I’ll Live in this city!

Prashant slumped into an old chair at a road-side restaurant. He flung the folder he was carrying on the table in front of him and let his hands loose dangling. His head rested on the backrest and he closed his eyes. He was sweating profusely, but he wouldn’t lift his hand to wipe off the sweat.

He would have dozed off but he heard a voice.

“Sir, Order?”

He opened his eyes slightly to see the blurred image of a fifteen year old boy standing before him. The boy wore a loose blue shirt over loose knee-length pants and held an empty tray in his right hand. He was the lone waiter of this very small restaurant. Seeing him open his eyes, the boy rattled off a long menu which he had mugged up thoroughly.

Prashant sat straight and looked around. He wasn’t listening to the boy, but was trying to gauge where he was. He realized that he was in a restaurant.

He hadn’t intended to come here. He wasn’t hungry. Though he was thirsty, he didn’t want to drink anything. He had been walking since morning on the busy streets of Mumbai. He didn’t know in which street he was and didn’t know where he was headed to. He stopped as he couldn’t walk anymore.

The boy had finished rattling off the entire menu. Prashant hadn’t heard a word of what the boy had said. What he heard was some meaningless noise. His body wouldn’t allow him to move immediately, and he knew that if he had to sit there he would have to order something.

Thus, he said, “One tea,” and thought, “Tea is always available!”

The waiter left the table while he stared blankly waiting for the tea. His mind reeled. Six months ago, he was the manager of a privately run investment company. He drew a monthly salary of fifty thousand rupees with which he could afford rented accommodation in a posh locality, a car and a lifestyle in which dinners, movies and parties were regular activities. Then, the recession came. Investment companies thrive on people’s investments. Investments declined and privately owned investment companies were hit harder as people didn’t lay their trust upon them. The company could not sustain itself and had to be closed down and Prashant lost his job.

Even then he wasn’t disheartened. After all he had been into investment banking for ten long years. He had started from smaller ranks to rise to the position of a manager. With the knowledge he had gained, he would be an asset to any organization which hired him. He had saved enough to be able to pay his rent and car loan installments and sustain his present lifestyle for a few months. He could certainly find another job until then!

Six months had passed, but he met no success. The financial market had been severely hit and there had been more and more lay-offs. Financial institutions were not recruiting and the situation wasn’t improving. After three months, he had shifted to a humble one-room accommodation and sold his car in a hope to be able to sustain himself but now, he had no money left and he had no way to sustain himself.

The waiter brought the tea.

Prashant did not move. His thoughts flew back to the day he had landed in this city. He hailed from ‘Bayali’ a small village in northern Maharashtra. Twelve years ago, he had travelled to the city with very little money on him and a dream to make it big someday. For two years, he had taken up any job that came his way till he got his break which was a job as a peon in the investment company. He worked hard all day and attended Night College to educate himself. He steadily rose in the organization to become a Manager. The people of Bayali considered him their hero as he had set an example of what a village boy could accomplish.

He thought of going back to the village. But how could he do that? He couldn’t go back to his village a failure. He was burdened with the responsibility of guarding the hopes and dreams of the villagers. What was he to do?

He was jostled out of his thoughts by the thunderous voice of a fat man sitting at the counter. He was yelling at the waiter.

He said, “What do you think you are doing? I don’t want useless people like you here. Ask the customers to settle down. See what they want.”

The waiter listened with a blank expression on his face. The restaurant was now crowded and many people were gathering near the counter. People were waiting outside the restaurant to get in. The waiter was asking the customers to get back to their tables and the man at the counter had a worried expression on his face. Prashant called the waiter and asked him the reason for this confusion.

The waiter told him that the man at the counter was the owner of the restaurant. He had fired his accountant this morning as the accountant had misappropriated some cash. The accountant was responsible for the billing, collecting the cash, recording the income and expenses etc. The owner was finding it difficult to manage the billing and cash collection along with his regular managerial duties. The customers were getting impatient and the bills weren’t reaching the tables in time.

The tea was cold. He drank it nevertheless.

He had made his decision. He had to live in this very city. He walked to the counter and asked the owner whether he could be given the job of the accountant. It didn’t matter that was an investment banker before. It didn’t matter that he would have to work on a salary of just ten thousand rupees per month. What mattered was that he could live in this city.