Bench Account

I used to be back bencher in my whole school life. I and my fellow class mates, who are stamped as poor performer and nuisance for class and teacher, prefer to sit behind. It helped us to avoid the glance of teacher. The same thing was followed in other sections too; kind of norm you may say. However in my college days, I moved away from this norm. There was no bench. Everybody had their individual chair and desk. And to create miscreant we don’t have to sit on the back. Rather we could move out from the class and could enjoy our life under the sky as long as required attendance was maintained. But as I have entered my professional life, once again I have to sit on Bench.

Seven years back, at midnight I was called for the interview for a MNC company that came to our college for hiring the college graduates. I was at ninety one in the queue. Tired and hungry, but still with a smile I entered the interview room. “Hello Sir” I said, not sure how to greet them at mid of night. Bit confused whether it will be right to say good evening or good morning as it was already 12. Any way I restrained.  The members of the panel were looking tired too. Two of them yawned.  “What is your name?”  I answered them. Another asked me, “What is your hobby?” “Singing, Sir”. “Ok, sing a song for us”. I was bewildered, but with a faint hope I started singing a Bengali Rock song. “Fine, you may leave now, send the next one”. They haven’t asked a single technical question; not sure whether they have liked my song or not. Next day the interview result was out and our TPO pasted it on the notice board. And to my utter surprise I found my name in the list. In final year, I left studying; what was the use of study since it was all because of job which was already in my hand.

Now I feel what really worked for us. It was 2007, when the IT companies were blooming as huge amount of works were outsourced from the foreign countries especially America. Hence it was not us who require a job, but the companies who need huge number of human resource to cater their requirement. The companies have hired irrespective of the stream of the engineer, just to meet their end. Hence, during the final year of the college, three hundred students of our college have job in their hand. Some have even two to three in their hand.

But the things have changed now. The wind is now blowing against the IT industry and students are losing interest in this field of engineering. A good number of seats in the colleges are lying vacant. The college authorities are desperate to get students and are even ready to absorb students who performed poorly in the entrance exam. I feel pity for these students. They have least idea what is waiting for them; like me they will be sitting on bench with a formidable thought about their future. The whole system will crush them and they will be lampooned before their friends and relatives.

I hope reader can now understand my pain and anxiety for being allotted to bench. If you are still unaware then let me tell you that Bench is a status given to an employee who is not utilized but considered as a part of the resource pool and can be used whenever there is any requirement. In the past five years, a large number private engineering college mushroomed all over India. Every year thousands of B.tech engineers are produced and irrespective of their streams; and this whole flood of human resource give their way to IT industries. Today every house in a city has an engineer and if he is a software engineer, just ask him, “Bro, do you sit on bench”? And if it is yes, his faded face will affirm that.

We now have a new concept known as pool. The pool doesn’t indicate water body but it’s the human resource pool. The business of software industry is dependent on this pool. The more deep the pool is, more is the scope of getting the business from the clients! The clients consider that company having more number of employees has better capability to handle a project compared to other having less number of employees. So there is always a redundant amount of human resource maintained by the software industry in order to win new business.

My office is a six storey building and I work on its fourth floor. Sorry for the mistake. Actually now a days I don’t work rather I punch my card before the gate of fourth floor. It is an inexplicable mental torture I have to incur the whole day. I have everything; modern cubicle, personal phone, laptop but my days are passed without actually using them. But things were not so when I joined. We had six month extensive training before we started working on the projects. Once a project was completed, the next was there and this way three years passed. I was on cloud number nine. I dream of going to onsite for much bigger exposure. But nothing has happened. Things get changed very fast in this IT world. And this time it was for me. The technology on which I work is considered to be primitive now and expensive to maintain. Most of the clients are moving out of this technology to something new and less expensive to maintain. Hence I keep on waiting for new project sitting on bench. I hope God will save me before my employer will thank me for my contribution for the growth of the company and will give me pink slip with three month advance salary. The animated Welcome screen of Windows mock at me and reminds me that if it goes on like this I will be unwelcomed soon. The cafeteria, the smoking zone, the breakaway area, the library everything here proclaim that this fella has nothing on his pan to cook. Now a day if some acquaintance asks me how the work pressure is, I just give an empty look. It is hard to make them understand that I’m once again sitting on Bench.

