It feels funny when you go on a familiar road from a not so distant past, expecting some surprises, some flashes from the memory lane, falana falana, and nothing really happens.
Exactly three months on, from the day I left my old company, I was on that familiar road from Jayadeva square to the Subramanya Arcade. My cousin, who stays nearby had been admitted the previous day in a hospital opposite to my old work place. The walk through the street was familiar, invoked some nostalgia, but nothing more.
The mosque that had always been under construction in the 2 years I walked past it was now standing tall, pearly white, and beautiful. I was wondering if I will stumble upon a familiar face on the road, but it wasn’t to be. I crossed Subramanya Arcade, scanning each glass pane on the building facing the road, and tried to make out if anything had changed.
About my cousins.
There are 9 of us in our generation on the paternal side. Four are yet to graduate, while the other five (me included) live and work in Bangalore, and on the fifth of September, 2015, the youngest of the five wasn’t doing so well. It was suspected to be Dengue and we four were there to see that he laughs through the disease. The strict hospital rules of one attendant and one visitor was a challenge we four were trying to beat every time something came up and required us to move in and out of my cousin’s ward. There were two official ways of getting to ward numbered 205B, one via the lift and the other through the stair way, but both manned by the security asking for passes. Sadly, there are no wormholes yet. But only one person was allotted a pass for one patient. From finding an alternative route, to secretly swapping visitor’s passes among us, we made sure the five of us stayed in the semi private ward for two, patient included. Not that we didn’t get caught ever, but most of the time it was a successful maneuver. That’s how it’s with me and my cousins.
The cat and the mouse game at the hospital was fun. But I still wondered about my old work place. As I got out of the hospital, I could see the big IBM building before me, the place I worked for two years. I used to walk in with my ID card swinging down my waist, and my earphones dangling. I felt for my waist, hoping with a 0.05% chance that it would magically appear there. It wasn’t.
So … I broke in.
All I had to do was to walk past the three guards, confidently, at the gates of the Tech Park (I nodded at them like it was just yesterday that I was there), get to the SA3 building, tail gate through the main entrance, and walk to the lift lobby whistling, to get to the second floor. The same corridors I had paraded for two years. The cubicles were empty, but I could imagine them busy with their work. If I had ever wanted to come back to SA3, I wanted to come in invisible, so that I could see the good people doing their jobs as they used to. I was running my hands over the same desks they had been working on and the remnants of their work lay, either on white boards or on sketches of the flow diagrams on papers. I remembered those terms, and I was smiling. So I started scribbling a few messages for the people I missed. All this while, my old team mates and managers had been asking me to come over, and I was just putting it off for no specific reasons.
Somebody had realized that I was ghosting around the second floor cubicles, scribbling. Even though there was nothing bad with my intentions, it certainly was against the rules. That somebody called out from behind. I had my earphones on and the music off. With a tap on my phone the soundtracks of Inception played. I nodded as I walked past the guard, who had been checking me out. He nodded back, seemingly confused. I got to the lobby took the stairs. “Non rien de rien! Non, Je ne regretted rien” played out loud, and that moment certainly felt a part of my dreams. I heard a few steps closing in on me, and before he could get another glimpse of me, I scrambled down to the basement garage, and got out in the open. Steadying my steps, I made my way out of Subramanya Arcade.
What was the point of this little break in? Nothing. It was something I wanted to feel again, perhaps, like a half remembered dream, spontaneous and random.
It had felt funny in the morning, when I had walked by Subramanya Arcade, and nothing had happened.
Wandered-Lost-Crazy
Exactly three months on, from the day I left my old company, I was on that familiar road from Jayadeva square to the Subramanya Arcade. My cousin, who stays nearby had been admitted the previous day in a hospital opposite to my old work place. The walk through the street was familiar, invoked some nostalgia, but nothing more.
The mosque that had always been under construction in the 2 years I walked past it was now standing tall, pearly white, and beautiful. I was wondering if I will stumble upon a familiar face on the road, but it wasn’t to be. I crossed Subramanya Arcade, scanning each glass pane on the building facing the road, and tried to make out if anything had changed.
About my cousins.
There are 9 of us in our generation on the paternal side. Four are yet to graduate, while the other five (me included) live and work in Bangalore, and on the fifth of September, 2015, the youngest of the five wasn’t doing so well. It was suspected to be Dengue and we four were there to see that he laughs through the disease. The strict hospital rules of one attendant and one visitor was a challenge we four were trying to beat every time something came up and required us to move in and out of my cousin’s ward. There were two official ways of getting to ward numbered 205B, one via the lift and the other through the stair way, but both manned by the security asking for passes. Sadly, there are no wormholes yet. But only one person was allotted a pass for one patient. From finding an alternative route, to secretly swapping visitor’s passes among us, we made sure the five of us stayed in the semi private ward for two, patient included. Not that we didn’t get caught ever, but most of the time it was a successful maneuver. That’s how it’s with me and my cousins.
The cat and the mouse game at the hospital was fun. But I still wondered about my old work place. As I got out of the hospital, I could see the big IBM building before me, the place I worked for two years. I used to walk in with my ID card swinging down my waist, and my earphones dangling. I felt for my waist, hoping with a 0.05% chance that it would magically appear there. It wasn’t.
So … I broke in.
All I had to do was to walk past the three guards, confidently, at the gates of the Tech Park (I nodded at them like it was just yesterday that I was there), get to the SA3 building, tail gate through the main entrance, and walk to the lift lobby whistling, to get to the second floor. The same corridors I had paraded for two years. The cubicles were empty, but I could imagine them busy with their work. If I had ever wanted to come back to SA3, I wanted to come in invisible, so that I could see the good people doing their jobs as they used to. I was running my hands over the same desks they had been working on and the remnants of their work lay, either on white boards or on sketches of the flow diagrams on papers. I remembered those terms, and I was smiling. So I started scribbling a few messages for the people I missed. All this while, my old team mates and managers had been asking me to come over, and I was just putting it off for no specific reasons.
Somebody had realized that I was ghosting around the second floor cubicles, scribbling. Even though there was nothing bad with my intentions, it certainly was against the rules. That somebody called out from behind. I had my earphones on and the music off. With a tap on my phone the soundtracks of Inception played. I nodded as I walked past the guard, who had been checking me out. He nodded back, seemingly confused. I got to the lobby took the stairs. “Non rien de rien! Non, Je ne regretted rien” played out loud, and that moment certainly felt a part of my dreams. I heard a few steps closing in on me, and before he could get another glimpse of me, I scrambled down to the basement garage, and got out in the open. Steadying my steps, I made my way out of Subramanya Arcade.
What was the point of this little break in? Nothing. It was something I wanted to feel again, perhaps, like a half remembered dream, spontaneous and random.
It had felt funny in the morning, when I had walked by Subramanya Arcade, and nothing had happened.
Wandered-Lost-Crazy
Now I know who wrote those lines on the board :)
ReplyDeleteNow I know who wrote those lines on the board :)
ReplyDeleteHahaha... When did you see that?
DeleteYou seriously did this?
ReplyDelete