Being Polite...

Good to be back writing after ages.

Last weekend I managed to catch up with the forgotten 'Gilly' cricket. I had been eyeing a college-goer in my apartment sneak into the near by college grounds over weekends. This time around, I stopped him and enquired. He offered me to join them.

I had a spring in my walk and raced to the ground. There was a game in progress. The college in ruins or should I say under-construction acted as the long-on stands. And I took to a shade on the supposed-to-be boundary line. There I saw this young chap 'Rahul' who must have been less than 4 feet tall but very enthusiastic in many ways.

After a confirmation that I had an invitation to play with them and counter-check with the college goer, he started a conversation with me. He asked me if I was working. He must have got cues from my greyed hair (which is spreading like a Californian forest fire) and a boring beard.

And then he asked me... 'Which industry?'. At that very minute I knew that this guy was going to pose some tough questions.

And when I replied 'Software', there came the ultimate question. 'Wipro?'. I replied that I was with Cognizant. He went on to say 'I asked you this because, I know that your industry is not doing well. I also know that Wipro is a very dangerous place to be in this downturn.'.

I was shockingly surprised. At his age, I am very sure that I would not have had such an exposure to current affairs.

But he was very polite and did not ask if my job was at stake. He was nice to me, I should say.

He was the 'joker' in the game - meaning he could take on batting representing both sides (but mostly the last man in) but must field for both the sides. But for me he was not a Joker. For his stature, he fielded really well and his batting was decent with basics in place. And beyond that he talked about other things bothering the world right now.

There is a general misconception in the Indian public that most of the millions of people in the software industry have been sacked and are left jobless. Interistingly a lot of non-software folks seem to be happy with that news. The reasons for the phenomenon of the modern day youth spending big on Clothes, Vehicles and Homes seems to have fully fallen on the highly paid folks in the software industry - from entry level programmers to CEOs.

But when this little boy asked me that question, all that I was made think about was to wonder if I would have ever had such a discussion or thinking during my cricketing days when I was at Rahul's age. No way!