Civic Video Trading Hours

Finer than any “Fine”

 

The humdrum in Pune, one of India’s busy cities, was as usual that day when the city woke up with news journals crying out loud for help. Help for the routine victims of various common factors governing any cosmopolitan city. Government’s apathy towards order is letting the chaos form its own pattern and has reached such an extent of perfection that a father often finds contradicting his lessons after being imparted to his child by himself. Today, there is tremendous rush for paradigm shifts. India Inc is dreaming to make it larger than life. The bourgeois approach in today’s economy leaves very little room for labor laws to protect individuals, as the concept is widely misunderstood and feared after we observed the results of radical implementation of Trade Union role in jeopardizing the concept of profit, towards which, not only the Organizations thrive but ‘profit’ is in the womb of any idea that is finally shaped and formed in the form of any financial bill. The cosmopolitan citizen thrives to be better with each passing day. Some say success is directly proportional to the salary earned while there are others who believe in power and degree of control exercised over others to be the actual flavor of success. In a way quite innovative and convenient to achieve the end result desired, today’s corporate world and especially the Organizations in the BPO sector have derived effective tools to deliver within stringent deadlines and equally stringent budget constraints alongwith a continuous mad rush to achieve the Nirvana of being the most cost effective Organization. One such tool exercised by the Transport Departments of some of the Organisations in the BPO arena to get their employees on time to work is the lethal ‘Late Fine’ imposed on the cab drivers. Using a morbid adjective before the term ‘Late Fine’ is not due to ignorance as one soon finds out what happened on this ‘just another day’ in Pune.

 

The alarm clock rings !

Its time to get up and go.

Like every other day, Ravi prepared himself for the battle ahead, early in the morning.

 

Ravi is a 26 year old male with almost negligible cosmopolitan lifestyle bad habits and believes thoroughly in the old Hindu norms and practices to keep his soul pure and lead a contended happy life. Allow me to use the author’s liberty to term the essence of this nature of mankind to maintain harmony between the soul and the body as a true gift which nature blesses us all with, but almost none retain it long enough for it to get ingrained in us in such a way and implemented in practical life so that our decision making seems more lucid and one can see the many opportunities that life offers to laugh and feel satisfaction, which, doesn’t need to be substantiated with numbers, more cohesively put, the total money value one has accrued . Ravi has arrived in the city a couple of years ago from a small town near Khopoli located a few hours from Pune. In the last few days, owing to Ravi’s successfully establishing him quickly in the profession and renting a ‘chawl’, where there is privacy which seems extremely impossible to fathom for the elite class. His aunt and mother have successfully convinced him to finally get married. The engagement function is planned after a week, after ‘pay day’, to be precise. He is an absolute contrast to the common desires of any man of his age in a busy and ever growing city like Pune. Ravi is a pious person and believes strongly in the concept of ‘Karma’. He is employed with an individual who has hired out his vehicle to an organisation which in turn provides cabs and drivers to various organisations, mainly BPOs. His job entails him to pick up employees from their doorstep and reach them safely to the company and also drop each employee back to their doorstep after the shifts are over.

 

