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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Chronicles of the aam aadmi - I


This I hope kick starts a series of my so called enriching experiences with the so called "aam aadmi"

Time : 1324 hours
Place : My office lift
Prerequisite : My office is in UB City (owned by one of the country biggest industrialists - Mr. Vijay Mallya ) and since large parts of it are still under construction we have lift operators for every lift. This is to avoid any inconvenience caused to the various non-aam aadmis

I generally have this habit of striking up conversations with the so called aam aadmi, from auto rickshaw drivers to gardeners. Today was one such occasion. Since my office lift was relatively empty I started small talk with the lift operator as to how the lift fan was so slow and the effect was hardly felt in this weather. He just gave a smile of defiance and said "Imagine. We are stuck here for around 10 hours in a day". I then noticed the absence of a chair or stool in the lift and made further inquiries about it. This is what he had to say. "Ayyo !!!! Why do you bother asking saar? We used to have stools in all the lifts for the lift operators. Last week or so, when the building MD got into one the lifts, a new recruit happened to be operating it. He failed to show the MD any respect and continued sitting on the stool cross legged. The MD got wild and decided to reprimand all lift operators by taking off our stools. So 10 hours of standing for us daily saar "

This is the state some people of our 9.0% increase GDP nation still live in. Imagine if one day u fail to get up and wish your BIG boss and in turn he decides to take off all your chairs from the very next day. What a fuss would be created bout it. I'm sure TOI will splash it all over the front page and Crime Dairy also may have an episode for it. But who will give the so called aam aadmis a voice?

Mr. Vijay Mallya . Are you listening ????