Diary from Heaven

Graveyard Shift

Going to the college seemed pointless as most of the time, classes never happened due non-availability of a faculty anyways. Most of the staff had already resigned ever since they got to know that UGC would eventually close the campus, though the final notice was still awaited.

The only time Arun came to the college, was when the final exams were conducted, and then too, he avoided everyone. He would keep hiding till the last moment and enter the examination hall only when everyone else was already seated.

Arun did some odd jobs working in direct marketing campaigns and counter sales profile at a couple of outlets. Gurgaon, those days, didn’t have any malls or BPO’s, so finding a job for an under-graduate was quite tricky. He did possess excellent communication skills, but he still hadn’t gotten his final year mark sheets or a provisional certificate from the college. Repeated visits to the Registrar by him and his father also yielded nothing, and he had no choice but to wait.

Bisht had stopped taking his father’s calls.

He started hanging out with Jatin more often in South Extension as he was still pursuing his course. Arun would visit the Marketing institute as they would invite students for guest lectures by industry leaders. These guest speakers were from the leadership teams of top multinational companies in India. Amongst these speakers was the HR head of India’s first call centre. Arun had never heard of call centres before, so when he was informed that the next guest lecture was by the HR head of a call centre, he got curious.

Sudhanshu Malik, HR Head of GECIS, Gurgaon, spoke like a true leader. He briefed everyone about the scope of work at a typical call centre and the kind of workforce required by them.

Arun was instantly hooked on to the idea that a call centre is where his future lies. He gave it a serious thought and went for a walk-in interview in Jan 2001 at GECIS’s DLF Corporate Park office on MG road. He was impressed with the infrastructure and liked the work environment too. All the employees were dressed casually and walked in and out swiping their ID cards on the scanners installed on the doors.

He walked in confidently and introduced to the receptionist who was elegantly dressed in a saree. He looked around, and everyone sitting on the couch, at the reception area were staring at him. He stared back confidently.

As he sat down, waiting to be called for the first round, he felt awkward as everyone else was dressed formally, while he was dressed casually.

Notwithstanding, he looked around and uttered; “Competition...” with a smirk on his face.

The receptionist kept calling names, and they all went inside a room in groups of five. Some came out smiling while others bore a disappointing look.

As his name was called, he stood up confidently and went towards the receptionist who pointed towards a room. Arun and four others went inside the room with a massive table and three panellists sitting on rotating chairs. Five chairs were placed in a semi-circle shape in front of the table.

While the interviewer on the left looked at Arun, top to bottom, as if he was not pleased with the casual look, the lady in the centre and the gentlemen on the left were discussing something. All five stood behind the chairs and waited for someone to ask for them to sit. The guy next to Arun didn’t wait and quickly made way to the chair on the extreme left.

“Gentlemen and lady; please take your seats,” said the lady looking at everyone. While the guy on the right was still staring at Arun, the lady kept her focus on the only girl in the group of five.

“I am Aarushi, and this is Robin, and that is Ashish,” said the lady introducing self and others in the panel. “The first round is a generic introduction, and extemporary round and the next round will be the group discussion round,” she continued. “If selected, your final round will be with the HR,” she said, giving an equal glance to all the interviewees.

“Firstly, are you all comfortable with doing night shifts?” asked Ashish as everyone turned their attention towards him. “Yes,” was the answer from everyone except for the girl who wanted to check with her parents first. She left the room while Arun and others kept sitting.

Arun was trying hard to concentrate and listened to every word that they spoke very carefully. He did not want to mess things up, but it was hard for him to concentrate.

As the interview started, the first, and the obvious question (obvious because no matter which interview he had been to this was a standard question), “tell me something about yourself,” was a piece of cake.

The answer to the second question about strengths and weaknesses was a bit bumpy, but Arun handled it well. Everyone else struggled to answer the second question. Seeing everyone else struggle, Arun was relieved and thought confidently; “I am much better than others.” He quickly cleared the first round of the interview, and then the group discussion round was next.

