New Boy

“Swim here New Boy…now!!” K dictated as he spat on the floor near the wooden desks. The New Boy was trembling with fear as his feet resembled the dance steps of the popular Ketchup song. There wasn’t enough water to swim but enough to drown him in the realm of fright. He took a sizeable number of blows from K and kicks from the two-dozen audience of class VI students. The only trade-off: a bubble gum he had purchased with great difficulty for Rs. 1.50. It meant more than what a bottle of Jack Daniels would mean to him now. Parting with it with a heavy heart, he cursed his parents for getting him to his fifth school in 8 years of academics.

Fifteen years later, as he prepared to join his fourth company in 4 years of corporate experience, the plight of being tagged a New Boy throughout his life just flashed in front of his eyes. Whistling past towns and cities with an arrogant horn, that of a steam engine, New Boy realized how he only took pit stops at certain stations and then moved on. Not every station was forthcoming and warm. Each time the train arrived, the crowd welcomed it with loud roars of “New Boy”.

Each year the New Boy would struggle to build his identity, pick up the new local language, turn hostile classmates to friends and get biased regional teachers to appreciate his efforts. Next year, like a pawn he’d be picked up from the white checkered square and placed into the black one. He would learn the tricks of the trade, master the operational processes, read the pulse of the client’s whims and massage the ego of the insecure manager. Next year the entire world would conspire against him and create an Economic Downturn to ensure he chose another job.

Cities changed, so did schools and organizations. Tiny, fiery eyes gave way to dark skins with protruding lips; Kela Bongali (bloody Bengali) changed to Bangali Saala (bloody Bengali again); “just a fresher” changed to “you can’t have direct reportees yet”. What never changed is our innate propensity to judge. If only as human, our retina allowed us to see beyond the color of the skin, the size of the eyes, the accented speech, the salary one drew or the number of years one had worked…the numerous New Boys wouldn’t dread to make a New start each time…