In spite of all this I still have hope that I will be required.  I hope client will understand the criticality of migration and will remain on existing technology; at least as long I will be in the industry! I hope rupee will lose its value against dollar! We will be the cheapest and intellectual labor and the whole world will be lured to use us! During campus interview I prayed to Goddess Kali to get me the job; now I pray to God Obama to save my job!

অপেক্ষায়ে থেকো

অপেক্ষায় থেকো, আমি ফিরব
শুধু কঠিন এক অপেক্ষা।
অপেক্ষায়ে থেকো, যখন দুঃখ হৃদয় কে দীর্ণ করবে
হলুদ বৃষ্টির পানে চেয়ে।
অপেক্ষায়ে থেকো বাতাস বয়ে যাবে ধূসর বরফের উপর।
অপেক্ষায়ে থেকো, অতি দীর্ঘ দগ্ধ ক্লান্ত দিনে।
অপেক্ষায়ে থেক্‌ যখন সকলে ধৈর্য হারাবে
অতীতকে বিস্মৃত হয়ে।
অপেক্ষায়ে থেকো, যখন কোন চিঠি আসবে না তোমার কাছে।
অপেক্ষায়ে থেকো, যখন সবাই অপেক্ষায়ে ক্লান্ত হয়ে যাবে।
প্রিয়জন ধরে নেবে আমি আর ফিরব না,
যখন বন্ধুরা আমার উদ্দেশে স্মরণ সভা আয়োজন করবে,
শুধু তুমি অপেক্ষা করবে সব আয়জনের মাঝে,
শুধু তুমি বিশ্বাস করবে আমি ফিরব,
আকাশ বাতাশ আলোড়িত করে আমি ফিরব,
মৃত্যুর বীভৎসতাকে ম্লান করে আমি ফিরব।
হয়ে তো অনেকে বলবে আমি ভাগ্যবান,
কিন্তু তারা জানবে না, মৃত্যুর কালো অন্ধকারের মাঝে
তুমি, তোমার অপেক্ষা আমাকে বাঁচিয়েছে।
শুধু তুমি আর আমি জানব,
কীভাবে পাশ কাটিয়ে আমি বেঁচেছি।
কারণ তুমি অপেক্ষা করেছিলি, যা কেউ করে নি।

সিগনালে

তেমাথার লাল সিগনালে হঠাৎই সুনীলের সাথে দেখা-

আরে সুনীল, কতদিন বাদে।

অবনী! কি ভায়া কেমন আছিস?

চলেই যেতাম, শুধু শেষ যাত্রা হল না।

কেন, কি হয়েছিল?

বাড়িতে স্ট্রোক, তারপর ছয় মাস বিছানাতে

মৃত্যুর সাথে লড়াই, ডাক্তারের ভুল ট্রিটমেন্ট

তবু কি ভাবে যেন বেঁচে গেলাম।

কিন্তু এই শরীরে চাকরীটা আর হল না -

অগত্যা পৈতৃক জমিটা দিতে হল প্রমটারের হাতে।

ছাড় আমার কথা। তোর খবর বল। তোর মেয়ের বিয়ে হয়েছে?

আর ছেলে? তার খবর কি? কি করছে এখন?

ছেলে এখন বিদেশে। বিয়ে করে সংসার পেতেছে।

তবে দেশে কবে ফিরবে জানিনা। ফোনে কথা হয়।

চিন্তা মেয়েটাকে নিয়ে। বিয়েত দিলাম টিকলো কই।

এখন থাকে আমার কাছে, একটা প্রাইমারী স্কুলে পড়ায়।

ভয় হয় আমরা চলে গেলে ওর কি হবে। কে দেখবে।

আবার বিয়ের কথা বলতে সাহস পাই না।

মেয়ে বলে দাদাতো আর ফিরবে না, তোমাদের কে দেখবে?

