Hi friends! My name is Sachin Bhandary.
I am an overworked, underpaid, single 27 year old guy.
Not that I am lazy, I have tried to do something about the adjectives that I associate with myself. Especially the ‘underpaid’ one, after every appraisal result, I decide to storm into my boss’s cabin and tell him…
“Listen up Boss, I think I’ve had enough of the 7.012% hike in salary after every appraisal for the last four years. I think I bring a lot of value to the company. A hike of 30% should be just about okay for me to stay back. If you can’t offer that to me, then it is good bye.”
But what I actually manage is…. to meekly knock the cabin door and tell my boss
“Good morning Boss”
“Yes”
“uh……ummmhhh”
“Will you speak up Sachin??”
“I wanted to thank you for the wonderful 7.012% salary post my appraisal. That’s all.”
And that’s the end of my valiant effort to shift way from being ‘underpaid’.
That’s not all….a 27 year old underpaid man in Mumbai doesn’t get pushed only at work. He gets pushed at home (long pause) and in local trains too.
I take a crowded local train filled with sweaty people to get back home. It is so fucking crowded that it would put a Nazi concentration camp to shame.
The advertisements on the walls of the local trains provide some respite though.
These ads try to sell almost anything.
Katrina Kaif claims to use a 12 rupee soap named Dyna and insists that I use it as well. A few minutes of torture is endured imagining the 12 rupee soap being applied on Kat’s million dollar skin.
I mean, I could give her a more expensive soap if she wanted to use my bathroom. Any day.
But there are other ads that have caught my attention too.
One example,
‘Stay-on capsules & spray- let the fun never stop’ ‘Stay on for the whole night’.
‘Stay on for the whole night’- ‘Can you freaking believe that?’
I have made a mental note of it. I intend to use the product as soon as I manage to land myself with a woman.
Then there are ones that I don’t understand at all. Like the one which informs about a clinic which can cure a swollen testicle which apparently is known as ‘andkosh’ in hindi. Even more bewildering is the visual on this advert, they actually show a man with a swelling in his underwear.
I have my doubts whether it is actually his testicles that are swollen. The swelling could be attributed to something else too. Don’t you think?
That’s not all, there are some adverts, telling me:
‘Work with us and make 22000 every month. Don’t worry; we will pay you for three months. But after that if you don’t perform, WE WILL FIRE YOU.’
I wonder if this company actually wants someone to apply for this job.
I reach home every night after enduring this hour long bone crushing train ride.
I reach home to a mother who feels the sole objective of her existence is to get her almost 28 year old son married.
She begins while serving me mounds of boiled rice and ladels of sambar for dinner...
‘Beta, look at your friends, Amit and Deepti, they make such a great couple? Don’t you think you should get married too?’
‘I mean what kind of skewed logic is that, mom. Why should I get married because my friends are a great couple? Am I supposed to compete with them?’
Now this is when, it starts to become dirty…
‘Don’t you think its time? You are 28 and might find a decent girl for yourself if you consider arranged marriage now. Otherwise, once you cross 30, do you think any girl would be interested in you?’
I’ve never understood my mother’s gross underestimation of her son’s chances of getting a girl. I mean, I should continue to remain attractive for woman kind even after a few years with my chiseled features and greek god like looks.
I am sure women reading this piece would agree :)
Once at my mom’s insistence, to help me make up my mind about marriage, I visited a guru called Triple Sri Kavi Shankar who started the movement called ‘Art of Giving’.
My mom knew someone who was close to the guru, so I was called for a private session with the great man.
I told the guru that I hadn’t managed to find a partner in my life and hence wasn’t clear about marriage yet. I also let him know that was the case partly because I believed that there was no such thing as the ‘right girl’. In fact, I believed, that ‘girl’ and ‘right’ are two words which cannot be used in the same sentence.
The long haired, bearded sage, who was serenly calm till now, began…
‘I will sort out your problems. Don’t worry.’
‘Now lets do some pranayamas, okay. Follow my instructions.’
‘Breathe in, breathe out.’
‘Breathe in, breathe out’
‘Turn around. Bend down’
Even in the state of trance, I caught a whiff of what was happening and made a timely escape.
From that day on the ‘art of giving’ has a completely different connotation for me.
But sometimes I thank myself for not having fallen into the marriage trap.
One of my friends, tells me,
Don’t fall for those beautiful eyes, silky voice, the care and the attention man. You will look at your wedding picture five years down the line and wonder ‘why the hell was I smiling?’
Someone rightly said, ‘Bachelors know more about women than married men do. Otherwise they would be married too.’
If that’s not conclusive consider this, Leonardo Da Vinci once said, “Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel."
So, I continue to remain what I am ‘Overworked, Underpaid and SINGLE’.
