Saurav- An Indian

I am a fourteen year old boy. I am new to this country, India. I have not read enough books that will tell me many things about this country and its people. When I was smaller, I used to have many feelings inside me. The strongest one of all these was patriotism. I had just learned how India had gained its independence and the narrative was so much enticing that even a foreigner would be ready to die for India just after listening to it. As I entered my teens, I learned new things. I learned how people fought and strove to live in this place. All patriotism was driven out of me when I learnt the corruption in the Indian government. I saw many movies and read many books that told me what India was really from the inside. They told me that whatever I knew about India was just an outlook, the mere look that is given to somebody who enters new into this peninsular land.

I am born in a family in the northern part of India. My father is a cloth merchant. He has just opened a new franchise. I went there frequently for quite a number of days and it was on the fifth day that this happened…

I entered the franchise as usual, with a little bit of pride fitted into my heart. I went and stood at a corner and inspected what each and every person was doing. Manish was the manager of the franchise. He gave me instructions to hang some readymade clothes from the storeroom. I did as I was told because I knew that I was there for work and not just for passing my time.

Till that day, I was still a mere boy, an Indian middle class boy who is so well brought up by the parents that he doesn’t even know how to cope up in life. I easily cried for small things that were of no importance. I didn’t even know that when I grew up I would have to cope up with all the people that I saw around me. I used to fight over little things like the remote of the television, or the computer, or the wish to bat first in cricket and to play video games endlessly. I didn’t know that this singular event would change my whole thinking about life.

I thought that I was an Indian in all those little things. I thought that I was an Indian when I used to run a little errand. I thought that I was a hardworking Indian, an Indian who knew how one could cope up in life, an Indian who knew everything about professions and everything about the difficulties that an Indian faces as he grows up. But I was wrong…

A man was sitting beside me at the cash counter. He began talking to another man who stood next to me. I heard their conversation which deeply interested me.

Before I continue to their conversation, let me tell you that all I knew about the man sitting at the counter was that his name was Chand. I knew that the man standing next to me was the assistant manager of the franchise. I didn’t know his name. But I was sure both of them had been employed by my father to work in the franchise. A man named Baibhav was the general manager of one of the company’s branches.

Chand spoke as he worked at the computer in front of him “I have learnt ten to fifteen percent of this software’s working. I am not willing to say it but I can estimate that this software is so deep and has so much of information that even Baibhav bhaiya does not know all the details of this software” The man next to me spoke “No, he must know it. Do you know that his family lives in the Untied States of America? He has a wide reach” “What?” blurted out Chand. Chand continued “It is a great pleasure to me that I know a person who lives in USA! I am not from a good family background. Before coming here, I had worked in many a place. In the beginning, when I was in the search of work, I had entered into a shopping mart. The man told me to wait for a minute. After that I was allowed to meet the manager of the mart. He gave me a direct question ‘Do you know how to operate a computer?’ At that time, I didn’t even know what a computer was. I replied ‘A what?’ His next sentence was ‘Please get out of this mart by yourself or else it will greatly harrass you. Don’t dare to enter it again! Never show up your face again, you dumb fool, or else I will break all your bones!’ I felt very disgraced. I cried that day, and I cried my full. I didn’t even tell my parents how my interview had gone. Perhaps they were not interested in it or they didn’t even know about it. I spoke to my smaller brother some days later and he advised me into a shopping mall that was ten times larger than the previous one.

“I was very scared. After ten to fifteen days of hesitation I entered the shopping mall and the man told me to wait for ten minutes. In those ten minutes, I thought that matter over and over again. I began by thinking what I would tell to the manager upon meeting him. I knew that I was a dumb fellow and I had never been to school. When the man returned to call me, I was nowhere to be found. I ran away from there because I was too scared. The manager of the mall called my brother and asked him why I had run away. The next day, my brother came to me and forcibly took me to the mall and made me meet the manager. I was allowed to enter a vocation.

“The manager told me to go to the warehouse. I didn’t know what a warehouse was. I thought that it was a place where all the electricals were kept. I said him ‘I am not an electrician’. He laughed very heartily at it.

