Those days

There was a very popular saying those days going around the clerk community that “a clerk’s life commence with a loan and ends up with another loan”.

Many of us, the Office going lot, usually want days flip through fast. This phenomenon starts normally on the tenth of the month, as the stock will be over by that time. Then on an average he look around for a ‘pick pocket’, i.e another term for borrowing from ‘rich’ colleagues. 10th is no such cut off, as many even start it from day one, for reason that the previous months picks have fully been recovered by the ‘rich’. Those who have other means, or miser to the core, live on resources available or as it comes. But I am talking about the ordinary fellow, who is lost before a type-writer for eight hours, with a break for lunch when the art of prying and bitching takes shape and other news such as power, water and DDA. You know, at times the so called misers are a very respectable community, as these lot provide the pick pocket facility. Though bitching is mainly about these people for they do not spent a pie for socialization, they are the ones in deed when in need. .

I do not know what is happening these days, as I am ‘rich’ now and do not wish the days flip by. Type-writer hardly visible. Nostalgia ! Babus have either vanished or still munching ‘mungphalis’, got pot bellied and polluting and counting days for Gratuity, and left over from PF to be ‘rich’. Things, I am certain, have changed. Youngsters are now well off. Though their spending spectrum has widened, they no more look up for a living bank.

I do miss those days, my friends in need, I remember Shri Chokharam, of DPS, my premier bank who use to freely allow me to pick pocket then K S Varghese, who is now settled in Changanassery. He lost his wife and is settled in his Palatial House, all alone, his children away on job elsewhere. C P Jopseph, was another living bank I loot, I have lost contact, for long. He may have settled in his “Manadan” House in Chalakkudy or his Vikaspuri house. There are many more, but for I do not remember, I can not mention their names.

‘Marayya’ came to Delhi when the Vijayawada stock yard closed. He was a Chowkidar at the Delhi Stock Yard of Tata Steel. I remember Marayya with a folding hand, seeking some help for his son be employed in Tata Steel. Satyanarayana joined the Company, as a Chowkidar at the Okhla Stock Yard. A post, his father, Marayya vacated by retirement. Marayya would have been on cloud nine now, as his son – within a span of 15 years – got promoted as Assistant Manager with Tata Steel. A rare achievement for Son of a Watchman. Marayya left the world, a month or two after his son got absorved in Tata Steel. Tata Steel has got four to five generations working for the Company. The Company in turn, look after their folks well. That is why people from Tata Steel proudly say, ‘ I am from TATA’. Like the Indian Army, Tata men truly belong to the Company. Mind you, it is no Corporate – It is Tata Company, always, any doubt, ask any second or third generation Tata men.