On Being Me…
A discussion on corporate culture, the highs and the lows, friends and friendships took me down the memory lane, reminding me of ‘people’, ‘incidents’…
Looked through the old blog to find the piece called ‘What was called Miracle’ and pulled it up here to provide a background of the first incident that came to my mind.
What was called ‘Miracle’
That day we survived! It was a miracle and people called it our ‘rebirth’!
It was early March 2004, probably the 3rd of March, just a few days before Holi but was kind of warm and sunny. I was working in an evening shift then, 3 pm to 11 pm and I was not wearing a sweater even though I would return late! So it was kind of warm! I wore a peach coloured suit and I really used to love the dupatta because it had some embroidery work on it.
We were 7 people on our way to work, three girls occupying the middle seats in the Sumo, one guy at the front seat and three guys behind. All of us were nearly sleepy as the cab drove through the empty Dwarka streets on a warm afternoon. And our friend P at the front seat had just told the driver to slow down. And then I didn’t know what was happening…we were hit by another cab and God it was true, our cab was turning and tossing up and down and we came to know later that it had tossed 4 times!!! And in those few minutes, my mind was blank and wondering if it would all stop at all.
I don’t even remember that someone had pulled me out of the cab through broken doors and windows, what I remember that my mobile which was in my hand was lying somewhere and I found it, it’s display gone…I found my slippers, wore them and I knew I had cuts, there were little blood stains, my peach colour suit was torn at the back and I was using my favourite dupatta to cover myself up.
P was better than the rest of us thankfully for he had used the seat belt, and I was better than the rest in spite of the cuts and the pain. J was bleeding badly for the cab had hit her side of the window. A was hurt too but the degree of her hurt came out much later but then she was better than the others then. VS, VK and IL were thrown out like bags as they had not locked the door.
People assembled all around us and some passers by even didn’t think that anyone could have escaped alive. I don’t remember much of the cab’s condition but friends who saw it were nauseating. P did a lot, gathered all the courage, called the PCR van, sent us all to the hospital, got first aid for himself before he could make it to the hospital.
Inside the PCR van, we all were shivering in pain and fright, J’s head was bleeding; IL and me tried to hold her tight, tell her everything was going to be okay till the time we reached the hospital.
In spite of the terrible nature of the accident, none of us had received any fracture. There were dressings and stitches and three of us were discharged on the same night. The rest were to recover in due time but everyone out of danger!
It took some time for all of us to get back in shape and join work one by one. It was nearly after a month that the last member joined! The finest gesture I ever saw from management was when they got a cake for us to celebrate our rebirth and return and yes, the seven of us cut that cake to cheer our health! And P’s heroism was applauded too!
The scar still remains, the pain is long gone and what remains are memories of friendship and togetherness. And memories of a miracle!
On People
That was the blog! I did not mention my boss’s attitude in the blog. So the previous evening, we had a job coming, half of which we completed before calling it a day. P was excited because never before that the job got completed at one go, so he in all his excitement sent an email to the boss, saying only the final verification needs to be done and will be done the next day. But who knew what the next day would bring!
So we are in the hospital and the boss calls, my voice was low due to the pain and all he could manage to tell me was ‘why are you crying?’. What a question that was in those hours when I was attending multiple calls from home, office, managing the police complaint report, running up and down in the hospital. The same evening the boss’ puppet calls and asks where I kept the files, what work was completed etc while my head was spinning as an after accident effect. I explained as best I could to someone who hadn’t seen the particular work details ever before. The only people who knew the ins and outs were me and P, and both of us happened to be in the same cab.
The next day the boss calls again, repeating his frustration and accusing me of not sharing the work with anyone else. He tells me ‘You are coming tomorrow’ and I lose it then. I tell him directly that I don’t need to be told and if and when I can manage I will come without being told, and what if I had died? He was dumbstruck now and told me that I had lost my senses to which I tell him that we should resume the conversation when my senses are back. He hangs up the phone.
My father listening to the conversation was kind of scared and shocked that I could say this to the boss and risk losing my job. I was in the initial years of my job but somehow there was this inherent courage to spell out what was right.
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Keep the Evidence
The next incident about surviving a boss is jotted here.
This boss totally and consciously chose to forget the discussion about increasing an employee’s rating and blamed me for favouritism, while my peers simply stared at me. This and the series of conflicts that followed were a lot to bear. But I did have the courage to face the HR discussions and thankfully due to some good people around and also because the boss’ past misdeeds which opened up then, the final decision was in my favour.
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On Being Me
I couldn’t be anyone else but I do not advise others to follow my path. Perhaps it is more wise to be tactful, diplomatic, know what to speak, know when to keep quiet because the corporate world and the world at large does not care about individual opinions.
I never learn though and speak my mind mostly, I am learning may be to step back for a bit. I have lost friends in the process, I have friends walk out temporarily and come back. Eventually I have learned that the right people will stay and the not so right for you, or someone not aligned with your principles will anyways fade away. Never have I tried to be dishonest to myself for the sake of keeping a friend, never have I pretended, never have I taken the wrong side.
Not that I do not make mistakes, not that there are no takeaways for me but if one is honest, I can only assure that there is support from the universe and things fall in place eventually.
We all have our flaws, we live with some, we improve on some. No two people or situations are same and at each time no same rule will apply.
Challenging situations help us learn, grow. Our paths cross for a reason — to learn, to teach.
Speak not because it is safe, but because it is right…Edward Snowden
