Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Long Live Strike

It’s already late at night. Just had my dinner and was hanging out with friends for a cool night’s chat before finally retiring to bed and call it the day. However late it might be tonight, wouldn’t make much of a difference since the next day is declared strike so no work.

Friends and I chatted inside a lawn just in front of our hostel. The slightly clouded sky and the soft feathery breeze blowing around made the night feel splendid. Just the kind of environment you want, to have a nice time with friends on the eve of a declared off day. Didn’t know when time flew by and I saw the watch, it was half passed midnight.  We decided to call it the day and go retire in our rooms. But still, in spite of locking myself inside my room, it was not before 2:00am that I could actually go to sleep. Didn’t have any desire whatsoever of rising early next morning.

However, the desire didn’t prove very fulfilling. I was sitting in a fine restaurant with mild lit atmosphere around. There, in front of me, in another table sat the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my life. She was like carved out of alabaster, the perfect sculpture by the artist almighty. With lots of effort I managed to walk towards her only to ask, “Can I join you for dinner”?  Never thought those 6 words would be so difficult to come out of my mouth, but eventually they did and I was there, right in front of her waiting for her reply like an innocent child waits for her mother’s reply after asking for an extra chocolate ice cream scoop. She smiled back. It was like the most amazing smile ever. She said, “sure”. I closed my eyelids to thank god silently but then and there I heard those monotonous local patriotic songs of some political party playing too loud to let me keep my eyes closed. I opened it to look around, and there I was lying right on my bed on the early morning of the strike day and those local party people were playing their songs in full volume. The whole thing was a goddamn dream, Jesus! I mean just look at it this way. The strike is causing so much financial loss to all companies and business owners of the state, and these people won’t even let them have a well earned break by staying on their beds till late. I mean come on there’s got to be a limit of torture. It’s become like the art of wronging rightly and rightfully.

I, most reluctantly left my bed at 8:00 am and went to our mess for breakfast. It was well made today considering most customers will be eating their breakfast in the mess since there’s no office. Otherwise normally, eating breakfast here is like atoning for some past committed sin seeking forgiveness desperately.

The breakfast helped indeed improve my pissed off mood. A full stomach, as said, is the shortest path to God. With this I went back to my room to watch some television when my friend called. He invited me to his house along with 4 other friends for lunch which we’ll prepare ourselves. That was a tempting offer, since some group work on holidays is often most refreshing. I agreed to join and set off immediately.

On reaching his place I found that indeed they’ve made a wonderful arrangement so far. All grocery, spices, vegetables and fish pieces had been purchased the preceding night itself. The heaters, cookers and utensils and stuffs were ready to be used. I was excited and asked how I could help.

Now here’s a catch. I am one of those self declared kings who hate to work and above all cook. You ask me to bring you the most expensive dish from a restaurant out of my own expenditure and you’ll have it before you finish counting 100, but cooking? Not my cup of tea. But it’s indeed so damn embarrassing to sit idly and eat something cooked by friends. So I offered to help with the pealing of vegetables and other miscellaneous jobs. They agreed to this considering it the best they can get out of me. So we started off.

It took around 2 ½ hours to finish with the work. It was a superb experience overall. Working with music playing in the PC and TV on in another room is indeed fun. We finished with the cooking and everything at around 2:45 pm. It was now lunch time. Considering it was already more than 5 hours passed since I had breakfast, I was hungry too. We had prepared fine rice, lentils with tomato, fried potato fingers, fried fish and fish with mustard gravy. It was looking great and must taste good as well. With no further delay we started with the meal. It took less than 15 minutes to finish off the meal. What superb lunch! Hats off to those who cooked. It was their first time with fish and they did a fantastic job. We were all full.

For the next hour we relaxed, watched some TV and then decided to come back to our respective places. It was overall a wonderful experience. On my way back I saw my boss walking on the road. He must hate this one lost day of screwing me. I came back to my room; saw a movie on my lap top while relaxing on my bed.

It was evening when I realized I had drooled into a well deserved nap. I got up and went out once again. Few friends had assembled in front of our hostel. We chatted for a few hours. It was after sometime that we realized it was already time for dinner. Having had a heavy lunch, I chose to keep the dinner as light as possible. I had just two breads and went off to my room where I started to write this rubbish you are reading right now before finally going to sleep preparing for the next day of usual work.

Now, to all those of you who had so much free time to have gone through this and so much patience to have reached this point while reading without closing away the window out of shear boredom, I have one question. Did anyone feel anything different in the day described above, or anything so unusual that it cannot happen ever on a normal Sunday? I mean come on, this was no holiday. It was a strike meant to revolt against a particular issue. Then how come the events of this day are exactly like a casual Sunday with friends? Is it because strikes have become too common and regular in this place or is it because strikes have lost their true implications?

The answer lies in the minds of every citizen of this place. They know that strikes have now become a mass tool of humor and fun, and a mere method of making one’s presence felt. It’s the art of banging quietly and silencing loudly. It’s no longer a wakeup call for the awaken dreamers. It has now become a tool for disturbing the steady, disbalancing the balanced, calming the angry and irritating the calms. It’s sometimes even declared to ensure unavailability of witnesses at the scene of a sin, to make the dynamics static. We, the people are now so used to it that the whole damn thing makes no goddamn difference. This good turned evil of the society has now become so common that instead of debates and discussions, we rejoice on such strikes. With our inertia and casual attitude, the strikes keep striking back again and again without us even realizing the main purpose of that strike or without solving any problems as such, nevertheless creating new ones.

Without penning any further pain, I’d like to conclude with one plus point. Whether good or evil, few such strikes are most welcome. No matter how big a person talks, there isn’t anybody who dislikes getting a day off work. Strike sure ensured that for me and my friends. Hail strikes.

1 comment:

  1. day long description with subtle realisation of our moral decadence - wonderfully penned!

    ReplyDelete