Travelling through different worlds!

It was somewhere in mid-2012. I was told by my office to go to Delhi from Kolkata. And from there I was supposed to go to Haryana and Punjab with my seniors on a marketing trip to sell pig iron. As I was rummaging through websites to book the train tickets for my journey, I was told that I would go to Delhi by plane along with my two seniors and the company would arrange it. 

One of my seniors said that air journey was kind of reward for me for my good work done (good selling of pig iron). I didn’t believe it at first (as decisions can be changed in seconds in private companies) that the company was so kind to sponsor my air trip, because some fortnight ago there were talks of me being thrown out of the company due to non-performance (the yardsticks of non-performance are drawn out by the employer in such a way that even if you work tooth and nail and achieve targets reasonably, there are heavy chances of you embracing the tag of a non-performer). Though I had sold some good chunk of pig iron but the threat of losing the job loomed large over me.

Anyways, ecstatic to go by plane for the first time in life, I reached the airport next day. After some initial formalities, I boarded the plane. First time in life, I had boarded a plane. My heart was racing; I wanted to cry in exhilaration. But I controlled myself. Maintaining a somber look, I sat on the window seat allotted to me, my seniors sat beside me. 

I put on the belt and when the plane started to soar, I felt as if something was dragging me up in the sky with utmost force putting behind my waist. It was something that I was feeling very first time in life. As the plane reached a certain altitude, it started travelling at a horizontal level. My adrenaline rush subsided a bit but the exploration of the new world was on. And as I watched the scenes outside the window of the plane, I was amazed. I was seeing clouds swimming just beside me. It was all -together a new world for me and I was loving the world outside the window to a tee. Had there not been the glass on the window, I would have stuck my hand out, and squeezed the clouds to drench my hands. 

After an hour or so the plane landed in Delhi. An SUV was waiting for us. We went to the head office in Delhi.  My seniors went to the meeting with top management of the company. I was stopped from going to the meeting and told to wait outside saying that the top management was not happy with me so it was better for me to stay out of the meeting.

After an hour or so, my seniors came out… I had a feeling that something was cooking. Anyways, acting as if I was a total birdbrain who can’t surmise the undercurrent…I continued the journey with my seniors (as if there was any other way out).  We moved towards Haryana in the SUV.

We went to several Pig Iron dealers and businessmen in Haryana and Punjab. Starting from Samhalkha to Ludhiana and Jalandhar. I was seeing the new places and meeting new people. I was kind of enjoying it. The farm houses and the foods were really exhilarating.

I was meeting such rich people for the first time in my life.

We went to one businessman who introduced his son to us. His son had done MBA. And the father proudly announced that he would open one furnace factory(where the pig iron is melted to mold new products) for him.

And I was thinking that how lucky his son was as after doing an MBA he was to become owner of a company and after doing an MBA, here I was running from pillar  to the post, from one businessman to the other to secure just a salary at the end of the month and that too was in danger. What a dichotomy!  

When we were at a different businessman’s place, the conversation on real estate started after we have had our talks for pig iron. Here the businessman, comparing between the situations of real estate in India and Britain, said “Nowadays, it is more beneficial to book a bungalow in London.” And I was like, we, middle class, slog off whole life and still end up retiring in a rented accommodation, owing to exorbitant prices of homes in India, and here he was buying homes in the U.K. But then such is India for us: a coherent scene knitted with incoherent threads.

Anyways, the whole tour ended on a fruitful note, we gathered some orders. I was hoping that this would help my stint in the company.

As we were returning back from Haryana to Delhi, one of my  seniors started getting philosophical sitting on the back seat of the SUV, I was on the front seat beside the driver. He told “Life is full of opportunities Neeraj, be positive in life… ups and downs come in life…”

I was feeling sleepy due to tiredness of the journey of the whole day and it was around midnight also. But his words made me alert, I knew what he meant. I knew my time was up in the company.

Anyways, controlling my emotions I replied, “I agree sir.”

Our SUV was racing at optimum speed. At one place my senior advised the driver to stop. We all got down and went to a place called Sukhdev Dhaba. And I was amazed to see a throng of people binging on pure north Indian delicacies even after mid- night. It seemed like a gala night. People had come there with families also. To think to go out in a mid-night for a dinner with family in a small city like mine might sound bizarre, where most eateries close down as the clock strikes 9 p.m. But things were very normal at the dhaba.  In the dhaba, the night was not sleeping. It was chirping with the chomping of mouth.

After a week from the return of the marketing tour, I was officially told to furnish my resignation. But the tour gave me open- mindedness and opportunities to traverse between different worlds that I would not have got otherwise. 

First opportunity was to be among the world of clouds (which I had only seen from far away earth until then), second was about an enlightenment that even if there are homeless Britons, yet the homes are always available for rich Indians in the U.K, and the third was about the revelation that mid-night is just as perfect as an afternoon for a binge.

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