An attempt at short story writing
The following might be a very arbit non-choherent prose...use your discretion before you proceed. Comments or critiques are welcome.
"Where was I?" thought Madan as he got up with a jolt from a weird dream. The first week of training had been very hectic and as a result he had been sleeping heavily the past two days, trying to catch up on lost sleep and ended up being engulfed in the myriad world of dreams.Madan knew one thing, dreams don't predict any thing, they are a medium to acheive things that you can't or haven't in real life, a medium to vent out frustrations,yet these were the very reasons why he hated these dreams, because they reminded him of things that he was yet to do something about.
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Life felt so boring, the enthusiasm that he used to effuse when he landed up in this place seemed to have slowly faded away. "I am visiting a new place and it will definitely be a great experince..new friends, new sights, new house, new everything...hell, I am in the place where are dreams are given shape and realised..it got to be good." So he had envisioned and so it was, atleast in the first week since he had joined the company.
Dinner at a three star hotel was a rare happenstance and when he got to know that they were to have dinner at "The windmill meadows" for whole of the week as a part of the orientation and acclimatisation program, he knew things couldn't have been better. The orientation program was a mix of fun and business and Madan despised the latter. The dinners were definitely fun for him, atleast the food served at the meadows was good. Though a teetotaller, he didn't mind the company of people who had good time with a drink, infact they sometimes were his source of amusement.
Ah, those were the days, gone are those days he thought as he recalled the 'sessions' when his friends would reveal amazing lesser known truths about themselves which made them instant legends. Hostel life was something he was definitely going to miss big time; the cosy room, the endless hours of surfing the net, debating for hours about some worthless topic, the ultra flexible routine that arouse out of the freedoom to do anything at any time and ofcourse the unlimited entertainment though countless movies that he had had ready access to.
Madan hadn't taken any intitiative to participate in extra-curricular activities at college, he was more of a bookworm, gobbling up books on science fiction and abstract stuff. Now, he hardly had time for any hobbies, work and sleep consumed most of his time..Ah those days, he thought again..
"Hey", said someone sitting next to him, snapping him back down to ground reality, "the food's up for grabs, let's go yaar". Thank heavens, that lecture was outright trash, he thought. The lecture was another one in the series of lectures that was meant to inculcate the company's vision and mission to the employees and drive home the point on why their work culture was superior. He headed out to a fast queuing up line for the variegated buffet spread out in a vast ballroom. A couple of girls caught his eye as he helped himself with servings of pulaov. He made a mental note to go talk to them later on.
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The orientation week flew by quickly and Madan was yet to get acquainted with many of his coworkers during his first week of training. The company was paying him a decent buck and his work which concerned developing innovative software solutions to network optimisation problems, was an upcoming and demanding field. His undergraduate education according to him hadn't served any useful purpose and he knew he had a lot to catchup on during the ongoing training of three months. It hadn't been easy since the actual training had begun. Flooded with assignments to be completed and tests to be held every week, he could only think of his carefree hostel life. He knew he would take time before he would start accepting the current situtation for better or worse, but the past memories still haunted him. He wasn't sure if he had made the right choice, maybe he thought, maybe if I had...
Job had never been his first option, he had set his sights high at getting into the IIMs, but he had been careless during his preparation for its entrance exam. Too much of idle time and lack of focus didn't do him any good.Yahoo messenger is the worst thing that happened to mankind, he thought as he painfully recollected the many hours he had spent chatting with complete strangers. What irked him most was his attitude towards work which could be summed up to "Well begun is Half done".
Whenever he remincised on the past memories of his undergrad life, Madan would enter a trance like state and let the mind and its flow of thoughts take its own course. During these times, he was just an observer, he wasn't in the least affected by what was going on.He had been a character in his past life,now he wasn't, now he was a mere spectator,he had enjoyed his hostel life, now he had those memories, he had made mistakes,now he could only repent on his mistakes if he chose to.
His eyelids were dropping down, he let out a yawn, life, he thought, life is like that. Another night full of weird dreams, another day at the job tomorrow, this monotonous existence isn't enough. He was going to be one among the many people who couldn't comprehend any joy in working all day and working to a fixed schedule, what fun was there in that? I need to do something imaginative to spruce up this inspid life he thought and he very well knew he wasn't going to do that. The frustration just stays, may be I have to live with it, he thought, yeah life sucks.
6 comments:
that was a good story... may be u should ask madan to get into running?? :-)
Hey! What Madan is experiencing sounds very much like what I'm going thru right now...
Good effort!
@ naikutti: Dunno abt that...he he
@ Deepa: Thanks
saale already getting so many feedbacks from junta....
Interesting view of a man's life as he starts his career and his weird state of mind amidst many questions self-arised.
Guess everyone undergoes this process of self-evaluation at that stage - Kudos :-)
@ prem: mere bhai, tu to short story god hai yaar...tu kahan aur main kahan?(noida and chennai - he he)
@armadillo: Yep you hit the nail on the head...But I might have exaggerated in the situation in the story.
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