Monday, February 15, 2010

Check out Save Our Tigers | Join the Roar

Title: Save Our Tigers | Join the Roar
Link: http://gotaf.socialtwist.com/redirect?l=-257432413361779920231

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Varun Shyamak and his Theory of Job Satisfaction

Hi all. This one comes after a long time and has been written in only one night. I got a response from a lot of you that you will like to read a lot more of Varun Shyamak and the other characters. However, this story is completely an independent story but with same characters. Still I would like you to read the story http://bakwaswani.blogspot.com/2009/10/there-are-strange-people-then-there-are.html to know the characters better.

Many of us has a philosopher inside us and love to give a lecture now and then, but with Varun Shyamak things can only get weird when he decides to philosophize job satisfaction and theory of Happiness. Well this is a more of a spontaneous story that I have written so there may be a few mistakes here and there, but I still hope you will like reading it.
Also I would like to thank all of you who read the last story which was one of the most challenging piece I had written. Before you read this piece I will appreciate if you cast your vote in the poll I have created which you can see on the right hand side of the blog.
Waiting for your comments.



“What do you know about frogs?” Varun asked me.

“Frogs?” I repeated. I had no idea, why I listened to Varun or so as to why do I even hang out with him.

“Yes, Frogs. You know if you take some water out of a pond in which frog lives and put it in a jar and place the frog in it, what happens? The frog will happily live in it, even as you slowly start heating the water. It will not retaliate and it won’t try to jump out. Slowly the water will start boiling and still the frog won’t jump out. And finally it dies fat and happy. Interestingly if you had placed the same frog in already boiling water it would have straightaway jumped out and escaped.” Varun explained. This was Varun at his philosophical best. Off course this line might not has been his own but from one of the numerous magazines that he had read.

“So?” I asked.

“So I want to say that even we are a little like the frog. I mean most of the time we don’t realize that we are in the jar and we smartly develop an attitude of adjustment, and before we realize our lives are messed.” Varun was disturbed and mentally unstable, but it was totally understandable. If someone has to work from 6 A.M. in morning to 6 P.M. in the evening and add to that the office being on other end of the city which takes 2 hours to commute, even an angel would have turned grouse and Varun was no angel. Add to that the sleep deprivation and excessive pornography and you have a perfect recipe for insanity which Varun Shyamak was. “Just look at us. We all are stuck in jobs that we don’t like, we are away from our families and living in a real mess but we have just got so accommodating that we happily accept it. We are not really happy.”


“Yes. Right.” Said Rachit, but this was more out of a habit rather than agreement. Rachit had a habit of saying yes to anything without thinking. He would say “no” only to plans of a fun weekend or to a better dinner that would make him move his ass out of the building and more often than not it was only because of him our plans would get rachited. He was a geek in his domain but outside it he was just someone who either had no opinions or never wanted to express his opinion. If you say him Domino’s is way better than Pizza Hut he would say “Yes. It really is” and just then someone would walk in and say Domino’s Pizzas taste like chapattis in comparison to Pizza Hut he would again say “YES!!!! Dominos Pizza is really bad.” Someone had once told me that people who always agree to everyone are really dangerous for they are masters at manipulating people and will often end up getting everybody to do what he or she wants. It didn’t seem to apply at all to Rachit but slowly as we started hanging out together more, I had silently realized that the advice was totally right for I had often seen all of us landing in exactly the same restaurant or movie which he wanted despite the fact that the initial verdict for that place being 1:9 and what was more surprising that no one would ever notice it.



“I think you are going overboard with it Varun. It’s true that we don’t like working but then you don’t need to like your work for after all it is work. It doesn’t really matter that how much you like your job as long as you are good at it and if they pay you well, I think it is fine. At the end of the day you have to do some work to earn a living even if it is not to your liking.” Vikash explained. Vikash had started his career as a lecturer in an Engineering college and had moved to corporate world very recently, but he still loved to give a lecture now or then.
“Yes! That is right Vikash Bhaiya” Rachit said. In my opinion Rachit had the most satisfying job among us, but still he didn’t seem to be happy with it. He was working for Intel and was into chip design, something which is a dream for every two out of three computer engineers. But for him his problem was nostalgia, rather than a dissatisfying job. Being a Mommy’s boy staying away from the family was haunting him and though slowly he had resigned to his fate, he still wished to go back.
Ramesh had just walked in. The clock showed 8 P.M. and this being a Friday night all of us were quite relaxed. Ramesh pulled a stool and sat beside me. Rachit sat down on Vikash’s bed with Vikash leaning on his pillow at 45 degrees. Saurav was standing by the wash basin preparing to shave and has been uncharacteristically quiet till then. “What are we talking about Abhijeet?” Ramesh asked. I narrated him the story of the Varun and the metaphorical frog. Strangely none of us remembered why we started discussing this out of the blue.


