Asked to Leave

  “I have submitted the resignation, I don’t have time to serve the notice period, please help me out with exit formalities.” I requested the Full & Final department at Infinity Towers, bending down at the counter window.

  “You have to pay for basic salary of 20 days.” She calculated and let me know the amount. See; leaving was also not a piece of cake, people struggle to get a job in organisation, I was paying for leaving the job.

  Anyhow, I had a choice to choose my priority of life, which was my lovely spouse’s life and I decided to say Goodbye and worked for another 7 days, paid them the basic salary and quit.

  While climbing down the stairs, I was feeling ease and freedom. I was hoping Devika to be alright soon, so that both of us could do something better and give ourselves financial freedom and contribute our sweat towards the social-work.

  ***

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Last Slavery Of Life

  1st February, 2016, IndiaHousing.com

  “What kind of emails you write?” One of his well-wishers told me early in the morning in the office as soon as he logged into his computer.

  “I have a liberty to write; but, what happened sir? Anything unacceptable?” I asked him as I had anticipated the consequences of that email regarding the leave application.

  “You have the liberty to write, but you should respect him, senior managers.” He said.

  “What happened sir?” One of my friends asked him.

  “Nothing. He must have understood what I said and why I said.” The well-wisher replied and showed the so-called professionalism to his subordinate by not revealing the fact which was no more a secret.

  “I am sorry sir, but I didn’t understand what you are talking about.” I said.

  “Ram is rude and unprofessional sir. Have you read the email which he had sent to you for leave application?” The well-wisher went out of the floor, and called Ravan.

  “No, I didn’t read it. What was written?” Ravan asked.

  “He had mentioned your first name and started conversation. When I saw it and asked him about it, he said he had not done anything wrong.”

  “Don’t worry. I will screw his happiness. I am very good at it. You don’t tell him anything much about it.” Ravan disconnected the call as he was at home.

  I had thought that the conversation was over, with his intervention on that. It was not my fault if the well-wisher, holding the junior managerial position didn’t know the use of first name in English. It was not making any sense to me as he asked me to respect people by saying sir or madam, instead of taking first name while writing an official letter to the reporting manager; ‘does it mean I am disrespecting someone if I take his first name while writing a letter?’ The question was yet to be answered.

  03rd February, 2016, the first half in the office

  I had already started counting my days down there. But it was one of the worse days of my entire career. Surprisingly, it had popped up in my mind in the morning and the same had happened by the end of evening. Let me tell you how it had happened.

  We had been assigned to make calls; and keep on making calls for at least 8 hours in a day. It was the nature of job which I had to accept 14 months before when I had signed the letter of agreement for this slavery. But, the way they will treat us was never mentioned on that letter. And I had been doing it for 14 months and I was fed up with the manager(s), their attitude and behaviour.

  “Do you know what is the definition of an under construction property?” I was astounded when Ravan Singh asked me this question. Not only because I had assumed that there might have been an error which they must have figured out; also he didn’t see his clock which was tied in his arms which he used to do every time I go out for break.

  “It’s something which is getting constructed.” I took some time thinking how to respond and said as I had to answer him.

  “And what is pre-launched?” He asked me questions to make me realise the ‘mistake’ which was there in the system. But, whatever was said and the way it was said was unacceptable, however expected from the mouth of a person like him. For 10 months and a half; I had been respecting him for being my manager, and I used to work as his teammates; in spite of the fact that he had sent the request for my salary deduction as punishment of not reaching in time to the office due to unavoidable and genuine reasons like traffic and rainy weather conditions.

  Every day, I experience him entering into the office floor; shaking hands with his favourite ones; greeting them all and not even looking at me; tried to gain some of his trust, by talking to him with humble gesture and respect. I didn’t do the mistake of sycophancy; neither will I do in future with anyone. Forget about humans, even if the supernatural power comes and asks for sycophancy; I would say ‘sorry’ to the God; would be ready to pay the price for that. But today, I had to chose either my principles, or take the risk of being unemployed and letting my daughters and Devika’s life pushed towards the darkness.

  “It’s something which has master plan ready, however the construction not started.” I replied to his question, seeing his toxic and dreadful look.

  “Why did you say the project will be completed by 6 months; however yet not started?” He questioned; knowing that I had referred the micro site which we were supposed to.

  “Sir, I was told to read from the micro site; hence I told the customer that information; and customer is also good with the possession time.” I said.

  “At least you learn to accept mistakes. Do one thing; you go out and don’t come to the office from tomorrow and I will start taking calls.” He was most furious I had ever seen saying that; with raised voice, which was witnessed by the entire floor.

  I had to either feel sorry in front of my spirit for sacrificing with ethics and principles; or feel sorry for sacrifices of my family; during last year, I had got my complete and correct salary for 7 months only; as he had sent the report to payroll team responsible for salary credit in employees’ accounts. Every time I had gone to the payroll team to know the reason for deduction was that I was late for 6 minutes and lost the salary for half day. He had been challenging maths for last several months by cutting the wages for 4 hours and 30 minutes (270 minutes); also if someone had to go home early, his personal rule was to send them after working for 6 hours out of 8 hours of total staffing hours. He challenged maths; that day I didn’t even realise that I was going to challenge the history; the history of failed people, and decided to quit doing slavery.