After the group discussion round, the selected candidates were asked to wait in the cafeteria. Arun had never seen such a huge cafeteria before; he was impressed. There was a huge buffet counter and eating area on one side, and large tables with chairs spread across the floor with a capacity of around 500. The walls covered with fancy graffiti designs that looked beautiful, the likes of which he had only seen in Hollywood movies before. The false ceiling was decorated with fancy chandeliers all across, giving the cafeteria the look of a restaurant at a five-star hotel. “This is where I will start my career,” he said confidently sipping coffee and looking at the endless lines of workstations right across the cafeteria.

Next was the HR round, though HR was impressed with his communication skills, he was told to wait to complete his graduation as that was the minimum qualification required for this position. He waited for a month. In the meantime, he worked at a couple of printing presses, doing DTP designing trying to make some extra money. He just wanted to keep his mind busy and look busy when his relatives would come to his house. DJ’ing was happening simultaneously.

Hardev had to literally plead with Bisht to get the provisional certificate.

In Feb 2001, after getting the provisional certificate, Arun reapplied at GECIS and quickly cleared the interview. He joined GECIS at their Udyog Vihar building at a starting monthly salary of Rs 5100. He got selected for a blended US process (voice and data processing), so it involved night shifts including the occasional graveyard shift. Since the company provided a pick and drop facility, travelling at odd hours wasn’t difficult.

The induction training included US mortgage training, US cultural training, and voice and accent training. Voice and accent training also included a part about phonetics. The best part about the training was learning to pronounce US specific names and places. For example, Des Moines was pronounced Dmoine, and Jose was pronounced Hose. They had to be extra careful, while, especially, pronouncing names of the customers.

He particularly enjoyed the mock calls during the training. During the mock calls, one of the trainees would act as a customer, and the other one would pretend to be the caller; and different situations were simulated, followed by feedback by the trainer. Also, they had to select an alias, an English name, as Indian names were quite tricky for US customers. Arun chose his alias as Aaron.

His process involved the processing of loan applications for US clients. The software would populate handwritten loan applications on their computer screens, and they had to enter the data in software. They were supposed to call the individual customer in case there was some discrepancy in the application or if some information was missing.

His first call was to a customer named Jose Martinez from Lincoln, Nebraska. The nervousness and excitement of making his first call made him forget his training, and he pronounced the name as ‘Jose’ instead of ‘Hose’. “May I please speak with Jose Martinez?” said Arun nervously holding on to the mouthpiece to make sure he was audible. He hit his head hard when he realised he had wrongly pronounced the name.

“Hahahahah... this is Jose,” was the reply.

"This is Aaron calling on behalf of American Bank Loan Department," said Arun trying hard to imitate the American Accent. 

To Arun’s relief, Jose found the wrong pronunciation funny and was not angry with him at all. He was 72 years old and, in fact, apologised for not filling the loan application correctly. He gladly shared the missing details and thanked Arun for helping him out because he needed the loan urgently. As the call ended, Arun took a sigh of relief.

Though he loved his first job, he couldn’t focus because of his addiction. Harveen had left an enormous void in his life, and he saw her everywhere, making it difficult for him to concentrate. Often, he would snort in the office washroom, and also smoke weed during breaks. This was affecting his work big time. He worked hard to get this job, so he wanted to make this work. He sought help at a Drug Rehabilitation Centre on Sheetla Mata road. Here he met an Ex-Army Colonel, Dr Sood.

Though Dr Sood was quite senior, he was very friendly and sincerely worked at helping Arun and others. Arun became familiar with him in no time and would often visit Dr Sood’s home on and off. Dr Sood suggested him to keep his mind busy with different activities. He tried to keep himself busy at home too.

Though night shift limited his DJ’ing gigs, he would still roam around at night on his off days. He was not happy with the data processing part of his profile though he loved talking to clients in the US. Calling was a piece of cake, but data entry required much concentration, and he lacked this completely. He was reprimanded by his team leader, many times, for making mistakes in the data entry. He would usually keep to himself in the office and did not have many friends.