“Seriously yar! We are not totally happy with our lives; we just go on accommodating with it. Recently there was a study to find out which are the world’s happiest countries and India was as low as 71, while some really small country Vantau was number 1.” Varun was not letting it go.


“Ok! So what is the great Varun’s definition of Happiness?” I had had enough of his speech.


“Happiness in my view is living the life on your own terms. If you do what you want to do and not what you are supposed to do, then you will be happy with life. What say Rachit?” Varun continued.


“Yes. You are right.” Rachit said.


“This is the most ridiculous definition of happiness I have ever heard. You are linking job satisfaction with happiness? This is insane. There are millions of people in the world doing menial jobs, many are unemployed, many of us don’t exactly end up getting what we truly deserve and according to your definition no one is happy.” I couldn’t take it longer.


“Yes! Right” Rachit repeated.


“Shut the fuck up” I shouted at Rachit. “Do you ever cross anyone? Why are you so much in love with being so diplomatic?”


Rachit started laughing without any reason and continued for some time. Very few people knew that Rachit was a white collared criminal. He would make fun of everyone behind him but in front of him he would be a sage. I bet if at that time I had told Varun that Rachit once told us that Varun eats like a rabbit Varun would never have believed me.


“No I am not saying Job satisfaction is only prerequisite of happiness but….” Before Varun could finish, Ramesh shouted, “Shut up! Enough of the frog and rabbit metaphors. You know you are sick. You just want importance and this is why you want to sound intellectual. Just because you think you are not happy with your life, you want to make sure that everyone else starts feeling so.”
Well, Ramesh was right. Varun Shayamak wanted everyone to be like him. He had bouts of depression which he tried to cover up by making everybody feel miserable or by turning into an intellectual philosopher and then he had this never say die attitude no matter how much stupid it gets.


He was still not willing to lose this conversation, so he still continued “It is not only about me. Are you people happy with your lives? What say Jeet?”
“Of Course, I am” I said, “I work for one of my dream companies even though I don’t quite love the work I do, I get a good salary. I have a girlfriend who though not exactly hot, is very beautiful and I have parents who understand me. What more do you want to be happy?”


“But, what about your dream project? Your plan to change the world and to make this world a better place. And what about you Ramesh? You wanted to be the opening batsman for Indian team? Now are you really happy working for a Bank?” Varun said shaking his head to and fro in simple harmonic motion aka the Simple Pendulum we studied in school. Varun for some reason had decided to get under our nerves that day, and he is sort of person who only has a start button, and there are no buttons for pause or stop, and the only way to stop him is to pull the plug.


Saurav did exactly that. “Let’s leave it for later. Let’s go out for dinner tonight. How about Pizza Hut?” Saurav said. He had carefully chosen the expensive hotel knowing full well that Varun, the miser will defeat Varun, the philosopher.
“Ya. Let’s go” I said getting up and Ramesh followed suit. Vikash sir also agreed.


Varun looked crestfallen. He looked out of the window for 10 seconds, smiled at some strange object for some time and then added “Well let’s go to U.S. Pizza no. At the same price you can have more Pizzas.”


“Yes. U.S. Pizza is also near. It has also started Pizza buffet. Pizza Hut is very far. Too much of a walk.” Rachit said. Now, one fact that often went unnoticed was that if Varun rated 9.9 out of 10 in miser rating scale, Rachit was also around 9.88 but he very subtly managed to cover it in a veil of laziness and nerdity. Very few people noticed that Varun despite being proclaimed miser always ate outside more than once a week, the same being more than a month for Rachit and Varun may had had watched more movies than Rachit. Finally decision was made. All of us, except Rachit and Varun, left for Pizza Hut while leaving them to go for cheap Pizzas, which we even doubted they would.


While walking to Pizza Hut Saurav asked, “Why do you people even get into argument with him? This guy is a jerk, he should be ignored.”


“I don’t know why I do it or why do I even hang out with him.” I said.

“Same here” Said Ramesh.

“However the example of frog in boiling water was classic” Vikash said.

“Totally!!!!” I replied.


“What about Harpreet? Haven’t seen him tonight.” Saurav asked.


“He was in room man. His job sucks big time. He had to make some presentation and thus is working whole nights.” Ramesh replied.


“Then maybe, Varun should have approached him with his Shayamakian school of Happiness” I added.


“Exactly!!!” Vikash added.


We cracked some more jokes as we went to Pizza Hut, had some Pizzas roamed around in the mall some time and returned to home around 10:30 P.M. We did not find Rachit and Varun and we were surprised that they actually went.


“Strange. Varun actually did go.” I said.

“Maybe he remembered the hot waitress at U.S. Pizza” Ramesh winked.