বলি ঈশ্বরতো আছেন, তিনিই দেখবেন।

কিন্তু তোর জীবনটা যে গোছানো হল না।

লাল বাতি সবুজ হয়, তাই কথা আর এগোয়ে না।

জীবন তার চেনা গতি নেয়।

শহরে তখন টিপটিপ করে বৃষ্টি পড়ছে

আর নাগরিক জীবনের রঙ লাগে শহরের রাজপথে।

The City Poem

Let me give you this sultry summer noon
This shining mirage on asphalt road,
This sudden spell of yellow rain
Its all I have for you to give.

High-rise pointing the grey sky
Hoardings showing the promises of new life,
Tram lines crossing the busy streets
These are what my city have.

I cannot give you the lush green grass
The smell of dew on golden paddy,
The long shrieking of a black kite
Breaking the silence of a lazy afternoon.

The city poem is shunned from these
The air here is engulfed by smoked diesel;
The colorful neons are orchids here
Life here is a morbid dream!

From the valley of the Gods

“In beauty we are united, through beauty we pray, with beauty we conquer” - Nicholas Roerich.
 

It is this beauty of nature that make me out from my nest and instigate me to explore the eternal beauty of Manali aka "the valley of the Gods". Though the physical relief, the community and culture of Manali is quite similar to rest of the hill station of India; still it is different in its own way. In the past I have visited Darjeeling, a hill station in the eastern part of India. And I thought it would be a similar kind of experience. But thankfully I was wrong in my notion.

 

There was something unique about Manali that made her so special. Well it is hard to say. While moving from one part of Manali to another, I have mingled with the local people; I have tasted the local food. I came through the customs, the culture, the religious belief of the people and the way they lead their livelihood. And my experience gathered in course of this close association enchanted me. It is not only the nature that makes Manali so beautiful but also the culture, customs and overall the common people. Just like a child looks beautiful in the lap of her mother, these people looks beautiful in the lap of this wild, rustic and mysterious Nature. This Nature enclosed within her the beauty which is thousands of years old and it only gets unfolded for those who truly deserve to witness that. 

 

 

Being a city dweller, it was quite hard to sustain life amidst all the hardship necessary for leading a life in this land. We are accustomed with a life of luxury; life that requires all the elements to make us comfortable in every way. We consider our self to be the sole proprietor of the resources of this Earth and cannot think a life without this. So when we visit a place like Manali, we try to find the same kind of comfort that we get in a city life. And that is where we make the mistake. The more we seek the conditioned life of a city, more we get far from the Nature. Just like any other hill station, Manali too have the infrastructure enough for providing our lazy body and mind the required comfort. But through this we cannot experience the true beauty and eternal spirit of this region of Himilayas. We need to sacrifice and uphold our mind to seek the true essence of beauty. We need to educate ourselves to appreciate the mystic nature of Mother Nature.

Just like we educate ourselves for adapting various institutions of society, same stands for understanding the Nature; her eternal essence. Well Manali gave me that opportunity to realize this truth. It makes me feel that to understand Nature, we need to dedicate ourselves and sacrifice our needs just the same way to do it for sake of religion.
But what astonishes me is that it is quite easy to renounce for the sake of religion than for the sake of the Nature. Even amidst the Nature, people gather in numbers in the temple courtyards to find intangible solace. And the religious institution for sake of self preservation, are desperate to tie people with age old beliefs and customs.


We fail to understand that the path of salvation lies in understanding the Nature. Understanding and comprehending the natural laws can only lead us to the path of higher truth. And my pursuit for understanding this very truth has been accomplished in Manali.