9h15mers

 

9 hours 15 minute. 9 hours 15 minute is what your goal is, not for the job not for the money but for your own endurance. You must have made intense efforts for this accomplishment; you went to Gym, you stayed back for dinner, you played games or you just sat in front of the software and played the game “Who will blink first” with wallpaper.

You did all this so that you could pull 9h15m off but you could not. You were constantly crushed by 9h15m specialists, “The 9h15mers”.

# You tried taking official transportation, it did not help out because 9h15mers arrived before you !!

# You tried un-official transport but that did not help either because again 9h15mers made it before you !!

# At last you decided to hammer them at least once for a single day. You got up before time; you took your personal automobile and reached 30 min prior to the official agency timings but wait !! first you have to park your vehicle at a certified premise. It took 10 min to locate a respectable parking spot; from there you marched till your building which took another 10 min. You are still in high spirits that you still would reach before them. But the moment you enter the building 9h15mers are waiting for you with a smirk because they fucking decided to come early today!!

You never thought that these 5 letters “9h15m” will revolutionize your existence forever and will become an essential part of your life. The first thing you verify everyday is what is the average now, is it 9h15m yet ?? And every single time you fall short; you fail to complete the single most imperative duty assigned to you. People do not want you to complete your work, no !! They want you to accomplish the ultimate goal in life, whether you work or not; it does not matter. May be you are a no. 1 developer or maybe you are a tester who finds 100 bugs in one day but ask yourself …… is it any good if you fail in 9h15m mission ?? I guess all of you have the matching answers, I am usually not wrong in observations but If I am then please DO LET ME know.

People who are at big position today, people whom you have to tag along, people who make a decision if you are good or bad at your work; What made them ?? Do you think it was their labor which took them to a step forward on the success ladder ? Think again. Those people who are so called fortune makers for us were like us; but not entirely. Let me enlighten you with a short story,
Chaitra (Name changed) had a very regular and cheerful life and why not because she had home and work balance; she balanced work and her husband balanced the home. She was the perfect subordinate for her boss; If her boss said do that job now, she said “yes boss”; If her boss showed her an elephant and stated “That’s a dog”, she said “To me it looks like a rabbit !!”. Every day she religiously accomplished 9h15m (or her office equivalent) or even more if boss requested. Sooner it was time for appraisal and Boss had to promote only 1 out of 3 choices he had,

1. Naresh (Name changed) – A developer, he worked his ass off and developed most of functionalities in the software with top quality but failed to pull off 9h15m because he had life outside office too and used to get out of the office whenever he was through with his job.

2. Ankit (Name Changed) – A tester, he found bugs even in the high quality code from Naresh; bugs which were significant to the product but he failed to register 9h15m by far because he also had life outside office. Also, he never took any shit from the boss; If his boss showed him an elephant and said “That’s a dog”, he said “You blind son of a bitch, go get yourself a pair of new eyes !!”.

3. Chaitra – You all know her story.

I think I don’t need to give explanation about who got the advancement. So these days Chaitra is a boss; Naresh and Ankit are working as before on the same designation; A new lad Param (Name changed) is all set to get promoted because he sees Chaitra’s rabbit as a mouse. I think the logic behind this is similar as was in Mahabharata where Boss (Guru Dronacharya) hung a wooden bird from the branch of a tree and then summoned his subordinates (students). He asked the Naresh (1st Student) to aim for the bird's eye but not to shoot. He then asked him what he could see. Naresh replied that he could see the garden, the tree, flowers, etc. Boss repeated the same process with Ankit but wasn’t very impressed because he could even see boss’s shit face on the mirror wall beyond the plastic tree (Is Naresh doing Marijuana ? How the hell did he see the garden and the flowers). When it was Chaitra’s (Arjun) turn, she told his Guru that the only thing she could see was the bird's eye. This pleased the Guru and the asshole promoted her.

The point I want to make here is that good work does not pay because nice guys always finish last. 9h15m is the key to every lock, 9h15m is that magical alphanumeric amalgamation of letters that can present you all kind of delight you are looking for. So go and make another effort to reach it, fight with that each entity who thought that you are no good for this and show that every person who told you that you can’t do it, it’s not your cup of tea. When you will be in some other corporation tomorrow and you will recollect your past; you will never stop thinking about these 9h15m because you made a super extra effort to accomplish that. Because if today you attain 9h15m then not even god can steal these 9h15m from you (Unless you swiped on a broken machine which does not update the swipe !!). Last sentence, courtesy Shahrukh khan, film Chak De.

