"Assam. You know where that is don't you?"
I stared at the white envelope my manager was holding out in front of me. Of course I knew where Assam was...it was that squiggly thingy beside the other squiggly thingy on the map. Now this of course was as far as my knowledge of geography stretched (Having once obtained the grand score of four in one of my school tests, I wasn't exactly NATMO material!!!).
It was like a dream come true for me. Finally an 'out-station'!!! That was what we called our assignments outside the city. Unfortunately, for greenhorn interns like me, most of these 'out-stations' turned to be industrial townships at best. Hence, the exotic state of Assam could almost be regarded as an overseas (or as it was in this case, an ‘overacoupleof rivers’) trip!
As I made my way towards the 'enclosure' where we interns were 'kept', I could see some of my seniors gravely nodding their heads. "You're GGA bro" quipped one.
A brief pause to explain what ‘GGA’ stands for. Unfortunately, keeping in mind the sensitivity of the reader and the norms of public decency, all I can say is that this ‘TLA’ (Three Letter Acronym) is the Bengali equivalent of ‘FUBAR’ (which I cannot, unfortunately, expand either). Hence, if you do wish to know what either of these stand for, feel free to Google away.
"Yea, going to ‘Ahom’ means you're going there for the rest of your bondage (a common synonym for our three year-internship program)" remarked another. "Yea, do you even know how many clients we have there??" asked a third.
Fortunately or otherwise, none of these remarks / inquiries affected me at that time. As naive as I was back then, I saw this trip as an opportunity. An opportunity to travel, to prove my worth, to do what I had always wanted to do...SERVE SOCIETY!!! (okay, maybe the last part was a bit too much)
The flight to Jorhat was pretty uneventful. My team lead, a senior intern (who was also a novice to Assam) 'entertained' me throughout the flight, alternating between raving about his girlfriend and snoring. "Revenge will be sweet, my friend", I thought to myself, once he had started calling out their future children's' names....
Stepping out of the airplane, we were welcomed by a blazing sun and luckily enough a non-blazing AK-47. None of us were very surprised, given the situation Assam was in those days. But what amazed me was how most of the passengers, most probably frequent travellers, barely even looked at all the weaponry around the bus stop, sorry airport.
And so we walked out of the bus stop, sorry airport, expecting to see a board which had our names on it. No board. I mean, there were boards, in all shapes and sizes, dozens of them being held up by men in white or khaki uniforms; all of whom bore an expression, which I felt at that time would be borne by someone who had mistakenly used sandpaper for toilet paper that very morning. But none of these sandpaper using gentlemen bore good news for us. None of the rapidly diminishing boards bore our names or the name of our employer or even the name of the organisation we were visiting.
My senior started pacing the bus stop, sorry airport 'patio' with increasing pace, now muttering the names of one of the many commercially popular Hindu gods and his girlfriend in the same breath.
"You know...we could give them a call" I said. My senior stopped, looked at me and then to my horror, hugged me!!! "Great idea!!!!!" he exclaimed, rushing towards a CRPF jawan who I'm sure would have shot him then and there, had he been subjected to a hug as well.
While my senior was engaged in what I could only hope was an inquiry as to where the nearest telephone booth was, I was in the meantime wondering what our backup plan for reaching our destination would be. Other thoughts occupying my head at that time were:
a. Whether we would be getting separate bedrooms (that was more of a wish rather than a thought) and
b. Whether my senior's girlfriend had any idea of his enthusiasm for hugging other men
Going by the slow trudging motion my senior made on his return, he was not the bearer of good news.
"The nearest booth's a couple of miles off.." That bit of information could have sounded like "You just won the lottery!!!" when I heard the next few words that came out of his mouth.
"There's been a bit of trouble here...apparently there's a 'bandh' today..."
It was at that very moment I decided to give up alcohol, smoking, religion and my love for cotton candy. All in exchange for salvation. Salvation from what seemed to be our last day on this miserable excuse for a planet!!!!!
"...and it's been called by THEM" he finished, his voice fading in the now increasing wind.
Goodbye cruel world!!!!!
To be continued...
well of course!!!! Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this would I!!??!!
