Raj Converts SCMHRD

Iam very Happy today !

One of my best and oldest friend 'Raj' has converted his call from SCMHRD.
I am so happy for him, he has finally made it and is more close to realising
his dreams ! I wish him all the best for his MBA course and future.
With this one more of us has finally left the safe shores into the
uknown waters.... to go where no man has ever gone before.

The Prejudiced Indian

10^th Feb 2006 1 AM Wanowari, Pune.

I booked the regular 10:30 pm shuttle, which I usually book for going back. It was different this time, I was a little tense as I was on-call this week, which meant that I was supposed to handle any production issues which came over the weekend. I had finished with my regular regimen at the company Gym; after Guitar classes and a brief jamming session, I returned to my desk. I had so much baggage to carry; the on-call inventory including a laptop, internet access phone and an on-call cell. Besides this I had my heavily loaded office bag too, which was more so because of the day being a tax filing day. Of course my Jumbo sized Guitar was there too. I decided to keep my carry bag back at office and instead carry just the laptop, accessories and the Guitar back to room.

The shuttle was supposed to leave at 10:30 but then with the usual delays it finally started at around 10:45 or so, I by the way had left my on-call cell in my office bag, upon realizing which I had to make a sprint back to the office and get the cell phone.

The vehicle was quite spacious and became a little crowded after a Guard also squeezed in. As per the company’s security policy a guard would have to travel with every vehicle for the security of the female passengers. The guard as he appeared had such a frail built, I was sure that come a situation and he would not be able to do anything.

Quite surprisingly the office area (read the offices around) was quite crowded. Guys and girls in their early twenties were arriving in shuttles, as perhaps others were leaving for the day. I guess they were the employees at the local BPO (call center operations) company. Even outside the Magarpatta City (our office area) there was a swarm of vehicles, it must be pretty tough driving through the swarm of white colored Tata Indica cars (call center trademark), and I was wondering that how much more time will it takle to cross this Jam. Soon, all my doubts were dishevelled when our driver took charge and swooshed our car through the traffic ahead of all other vehicles. I wondered what kind of lives these drivers must be having, driving around the city at odd hours of the night. Imagine what may happen if the driver gets into a sticky situation like a panga with the local gangs or cops ! or for that matter what may happen if sees a ghost !

We crossed the Magarpatta signal and were now on the Sholapur Highway driving towards Fatima Nagar intersection. The highway was relatively deserted, with most of the roadside shops, and gas stations shut down. We reached the intersection in about 10 minutes and the girl sitting next to me got down at the intersection after doing with the formalities of signing the security register. Now, we were in all 4 guys and 1 girl left in the car, excluding the guard and driver. We took a left turn from Fatima Nagar, and were now headed towards Wanowari; the first stop was Kedari Garden. The driver stopped the car as soon as we reached the Kedari Garden crossing, it seems he was on a call (read he was talking on phone while driving), when suddenly out of the blue a guy walked up to the driver’s window and started abusing him, this literally starting his abuse with expletives like maa bhen.

By the time we realized what was happening, the guy got even more aggressive, the guy it appears was standing at the cross-section where the car had stopped, and our esteemed driver had just missed hitting him, to top it while this guy walked up to the car and abused the driver, the driver quite unperturbed carried on his conversation, as if nothing had happened. Now obviously anyone would get irritated at such a behaviour.

Two guys, whose stop was at Kedari Garden got down and walked away. I also thought of getting down and walking to my home, which was about 50 meters or so away from this stop. But then something came over me and I decided to stay back.

The brawl was now getting hotter, although the driver had apologized to the person but this guys it seems had other plans in his mind. He kept on abusing and threatening the driver .The guy we realized was also drunk, so it was even harder to persuade him.

I asked the security guard and interfere and stop the brawl. That fool instead just went out and stared blankly as a spectator to the brawl.

As the situation got tenser the drunken guy threatened the driver to kill him; I thought “what the heck? Just because the driver behaved a little negligently this guys is acting so thick”, it turned out that the guy was a Cop and probably wanted some form of compensation. Now that is what I call an extreme case of bad luck first "you mess up with cop" and second "he turn out to be drunk”, the poor driver was certainly in deep shit.

This cop then came up to our window and asked if we were IT people? We didn’t reply, he said that he was really sorry for the inconvenience but still he had to teach him a lesson.

This continued for sometime, till I decided to do something. After all how long will we be stuck in this position, I decided that Instead of turning away from the situation like a coward I must face and try to solve it. I opened the side door, stepped down and walked up to the cop. This guy again repeated the same sorry-for the-inconvenience line, and switched back to abusing the driver. While I was in the car I had noticed that the cop was saying in the vernacular (read Marathi language) to the driver that it was the IT guys who had spoiled the peace of the place, and he himself being a Marathi was helping him (read driving us to our homes) and turning against the sons of soil (read almost hitting the local-drunk cop). He was actually venting out his anger, an anger brewing perhaps in the hearts of most of the locals, who felt it was unfair for outsiders to come and work in their state.

Well what to say? Its perfect human nature to feel so.
On the global level, the Americans are feeling the same threat from the Indians and the Chinese, the hatred which I experienced was perhaps a local manifestation of the same
human gut.

I tried my best assuaging the cop, even taking his side to blame the driver and requested to spare him this time, but all this was to no avail, the cop became even more agitated, he started physically abusing him, he slapped the driver, pulled at his hair and clothes.

I now realized that the situation was totally out of hands, also this was not my area (read I had influence with the authorities) wherein I could have tried the option of overpowering the drunk cop and deal with the repercussions later.

I asked the guard to call up his supervisor, and asked the female co-passenger to allow me to drop her at her home. I were more or less certain that this brawl was not going to settle soon, so I also took out my stuff from the car. Soon the guard returned with the cell phone number of the Operations Head, we called him up on his on-call cell and told him about the scenario, he first confirmed if all the employees were safe and then assured that he would take some action. Meanwhile the cop also agreed to let off the driver although he was till abusing him. I was still not convinced about the cop letting him go, so I walked a little ahead and then stayed there at that spot. I saw the cop again peeping into the driver’s window and talking; I remained there for another 5 minutes or so, and felt relieved when I saw the lights of vehicle light up.

The car started and soon caught up with me. The driver stopped the car besides me and thanked. He requested that I should not complain to higher authorities. I told him that he
should be careful in future, and assuaged that I had spoken to the Operations head about the incident and apprised him that It was not entirely his fault andhow he was being victimised.
I gave some advice to the security guard too, and asked him to talk to his supervisor and work out plans to handle similar situations in future.

Later as I was walking towards my flat, I felt a fear, the fear of this human gut; the anti-outsiders feeling amongst the locals, I had never felt like this before. I was in Maharashtra for now over 3 years and never ever while I was in Mumbai had I felt so. I was exposed to these kinds of sentiments only in newspapers, e.g. The columns describing the attack of shivsainiks on the local railway recruitment board office to threaten them to not hire Outside(read North Indians, in particular UP and Bihar) candidates.

This was differrent I was now experiencing these things first hand, this incident and the accident I had yesterday has triggered a series of thoughts in me. I had been perhaps sleeping till now. Maybe now I am waking up, to see the real world as it is and not as I thought it was.