  I was confused what to do; I had to decide from tomorrow, so collected the confidence of bothering 4 more people and started calling. I was disappointed with myself more than him. Had I stepped out letting laziness behind, I would have done better than that ‘barking’ and ‘sounding as parrots.’

  It was better for me to work as housekeeping boy than a part of his teammates. I knew that it’s over to be at the same place for Ram and Ravan, it was nature’s will that Ram and Ravan were a part of a team; I had a scary image of the management because of one bad apple.

  After a few hours; the meeting of thoughts at Cafeteria

  “May I have a bowl and a plate please?” I overheard the General Manager of Human resources asking for a bowl and plate when I was talking to Devika about the day so far. I had told everything to her last night as she was the one whom I could trust and share everything.

  “There is a Dove stuck near the service lift…. wretch…… had been stuck for 3 days, hadn’t eaten anything……. must be dying.” She kept on saying it to those heartless fellows present at cafeteria; pouring water into the plastic bowl and putting rice into the plate to serve her beloved bird.

  “Good afternoon Ma’am” I greeted her; putting Devika’s call on hold.

  “Good morning, how are you?” she asked and kept on going.

  I tried to follow her, she was fast enough to get disappeared and unfortunatel
y I could not know where exactly she was going.

  “Its silly job…… its show off….. they are mad…… educated people…..why would they have non-vegetarian meal then….. dogs were there .….. he was feeding…. in the street…… near my home…..” Canteen guys stopped murmuring as soon as they saw me there, and stopped speaking those words; it was sure that they must be talking about the lady with kind-hearted soul.

  I recalled a story which I had read on NBT.in; about a kind-hearted man, who entered into the restaurant in Kerala, India. As soon as he started having his lunch, he saw two brother-sisters quietly staring at his table and sometimes to his hands too. He looked at them once, and didn’t do the delay to order two more plates for both of them. Both of them had jumped on the meal as they had not been blessed with food for many days. They didn’t see anyone or anything else, while having the meal. The man asked for the bill, and cried after seeing the amount. “WE HAVE NO EQUIPMENT TO CALCULATE THE AMOUNT FOR LOVE, HUMANITY AND CARE. THANK YOU FOR COMING.” As soon as I had completed the news, I could not stop tears falling from my eyes, a female colleague of mine was staring me as I was doing a crime. I had asked myself the reason of my crying and was asking until I found the Goddess Rashmi. The reason was my ‘hunger’ to see the society full of kind and loving people like Rashmi and the Kerala-man.

  I dared to ask her if I could be of any help; she asked me to let it be as it was scared of human beings.

  “I am pleased to see people like you. The mother earth needs kind people like you. Thank you for being nice up to that level.” I said coming on her way and stopping her.

  “I have same respect and feelings for you. Very less people would understand this.” She said, and smiled a bit.

  Suddenly, the former president of India came across my mind as he was the epitome of humanity, love and the great leader too; his down to earth attitude and vision towards creating the earth liveable planet used to make him better.

  After leaving food and water for the Dove, she went back to her seat, to work on files waiting for her to come back; and lost working on it unless the day became darker, and clock signalled that it’s 6 PM. But she left a lot of questions behind……….. Why the human have lost their true being; why don’t we have majority of people like Rashmi? Why should someone else’s sons make fun of her when she was serving food to the Dove? Is that the law and constitution only, which can make the world better? Or is this the time for us to go back to school and learn ethics and principles. Why should we keep quiet when anything wrong happens in the society, city, nation and the world? When will we all wake up and tell the lawmakers that the law is not appropriate; needs to be stricter so that one has fear of doing crime. When will we stop blaming government instead of teaching our children to be nice to the society, people and nature? I was sure to see a better society; peaceful world; the liveable planet.

  I was grateful to her that day as she had made me more confident for my commitment to make this society better.

  At home; in the evening

  “Hi Ram!” Devika greeted opening the door.

  “Hey, what’s going on; and where are my angels?” I asked couple of questions at the same time handing the bag over to her.

  “They are sleeping except the eldest one who has gone for tuition classes, but what’s the mystery of your dull face my love? Every day I see you tired but today you look different. Why so?” It was her love and care which gave me energy to survive the sarcasm and terror in the office.

  “No-no. Everything is fine. I’ll tell you a few good and bad experiences happened today in the office as usual.” I said to make her feel good.

  “Is everything fine?” She was terrified. Because middle class people like us had a hope of survival in the form of these life threatening jobs, which used to give us fear of getting fired and blacklisted.

  “I already said that my dear. Let me settle down and I will explain you everything.” I sounded rude to her, but just wanted to forget what had happened in the office.

  I described both the incidents happened with Ravan and Rashmi. I kept on telling her the story; her face kept on wearing the dull face mask.

  “Why don’t you quit this job?” She started fretting and asked me to either go for better places or stop doing those jobs.

