The Angry Dragon Within !

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Rajiv stood outside his house suited up in a black blazer and maroon tie with thin silver stripes. He was standing on the road side wiping off the sweat on his forehead with his left hand and blood was dripping off the iron rod in his right hand. He was shouting aloud looking at the corpse lying on the ground, “I told you don’t argue with me.”

The day had started on the usual note for him. He was in a hurry to get to office on time and thought he would get into the first auto rickshaw that came his way. But alas it wasn’t the first but the sixth auto rickshaw which he finally got into. He was now used to the daily rigmarole of bargaining with the auto rickshaw drivers. He always ended paying more than the stipulated charge; he cursed himself at times and felt disgusted that people around him shamelessly carried an attitude which exemplified the fact that humanity was dying a slow death.

When he got to his office and was walking towards his desk, he could sense his boss staring at him with raised eyebrows and a smirk on his face. The look said it all, he was yet again late. He knew his boss would never accept the reason for him being late was that he was fighting to find an auto rickshaw driver who would ferry him to office for only a fare price and not a penny more.

Later during the day it was turn of his clients to add to his frustration. They always had the typical approach when providing feedback to the strategies he suggested as a marketing consultant for their products. The tone was always, “Rajiv we see your point, but we believe it would be great if we could make a few minor tweaking to the plan suggested by you.” He always knew that when a client starts with the phrase ‘minor tweaking’ it always ended up with a completely different end product, nothing close to the initial idea he had proposed. He would end up smiling at the client, a smile with repressed disappointment.  

He came back to his desk after the client meeting and threw the file on his desk with anger. Sunil, his colleague walked up to him and asked casually “what happened? Guess yet another client pissed you off today. Chill, let’s go for a smoke.” Rajiv lit up his favourite brand of cigarette and took a deep puff. Then he let out the smoke making circles in the air.

He turned around to Sunil and said, “Dude if these idiots always want their own strategies and ideas to be implemented then why the heck do they need to hire consultants like us. It was simply yet another wasted effort of one week which now goes down the drain. Now they want me to simply execute their ideas which as we both know will not make the impact they intended to make with their campaign.” To which Sunil reacted saying, “I understand how you feel. But then why do you bother so much about it. End of it what matters is, we keep the client happy and we get paid for it.” Rajiv knew that Sunil would say something like this, it was what everyone said. But deep down within he always felt dejected and saddened. This is not what he had imagined when he graduated from business school.

He looked at the clock on the wall as it striked 8pm, he then looked around and realized that most of his team members had already left for the day. He wanted to leave on time too but the obstinate client of his had insisted that he wanted the revised plan mailed to him at any cost today.  Finally when he was done emailing to the revised paln and left for home it started raining heavily. He was getting drenched in rain and seemed quiet pissed, after none of the auto rickshaw drivers agreed to ferry him back home. Finally after a lengthy bargain talk with one of the drivers he got into the auto rickshaw. The driver had asked for double the usual charge but they had finally settled for Rs. 10 less than the price demanded initially by the driver.

When the auto rickshaw had almost reached close to Rajiv’s house, the driver asked him to get down on the main road near the house. But Rajiv demanded that he be dropped in front of his house which was in the by lane close to the main road. The driver refused to budge and an argument sparked off. Rajiv was quiet frustrated after the long day at office. Moreover he was quiet angry at these pesky auto rickshaw drivers who always refused to ferry common man like him at the stipulated price, exploiting and extorting people every day.  He lost his cool, as even after long argument the driver was not willing to budge, in turn the driver started to hurl nasty abuses at Rajiv for wasting his time.

At that point the argument turned into a scuffle and enraged Rajiv picked up an iron rod lying on the roadside and smashed it on the head of the driver repeatedly, envisioning all the people who had contributed to the maddening life he led.  He kept smashing the drivers head as if in a state of trance. When he finally realised he had killed the man, he was standing on the road side wiping off sweat on his forehead with his left hand and with blood dripping off the iron rod in his right hand. He was shouting aloud looking at the corpse lying on the ground, “I told you don’t argue with me.”

-       VJ Says ~ Cheers and Peace