Hello everybody! I am here with the floods in the twentieth video of “Spinning into a Career’
They walk from Court to Shorine Lines and from there they take to the tracks. Water is knee deep. Their saris deter progress. They have to be held up as they wade through water. It continues to drizzle. Their wet clothes stick to their bodies. They reach Sharanai Central. The railway canteen on the platform offers tea to all those who are wading through water. After tea, they move on. One of the colleagues witnesses people getting rides from vehicles on the road. Water on the road is below the knee. A truck going to Pahisar offers them a ride. Ruchi and her colleagues board the truck. The drizzle continues. By the time Ruchi reaches home, it is evening. A holiday is declared the next day. Train services resume on Monday.
Accidents are a part of daily life. A fast express train mutilates a man into two ; his head is thrown much farther and his body remains miles behind. Ruchi is shocked to see its aftermath. People cross railway lines despite warnings issued to them. Crowds either hurry to go home or run to the office. Ruchi is friendly with Usha Iyer, PA to the director of the Department of Purchase and Stores. She is good at changing local trains. She takes Ruchi to show her the Ganapati Pandals during the ten day Ganesh festival. One of the pandals is managed by Paneerselvam, the smuggler. Ruchi has a glimpse of many Ganesh idols. Usha catches Ruchi’s hand and says, ” Let’s go by that train. It goes faster.”
Viji Subramanian graduates from her French course. She is gainfully employed and lives in the women’s hostel in Maringa. Her father is so irate that he makes her life miserable by beating her. A good amount of money is required to get her married. He sends her brother to school. Her father is tensed because he cannot bear the expenses of his daughter’s marriage and his son’s education. She chooses to live in a hostel and commute to the office. She is friendly with Ruchi and tells her about her privations. There is a dark fellow in the office. His name is Ramakrishnan. He works in the Purchase section. He gives Ruchi a Harold Robbins book, ‘Where Love has Gone’. She reads it and gives it back to him. Every time Ruchi passes by, he calls her Macbeth and Ruchi calls him Othello. He calls Ruchi, marapachi, a wooden doll that is kept in Golu for display during the Navratri festival in South India. One day he is absent. He asks Ruchi whether she feels his absence. She says, ‘no’.
Tubby Beena sits on her chair. There is no space for the Malayali boy to go forward since the office is congested and chairs are placed close to one another. Ravi does not have space to move since Beena is sitting on her chair. He tells her in Hindi, “Zara uddo na.” She says, ” I am so heavy. How can I fly?” Beena leaves the company of Mr. Balwant. She invites Ruchi for her engagement at her house in Sander on a Sunday. Beena is engaged to a Sindhi businessman who has settled in the United States. The invitees are dressed richly and are offered a lot of sweetmeats after the function.
Balwant’s son passes away. He cannot withstand the blow. He urges Ruchi not to be angry at him and offers her lassi (sweetened yoghurt). Ruchi does not take the lassi. He tells Ruchi, ” Do you know how it is to lose someone? It is not like your novel where a character dies and you flip it to the next page.” Ruchi is silent. Months pass by. Ruchi has her lunch with friends in her office : a Punjabi girl, a Tamil girl, a Kannada girl who receive vegetarian food from Sharanai dabbawallas. Her friends offer her a little bit of what they have in their tiffin box and Ruchi can taste a variety of dishes.
Thank you for listening. We shall know more about Ruchi’s experience in the office in the next video. Till then, good bye!
Video can be viewed on You Tube by typing, ‘Spinning into a Career’ by Usha Raman.
