The "Workaholics" at No. 63

A workaholic: colloquially, is a person who is addicted to work (in normal parlance, a person who works for more than his/her stipulated working hours regularly).

4 Lierseestenweg: My office address in Mechelen which is a city in the province of Antwerp in Belgium.

0D, 1C, 1E: Sections within the office building where you can find people working at all sorts of odd hours.

No. 63: To be revealed later.

Well there are some nights when you just can't sleep and then there are some nights when something you experienced during the day stirs your thoughts so much that you just can't put them to rest. My father once told me that "worrying about it never solved any problem." As matter of fact as it sounds, it is quite a feat if you can put it to actual practice.

That said let me come to the source of the turmoil that has resulted in this insomnia. It was about 8 in the evening and I had come to the pantry to get a fresh cup of tea when I found that one of the call center executives who works in a rather special unit called "Customer Retention" was also there. During the wait for the kettle to boil the water we struck up a conversation. Now for my friends who are not very familiar with the European work culture and Belgian in particular, it would be prudent that I mention here that the office and especially my floor is almost completely empty by 6 in the evening and 8 is a "late hour". She mentioned that she has usually seen me still working almost every day when she is leaving after having finished her shift. I explained to her that I just stay back late finishing up pending tasks of the day.

That must have been quite strange for her as she asked how is it possible that there are pending tasks after working for 8 hours. It was quite difficult to explain all the reasons to her and there wasn't enough time either, but just as we were leaving the pantry to go back to our desk, she commented, "All of you are workaholics".

By 'all of you' she meant all people here from Infosys, as we are always the ones left behind after everybody else has gone and her impression of us being addicted to work isn't quite incorrect either. That ended just there and after duly finishing up my tasks I also headed back home.

Its usually my routine to take the long way back home from office as it gives me some peaceful extra time on my bicycle. It was around 10 and the streets were silent. I was riding my bike engrossed in some thoughts, when suddenly I was struck with some musical notes emanating from an unknown source. I slowed down to look or rather "hear" for the source. There weren't any pedestrians around neither were any cars so it couldn't have been some music system. It wasn't anyways the normal electronic beats you hear from the passing cars. As I heard more carefully I found that it was a piano playing with people singing in a choir. That's when it hit me that I was close to the church and it must be the choir group practicing. I slowed down a bit more and on the pretext of checking some stuff in the window next to house number 63 where they were reciting, I stole some more musical moments to savour.

10 PM in the night is quite late by all Belgian standards. Having taken time out from their jobs these people were practicing till so late. The reason as I would imagine must have been that in their pursuit to achieve that perfect harmony they lost the sense of time. None of them remembered how late it had gotten. "Workaholics!!" I thought.

This is the thought that has been stirring me tonight. How can I draw parallels to what some one does for charity and something which is officially one's job!! Not to say that I don't enjoy my work, but I still don't get called a workaholic just for doing something that engrosses me so much that I loose sense of time. When I think a bit more carefully I find that at the root of it is my worries! Yes. My worries about achieving too much too soon. I want to have everything twice as quickly by doing twice the amount of hard-work in half the time it actually requires. I remember now another little story. 

There was this ancient martial ats expert who was approached by a young man. The man asked the master, "How much time it will take me to be an expert in the martial arts?" The master replied "10 years". 

The man said, "But if I practice extra hard everyday putting in double the effort, how much time will it take me then?". The master replied calmly "20 years".

I never quite understood the significance of this story before today. In our relentless pursuits, we never relax and relish our achievements. We have to keep jumping from one feat to the next, discarding our own accomplishments for the sake of the next one in line. If we are just patient enough to let time take its course, everything else will follow suit.  Stop worrying and let time also play its part. I used to loathe the adage "Before time and more than your destiny, you will never get". But there is an aspect of it that you must not forget. Try as you might you can't beat the clock. No matter how many world records you break there is just no limit to where it ends. Even Usain Bolt will tell you that, but may be he's also just too young to understand that now.  If we try and rush to it, we will still only get their on time, and we will be twice as much tired.