Soon he got frustrated and unable to concentrate in a data processing set-up, he moved to a call centre with a UK process at Gateway towers, Gurgaon and met Bijoy, Alam and Sunil. The three would travel together to the office and became close friends. While Sunil left the job after three months, as he moved to Australia, Arun, Alam and Bijoy worked at the same place together for close to two and a half years before Arun moved to a different field.

It was a dream come true, as the UK Call Centre, 7C, was located in Gateway tower Gurgaon, a building you couldn’t miss while entering Gurgaon from the Jaipur highway side those days. The other way to reach Gurgaon was from the MG roadside. Every time he saw that building, while travelling on the National Highway, he would think that someday he would work there. Now, of course, this building is lost among the countless other buildings of Cyber City.

He learned about UK culture here since the collections process involved calling customers in the UK for a utility company for outstanding bills. The induction training here was even better as due to lack of infrastructure induction training was extended to four weeks instead of two weeks.   

Everyone in his batch was young and for most this was their first-ever experience in a call centre, so they enjoyed the induction training. Amit, the youngest of them all, was a Hotel Management graduate. He would sing Punjabi songs with a funny accent, his favourite being, Chak lo revolver by Babbu Mann. The good thing about this place was that he was also enjoying the company of people, and this was helping him to keep off drugs.

He kept meeting Dr Sood, who helped him a lot to get over his addiction. Soon, the withdrawal phase started. Dr Sood suggested that it would be best if he moved out of his home for a while and checked into rehab in Delhi. The massive cost of a stay at a rehab prevented him from moving out, and he made the difficult choice of staying at home during this phase.

The biggest problem with giving up drugs without telling anyone in your family is that they will eventually start noticing things. Arun would often have a high fever, extreme pain in the stomach and his mother would insist on him seeing the family doctor, which he couldn’t do because the doctor would surely recognise the withdrawal symptoms. So, to subdue all the signs, he continued taking small doses of weed now and then and kept reducing it slowly. He would try to not to take drugs for a few days and feel the after-effects and take a little bit. This never stopped; it was like a vicious circle. Dr Sood also taught him some yoga exercises to help him get through the phase.

Bijoy, Alam, Amit, Ridhi, Vandy, Meena, Roopa, and Tarun, to name a few, became his lifelong friends. After a while, some of them knew about his addiction while others didn’t and thought of him as a weirdo.

The entire college episode had made him emotionally vulnerable, and he would often feel lonely. He wanted to make as many friends as possible so that people always surrounded him. However, no matter how much he tried, the cravings would set in now and then, in the office and at times even at home too. He would often make excuses to take an off from the shift. There were moments when he would have a sudden breakdown too.

He enjoyed Alam and Bijoy’s company and the three would often catch-up after office and on weekends at Alam’s place in Malviya Nagar. He developed a taste for Pool at the office. Abhinav, a team member, and Arun would play Pool in the Recreational room for hours before and after their shift. This is what he wanted badly, a group of known people minus the college memories.

Money management was a huge problem at home, so he kept looking for work outside of the office. Dj’ing gigs were hard to come by because he didn’t have contacts there anymore. Reluctantly, he visited Band Baja Barat which was still run by Shobhit’s partner, Daljeet. Daljeet offered him a few gigs at the Club for old times’ sake. Arun couldn’t keep up with the commitment due to the distance from Gurgaon, and also the gig timings were always clashing with his office timings.

He again got in touch with Ronnie who agreed to arrange gigs in Gurgaon as per his shift timings. These were mainly at rave parties at farmhouses in and around Gurgaon. Unlike a night club, rave parties were much easier to handle. Arun made extra money playing at parties almost every Friday.

Getting new music was now much easier thanks to Limewire, a P2P file-sharing software.

Soon, Ronnie hooked Arun to Showtime Events, a big multinational event management company in Gurgaon for various after show events. He resisted drugs as much as possible and kept in touch with Dr Sood for his guidance. Events industry was kind to him; the team loved him. He made many friends including, Romila. He liked her company and vice versa. She was a struggling model and lived alone in Gurgaon. Arun would stay at her place for days whenever he felt his body language might reveal his secrets at home.