“Anyone wants to watch a movie? I have some CDs” Saurav said as he passed us a bag of CDs. We were checking the CDs when my cell rang. It was Rachit. I picked up “Hey!” I said

“Where are you?” he asked, as I heard a lot of noise in the background.

“We are at home. Why?”

“Come to U.S. Pizza. Fast”

“Why? What Happened?”

“Varun Shayamak and his job satisfaction theory. Come fast I will explain you here” he hung up.

“Let’s go. Emergency” I told all. We rushed to U.S. Pizza only to find a lot of people surrounding some table. I asked one of them what had happened. That man, well in his fifties, gave me a ‘you young people’ look and told “Someone misbehaved with waitress”

“What?” we all called together. Well Varun was desperate but we could not believe he could have done this. We forced ourselves through the crowd, to see Varun being manhandled by two waiters, his shirt spoilt with salad and Rachit standing at a little distance and to our amazement he was inconsolably laughing.

I approached him and brought him to the side and asked “What happened?”

“He He He He He……” he went on laughing.

Ramesh pressed his neck and told “What happened? Tell us.”

“He asked the waitress… He He He He”

“What did he ask?” Saurav asked.

“Are you satisfied… Ha Ha Ha Ha.”

“Then. Whats’ with that?” I asked.


“He kept staring at her….ha ha ha ha….at her….ha ha ha ha” we understood and he added “and asked ‘Are you SATIS…FIED ... haaahaahaahaaa…all the while staring at her….ha haha ha he he he he. She smashed the salad bowl on his … ha ha ha ha …head..he he he he” he continued to laugh.


I had to do something. I and Ramesh went to the waiters and asked one of them what has happened. He recounted what Rachit had already told us and they told that they are going to call the police. Varun said “Are yar, I just asked …” before he could finish, I took him up by his collars and said, “Shut up! Is this the way to talk to a lady? She is doing a job here” and I gave a sympathetic look to the hot waitress standing in the corner with her beautiful eyes moistened. “Go and apologize” I pushed him.


“But…”

“Shut up” Ramesh shouted, “Just do as he says” and he pushed him again


“Just apologize and run from that door, run as fast as you can and don’t stop before you reach home”, I whispered in his ears as we pushed him to the waitress.
Varun went near her, looked as far as possible from her and said, “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you” and then he suddenly ran and by god, he ran fast. He disappeared in moments.


Ramesh went towards the waitress and said “We are sorry. Our roommate is insane, we can’t help it” He deliberately didn’t refer to Varun as friend.

“You don’t need to be sorry. It’s totally fine” she said clasping her hairs.


Ramesh looked at her and said “You, however, did the right thing by hitting the bowl on his head. I like this attitude. You should rather have hit the hot Pizza Pan on his head or drop that melting cheese into his... ears.”

She laughed and before Ramesh could continue, I whispered in his ears “Enough of the flirting. Now run before something else goes wrong and she puts the melting cheese in your ...”, I didn't complete.

“Hey! We need to go. Catch you sometimes later Miss ...” I said.

“Komal…” she replied.

“Ya, Miss Komal, see you then”

“Sure. Thanks” she said.

As we walked back, Saurav said, “Jeet, you people are too much man. You pulled Varun out of an embarrassing situation and then went to flirt with that furious waitress”

“Forget it! Just some fun” Ramesh said and winked.

“Well I hope Varun will never talk about job satisfaction again” Vikash said.


It turned out that he was sadly mistaken. When we returned home, we heard Varun shouting frantically and the sound was coming from Harpreet Singh’s room. We rushed to his room and the last scene we saw was Harpreet slapping Varun repeatedly and finally pushing Varun into the bathroom and locking the door from outside.

“What happened?” Rachit asked him.

“I haven’t slept from last three nights working on this fucking presentation and on top of this, this asshole comes and asks me if I am happy and he talks about some fucking frog, a lizard or something and asks me if I am satisfied with my job” he said as he switched off the bathrooms light, “Noone, takes him out of here tonight or I will kill him”
Varun started crying and shouting frantically, banging the door and calling he is afraid of the dark and something something in Kannada. Vikash tried to open the door but Harpreet was in no mood and he stood in front of the door and said “Sir! No! I respect you but you don’t.” His eyes were red, his nostrils fuming with anger and he looked dangerous to say the least and we knew that no one can dare stand up against him and we rather reluctantly returned to our rooms. Varun shouted some more time before Harpreet told him that if he shouted once more he will come in and thrash him again.
So Varun had to spend that night in bathroom and we learnt two very important lessons of our life. One, never mess with a hot waitress no matter how cute she looks, and two, never screw up with an already screwed Sardar. And then I thought about it, that why did we hung out with him. Things never went as planned when he was around. Plans got spoilt, Bizarre things happened and you didn’t always end up at the place you had wanted to be, but still we had no idea why we even hung out with him. To this day I don't have an answer.