The Superman of Malegaon

Hope and positivity, the 'can-do-attitude', the never-say-die spirit are always hard to accept for most of us during even the simplest of circumstances let alone while attempting monumental tasks. Today, we are filled with an overwhelming sense of despair with just about everything... be it countering terrorist threats, the state of our planet or such mundane things in life like not having broadband internet at home. We, especially the south Asian people are so focused on accepting everything as our fate, that we seem to give up even before starting most things.


I have been guilty of it myself many times in the past. Even today when I have the courage and the conviction that the goals I set out to achieve can one day be surpassed, I sometimes feel the negativity creeping in. During such times I keep myself kicking for building castles into thin air which are blown like a house of cards in the face of the slightest winds. And to be honest I have been in such a state recently when my sincerest attempts at harmonizing the goal seeking processes were termed as exclusive and I met with such rejection which was impossible to negate with even the strongest of all feelings... "Love".
But being the silly little kid that I have been, if I give it up so soon.. then there wouldn't be anything to write home about. Like Yogi Berra is famously quoted universally in such a context, "It ain't over till it's over".


So where does Malegaon (a tiny handloom industry oriented town in rural Maharashtra) and Superman (who needs no description like Malegaon does) fit into all this? Well I chanced upon a fascinating documentary about the filming of a movie called "Malegaon ka Superman". The movie making is so ridiculously absurd that the actor playing Superman (who's is clearly malnourished and in no way fit to play the role) is employed as the spot-boy too!!! In fact the movie is shot with just one handy-cam. At first I thought it was just another attempt at showing the undernourished Supermans of India clearly aimed at cashing in on the "Slumdog millionaire" wave. But I persisted with it and here I am writing about it.


The thing that struck me after having watched it is the positivity, the never-say-die spirit and the can-do attitude of the people making that movie, which started as an attempt of a derelict video parlour owner to inject renewed energy into his business. The sincerity with which he approached it was remarkable. He dreamed big and pulled out all stops to make it happen! He did not choose to make a movie which could be easy to make with a lone handy cam. His cameraman cum stuntman cum script writer cum dialog writer cum technician cum the list is endless... even suggests that they want to attempt scenes like the ones in "The Matrix", which sound like tall claims from anyone in the Indian film-making industry but more so with someone running on a budget of less than 700 Euros!! Not just the flimsy budget, the film maker is battling with unforeseen delays like the hero getting married two days before the final shot is to be taken (it isn't told what the reason for such hurry was).


At one point during the film making while shooting another absurdly choreographed stunt where "Superman" floats in a river on an inflated tractor tire tube to get to his home planet... (yes!!) the camera falls into the water with all the footage shot so far. At that point all hope of achieving anything is lost. But remarkably the film-maker keeps his positivity going. "Remarkable" is the word that I use because I myself have lost hope in not so dire circumstances myself lately. And at this point I should clarify that this post is not just about hoping, or dreaming or even positivity alone. One shouldn't go completely blind with hope, yet it's about the mind set that one should have and the belief that one gets in his/her abilities due to the "can do" attitude, no matter how mundane or monumental your objective be. The end of the documentary shows people climbing over the fence of the theater to watch shows of the movie and some of the clips from the movie that were shown were quite impressive given the kind of circumstances they were shot in. No wonder I could identify the real joy and satisfaction with which the film maker smiles at the camera in the end. Even when the under-weight Superman expresses his desire to one day play Amitabh Bachchan I could believe that he just might do it one day.


The movie may be titled "Superman of Malegaon" but to me every person associated with it is superhuman in his own right. To overcome such circumstances does require extraordinary strength of character. To stand up smiling after falling in an open sewer and have the strength to still carry on needs more will power than the rodeo clowns have to muster. The documentary should rather have been titled "Supermen of Malegaon". I am inspired... they say its always hardest to look at the silver lining just when you are closest to the end of the storm. But You should never loose hope. It ain't over till its over... and even if it is, there is always the "set" after the "game" and the "match" is just for statisticians. ;-)