What will I do in a family day get-together tomorrow? There would be barely anything of interest. I rather focus on developing a fraud mitigation strategy instead.”
It was a melancholic morning as I walked past Bandra Kurla Complex. The ancient & somewhat stale wind blowing from the west accentuated the already calm & tranquil surrounding. At intervals, the passing vehicles, cleaved the almost engulfing silence.
My mind was preoccupied with yesterday’s thought. I stay alone in Mumbai and my family is in the city of temples "Bhubaneswar"; almost 2000 kms away. I reached office at 9:30 AM, had breakfast, and started working.
This had been my modus operandi for the last couple of weeks. However at lunchtime, I noticed the difference at the cafeteria. A truck full of IDFC themed colour balloons, flowers, decoration items, etc. were there at the ground floor. At least a dozen people busy in decorating the pertinent places and a cacophony. Be it lunch or snacks; I hardly spend more than 10 minutes on food. But it was different today. I spent almost an hour in the cafeteria.
By 4 o’clock the cafeteria and its adjacent corridor transformed into a beautiful amusement party place. I volunteered to help some of my colleagues to capture precious moments with their family. I could see enchanted kids partaking in numerous events and winning gifts, well, there was hardly anyone who returned empty-handed. Kids were licking away ice lollies, employees were taking pride in showing their workstations to their family members, a small girl offering her dad to take a bite of a burger; probably she thought that out of sheer happiness of showing her around, he might have forgotten to grab a bite during lunchtime.
I never presumed that the person on my floor whom I thought to be gloomy and always occupied with work could be so lively with his family members around. I liked his smile!
Indeed life is not a chronological issue, but a psychosomatic one, in which we question the values and paradigms we live by, although life keeps surprising us.
People think that bankers are nerds and kind of boring species. Not always.
It was flashback time for me. When I was in school, I used to go out with my parents to carnivals, shopping, marriage parties where there would be a gang of kids and we used to be part of many mischievous activities and hilarious saga.
All of a sudden I started missing those moments. Probably in the process of building Linkedin profile, I forgot my childhood. Memories are good, but that’s all they were. I was feeling nostalgic, my childhood days flashing before me. A droplet tickled in my eye. I almost reached my desk when a colleague’s kid asked me “hi uncle, have you tried this ice gola? Let’s have em.”
I smiled and asked “which flavour do you suggest?”
He exclaimed “try kala khatta with orange syrup. That’s my favourite”
I must confess that even after so many years, these ice lolly still taste precisely the same like the ones which we used to get next to our school gate.
The sun was slowly setting behind PNB house. Cool breeze brushed upon my face. Well, the light rays, now unburdened from the harsh heat of the sun, had softened the shape of distant objects, and beamed quietly in the sky like airy wines. The colour of BKC was transforming into pale rose from its brighter golden brown. I looked at the sky and smiled. Who said I don’t have a family here...I got one…a big loving one at IDFC :).
Thank you for bringing me back to my childhood.
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