Boris & a few Indian Techies

I was contemplating on whether to write this post or not; later decided that I should. Because, this shows how badly some of us behave and take things for granted. This is an incident that happened on Thursday, the 7th June 2007 at the hotel where I stay in Morrisplains, NJ - Candlewood suites.

Though Candlewood is an American hotel, there is nothing American about it except the names. All the employees who work there are either Mexicans or Eastern Europeans; more than 80 pct of people who stay in this hotel are Indians of which 70 pct belong to the category "Techies". As I climb-up or lift-up to my 3rd level room, the fragrance of sambar, rasam, indian masala and maggi welcomes me and makes me feel home.

And who is Boris?
Boris is the midde-aged Mexican cabbie... rather the driver of the complimentary shuttle (station-wagon) that plies from the hotel to pre-defined destinations every week day. His day starts with dropping people from the hotel to the railway-station and the Pfizer office at 7:30 AM, comes back to pick the people to Honeywell at 8AM, and then another trip to some other offices at 9AM. He has a similar routine in the evenings - A very nice chap; has an opinion about anything and everything in the world (if not anything; atleast f*** them) and more than anything, speaks his mind regardless of the place or situation.

As a quick pre-curser to the story, we got late to office on wednesday coz one Indian Techie (hereby referred as IT) who had to take the 7:30 AM shuttle to Pfizer missed it and demanded that he should taken to the Pfizer Office at 7:50 AM when Boris came back to pick the Honeywell crowd. He oblidged and we got late. Pfizer is actually walkable from the hotel, just half a mile on the same side of the road, but driving takes around 10 minutes.

And here is what happened on that fateful thursday.

Boris (BO) comes in at 7:55 AM; we all get in. And the IT tries to getin.

BO: Maaan.. u no gonna get in now. I have a schedule; I gonna meet my schedule.

IT: Why? You dropped me yesterday naa?

BO: I did a favor maaan... d'you know that? I did a favor... you gonna better catch the 7:30 time... I gotta schedule to meet.. (to us) u'no guys... i drop this jerk yesterday and he just say thank you and walk off... these guys just come over and....(sound fades)

IT: I think you can drop us today also... onnly one more day naa...

BO: You better close that door maann... I gotta guys waiting here and I gonna meet my schedule... you guys just gonna come over and d'maand things... maan.... do you know that i did a favor? now you close the door.. i gotta go...

IT: Yes, I know you did a favor, do a favor today also naa...

BO: maan... just close the door... u d'maand a favor... i gotta schedule to meet... u guys just come oer and have no idea what the **** (showing a finger) is going on here... close the door maan...

The door closes... Boris looks into the mirror and finds Mak (Adaikappan Meiyyappan from Honeywell) in the van and then to him...

BO: Mak, my dear frriend... I'll drrop you anny time... coz, u r my frriend

Mak: Thank You Boris

BO: Those jerks...(sound fades..)

Boris puts on the radio and then after a second, shows his desperation and switches to the tape where he has his favourite songs...

"Habeebee... Habeebee... " - reminded me of the song with Mohanlal & Sreenivasan in the film "Chandralekha - Maanathae Chandiranothoru..." the very same one...

And we raced to the Honeywell Corporate Headquarters on Columbia Road.

Note: Information technology workers a.k.a computer programmers are generally referred to as "Techies"