The alarm clock is ringing. It is time to get up already? She had just slept! Legend stretches her left hand to shut it off. She opens the fridge. Milk and corn flakes. That will have to do today as well. Legend makes a mental note to visit the local 24X7 super market tonight. Legend locks the door and starts for her office. As she waits for the office bus to come and pick her up, she notices many people jogging. She sighs. Exercise is a long forgotten regime. The bus arrives. Everyone is sleeping. In her bus nobody knew anybody. Because everyone always slept. Acute sleep deprivation. Legend reaches the office. Waits for fifteen minutes for the elevator to arrive and boards it. She has to go to the second floor.
She has a stand
up call to attend and then a call with the on-site team. Then she has to send
the status report. She has to update the defect tracker and after deployment
has to perform a smoke testing. Then she
has a con call to attend. After lunch she must present the performance
engineering ppt before the managers. Later she has to complete the coding of
the new phase and send it to on-site. Even later she will be doing the code
review of the peers and update the document. She also must feel out the root
cause analysis document for the ten defects assigned to her.
The only way to
complete so many things is coffee. Luckily at least that is free in her office.
She has no time to waste for lunch so she orders a pizza after she returns from
the meeting. Her cubicle mate pulls out a Zandu Balm from his bag. He applies
it generously on his forehead. Legend also borrows some.
No wonder back
at home Legend’s mom is finding it so hard to find a suitable groom for her. No
one wants to marry a girl who works in IT sector. And Legend’s mom does not
want her to marry a software engineer. In spite of hailing from a conservative
family she curses Legend every day for not finding a boyfriend in college and
for damning herself everyday by working in IT.
So when Legend
returns she remembers that she does not have anything to eat. She turns and
enters the supermarket. Its past midnight and most people in the supermarket
are like her. Half asleep, capering through the narrow alleys formed by the
racks.
She is so tired
that she can hardly see through the almost closed eyes. She takes the elevator
again, this time to climb just a floor to her apartment. An old man approaches
her to ask if she is Ms. Kimbadanti. She takes few seconds to realize that it
is indeed her name. She nods. It’s been too long that her name has become the English
meaning of her real name because the Americans find it difficult. The old man
introduces himself as her neighbor and gives her a package she received. She
thanks and is a little bewildered that she doesn’t know her neighbors.
She tries to
open the door of her apartment. It does not open. She tries again. It does not
open. Horrified she steps back and looks at the door. The kind old man
approaches again. “You open it with your keys. Not your access card.” He says.Follow me.