Odd and long hours are the order of each day for any cab driver in the call center industry. The vehicle owners do not really form any sort of association as individuals and institutions both rent out commercial vehicles. Probably the lack of any such regulatory body has led to reckless selfishness for Organizations while drafting policies in the best benefit of cost and profit. As much intrigued Ravi gets gazing at the ways and norms of city life, equally intriguing seems the lifestyle of a BPO cab driver to him. The everyday trivial confrontation with the Transport Department, sometimes also known as the Infrastructure or General Services or Logistics Department, has given birth to an absolute culture of itself. A virtual bout goes on for 24hrs, round the clock, with topics of arguments varying at different hours of the day, better known as ‘Shifts end’ or ‘Shift start’ in the BPO lingo. All the numbers seem to be chasing ‘profit’, sometimes also conveniently referred to as ‘efficiency’ by the top brass of business executives passed out from elite business schools which taught about many other responsibilities of a function in running a business but practical life has left them with just one, more and more and more ‘profit’. Conveniently camouflaged with the word ‘efficiency’. As a common man from the rural in this society of cosmopolitan gizmo Ravi could never fathom the amazing balance act of such a vast array of socioeconomic cohabitation. A mammoth of a contrast is lived by him everyday, how can he ignore the influence of social status difference? The drivers of the BPO Industries, mostly, earn in the range of three thousand to a maximum of four and a half thousand rupees per month. Amidst an array of difficulties with employee cooperation factor, mostly employees requesting the drivers to wait ‘just a little’ by putting on the gimmick of a friendly approach, city traffic and road conditions, the deal seemed to be a tough one. Of course, one would cry havoc if its monsoon and the city is poured with power cuts to make life miserable just a little more. Ravi along with approximately 4 Lacs of other cab drivers are subjects to a penalty of almost 500 rupees if they arrive late for more than five minutes with the employees in the organisation, which entails an allowance of only a couple of times of leeway to be late, and, the full month’s salary is shelled out. A driver has to make good with some contributions from the cab owners as well, else, will leave him with zilch to support his family or himself, slipping him away to the dungeon of loans and interests, of course how can one ignore the immediate aftermath of such an atrocious stress and pressure to lead most of the drivers to alcohol or other means of intoxicate gateways far from the pain and agony of truth. Far away and fast, so one feels a little rejuvenated for the next pickup. For most of the young ambitious drivers, driving for more than 12hrs each per day is quite normal, for some, even seven days a week.

 

The alarm clock rings !

Its time to get up and go.

Like every other day, Ravi prepared himself for the battle ahead, early in the morning.

 

He leaves…., Usual daybreak, and as usual humdrum of the busy city streets known to him. He smiles and dodges all the obstacles with his deft hands behind the wheels. He is dreaming of a life ahead, with kids and wife. He needs to save every penny that he can before the marriage, he is aware of the fact that he is starting a new and far more responsible life very soon.

 

Ravi reaches the first house for his pick up and all’s well today, he sees the man waiting right outside his complex. Most of the days this employee waits till the vehicle is visible right in front of his gate, though he is quite aware that it takes quite a while to reverse in that narrow lane, however, walking till the main road is a complete no-no as the company bears ‘Doorstep pickup’, Ravi is enthralled. “Thank You Sir!” He exclaims and with a happy face keeps dreaming on. Well, sometimes, just sometimes, dreaming is better than living. ‘We have three more pick ups’ he mumbles at a low voice filled with the pace and heat of the engine of the vehicle, ‘so let’s get going’ says Ravi to himself. There’s a wonderful song going on air. Radio has gained its omnipotence again!

 

In the busy street of MG Road was the next pick up for Ravi and he, with his adroit driving skills, overtaking all the obstacles tries to reach his destination as fast as possible. The undisciplined, unruly ocean of mob, which has become one of the identity of our country continues to galore and adorn the nature and basic thought process of our fellow countrymen’s traffic and civic sense, well for most of our countrymen. Like any other driver, Ravi is used to expect the unexpected. He swerves to the corner meant for parking, and with his youthful flamboyance climbed the staircase to inform the lady employee that the cab has arrived and its time to leave for work. It’s sort of a wakeup call, telling Ravi to wake up, as if screeching through the silence of the approaching dawn and piercing into our ears from an alarm clock, forcing him to believe that not all grapes are sour. Today Ravi is full of luck; the second pickup went through really successful as the lady was ready and waiting for the door bell to ring.

 

