‘See
you, Take care!’, I said aloud to everyone who had got up to bid me
good-bye and walked out of GLT escorted by Satyen, Vikrant and Bharat.
It did not sink in then that this would be the last time I would be in
GLT premises as 35018491. There was this weird feeling in my heart that
refused to go away and a lump in my throat. But there were no tears.
Just a little mist. In the same dizzy state, I rode home and went to
sleep.
In the morning after a sleep disturbed with dreams throughout, I woke
up not having to go to office. Surprisingly, it did not feel scary or
out of place. I just felt as if the weekend had come early. Plus there
was loads to do since mom was unwell and I was officially in-charge of
home. In a rush of activity, cooking, cleaing, sleeping (;-)), evening
soon arrived. My brain was working itself into a fury with constant
thoughts and list of things to do and so on. The thought cycle just
wouldn’t stop. Fatigued, I finally sat down and then started thinking
what had I exactly done in the entire day. It then hit me that for the
first time in years, here was a day when I was not with my team. No one
in the entire day had once called out ‘Baks, will you do this?’ or
‘Bakul, just a question?’. You feel as if you are not needed. I mean
though I had been busy, its nothing like office work. Housework sure is
lonely and I now have a different admiration for homemakers. Its
different to work in a team, the feeling that you are in this together,
the sense of solidarity, the teasing and troubling, the jargon unique
to your team, the ups and downs, the celebrations, and laughing over
terms and jokes that no one else can understand for – all this is what
I will miss the most. This is what is going to be very difficult to get
used to.
