It has been pretty cold here in the month of December and my old jacket brought from home was very much handy at that time. Life has been very hectic ever since they have introduced these 12 hr long shifts in the office, i.e. work from 7 to 7 in the day and 6 days a week. This is one of the reasons why I have not been able to post anything on my blog. Lots of this have been happening and have happened, which I wanted to write here. I have been giving my selves lame excuses not to write on that particular day. Not exactly lame but it was the tiredness which forced me to think against it. I had some happy moments and few were not that happy ones.
Christmas this year was a working day for me in the office. I was on night shift that day. Otherwise normally I would attend the mid night mass on the Christmas Eve (I have attended only four mid night mass till now!!). No cake no rum no candles nothing…. It was just another day for all of us here. 99.3456% of people here follow a religion other than Christianity, partly this might be the reason for it. It didn’t make any difference to them either. Though it was an official holiday for the General shift employees, we could only avail the compensatory leave on a different day. I called up home that night, wished parents n friends. Lots of messages exchanged, people who generally avoid looking at you on the normal days came to wish you with a special enthusiasm. It was surprising that many of them asked for Christmas cakes. Now come on, where will I get the plum cakes from in this remote village?? I could only nod my head.
Next was the New Year celebration night. We had a DJ night arranged in the township with all the employees invited along with their family.
The lighting arrangement..
The dance floor..I was again on night shift that day, but luckily our senior management was kind enough to relax our shift timings and allowed us to come to the party for two hours, i.e. from 10 to 12 in the night. Everybody in the shift was fully excited about the relaxation and had made all sorts of plans as to how to spend the evening. Liquor was served along with the dinner or rather before the dinner. The music started by around 9: 30 or so, not waiting for long people thronged to the dance floor with at least 50% of them completely high on their senses. Slowly crowd started building up. The tempo started rising and there it was.
Smarak, Yogesh, Shrikant, Vijay, Rajiv, Dibya.
With Vijay..
With Rajiv and Shrikant..
Small kids on the dance floor..Epsita, my colleague, was on off that day. She had agreed earlier to join me during the party. I reached the venue well before time and we could meet. But I don’t know why she was hesitant to join me neither for the dinner nor for the dance that night. I called her up on the mobile phone at least 10 to 12 times but every time I call up she would say she’ll be coming in five minutes or so and sit back. The party started gaining momentum by then and I just couldn’t resist and went ahead joining the crowd on the dance floor. It was simply awesome dancing with our unique styles, most of the time group of our friends used to simply play those school exercise steps.. remember 1 2 3 4, 4 3 2 1…. It was simply masti chhe. It was around 11 30 or so, I could see that she was busy dancing. I called her up on her mobile again. She was right next the loud speakers and couldn’t hear what I was saying or that is what she said later. I dropped the idea and continued with my friends. It was 12 and we had some breath taking Crackers fired at that time, cakes distributed and wishing one another New Year. On one end I was disappointed that a good friend of mine reacted that way while on the other end I had get ready to go back to the plant to work. By 12 30 or so, she called me back and wished me. I didn’t ask for any explanations. But that night will remain afresh for a long time. Only that day did I decide not to have any expectations from anyone beyond a certain extent.
Once I reached the plant it was almost decided that no activity would take place in the plant and everyone had plans of cooling their tired heels and sleeping. So did I…
More on this in the next post..
Jeevan