After Romila met Arun, she started getting a lot of lucrative assignments. She considered Arun her lucky charm and did not mind him staying at her place. She even tried to keep him busy to keep his mind off his cravings. He was trying hard to give up, but his brain was running wild. He shared everything with her, and she listened intently. She felt that if he was able to talk to her about this, he might feel at peace.

One night, while Arun was at her place, he had a massive breakdown, and she had a hard time controlling him. It had been five days since he had anything and it was killing him. She hugged him to comfort him. “I am here for you, you are not alone in this,” she said, kissing him on the forehead. He begged her to give him at least a small amount, but she held on to him. After a while, he fell asleep on her shoulder, and she did not move at all.

As he woke up, he found her holding on to him. He could feel her heart beating fast, and for a moment, everything around him stopped, and the pain was gone. As he released his hands, they both moved back but remained close enough to look into each other’s eyes. They were so close that they could feel each other breath. He moved his lips towards her lips; she didn’t move back. Noticing this, he kissed her passionately, and she put her arms around him.

“Arun,” was what he heard as if someone whispered in his ears. He opened his eyes and stopped kissing while she kept kissing him. He let go of her and tried to move back. Romila felt this and stopped instantly.

“Did you hear that,” he asked her, looking around.

“Heard what? There is no one else here besides us,” she said, caressing his cheeks.

Tears rolled down his eyes. They both sat there, looking at each other, silently for a while. Arun was breathing heavily. Without saying anything, he just got up and left her house. He went to the office but couldn’t concentrate. He kept thinking about Romila.

“It’s for the best,” he mumbled as he answered the call on the VOIP phone kept in front of him.

“Good morning, welcome to NEWGEN. How may I assist you today?” he vomited the usual welcome greeting with ease. During the call, he saw Ajith waving at him from across the floor. Ajith was the quality guy and the most hated guy in the team because his job was to pinpoint mistakes in the calls.

After ending the call, he changed the AUX code on his VOIP phone and went towards Ajith’s work-station. Ajith greeted him and pulled a chair for him. Arun sat on the chair looking at Bijoy across the floor, who was teasing him. Ajith took out a small cassette player that was connected to a VOIP phone on his workstation to record calls. He played one of Arun’s calls where Arun abruptly disconnected the call as the customer was getting irate.

Arun remembered when, the other day, he suddenly had the craving during the call, and he immediately disconnected the call and rushed to the washroom. When he came back, he was warned by the team leader not to do this again.

“So, what do you have to say about this?” asked Ajith as he stopped the player. Arun acted indifferently and kept looking here and there. Seeing him quiet, Ajith took out a feedback form and marked him 2.5 out of 5 on that particular call. He placed the feedback form in front of Arun who snatched the pen from Ajith’s hand, signed the form and walked out of the cubical unperturbed. He did not even listen to what Ajith had to say.

Meanwhile, he did not meet or speak with Romila for days after the incident at her place until they met at a party two weeks later. No matter how much they tried to avoid each other, they would eventfully end up around each other thanks to Ronnie, and his antics, who thought they should be together.

Finally, Arun gathered some courage and went up to her at the bar.

“Hi!” she said, hugging him.

“Hey...” replied Arun with hands in his pocket.

“Listen...” said Arun as Romila interrupted him.

“Look, whatever happened has happened, and I can't do anything about it. It was just a momentary thingy. I know you were not comfortable and I know that I was not comfortable about it either so let’s just forget it,” she said, getting up from the bar chair. Arun kept looking here and there.

“Friends?” she said, extending her hand towards him.

“Sure...” replied Arun, shaking hands with her.

He didn’t want to commit, and she was too busy for a commitment, so they remained close for a while. They remained good friends and started hanging out again. He kept having breakdowns in front of her, and she took good care of him. This continued for almost seven months before Romila got the opportunity of a lifetime and moved to South Africa.

Arun was back to square one.

He was earning good from the call centre and also made some extra money from the gigs outside. He bought his first mobile phone, Nokia 3310.

