The Software Engineer

It was six in the morning when the clock stretched out its arms to its fullest and the alarm promptly rang. It was a soothing tune unlike the typical harsh alarm tunes that used to wake him up during his student days. Nevertheless, he disliked it as much as ever. He quickly turned it off and decided to lie down for a while. Within no time the second alarm rang...this time it was harsher, to give a final warning that there was absolutely no time to waste!!

He woke up with a jerk cursing himself for sleeping for so long. He had an early meeting scheduled and was supposed to be in office in an hour's time. He quickly got ready, dumped his laptop in the car and grabbed a slice of pizza left from the previous night's dinner, to have it on the way and started from home.

It was the beginning of the week and as most Monday mornings would have it, he was not particularly in the best of his moods. "The ever prevailing monotony of my life and so painstakingly have I kept it alive....may be I don't know any other way of life ". He was contemplating his life which tiresomely followed the same pattern without any tangible deviation for years now. "And they talk about work life balance- do they even know what life is?" He cursed all the policy makers of the corporate world. Suddenly he remembered Abhinav - his college mate. Abhinav was the brighter of the two but had never started his career in Software. Instead he chose to be a school teacher. "If only I had chosen to teach like him". "I would have had all the time to spend with friends and more importantly with myself....and here I am almost lost, forgotten by all my friends and by my own self". "Or may be I could have continued with music, made a career in it...like Wilson did. He appears so passionate about music even after so many years. I may have a bulkier bank balance but it doesn't make me any happier".

Thinking of all the real and imaginary career avenues that he had closed on himself , he reached office. Most disinterestedly he wrote a few important mails, attended a couple of meetings, worked on the piece of work he was urgently supposed to finish and managed to grab a few cups of coffee and smoke in between. However he was still in a parallel world surrounded by friends, family and fans where he was everything but a software engineer. Finally He decided to pack his laptop and leave much earlier than his usual time.

"I cannot continue weaving the same pattern...I cant roll the same rock every day. I must bring in some change in my life...I must quit being a software engineer!!" he said to himself. He went home and took out his guitar which had rested in peace completely untouched and undisturbed for many years. He played the tunes that he had learnt long ago. But, the tunes sounded different from how they were meant to sound. He tried for a while but the guitar refused to create music the way he wanted it to. He gave it up and picked a thick book by Camus that he had bought when he was traveling for a business trip last month. He flicked through the pages but even the book failed to evoke any spark of interest in him. He finally switched on the television and browsed through all the channels available but didn't stop for more than a few minutes at any particular channel. It was only eight o clock, not even the time when he started from work on a normal day. He stared at the empty space for a while not able to decide what to do. "The rock has to fall down anyways, why bother about what rock I have chosen?", he concluded. Finally he took out a can of beer, opened his laptop and started working on the presentation he was supposed to give the day after. He worked up till midnight and emptied a few cans of beer till his eyes drooped. He fell on the bed and lay down with a smile....it wasn't such a bad night after all!!