddy-buddy. Both of us would go playing on the fields stealing sugarcane (at my native place), we would play cricket (to be precise break windows) and ogle at hot looking women who were beyond both of our control. Ravi was pained (in his own words) by the sufferings of the poor, oppressed and marginalised (why use three words for the same when they all mean the same). He felt that something strong and revolutionary must be done for their ilk. I was the day dreamer. I didn’t bother a damn about what the neighbourhood aunt told my mom across the compound wall. I didn’t care that I was teased in my uptown school to be a labourer’s son and hence, the last among equals. I didn’t care how many times I asked questions in class which were beyond the scope of the subject. I didn’t care how many times I made mistakes in running my daily errands. I didn’t care how many times people rejected my 1 million ideas to go from rags to riches. All I knew was I needed myself alone in this journey because no one else could resurrect me from where I was; certainly not the incompetent and insolent societal establishment and definitely not the government.


I woke up with a start from my sleep. I went to station masters room to know when the next train would come. I was to leave on a flight to New Jersey and I had come to Navi Mumbai to see my sister. Now I needed to meet my friend Ravi enroute to the airport. He had in his own words “booked an appointment” with my call centre accent trained secretary. He somehow felt she was from a whorehouse and he needed to have her at work for a day to relax his mind. I couldn’t help but chuckle.