The twist in the tale arrives with the third pickup and onwards. This employee, the third employee, was persistent with the fact of her being picked up from a certain specific location and called up to plead him stating it was an emergency. Ravi drove as he spoke on his cell phone. Though reluctant, he agreed. The road was not en-route and he had to enter a by lane. The lane was dingy with kids playing here and there so he had to be very careful and alert. This slowed him down. After moving a little further appeared the big jolt. Standing like a mammoth giant covering the whole breadth of the lane was a truck downloading food grains to a food rationing shop. He realized the gridlock and turned back only to find a series of other vehicles behind him. This meant neither could he move ahead nor could he reverse. He was in a fix. He looked at his watch. He might get late. He might be fined. This very feeling of shelling out cash suddenly twirled his head and turned the comfortable sunny day into a hot and sweaty one. His blood pressure rose as he realized the impact of the loss deeper and deeper. The radio seemed an irritation. An argument struck between him and the truck driver to back off the truck for a while for him to move on but the truck driver wouldn’t budge. The owner of the food rationing shop also came out favored the truck driver. Ravi was outnumbered. He relentlessly persuaded but with no effect. Realizing the criticality of the situation he had to wait till the download was completed and the truck backed off to give him and the other vehicles space to move ahead. Now Ravi drove in a frenzy to pickup the third employee, which he finally did. The fourth employee resided close to the premises of the office itself so that was never a matter of concern. He realized he was late. He will be definitely late no matter how much he tried. In an impetuous, reckless and rash fashion Ravi speeded the car through busy streets honking and shifting gears as if a ten year old playing a video game. The employees seated behind pleaded him to slow down but all he could think of was the ‘Fine’. His vehicle almost kissed a few motorcyclists and startled the heart out of a few pedestrians but he was ruthless. An otherwise calm and composed man has suddenly been transformed to some sort of maniac let loose on the street surfacing from the bottom of an ocean as a monster. The employees screamed at a couple of occasions when it almost felt inevitable to be hit or for the vehicle to hit someone but Ravi had turned deaf. The omnipotence of the word ‘fine’ has gained the reigns of his mind and he, like a slave in the pursuit to save it, clenched the steering rod and responded to only his instincts. An unusual confidence overtook his conscience which led him to believe that the whole wide world would sense his urgency and give way. He drove with just one technique, assumption. Fast and rash. He could still make it he believed. He could definitely reach 4minutes late saving sixty seconds and 500 rupees of fine. Ravi was winning; he was gaining and getting closer and closer to his goal when suddenly at a distance of a hundred meters he saw the signal turning yellow, an indication to slow down. Like most of the Puneites he sped up instead of slowing down at the sight of a yellow light aiming to cross the signal before it turned red. The employees seated behind were almost petrified by then and were holding on to their dear lives praying to get off this wild bull as soon as possible. He accelerated from 60km/hr to 70km/hr to 80km/hr and just when he was ten or fifteen meters away from the signal, the lights turned red. By then it was too late, Ravi couldn’t have pulled the brakes anyways at such a high speed so the only way out was to jump the signal.

 

There was a giant green that emerged from his right; right at the four street crossing with the sound of his heart beat dropping. The sound screeched through the radio, through the speeding wind, shattering windshields, right across his veins to his heart. He felt a slithering pain down his spine and numbness all through his senses. He could hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing and think nothing. The city street and the shops and the sky above toppled over and over and over again. Death was engulfing and embracing Ravi right at that very moment. A single moment so long, that each droplet of time fell slow as if poised to make him the witness of his last breadth. Ravi’s mother screamed, his village school corridor seemed so long, the garden where he would go with his friends to steal mangoes had all the leaves turned brown and his fiancé with his dream of a family faded out in front of his eyes, from his mind. His dream of a family, his vows to his old parents, his duty towards his fiancé, all incomplete, a life filled with emptiness which was ending drop by drop. He could see it all. Feel it all. A tear broke and fell somewhere. All that was left in these few seconds was a dying body, empty soul and drying tear drop that fell somewhere. He could only hear the screeching sound of the horn getting louder and louder and louder. He wanted to cry in agony, in distress, in pain and time didn’t permit him the time.

 

All that remained was just an omnipotent yelp of the nagging horn that was audible, getting louder and louder and louder.

 

The alarm clock rang. Louder and louder and louder and it was time to get up and go.

 

Ravi woke up startle, scared, shivering and numb. He was sweating, his heart beating fast. It took him a while to realize the intention of such a cruel nightmarish reverie. He looked around. He couldn’t move his head. He couldn’t move his fingers. After a while, when he looked at the alarm clock he made himself believe that he was still alive. But someone, I don’t know who, he didn’t either. Someone has sent him an important message that day, “Life with all its grace and beauty and opportunities is far worthier than any penalty that the worldly matters can inflict upon us, ever.”

 

“Life is….. And will always remain, deeply, far more finer than any ‘Fine’”.

 

 

About the Author

Amitav Banerjee

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