Idle time notes

The manner in which modern offices are built has occasionally made my life woeful. These offices are built like rectangular boxes of glass and concrete. Some are not entirely rectangular, they have a few curves and color contrasts which make them stand out as the artistic types. These buildings are centrally air conditioned and fully protected from sun, wind and rain. The elaborate air conditioning makes sure that we breathe an air of regulated warmth while the cubicles are lit all day by light bulbs affixed to the false ceilings. People sit in cozy chairs all day and go out for a breath of fresh air after their lunch. An exercise where I often wondered as to who have stopped them from having a breath of fresh air all the time…

For as long as I can remember, I have had a mild fever and symptoms of flu on every change of season. It is then that my life in the modern offices becomes woeful. I have found on several occasions that while I recuperate from such fevers during my weekend breaks, the symptoms returns to haunt me after a couple of days inside the artificially controlled environment of the modern office. Sometimes, I would turn up in office with a running nose, a mild headache and cough, only to find that spring is fading away and summer has arrived. Being well protected from sun, wind and rain, the inside of a modern office can become quite suffocating although a gust of summer breeze would be sweeping across its glass walls in the meantime.  And no matter which time of the year it is, in a modern office someone or the other would be feeling hot. And eight hours of unwanted chill bring backs all the headache, dizziness and fever. The symptoms go back when I return to a more natural atmosphere only to return during the eight hours of air supply on the next day. Sometimes I wonder if the air conditioning reruns fever symptoms along with the air that we breathe.

Where on one hand we believe that nature is the best cure, we have adopted a way of life which, apparently is compliant to western norms of affluence, turns its back on our supposed age old notions, if not beliefs. It is in between my sudden jerks of chill in the modern office that I remember my recollection of office from my childhood days. In one of the many towns that my father was posted in, our house was located besides my father’s office. I would sometimes roam around the corridors and rooms of the office, although my father would advice me to avoid such rambles without purpose.

Our house was a big government quarter and seemed a new construction. Generally government bungalows those days would have asbestos or tin roofs with lots of rooms underneath. The walls were cement plastered not over bricks but over a type of local cane. Windows would be made of glass without any grills. The window panes were often painted black and the outside wall of the house itself would mostly be painted with white limestone. These bungalows would be a bit cold inside given the damp climate of Assam. There used to be many trees, mostly fruits, surrounding the bungalow. Many of these trees would be planted by previous occupants so that the incumbents would enjoy the fruits. Traditions that had been handed down for years since the British administration, I would presume. However as the safety and security of the common people came at stake and petty crimes, terrorisms and antisocial activities were on the ascendency, the effects were visible on our government bungalows. Their roofs were now in reinforced concrete and the windows were grilled. Boundaries were high walled and gates were under security cover. Fruit trees blocked the vision from the window to the street, so they had to fall. It was in one such bungalow that we stayed for three years in the late 80s and early 90s. The front yard was a field of grass with a solitary guava tree standing atop. The backyard of the bungalow was used to keep my father’s flower pots and also grow some vegetables. Nevertheless, the guava tree inside our boundaries and a lovely grove of trees nearby kept me occupied in the afternoons. A short bamboo wall on the right side of the bungalow separated it from my father’s office.

I would sometime climb over the wall and roam inside the office. I would walk over the grass and climb up the three stairs that took me to the office floor, a feet and a half from the ground. The floor of the office was plastered concrete which at several places had worn out over years, leaving small and uneven depressions in the surface. It was a single storey building with its roofs made of tin sheets. The office was U shaped with over a dozen rooms, two of which were huge. I would enter one of these two rooms and there would be the familiar peons, clerks and officials that I knew by name and face. They would look at me and smile, some would small talk and offer snacks that they were having with their tea.  But mostly, they were accustomed to seeing their boss’s son in a vest and half pants just pass by their table. I would pass by each one’s table, slowly and with an eye for detail. I would like over their desk at each item, and the files and the papers. I could sense the smell of carbon paper and old damp files along with that of areca nuts. The paper weights, the pin boxes and bunch of carbon papers always caught my attention. I wanted to have them, the paper weight in particular, but my father saw it of no use to me. Somehow I never got myself a paper weight even now when I can buy one. It’s of no use in my office, where a gust of wind can’t blow in to blow away my papers. In the summers, archaic ceiling fans would creak above to cool down the air as official papers would dance under the paperweights. Often there would be no electricity in the office, which meant that the windows had to be kept open and curtains drawn apart. Hand fans would be in full use and work would take a temporary back seat. Everyone would curse the government or discuss random topics. Times were torrid, with back to back military operations combing across Assam, open passage given to armed terrorists, bandhs and protests, bomb blasts and curfews. People were caught in a cross fire between the military and the separatists. Office discussions during those times were laden with rumors and sentiments, information and revelations. Of course not everything could be discussed in front of a child, so some discussions were paused in my presence only to be resumed later. Often it would be about which family sheltered and injured terrorist at the middle of the night or whose son has disappeared one night leaving behind a letter which promised a liberated Assam. My father would sit on one tip of the U shaped office on a wooden chair with a desk in front of him. Behind him was a board wherein was written the names of the people who had previously occupied this post, since the start of the office. I was not allowed to loiter too long in his room and would only go there if I had something to talk about. Along the three corridors of the U, there were benches where the peons, drivers and visitors would sit. That was where I had the most fun. The peons and drivers would sometimes be idle for a long time. They would have discussions which were much easier for me to understand, play cards among themselves or teach me tricks and riddles. They would ride bicycles for office errands or deliver occasional documents to and from the commissioner’s office. They would be summoned by their seniors with a bell. Personal phones were of course unheard of, so much so that the office itself had only one telephone. Its phone number was 17. That was probably also the number of times it rang in a month. I often marvel how memories bring back the smells attached to it. I could almost feel the smell of the old wooden tables, the carbon papers, the areca nuts spat around, the stench of the fertilizer bags in the store house, the burnt diesel in the garage and the sweat of summer.

An incoming call in my workstation brought me back to reality. It is my colleague who reminded me that it is time for lunch. My mild fever is storming into something of a menace in this enclosed air conditioned office.