Dollar Dreams

I don’t believe in writing three thousand words to establish the identity of my story’s protagonist. His name is Vikram. He is all of twenty five and is an employee of that year’s Best Managed Company in India. He lives a shady two bedroom apartment off Hosur Road in a choked but delightful city called Bangalore.

And that his apartment houses six more gentlemen working for the same concern, should not be a matter of concern to anybody because that is the only way one can deal with the skyrocketing rents of Bangalore.

Vertical Marathon it really is.

Lest I forget, I am Vikram. I hate living with six more people however gentlemanly they may be, in a two bedroom closet however close to the office it may be. Do I have a choice here? Do you expect me to pay eight thousand rupees on an apartment when my take home pay is twelve thousand rupees? (On paper the gross stands at twenty five by the way. I have stopped looking around for the missing bucks. It is pointless. One of my friends had even filed an FIR to trace the missing potatoes. So far no news.)

Living this way and eating off an Andhra mess whose kitchen is really in a mess, I am able to save about five thousand rupees a month with only one visit to NASA pub in a month. Can’t get any simpler than this, can it? My friends who are fortunate idiots and on whom INS bestowed a lovely H-1B or L-1B are living the Great Dollar Dream. They get to share a 1 BHK and cook everyday so that they get to save a dollar more than what their neighbor – The Ubiquitous Desi Consultant – can save.

Sometimes I get confused. So what exactly is the difference between them and me? Our living conditions are the same. In fact I am slightly better off because I get to eat absolutely mouth-watering Gongura pickle in the Andhra Mess while they have to be content with their Dal Roti routine.

The power of Dollar – my inner mind tells me as-a-matter-of-factly.

Yes indeed! The power of Dollar.

The day I get into the radar of INS for all right reasons, I will leave everything behind and hop onto a Kuwaiti airlines flight to get into America. My friends told me that it was the cheapest airlines available. The world will never be the same again for me. I will also be saving dollars. Then I will look back over my shoulder and become all senti over India. I will start missing India just like my friends in the US are missing it. Man, I just can’t wait to miss India…

Miss India? Of course the spelling is different. If you are confused with Ms. India you are the one to be blamed. Nobody misses Ms Indias these days. They are ugly. The last Ms India who had some signs of real beauty was Ms Sen. Since then it has been a downslide as far as quality is concerned.

Why am I thinking about this all? Coz I have nothing else to do. I have to stay here till the end of time to get out. In case I haven’t told you earlier, I crashed my Pulsar 180 DTS-i into a truck yesterday on Hosur Rd. I still don’t believe that I am alive. It must be the helmet. Thank Helmet. Thy clan shall multiply.

In fact I don’t remember an iota of what must have happened yesterday. It is all blank. I don’t see much of Value-Add in trying to remember that incident. It is apparent you know! That you crash a bike into a truck -> You end up in the ICU or the electric crematorium. Fortunately in my case it is the ICU. Now that I have been given a fresh lease of life by Dollar… I am sorry God, I must put it to good use. I must wait for the H-1B which probably I will get by October this year. I hate this. Why does it get over on the very first day itself? I am planning to stage a revolution… an October Revolution.