Down the lanes of Durgapur- the uncanny side of life

(4)

When I first met him, he was a bundle of energy. A blue eyed Manager, he seemed to be a man in a hurry and nothing seemed to move on well without him whether it was office or outside. As a student, he had a brilliant track record and did Graduation and Master's from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (Chennai). He had the appetite for enormous job responsibility just like his craving for good food.

This was the person I knew in Bijit Roy (name changed) at Durgapur. Like any other blue eyed executive, he used to maintain a punishing work schedule from morning to night. He was destined to rise very high.

That evening, Bijit was late at office. He had a lot of job to finish so that his superiors can sleep the night peacefully. But in that fateful evening, Life presented a twister to the Roy family. Bijit had a massive heart attack at his office. He was flown out to a super speciality hospital and undergone treatment for months. At times, it seemed like Bijit was fighting a lost battle. That entire ordeal was too intense to endure for his wife, a first time expecting mother. Their child didn’t see  light on earth .

After many months, Bijit joined office at Durgapur. I still remember how slowly he got down from his car, assisted by the driver to adjust his pair of crutches. His right hand required a special device to keep it in proper position and the lips drooped to the right side. He required to frequently wipe the uncontrolled saliva flowing out. It was painful to see  energetic and full of life man of once on the crutches. Though difficult for him to work in an industry shop floor, Bijit insisted to come to the office to be with the people he loved and shared the prime of his life. He wanted life to move on.

The sufferings of Bijit didn’t end here. Public memory is short and it is even shorter in corporate world where we often overestimate our own importance and fail to appreciate that we are important as long as we are useful. The brilliant IIT Graduate failed to understand this simple logic of life. He was asked to take voluntary retirement. Bijit refused as he thought that staying idle at home would do more harm than good. Finally with a heavy heart, he was compelled to take retirement as someone higher up was required to achieve the VR target. Bijit was a potential candidate.

In the last sixteen years of my professional life, I have met thousand of people and each one of them is a separate world in entity. I have seen people working with selfless dedication, people who place responsibilities above self, snobs who run from pillar to post to appease superior with heads always directed towards the Master's knees. Like a country, big industry houses run on the selfless devotion of many unseen faces who barely come to the limelight.

I haven’t heard of Bijit in the last 12 years. Perhaps he is doing well in some corner of the world. But his tragedy often reminds me the triviality of my own self. Money, status and power are important proponents of life. Yet a sweet home waits for you and you are far more important to your family than to the rest of the world.

                                                                       (To be continued)

You can contact Kamaljit at kamaljitmedhi1975@gmail.com