The Corporate Lighthouse and the Boatful of Strugglers

January 2, 2008

New Year resolution also containing some tidbits regarding earning something, and driven by this pull, not satisfied with the way things are going at the business front, and despite knowing that I won't be taking this job and instead would be focusing on the scrap iron and used-oil business, still I went to Noida to attend the interview for a job for which I had been called—the post of content writer with a web portal for business-to-business writing, called B2B writing.

The company was IndiaMART, situated in Noida, Sector 8, B1.

But before that, let us talk a bit about Noida.

All the developmental gears have been put into place in this Delhi suburb. Most of Uttar Pradesh is still poor and impoverished, yet here the real estate business, corporate houses, business moguls, shopping malls and multiplexes provide something to a poor state to look forward to—the days of prosperity.

So it works as a kind of lighthouse for the impoverished hinterlands to look up to and be guided along the waves of development and growth.

Massive concrete pillars for the Metro project stand as a new mountainous artery to throw new life, mobility and enterprise into the city.

Coming back to the web portal, it is ranked among the first in the business, with an annual turnover of 19 crore per annum.

But the little dusty, half-stone-crusted, half-dusty bylane leading to it is dotted with pinching realities on both sides.

It seems to be the industrial section where they are operating this service enterprise. It certainly is situated in one of the poorer sections of the city.

You have meat shops on both sides, carcasses cleaned and trimmed for cooking vessels and meat lines. The air is thick with the feel of meat. It is even stinking.

Small tea shops with their rickety, shaking benches, poor people having their luxurious sips.

Tyre works and automobile repair shops have their customary greased, dirty working staff. Since it is cold, people pile up leftover tyres, putting them on fire to have some heat in this cold. But the thick black smoke makes the air unbearable.

Rickshaws roll over the uneven, uneasy paths.

People walk around, lost in the bitter struggle for survival.

Amidst this impoverished scenario stands the three-storeyed building of IndiaMART. Its yellow colour, in one way exaggerating its business, money, enterprise and well-off people, and the high walls around the main rectangular block try to keep off the real world from the world of business and enterprise, created by skilled people with the help of faith and endeavour.

Registering my entry with the security at the gate, I got my interview card, put it around my neck and entered the pleasantly furnished ground-floor reception hall.

Miss Rosie, the plump, young, energetic receptionist, in the company of a sleek, sophisticated companion, entered the hall filled with job seekers with a feeling of corporate authority.

Like all other successful private enterprises, this place too was devoid of the sickening, stagnating, strangulating government work culture.

Here you grow fast, perform highly, and if you will not do that, you perish.

There were plenty of young, energetic guys and girls, who flutteringly carried an air of hope and passion, which further carried the institution aloft on the path of progress and profits.

Against this background, I felt like an old, dispirited, energy-sapped person.

In the interview, though I performed well; yet it was a shaky performance.

The HR had understood my position.

She asked for my salary expectations. I said 30,000 plus.

But why would she have me if they can have young, fluttering energy at around half of this amount?

I have been asked to wait. Most probably, I won't be selected.

But I don't feel the pinch of it because I do know that even if they call me, even for 40,000 rupees, I will not join.

In fact, even if they offer 50,000, I don't think I will be able to convince myself to join because the priority now is just our business, which is putting up more and more challenges.

Then the question arises: why did I come here?

So that means I have lost my path somewhere and need to sort it out.

I need to sort out the thing.

And it means it turns out to be just a step taken to come out of boredom, to beat the pools of gloomy, depressive clouds around me, to get an outing.

So, all in all, it seems to be an outing.

And once you see so many people struggling in poor corners, struggling humanity on the roads in urban cities, you somehow don't feel cheated.

You feel that you are sailing in a boat full of similar people.