Day One

All of a sudden my phone started ringing with the all too familiar music of mortal kombat. Gosh! It’s already 7:15 in the morning. Yup, that’s when my day starts. Starting the day by hearing a mortal kombat music is not very exciting, but it’s the only tone that is loud (annoying) enough to wake me up.

Getting up early in the morning was never in my agenda. I could stay up to 2 or 3 in the morning, but getting up early was way too much... But not any more...
Irrespective of when I go to sleep, Mumbai wakes me up at 7:15. Mumbai’s beloved trains are my worst enemies with their screeching and honking noise, when I am asleep.

Because I stay very close to the station, it is a fact that trains are my natural alarm. And I find it quite interesting that the trains here are never ever late (not even by a minute). Everyday at 7:05 in the morning one special train brings me back to the reality from wherever I was, be it in old Trafford playing alongside Ronaldo, or in the deep woods in Burma where I went for cobra hunting(dreams are real crazy stuff). It is as if this particular train was designed with the sole purpose of waking me up in morning.

So at 7:05 the screeching noise wakes me up. But being the lazy man that I am, I decide to take a 10 minute 'rest' before I begin my daily activities, which of course is a very short list. But for the mortal kombat tone from my beloved N70, this 'Rest' may extend up to 10 AM as on Saturdays.

Ohh I forgot, my time is up. I must iron the shirt today. The company bus comes at 8:05.
And the bus stop is a 10 minutes walk. So much to do, and so little time!
First things first... Brushing was never an important act in my list. No wonder I have some big caves in my mouth. Root canal treatment done on one side (the cavity was never filled) and the filling has come off from the other side. Chewing for me has become an extremely skillful art which requires years of practice. The special way I take food into my mouth and then chew it carefully so as to avoid the cavities on either side took almost 6 years to master.

My room mate is still asleep. He is 6 years senior to me, but rarely shows his seniority. It has been very kind of him to accommodate me into his peaceful world. He was living alone in a 1 BHK in a rather silent colony. He rarely thinks beyond work. He has been in Mumbai since 2001. His world is not the same after I entered the scène. The quiet, calm room where the deafening silence was occasionally interrupted by screeching noise of a train was transformed to a real bachelor’s room with my arrival. With bottles of Pepsi, coke and aquafina scattered on the floor, biscuit wrappers, potato chips, and CDs all over the place, it looks exactly like a dirty bachelor’s room. And with my PS2 and the small 15” TV, the mess is complete. When the games are in full swing, the otherwise annoying honking noises from the trains passing by are just not loud enough to be heard. They seem to be too small in front of the heavy music from the games. Much like a Dinesh karthik in front of a Matthew Hayden!

Now I have to wake up my room mate. From my past experiences in my hostel life, I have learnt the valuable lesson – it is always better not to wake up someone directly. I use the mobile phone as my tool. I keep giving him missed calls till he gets up! Simple as that. Now that he is awake, I have a much needed company in my never ending race against time. In less than 20 minutes we both are done with our ironing, dressing up , bath etc... And the only time we get to see each other in between is when we sit down to put on our shoes. We remind each other of the important things to take with us – IDs, keys, cell phone, and blackberry. And off we run to the nearest auto stand. I have to mention that climbing down the four floors is not as difficult as climbing them up in the evening!

And every day we make it to the bus stop just in time. Battling our way through the dust covered streets, enjoying the early morning sights of the busy metro called Mumbai. There is nothing unusual about city except that all the men and women wearing masks or covering their face with a scarf, towel or whatever they have. It’s the dust; people cover their entire head when they venture outside. They remind me of dacoits in old Hindi films with their heads covered. The streets of Mumbai are a rare sight in themselves. The small kids riding their bicycles like zipping through the human traffic on the footpaths, buses and trucks zooming through the heavy traffic, as if they are no bigger than a small car, and people walking at great speeds, occasionally bumping into each other, and never bothering to say sorry. The pani-puriwala carrying his stuff on his old bicycle will ride right through the middle of the road already jam packed with vehicles of all sizes. The two lane roads will usually have 4 ‘lines’ of vehicles with some small two and 3 wheelers slowly moving in between them. The sight at a junction is even more chaotic-
Buses blocking lane, rickshaw drivers ignoring the curses hurled at them, bikers zipping through almost scratching your car, people honking continuously in fear of missing another signal; its quiet frustrating if you are not used to this kind of driving.

And finally we reach our bus stop well in time. The bus has not arrived – must have been caught up in traffic. And so we wait at the bus stop talking to some of our colleagues, and watching the man cleaning the road with the big broomstick provided by the municipal corporation. With each stroke, he cleans the sides of the roads only for a passer by to make it dirty in a matter of seconds. No wonder he is frustrated and angry. And as we wait our bus comes – like an elephant in a temple during festival season in Kerala. Surrounded by numerous small vehicles the bus slowly approaches the bus stop and then very slowly comes to a halt. Ignoring the curses and looks from the drivers of the small vehicles we board the bus and begin our journey – which is short in distance and long in duration.

Thanks to the Mumbai traffic, today the bus is 10 minutes late. It doesn’t matter, because the company has flexi timing. The half-asleep employees of the MNC slowly start to pour out of the 10 or so buses parked by the side of the huge office. Some move slowly, still drowsy and others run like hell not wanting to be late for meetings, status calls etc... my friend and I and quietly get on to a lift and somehow mange to pull ourselves out of the over crowded lift at the 11th floor. Swiping our cards we open the door and begin to “WORK”. I open my outlook only to see my inbox being bombarded with mails – a huge number of them. 2384 unread mails to be precise! Most of them are system generated emails, when a job fails or completes normally.

My TL will be here any moment, and I do not want to risk being caught “blogging” especially when the mid year appraisals are close. Oops! There comes my TL. Hope the ALT+TAB works!