Later, he also bought a car, FIAT Palio, on loan. It was a beautiful car except he didn’t have much use for it because the company provided him pick up and drop facility and Ronnie was gracious enough to pick him from office for any DJ’ing gigs. Gracious was an understatement because for Ronnie supporting Arun meant more customers. So, while Arun played, Ronnie made money by selling stuff to revellers on the floor. Ronnie also made good use of Arun’s car as he would often use it to make out with girls, read his clients, who were high most of the time. While Arun drove the car, high on drugs or alcohol, Ronnie would merrily make love at the back seat.

Sometime in the Feb of 2003 is when Police followed his car and stopped them, close to Tikri village on Sohna Road. Tikri stretch on the Sohna road was mostly deserted then. As Arun got out of the car, the constable demanded an explanation.

“What is happening in the car?” he said pointing towards the back seat where Ronnie was trying hard to put his pants back on, and the girl was adjusting her bra and was trying to cover herself.

“We were making love; beautiful love,” she said while she lunged out of the window. Ronnie pulled her back inside.

“She’s high, sir; don’t listen to her,” shouted Ronnie in Haryanvi accent.

“So, what were you doing with your pants down, praying to God, I suppose?” asked the constable laughing.

“Sir ji...” said Ronnie.

“Don’t you try to ‘sir ji’ me, young man, you all have to come to the Police station with me,” said the Constable.

“Sir ji, tell us what can we can do for you?” asked Ronnie coming out of the car trying to zip-up.

“Rs 2000 and you can go,” said the constable extending his palm towards Arun as Ronnie looked at Arun.

“Take them with you and leave my car. I don’t have the money,” said Arun indifferently as he lit a cigarette walking back towards the car.

“Abe... what are you saying, I am your friend, yaar?” said Ronnie holding on to Arun’s arm almost begging Arun for help. Arun looked towards the girl who was laughing at Ronnie’s misery.

“See, you can’t have me for free, you bastard,” she said, pointing her both hands' middle fingers towards Ronnie.

“Bro, she’s going to get us arrested; my bag is full of coke,” whispered Ronnie as Arun walked towards the girl.

“Honey, how about you give me a thousand bucks, and he will give you free supply for a week,” said Arun with his head inside the car. She kissed Arun on the cheek and held his hand.

“How much for him for a week?” she asked Ronnie as Arun blushed.

“You can have him for free, just give him the money and let’s get the hell out of here,” whispered Ronnie.

“The name’s Seerat,” she said, giving the money to Arun.

Arun pulled his arm out of her grip and gave the money to the Constable, “this is all we have.” He took the money, and with a smirk looked at Arun, “if I were you, I would accept her offer,” he said and left as Ronnie took a sigh of relief.

“She never told me her name,” said Ronnie hugging Arun.

Both Arun and Ronnie got back in the car as Seerat kept giggling all through.

“Bloody junkies,” said the SHO as the Police car left.

“Ya, and a thank you to you too for your service,” said Ronnie showing his middle finger.

“How come you never told me your name?” asked Ronnie looking at Seerat.

“Because you are a bastard who sells poison, f**k off, you bastard,” she said, showing her middle finger as Arun drove off.

Seerat got off in front of her house in the posh Vasant Vihar area. As she got off, the guard at the gate rushed to help her walk.

“Dude, I got an offer you can’t resist,” said Ronnie as Seerat entered the gate to her house with the middle finger pointing towards Ronnie.

“No way,” said Arun even before Ronnie could talk further.

“I am not going to sell this s**t for you. My life is screwed-up as it is, can’t do this to anyone else,” said Arun.

“A drug addict with a conscience?” said Ronnie looking at Arun.

“You know most of my clients would even murder someone to get their hands on this stuff,” said Ronnie holding his bag.

“Anyways, if you ever change your mind and want to make some quick money, you know whom to contact,” said Ronnie.

Seerat would go on to become one of the top models in the mid-2000’s and later on a Bollywood actor. She changed her name when she made her debut in a romantic comedy. Ronnie had many such clients.

