Don't know what to name it!!

It was 6.30 PM. The moment I stepped out of the vegetable shop .. an eerie feeling hit me.

I was standing in the middle of a new creed of species!! A creed called "Young Software Engineers". Their dresses ranged from perfect formals to torn jeans. A few carrying a laptop bag and others carrying just a lunch box pouch which holds a few Tupperware boxes. The girls in high heels and straightened  hair had their eyes glued to the new smart phones or were busy animatedly talking with their colleague / boy friend.

But one thing was very common among this whole group. They all looked proud. They had a sense of achievement on their face.

That look on their face left me wondering .. What is the real reason behind these proud looking faces. The tasks which they delivered at work .. or the pay check they will be given by the end of the month?

In my 9 years in this software service industry, I have not invented anything.. All I have done is used one or more existing software to provide the service requested by the client. I may have designed a few systems, but they were all created on an existing platform provided.   The pride I had during the college days when I was one among who cleared all papers and had a job after the first semester .. I dont have that pride anymore.. coz I know the backbenchers in my batch are doing much much more better in non-IT fields than what I am right now. And I am proud of them.

So these "Young Software Engineers" .. What makes them so proud?

I have seen a few of them in my previous work place. Occupying cafeteria for hours , coz they do not have a work station allocated, as they are not into project for the last one year!!  I have seen that girl with straightened hair going out of the restroom leaving the toilet seat wet.

Not that I say not being in project is their mistake .. But yet .. The moment they step out of the work place .. this pride sticks to their face.. I still wonder how and why.

Zindagi, Dogs, Politics, Payment, Walk and Ipod

Early morning walk around the lake always prepares me to face the day and all its atrocities.
I was walking with my thoughts pregnant about the movie which I saw yesterday "Zindagi Nah Milegi Dobara".

Something inside me kept repeating these lines from the movie
               Dilon mein tum apni
               Betaabiyan leke chal rahe ho
               Toh zinda ho tum
               Nazar mein khwabon ki
               Bijliyan leke chal rahe ho
               Toh zinda ho tum

I usually see a small girl playing with 3 dogs. She must be the daughter of some building construction worker. Today she was missing but the dogs were running around and  barking. That is when I noticed there were 2 new dogs in the locality and these 3 dogs were barking at those 2 intruders displaying territorial threat. In a very strange way this reminded me of politicians and their election speeches. I made a mental mode of using this as an example to explain the concept of "survival of the fittest" to my son as I walked away from that place.

In the midst of the silence around the lake and a fading dog barks.. I heard this man talking very loud on cell phone. His teenage slightly obese daughter accompanies him everyday. Today she was walking a few yards behind him allowing her dad to attend the phone call. I could hear him shouting "Ghar aaoge? Dhamki dhena math. Kya meine payment dhene se inkar kiya?"   I walked past his daughter. I glanced at her to smile as I usually do and noticed her moist eyes.
I could not do much but think of lines from "Zindagi Nah Milegi Dobara" 
              Jab jab dard ka baadal chaya
              Jab ghum ka saya lehraya
              Jab aansoo palkon tak aya
              Jab yeh tanha dil ghabraya
              Humne dil ko yeh samjhaya
              Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai
              Duniya mein yunhi hota hai

A realization.. people around me also have life and pain. they are not just lurkers in the movie where me and my family are the main characters. 

And then I saw that handsome lady who jogs in the cricket ground next to lake. She was leaving the ground and I saw her come to the pavement where the bikes are parked.  She then took out her key and started that Thunderbird Big bike. All these days I was thinking that this thunderbird belonged to that bald man who sits on the bench near the lake and smokes!!  That old man in long white kurta over a grey formal trouser was sitting in a different bench and not on the bench near the boat.

So many observations in a day!! thats when I realized another thing. Sometimes we are too engrossed or afraid to switch off and look up from our iPhones / iPod to see the reality.  I remembered my Srivats's words "We should switch off the lights to see the stars".