  “I want to face it. At times, it hurts, however, gives me an energy to face it and bounce back as well, which I hope would be the key to my success, would result to do something better than this. The history proves it; the great people had survived humiliation, terror, poverty like us. It also encourages proving ourselves and showing the world that we are capable of doing better than what we do daily in the offices; letting the organisation earn in millions and billions; who give the employees back in thousands, not with thanking them but showing them that they are doing favour by paying off our salary.” I explained her the reason of not quitting job so easily.

  “When would that time to do ‘something’ come? I don’t want you to go there and work with them as his teammate, who asks you to leave, who scolds you even if it is not your mistake; please do something, so that all of us can live a better life; I don’t like this rented house, we have to take care of our daughters as well, remember you used to say that you are born-communist with revolution in your blood and veins, where has that Ram gone? Where are those principles gone? Please don’t let that fire of revolution die; do something, do something. Wake up, wake up.” She looked towards the wall, where micro-temple with a few idols of God were placed and getting greeted everyday with a routine worship twice in a day, and started crying. The existence of mine and the Gods was challenged by those tears falling on the floor. Those tears had asked me a lot of questions, my identity was searching me, or I was searching for my identity; I was not sure. But I was sure of one thing that Devika had no more patience left, and I had to go out and do ‘something’ as soon as possible. My family had been expecting me to do ‘something’ since my childhood.

  It brought me to the dark world, where nobody was present; I started searching my lost ‘me’ in the pages of my past. A warrior had lost his way, seemed as a drunk one who had no worries, no happiness, no life, no feelings, nothing.

  “Sometimes I feel unsafe as well, as person like you who is kind-hearted, emotional; open-book-to-all-readers do make wrong decisions in life.” She brought me back to the real world with this statement.

  “I have already been married to the wonderful and kind-hearted woman who understands me well. So, now please stop crying, think about me, and see where I stand. How will we plan and think about future action if you keep on crying like this?” I offered her a hug which was direly needed.

  It’s not like we used to hug each other for some special occasions like that; but it was tight enough to let me know that she wanted me to ‘wake up’ and bring the change, betterment.

  And with that job, where I was a slave, doing labour, or favour; the change was in my dreams only, so the idea of quitting was born.

  The conversation was interrupted as Mini had come from the tuition class and knocked the door.

  That evening, we had not taken the dinner, our kids had already been slept, both of us had no mood to have meal; she kept on crying; assuming that I must be sleeping; I kept on cursing myself for not choosing the career with area of interest and spoiling my 10 years; searching the child Ram, the brilliant Ram.

  “Good morning, when did you sleep last night?” I asked Devika as I found her waking me up, after keeping tea-cup on the table.

  “I didn’t sleep; I would rather say I couldn’t.” She said covering Mini’s leg which was out of the blanket, who was 4 years old.

  “You know what! You ask me not to be emotional, but look at you, why didn’t you have dinner yesterday? Think about it. It will not solve our problem. It will not make me happy and interested to do whatever job I do today.” I said.

  “I have an idea. Let’
s unite people like us, who are suffering and victims of humiliation; let’s raise voice against the bad culture, let the corporate and employers realise the importance of an employee. From the shopkeeper of Saree shop in the local market, to the CEOs of MNCs; they should value their living assets; who are working hard to earn for the organisation. Let’s make them think about paying after every week rather than a month, that too on the 7th day or 15th day of every month so that employee can’t leave job. It’s not at all accepted to run business like that.” She gave me a hope to go back to the friends all around the world and join hands for better future; the tears of a lady had decided to re-write the history in the corporate world. With this, the pressure for change continued to mount.

  The question “what to do to make change?” was answered already. I needed to find the answer to “how to make change?” and Devika helped me to find answer with her idea to unite people like us.

  Letter to the Boss and decision of quitting the job.

  Dear Ravan,

  The way you behaved me throughout the year; the way you dealt with me as teammate is unforgettable. I lived the life of a slave; who worked for a corporate organisation; but got humiliated by a reporting Manager’s Manager like you. You interfered even when it was not a part of your job, and none of your business. I know you did that as you had nothing to do. I kept quiet when you sent the misaligned report to accounts for my salary; you marked me as half day in various occasions; you rejected the sick leave which was approved by my immediate supervisor as he is reporting to you, and you had control on it. I would like to let you know that due to that ‘personal’ approach of yours, I had to beg for survival that month. Forget about my begging, my daughter had to have bread without milk instead of cerelac; which she had been having for past 18 months. I didn’t say anything because I used to come late and give you opportunities to deduct my wages.

  Since I was not wrong yesterday when you asked me to leave, in fact you asked me to get lost, which of course was expected from you; I would leave from today after consulting with HR personnel and as per the company policy they have to give me a month salary in advance. The company would give salary; but not from its account; it would be from your account and you will get to know about that pain of salary deduction which I had lived, so please don’t feel that I am happy about it; I feel very bad, but remember one thing; you get what you give. No matter if it is love, kindness, courtesy, mercy, revenge or a seed that a farmer throws in the field and covers it with mud. It’s natural. So please be ready to pay for all your actions, intentions and abuses.