Things were going great at Showtime Events, and they liked Arun’s work and offered him the opportunity of his lifetime. They had offered him his biggest gig yet; to play at an Awards Function in Mumbai. He was dying to share this news with his father and others at the office. He was excited and wanted things to finalise first before telling anyone. He would daydream, all the time, about meeting film stars and other celebrities. Things were going great, and he was looking forward to the gig.

In Jan 2003, Gaurav contacted him on the landline at home. Though his father had closed the printing business, he had transferred the landline at home. Gaurav wanted to meet Arun, and reluctantly Arun agreed to meet him. Gaurav picked Arun from his office, and they drove towards Sector 56. They didn’t talk much except for the usual pleasantries. Gaurav parked his car in front of building H in Kendriya Vihar, Sector 56.

To Arun’s surprise, Tina opened the door of flat 301. She hugged Arun. Though Arun was feeling awkward about meeting them again, deep down, he was happy to see them. Tina got tea and snacks; she sat along with Gaurav even as Arun sat there wondering, why they got in touch with him after such a long time.

“So, how have you been, Arun?” asked Tina, looking at the dark circles around his eyes.

“I am doing fantastic. How about you guys?” replied Arun joyfully. “I am scheduled to do a gig at Cine Awards in Mumbai in December this year,” he continued even before Tina or Gaurav could answer.

“That’s good, buddy, congratulations. We are doing good as well, we moved in together and due to get married next month,” replied Tina.

“…and I do see how well you are, judging by the dark circles around your eyes…” said Gaurav as Tina pressed on his shoulder.

“Don’t mind him, he’s concerned about you, Arun,” said Tina.

“Why did you guys want to meet me?” asked Arun.

“Like I said that we are getting married next month, we want you to be part of the ceremony,” said Tina.

“I can’t come, I am busy with a lot of office work and then with gigs outside too,” replied Arun indifferently. Arun got up keeping the teacup on the table and walked towards the door.

“My parents won’t be coming to my wedding,” said Tina as Arun stopped and turned around.

“I had an argument with my father, and he has excommunicated me from the family,” she said teary-eyed.

“You will have to do the Kanyadaan,” she said, holding Arun’s hand.

Like an elder Arun kept his hand on Tina’s head, “I am sorry you guys,” he said as Gaurav hugged them both.

“I had no idea how to handle the negative emotions after Harveen left. I just wanted to run away from all the memories, but they just kept following me,” he said.

“I love you guys,” said Arun.

“We love you too, and we care about you,” said Gaurav as they talked for hours. Arun did not want to run away this time. He gladly stayed back.

The wedding was scheduled in Chandigarh, and everyone arrived three days in advance. Gaurav’s parents were settled in Chandigarh, so they had already made arrangements. Arun and few others were the only ones from Tina’s side as none from her own family came. Gaurav also kept it limited to a few close family members and friends only.

Feras took place in a temple, post which the reception took place in the banquet hall of Moon & Venus hotel. As promised, after the feras Arun performed the kanyadaan. At the hotel, the stage for the bride and the groom was set and beautifully decorated with flowers. Gaurav and Tina’s name was written with glitters at the back.

Gaurav walked in first along with his close friends. As he walked towards the stage, Arun waved towards the DJ who played Kar Chale Hum Fida Jaano Tan Sathiyon. Everyone burst into laughter upon hearing a patriotic song dedicated to Gaurav, the groom. Like a true sport, Gaurav saluted as he walked towards the stage. He was getting ready to sacrifice his bachelorhood forever.

Tina was accompanied by Arun, who walked closer to her until she reached the stage. Gaurav held her hand, and they both sat on the stage on a decorated couch while everyone greeted them with wishes and gifts. Arun too wished them good luck for the next phase of their life and pictured him and Harveen sitting on the stage.

The ceremony ended late in the evening, and Arun took a bus back to Delhi.

While Gaurav and Tina got busy with their lives, Arun stayed away from them as much as possible. He did not want them to worry about him continuously.