“For the first three days, they made me work too much. I had to carry cartons and other things to and fro. As a week passed, I grew frustrated. I told the manager of the mall ‘I can’t work here anymore’ But a sensible man took me aside and explained to me that it was my only opportunity of a job and that I would not have been able to get any job had it not been for the help of my brother. Slowly, I worked harder and harder. I started to love this machine” he said pointing at the computer “And this machine began loving me. After six months, I was the manger of the warehouse and had earned an important position in the mall. I began to know everything anout the computer just by watching others at work. I never had any degree or anything but within six months I was the head of the mall, defeating all the other people who had earned degrees and qualifications. It was only experience which helped me. Now I could control everything of a shopping mall from keeping a track of the sales to becoming a salesman and from working at the counter to managing the warehouse.

“I had become a great favourite of the manager and he used to consult me whenever the need would arise. Slowly, he became very ignorant and began giving me tasks that I could not do. One day, somebody asked him ‘Sir, there has been a leak in the water pipe’ He answered ‘Tell Chand to repair it’ the man replied perplexed ‘Sir, Chand is not a plumber’ and a plumber was called at the same moment. Another similar event occured when a labourer said the manager ‘Sir, I am not being able to pick up this carton’ He replied ‘Ask Chand to do it’ I had overheard this conversation and I replied ‘Sir, should I pick up a carton?’ ‘Oh, sorry, Chand, sorry, I didn’t hear what this man asked me properly’ a year ago, I was crying because I was made to pick up cartons and after an year I was laughing when the manager was asking me to pick up a carton!

“One day, the manager of the mart came up. He saw me working at the computer with the utmost attention. ‘Come back, Chand’ he said to me. ‘I will pay you much and I will make you the head of all work, please return to me’ I looked up at him wickedly and said ‘Ask my manager’ He went to my manager but he was turned round and thrown out of the mall and he received many abuses. He even took the manager to the guard and told him strictly ‘Look at his face properly. Don’t ever dare to let him enter my mall again!’ But the mall closed down soon. I worked there for six years. In the meantime I had been able to hack the account of the mall. I had got ten seconds and my work was to enter the account and change its password. I did it! And I began earning rupees four hundred daily. Then I enetered the stock market and worked there for quite some time.

“Suddenly, my mother fell ill and I had to go back home. But they didn’t allow me to take leave and so I left the stock market and came back to my mother. I stayed with her for two months and then I was called here. When I came here, I was very confused and I did not know whether I should work here or not for it looked very small as compared to the mall where I used to work. When I asked Manish bhaiya whether I could start working or not, he said ‘Pick those wood pieces there and keep them aside and from tomorrow we will see what work will be given to you’. I came the next day and stood almost an hour outside the store thinking whether to enter it or not. At last I voted to enter it and when I entered Manish bhaiya said ‘So you have come a bit late. Well, start by guarding the door’ I was confused. I couldn’t understand why I was made to stand as a guard. But an order is an order and I obeyed it without any hesitation. Well, if Baibhav bhaiya is from US, I will need only four months to win his influence and, once this is done, it will be the greatest achievement of my life. He looks really like a foreigner. Did you see how he was walking? His speaking style is very different and he uses a satchel unlike any other working Indian”

“Yes” agreed the assistant manager. “I have got a degree and am a hardware engineer and yet I am not far above you. My father once refused to give me money for a thing that I wished to buy and I resolved that very day that I would earn my own money and buy that thing. I am an independent man. I was first acquainted with Manish bhaiya through the internet and then one day I turned up at his place. When I asked him to give me a job, he began laughing. But, at last, I got one. This is my first job and I hope to cope up with the others” he said. Chand said “Experience is more necessary than any other thing in the world, man! You spent so much of money on getting a degree and such stuff and I did not spend a penny but I reached as far as you have reached and I have a lot more experience than you. Still, experience and learning is unending and I have got a new task now. I would like to learn about hardware engineering from you”

“Yes, I would be glad to help you” the other replied.

I returned home and found my younger brother and my younger sister quarelling over who had spilled the milk. I laughed and laughed at the scene because now I knew how difficult it was to cope up in life. It seemed to me as if the characters of the books and the movies which I had read and seen had come alive and were talking about their experiences to me. I had to believe it for it was a real life incident. I can swear to it that whatever you have read is a true story that occurred with me when I was fourteen.