1st article

ahul sniggered to his age-group colleague-friend as they entered the conference room, “Why is HR actually organising a farewell for Vijay? And when we wanted to give one for Sunil, they said no budget. I mean, what did Vijay even do all these years for the org?”
He was loud enough that Lokesh, the BU head, overheard him. Lokesh’s bulldog-like resting face was even more menacing as he turned around and said, “Son, Vijay gave a lot, lot more to the company than you probably will, with an attitude like that.”
Rahul frowned but didn’t dare counter the BU head. His question remained, though. After all, Vijay was getting a VRS (referred to as CRS in the grapevine) and leaving unceremoniously on short notice. Surely, if he was a high performer, that wouldn’t be his fate, right?
The farewell began and one speaker after another delivered platitudes that numbed the mind. Rahul, like others in his cohort, had come for one and only one thing – the delicious spread of cake and pastries on the other side of the speeches.
At last, it was Lokesh’s turn to speak. The BU head always gave the last but one speech – before that of the departing angel.
Lokesh said, “I won’t be too long because I know some of you were in school when Vijay joined the company and are bored of these speeches.” Ouch!
Continuing, “But you must know that Vijay played a very big role in making our first diesel engine happen, which helped us break into the car market. In fact, without him, the project would have failed.”
Vijay smiled and shook his head but Lokesh said, “I insist. And this is no exaggeration.”
He added, “It is a sad day when such a brilliant team member like Vijay has to go but I for one have never forgotten what he did, what he was capable of. You will be sorely missed.”
Vijay fought back tears thereafter during his speech.
Rahul was left dazed by what he had heard. So this diffident and furtive, badly dressed man in his 50s used to be that? How was this even possible? He was five when the diesel car project happened and roughly the same age now as Vijay would have been back then. He had to admit that he couldn’t imagine being able to accomplish all that at thirty, not even close.
He stayed back as the crowd had their fill of the refreshments and left the conference room.
As he saw Vijay about to leave the room, he walked up to him and warmly congratulated him. Vijay thanked him, once more oozing modesty. Rahul then asked him why he had never heard of his achievements all this time. It was the politest way he could think of, of phrasing his real question – how had Vijay gone from being the architect of such an important development in the company to receiving a VRS package.
But Vijay understood and nodded with a sad smile. He said he was puzzled too and wished he knew the answer.
Vijay kept thinking about that brief exchange as he headed back home.
Not much was said at dinner as wife and son looked on sadly and silently.
Vijay settled down at the desktop in the living room. His wife cast a quizzical glance. Couldn’t possibly be work, could it? She did have a job and she had reports to make, so she shrugged and went on her way.
Vijay opened a word file and began typing. It was a letter. A letter to Vijay, but a different Vijay, the Vijay who had been instrumental in seeing the diesel engine project to fruition.
“Dear Vijay,
I am Vijay. But a different Vijay. Older. And wiser? I don’t know. I think you were really smart and I should have listened more to you.
I remember how you were so excited to be able to use internet and email at the office. Your seniors, who were as old then as I am today, hated email. You taught email to them and even typed a few emails for them.
When a new and exciting film called Kill Bill was unleashed at a multiplex, you couldn’t wait to see it. You suggested it to your seniors and when they came back from it, they wanted to kill you!
An expressway opened between Mumbai and Pune and it had no speed limits. You drove at 150 kmph on it and scared the living daylights out of a senior who hitched a ride with you.
Whenever there was something new, there wasn’t anybody more eager to check it out than you. You embraced, experienced and enjoyed the change.
But as you grew older, you began to notice something. Well, the new recruits in the company were younger, much younger, than you. And so they would be. You were in your mid thirties and they in their twenties.
And you felt endlessly amused and irritated by…everything about them, how they talked, what they wore, what music they listened to, what movies they watched, how they carried themselves. In short, whatever they liked was something you disliked.
You thought these youngsters were a disgrace and that you and your cohort had been so much more sensible. You hoped the youngsters would get wiser as they grew older and seek out your advice.
Instead, you found yourself stagnating as some of these youngsters earned promotion after promotion.
In your forties, you found yourself in the piquant position of having to report to one or other of these ‘youngsters’. Youth had won over experience.
Increasingly, you found that if there was something new out there, it was the youngsters who would be lapping it up, gleefully, unthinkingly, no questions asked. Just like you used to when you were thirty. But you didn’t see the irony of that. You were less like yourself. You were in the process of becoming me.
You hated social media and resisted making a Facebook account. But you also hated net banking. You grumbled that youngsters were too lazy to write cheques. But you fumbled with the supposedly mundane activity of setting up a fund transfer on net banking. You hated it when your company adopted SAP and let everyone know. In the end, you had no choice but to learn it and were dragged kicking and screaming into it.
You learnt to first get annoyed by change and to increasingly resent and fear it. Annoying because every time something changed, you had to make the effort to learn it. Frightening because the more things changed, the more you felt yourself yanked further and further away from the world you knew, the world where you were at the cutting and not bleeding edge of every change. The world you ruled because it was a world where you were young.
Now every change evoked memories of how things had been when you were young and just how different they were now. Every change, in short, reminded you of just how old you were. Every change reminded me of how far apart you and I were.
And the more every change disconnected me from you, the less confident I felt. The more my hands trembled. And one fateful day, my trembling hands accidentally sent an email with confidential data to somebody who wasn’t supposed to receive it.
In the event, I am thankful the company gave me a generous VRS package instead of making me suffer the humiliation of a termination. There were enough who, like Lokesh, did remember you. But they must have surely asked how you transformed into the person that I am.
And so, I write to tell you that if you were starting out today again, you should know that age is just a number. And it should be nothing more than that. You will thrive not by freezing yourself as a relic of a moment in time but by reacting to change the same way at forty as you did at thirty and the same way at fifty as you did at forty. When you embrace, experience and enjoy the change, learning something new will not feel like such a chore anymore.
So rather than regarding youngsters with contempt, seek their company and be humble enough to learn from them. For nobody else can teach you what’s new. For your reflection in fact lies in them and not the younger version of you that you look back fondly on.”
He saved the file and opened his personal email. He attached the file to an email which he was sending…to Rahul.
The next morning, as Rahul downloaded emails on his mailbox, he was surprised to see an email from Vijay’s personal id. He opened it and downloaded the attachment. In spite of its length, in spite of having pressing work to attend to first thing in the morning, he kept reading the contents of the word file. He was deeply engaged by it…and touched. When he finished reading, he shed a tear or two before wiping his eyes.
He replied, “Sir, I sincerely thank you for taking so much effort to answer my question. I am also touched and inspired by your honesty and self-awareness. I have learnt a valuable lesson which I do hope will help me navigate my future – both within this or some other company and in my life as such.”