I stared at the white envelope my manager was holding out in front of me. Of course I knew where Assam was...it was that squiggly thingy beside the other squiggly thingy on the map. Now this of course was as far as my knowledge of geography stretched (Having once obtained the grand score of four in one of my school tests, I wasn't exactly NATMO material!!!).
It was like a dream come true for me. Finally an 'out-station'!!! That was what we called our assignments outside the city. Unfortunately, for greenhorn interns like me, most of these 'out-stations' turned to be industrial townships at best. Hence, the exotic state of Assam could almost be regarded as an overseas (or as it was in this case, an ‘overacoupleof rivers’) trip!
As I made my way towards the 'enclosure' where we interns were 'kept', I could see some of my seniors gravely nodding their heads. "You're GGA bro" quipped one.
A brief pause to explain what ‘GGA’ stands for. Unfortunately, keeping in mind the sensitivity of the reader and the norms of public decency, all I can say is that this ‘TLA’ (Three Letter Acronym) is the Bengali equivalent of ‘FUBAR’ (which I cannot, unfortunately, expand either). Hence, if you do wish to know what either of these stand for, feel free to Google away.
"Yea, going to ‘Ahom’ means you're going there for the rest of your bondage (a common synonym for our three year-internship program)" remarked another. "Yea, do you even know how many clients we have there??" asked a third.
Fortunately or otherwise, none of these remarks / inquiries affected me at that time. As naive as I was back then, I saw this trip as an opportunity. An opportunity to travel, to prove my worth, to do what I had always wanted to do...SERVE SOCIETY!!! (okay, maybe the last part was a bit too much)
The flight to Jorhat was pretty uneventful. My team lead, a senior intern (who was also a novice to Assam) 'entertained' me throughout the flight, alternating between raving about his girlfriend and snoring. "Revenge will be sweet, my friend", I thought to myself, once he had started calling out their future children's' names....
Stepping out of the airplane, we were welcomed by a blazing sun and luckily enough a non-blazing AK-47. None of us were very surprised, given the situation Assam was in those days. But what amazed me was how most of the passengers, most probably frequent travellers, barely even looked at all the weaponry around the bus stop, sorry airport.
And so we walked out of the bus stop, sorry airport, expecting to see a board which had our names on it. No board. I mean, there were boards, in all shapes and sizes, dozens of them being held up by men in white or khaki uniforms; all of whom bore an expression, which I felt at that time would be borne by someone who had mistakenly used sandpaper for toilet paper that very morning. But none of these sandpaper using gentlemen bore good news for us. None of the rapidly diminishing boards bore our names or the name of our employer or even the name of the organisation we were visiting.
My senior started pacing the bus stop, sorry airport 'patio' with increasing pace, now muttering the names of one of the many commercially popular Hindu gods and his girlfriend in the same breath.
"You know...we could give them a call" I said. My senior stopped, looked at me and then to my horror, hugged me!!! "Great idea!!!!!" he exclaimed, rushing towards a CRPF jawan who I'm sure would have shot him then and there, had he been subjected to a hug as well.
While my senior was engaged in what I could only hope was an inquiry as to where the nearest telephone booth was, I was in the meantime wondering what our backup plan for reaching our destination would be. Other thoughts occupying my head at that time were:
a. Whether we would be getting separate bedrooms (that was more of a wish rather than a thought) and
b. Whether my senior's girlfriend had any idea of his enthusiasm for hugging other men
Going by the slow trudging motion my senior made on his return, he was not the bearer of good news.
"The nearest booth's a couple of miles off.." That bit of information could have sounded like "You just won the lottery!!!" when I heard the next few words that came out of his mouth.
"There's been a bit of trouble here...apparently there's a 'bandh' today..."
It was at that very moment I decided to give up alcohol, smoking, religion and my love for cotton candy. All in exchange for salvation. Salvation from what seemed to be our last day on this miserable excuse for a planet!!!!!
"...and it's been called by THEM" he finished, his voice fading in the now increasing wind.
Goodbye cruel world!!!!!
To be continued...
well of course!!!! Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this would I!!??!!
2 comments:
Please continue... I cant wait to get to the part when u would use the sandpaper yourself... and at least one of the G's (well, the only one we have anyway!) get the scratch of a lifetime!
he he he he he
Love, laughter n keep the Faith
S
Bah! Now hurry up and get to the London bits!!!
~Me
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