Who was that ?

 

Tring Tring Tring ....... Tring Tring Tring

I abruptly awoke from deep sleep, in next 2 seconds my wife started shouting,

"What the hell is that ?? What time is it ??"

It was my phone, buzzing VOCIFEROUSLY ...... somewhere. It was pitch dark. It took 4-5 sec before I could apprehend the situation. I seized my phone and I saw the screen, it was our building association president's number blinking. I saw the time and it was 2:30 in the night.

This is odd !!!

Something was very bizarre. I remember that I have saved his contact picture but my cell wasn’t showing any picture of him !!! I could not grasp what to do, in rush I disengaged the call.

"Who was that ?" inquired my Wife.

"Association president but Why is he calling at this time ?"

"He might need help, may be watchman is dozing and the main gate is locked or maybe he is trapped in the lift"

That made sense. I choose to call him back and dialled his number, it rang, it rang completely and died, he did not pick up.

This is weird !!

I tried again and same outcome, we concluded that it may have been a slip-up.

"No problem lets sleep back", I told my wife

The room was still dark, it was gusty outside because silhouette of the tree next to our balcony was shuddering frantically. I was trying to calm my wife down. To relieve her I closed the bedroom door which was unfastened till now. This door connects the drawing room and bedroom with a small hallway in between. I came back to my side of the bed and slept.

1 min ..... 2 min ...... 3rd minute ....... trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Bedroom door went ajar on its own and stopped at halfway

"Oh SHIT", wife creeped out

And as anticipated, she flew out of the bed and started panicking. First, a weird bogus call without contact photo and second the locked door opened devoid of any help. This was a perfect recipe for my wife to chicken out. She asked,

"What’s happening ??"

"There is a ghost in the kitchen", I tried to make a mockery of the circumstances

"Are you crazy !!!", wife screamed in displeasure

"You asked a brainless question and I replied in the same way !! It’s probably nothing, door may have released due to the breeze I guess"

I closed it for one more time and this time I latched it, to make sure if this time it opens, it’s not because of the wind. I was not anxious but I get little edgy if something happens at this time of sleep. This slight unease for me is cultivated after watching the movie paranormal activity. I constantly say to my wife that if she will watch it then I promise that she will not sleep .... EVER !!

I came back to my bed and lied down but after these 2 episodes the sleep was far long gone. When such things take place you imagine of even dreadful things,

What if someone knocks the door now!!

It gave me a chill, I dare not tell this to my wife or else she will beat the hell out of me. But it was day of spooky events. Next minute someone's wind chimes began to make loads of noise which was easy to hear even within the closed room and as if this was not sufficient. 2-3 stray dogs decided to make my wife's darkness into a nightmare. They began howling the moment wind chimes stopped singing. Wife was impatient by now, she was pacing back and forth in the room convinced that these are her final moment of life and she will use them in terror.

“Please sleep, we have office tomorrow”, I requested

“I can’t sleep, I won’t get sleep anymore”

“Ok, All the best, I am sleeping”

I slept, I don’t know how long I slept but it wasn’t too long and phone rang yet again !!! My wife went frantic without delay,

“See I told you something is wrong, we are not alone in this house”, she said while wrathfully looking around. I gave her a look of disgust,

“Hello”, this time I answered the call

“Hello, Ankit, You gave me a call at 2:35 ?”

It was our building’s association president who saw my miss call which in fact was the call I made to him after I got a call from him. I elucidated what took place tonight,

“But I never gave you any call, I think it was by mistake !!”, he made clear

We slept after talking to him. At Morning breakfast,

“Last night was spine-chilling”, I said

“I did not sleep the entire night”, my wife said

“Yes that’s expected from you”

“But I was very afraid because president called and his picture did not flicker. Hey see if you have that call stored in your cell”

I took my cell and started scanning, I checked once …. Twice ….. Thrice. I could trace my calls to him and his subsequent call to us but,

“There is no miss call from him at 2:30 !!!”, I confirmed in stun

“What ? How ? How can that be possible ?”

“I think last night ghost went inside my cell”, I told my wife with a sinister look

“How the hell can that be feasible ?”

“Because in my phone incoming is free “

And my world went dark ……..