The Privledged

It has been a different week all together. Gone are the hectic schedules each day in office, gone is the rush to reach office before the update call and gone is the necessity to wake up early. Life feels good.I can now laze around in the bed for more number of hours than I should actually be granted. [That is the reason, I wake up guilty every morning, for missing my swimming lessons or not following the earlier nights vow to get up early and run a considerable number of kilo-meters.]
I have been released from my project after a not so sentimental farewell.I am a free bird now, with minimal or almost no commitments in the office, until of course the organization can find me er.. a more suitable job profile.
The other day I was talking to one of friends, Avijit, who is very gentle by nature. He is a sort of person who avoids quarrels and wants to live a life as peaceful as can be practical. We were having one of our extended chai-ciggarette adda, when he started. "Do you know da, people in kolkata seem to have gone a little hyper now a days.!!". I was little surprised to hear this sudden change of topic, when we were actually analyzing our manager's recent spectacular portrayal of his command over English language, but that is a different discussion  all together. "yes da,  people in Kolkata seem to have gone crazy and I do not know why they do not seem to like us IT people a bit!!". Now that was a bit harsh to categorize all the wonderful denizens (apart from the "IT People") of Kolkata into IT haters. "What happened Avijit? Who kicked you?" I quipped."You know the other day I was travelling in a bus back to home from Saltlake." started Avijit."The buses in the evening are full, and that is why I had chosen to leave office a little late. The bus that I boarded was not so crowded and I had got a decent sort of place to stand. After a few stops, the rush increased and then there was sudden push from behind with some mutterings it seemed. I turned around to find a person, aged somewhere around 45,bespectacled, a little dishevelled looking at me and asking me in a not so polite tone to get rid of my bag which was somehow, obstructing him to move further on Inside the bus. I politely asked him to push and manoeuvre through, as there was no space for me to move aside my bag. You know what was the retort that I get back?". I looked back at avijit. "IT te chakri korle lokeder hab bhab change hoye jai. IT r lok hoye bus e othen keno [Translation: It seems that people who work in the IT sector have a very poor atitude and why the hell are you travelling in a bus.]" I was not surprised.
To the naive travelling in bus is not banned for the people who work in the IT sector. It seems that there is a population in Kolkata who sincerely look down upon people in this sector. The reason: People in the IT sector get showered with GOLD. They are the people who can lead a posh lifestyle with money at their hands and no clue as to how to spend it.
Even if that is the case, is there anything wrong in it? I donot think so. In this world, where there is nothing called a free lunch,  the money earned by an IT professional is because of his labours, just like any other employee in any other job.Probably people who bear this attitude towards the so called "filthy rich IT people", might think otherwise, or probably its their own frustration in achieving at what they think is the best thing possible in the world.
Probably the man who had commented on Avijit, aspires to own a car to get rid of the tiresome bus journey. Probably he has not been able to own one yet and he has made a world in his mind, where all IT professionals have cars. Probably that is why finding one IT employee slogging it out just like him in the same bus and blocking his route to the so called comfort of his known domain threatens him. There can be so many probabilities, and I would be a fool to try to analyze all those.
Whatever the reasons maybe, not all, but a section of people in Kolkata do think and sincerely look down upon people in this sector for being "the so called filthy rich".
Will this thing change? Well yes definitely, its bound to change, with so many engineers being manufactured to feed the massive Indian IT jaggernaut, its not going to be far when there would be very few people in Kolkata who donot have some one close within their own family working and thus belonging to the super priviledged "IT Sector Employee".
Till then, we might have to bear with them, ektu adjust kore nite hobe aar ki..