MY FIRST JOB
As some of my close friends might remember, I had got into ITC Ltd, as an afterthought, after they had originally booted me out and recruited Sachin Dayal and Piyush Sharma from REC, Rourkela, in the Campus Interviews. This had created a buzz in the Mallu Community in Rourkela, particularly among parents of nubile and marriageable girls, and also a mini Tsunami at my home, with particular reference to my mum.
My mum was aghast at the thought of her poor gullible and innocent boy being posted in Calcutta in the midst of predatory Bengali girls. (No offense to anybody, it was my mum's perception)
"Oh my Ayyappa Lord, those Bengali girls are going to consume my son. We may as well forget him. He is gone. Our old age is now condemned. Nobody will be there to look after us."
My mum thus lamented to my papa, and resolutely resolved to ensure that I quit ITC and come back to Rourkela, as an Old Age Retirement Benefit for her and Papa.
Meanwhile, I joined at ITC, and very soon I was having a very regular visitor to my Office. It was a high ranking Govt Officer, who had jumped the starting gun from among the queue of prospective fathers in law for me, and accosted me at my office, while the laggards among the prospective pop in-laws waited for me to come back to Rourkela. Very soon, I was moving around Calcutta, in the elite company of that gentleman, and in his official car. He took me to meet many of his acquaintances in Calcutta, where he sang paeans to my abilities and my grit and my determination and my talent and about me being a self-made-man, from a very poor family, with no tuitions, etc. etc. and blah blah. Soon, I also had a fair inkling about the intentions of the gentleman, which I really did not mind. I was feeling flattered and all puffed up, in my new found highly sought after status.
And in the meanwhile, my mother was having some totally different plans for me. She employed a masterstroke by pretending to become mentally deranged. I was shocked upon seeing her condition during one of my visits to Rourkela, and I resolved to make amends. My juvenile and impressionable heart were deeply pained at her deterioration, and she dutifully promised me that she will become all right once again if I were to come back to Rourkela.
The interview for SAIL was held in Park Hotel, which was just a walk away from my office on Lee Road. I literally walked into the interview of SAIL. If there is anything in this world called a "Walk-In interview", this had to be it. The guys there were flabbergasted when I did not produce any ticket for reimbursement of TA and no hotel bill either. The grand old man in the interview was quite quizzical and incredulous after learning that I had walked over from ITC, TTD Office to the SAIL interview.
He had only one skeptical and very suspicious kind of question for me.
"Are you really going to leave ITC and join SAIL?"
"Yes, I will. If you post me in Rourkela."
I replied with great elan and with great smugness as if I was doing some kind of favor to them by acquiescing to accept their offer.
Very soon both me, as well as my mother had received my appointment letter and my family prepared to welcome me back. (There is a joke among my friends that all companies and firms, entities etc. who are desirous of recruiting me should send two appointment letters, one to me and another one to my mother too, and the letter should be addressed "To Biju and His Mom". They knew who wore the pants in my house!).
Anyway, my father was about to retire at that point in time and my little sister was still in school. And we were also quite poor like shit. This was the other reason that my family wanted me back in Rourkela so that they would not need to rent a place for a considerable period of time and thereby drain the scant resources of my family, in order to educate my sister and marry her off. (We did not own any home in Kerala either)
Meanwhile, at my office, I had a visitor once again. My front office ushered him in. It was the High Ranked Govt Official.
"Son, don't quit ITC. Here you are a man. If you join SAIL, you will be like a fish in an ocean. I know what is SAIL. The working conditions in a Steel Plant are inhuman and insufferable. It is living hell. I have seen many steel plants. You will never be happy working in one. I beseech you. Do not quit ITC."
The old man who could now see his marital dreams for his daughter slowly evaporate into thin air had tears welling in his despondent eyes.
"No Uncle. My mother wants me back in Rourkela. My family needs me there. I am joining SAIL."
"You are going to suffer for this!"
The shocked High Ranked Officer left the place in a huff, and that was the last that I ever saw of him. Needless to say, that was also the end of my mouthwatering opportunity of getting married to his lovely daughter, and needless to say, with some very lucrative add-ons, spinoffs, and some very generous bonuses.
In a way, his words were prophetic indeed, as I realized while laboring on in the thankless, physically excruciating, and mentally disturbing monstrosity called a Steel Plant. For those people who are uninitiated into the world of a Steel Plant, let me tell you that it is an exact replica of Hell or 'Naraka', as described in various Holy Books, like the Vedas, Bible, Koran etc. Raging Fires, Acrid and Suffocating Smoke, Hellish Heat and Obnoxious Fumes all around and through and through, a place where you atone for the sins of your ancestors. I hope you are getting the idea by now.
But my sister did complete her education from my home (company allotted quarter) and got married off too from my house. My father left for his heavenly abode in the year 2000, and he lived a life of dignity until the end. My mother is still there with me, albeit ravaged by age and the debilities that come with it.
Did I commit a mistake, as was adjudged and foretold by the High Ranked Govt Official? Or did I do the right thing? I don't have any answers.
Only the Almighty God alone knows!!!
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