Part one 

The scenario of this story begins in the last phase of the year 1977 after I passed out of Engineering with Mechanical Engineering. After passing the final exam. I had to wait for seven to eight months to get a placement. After continuous applications and appearing in interviews, at last, I got the opportunity in a Jute Mill as a “Trainee Maintenance Engineer”. The training period was of one year tenure. The duty was for three shifts. So I started as a daily passenger from Jadavpur to Titagarh via Sealdah main station up & down lines. Sunday was a declared holiday. Hence with this job, my routine life began with. So far I recall the chief maintenance engineer was Mr.Mukherjee.As per Bengali tradition, seniors are addressed as dada so I used to call him Mukherjeeda. He was also a colorful character. He was a disciple of Ramkumar Chattopadhyay the legendary singer of Bengal. During tea breaks, we used to gossip about these personal matters. And off and on the machines in the factory caught fire creating tension among ourselves & we used to run here and there to extinguish the fire. Surprisingly I noticed every time Mukherjeeda without any anxiety and advised us with a smile not to take tension as it was a drama for an insurance claim by the factory owner to replace with a new machine. The days were passing in the course of time. Out of all these one incident I can remember even today.

The factory's accountant Phanibabu also used to sit with us in the maintenance department. He was residing near the station area in walking distance. So during lunch hour, he used to have lunch at his home. And after finishing lunch return to the maintenance department. He used to walk along the rail line. One day after returning to the factory I noticed he was feeling sleepy.I thought that due to age he may be tired off or his health was not fine. But owing to curiosity after some time I asked him if he was fine. Then he told me the reason for his sleepiness. On the way to his return from his house along the railway line, there is a bush and there a snake bites him. I was shocked listening to this. Then he said that after biting him the snake died.I got totally confused about the thrust of the incident. For a few moments, I was thinking the reason behind it. Then I got it as Phanibabu used to consume opium regularly his blood was so infected it was more poisonous than the snake and that was the root cause of the incident. It was mysterious.

Another thrilling incident I can recall which shivers me was an incident of a night in third shift duty. Then I almost passed three months of my training period. On that particular night when I resumed duty my senior Mr Mukherjee was with me in a roundabout the jobs in the factory. During the round, he noticed that one oilman on that shift was sleeping just after the third shift commenced. So immediately he issued him a charge sheet & he was punished with a week-long layoff. And I was the signatory for the witness. Up to this, it was normal. But on the very next early morning when I was waiting on the railway platform to catch the train with a cup of tea a red-eyed angry man approached me and told me “Oh you are that engineer who laid off my uncle?”.I kept my cool to face the situation with side talks and as the train arrived I just jumped in the train and got relieved.

More such incidents were there when in one night due to some electrical fault I had to spend a night at the Sealdah station it was really unbelievable. I noticed a hungry man sharing a waste food plate with dogs on the Sealdah south railway platform. The number of such pictures I can remember in my subconscious mind even today.

Part Two

In this flow of incidents, one year passed away in its own way without my notice. Although I lost my father during this period. But the process of application & attending interviews was continued. However, just after one year, I appeared in an interview for a reputed construction company of that time and was selected as an Assistant Engineer. My posting was at the Hindusthan Fertilizer Corporation Limited(HFCL) Project site, Haldia & the scheduled joining date was 18th September 1980. This date was just the next day of the big industry puja known as Viswakarma Puja.The day was the immersion day of the idol of Viswakarma. So I also took part in the immersion procession wit othe colleagues of the company.

I had an indifferent memory of the experience of that immersion procession. After completion of immersion when we returned during the head count it was found one man was missing. He was a rigging foreman who was a professional ganja smoker and he was so addicted on the way of the procession that he fell in a ditch on the way. And he was so addicted that he was sitting inside the ditch for the whole night. After getting free from addiction he came out of the ditch of his own. This was an amazing experience for me as a fresher in the industry.

Anyway, I was accommodated in the east-facing roadside room of the ground floor in Rahaman Mess, Sutahata.On the first night, I was cordially welcomed by the Ghosh family who were a newly wedded couple. They also started their conjugal life in that mess only. Although it was for the time being only. Mr. Ghosh was a junior accountant at the company. They offered me some snacks wholeheartedly and I enjoyed their friendship spontaneously.

I hired a cot on a monthly basis at the rental charge of six rupees only. My roommate was a company supervisor named Mr.Bose still I remember. Also, I recall the party with the bear bottle and some fast food after getting the salary on the very first day of the month as the only entertainment in those days with our limited capacity& earnings. This was the beginning of the first phase of construction life tenure. The duty was a routine life to get up early in the morning and then finish tea and breakfast & after that catch the company minibus exactly at 7-30 a.m.But the duty hour was not fixed so we were habituated to coming back sometimes by 8 or 9 p.m or more late in tune with the work pressure. So it was a routine life at night return from duty finish dinner and next morning at dot 7-30a.m catch the bus and get down at the site office. Although the scheduled time of return was fixed at 7-30 p.m. maximum time it was not followed. The site was six kilometers away from the mess. The days were passing in obsession just in the cycle of breakfast-lunch-dinner and duty from morning to night.

Then our boss means the Construction Manager was Nicknamed Jagada who was known as a workaholic. His short name was JNRC There are several stories about him. I shall narrate a few of the incidents here.

I heard about these incidents from his wife Mrs.JNRC whom we used to address as sister-in-law. Just after their marriage, Jagada planned to see a movie with her in the matinee show in the nearby cinema hall named Shree Cinema. Then matinee timing was from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.On the movie day, Jagada told her to reach the cinema hall sometime before the show starts and he would reach there early from the site accordingly. As per the commitment Mrs JNRC was standing near the hall before the show. But there was no trace of our boss even up to the interval time. So getting annoyed she waited ten minutes more after the interval and returned home tearing off the tickets. After that incident, she never made any preappointed outing programme with our great Jagada even after repeated appeals and begging pardon from his side.

Jagada used to go to the site with Mallik’s Ambassador car. Then this vehicle a Hind Motor’s manufactured was the symbol of the elite group.He used to start at 8-00 a.m. for site but when he will return home it was out of the knowledge may be by God even.

Another incident I can recall when a special guest came to his house from Kolkata. Mrs JNRC told him to bring good fish, rice and other vegetables from the famous Makhon Babu’s market near to site.This time also he planned to return early with the items as told by Madam. Now after reaching to site, he sent Maalik to bring all the items as per the list given by Mdam. The driver also came back after marketing. Then Jagada started from the site as early as scheduled . But after traveling for fifteen minutes he told to Maalk to go back to the site office as he had forgotten to finish some urgent work. After reaching the site he had forgotten everything and when he recalled the program as committed it was too late.In the meantime, the fish and vegetables were rotten in the dicky behind the car and all those were thrown out. Everything was in waste only.

In another incident, Jagada went to England in deputation as the headquarters of our company was London-based. He stayed there for three months & after returning he said he fooled the Britishers by preparing fried rice and he succeeded in his targetted job. We enjoyed the style he presented the story to us. This way he was a very special character among the bosses I met. In this way, I spent two more years in that company, and when I turned into a chain smoker unnoticed I was also unaware.

Part Three

After finishing the Haldia assignment I was on the way to other states of India. So one fine evening I started for Delhi on Rajdhani Express reserving a c seat in an A.C chair car compartment. Rajdhani Express was introduced just a few days before. So excellent service to attract passengers was offered by the Indian Railways. The next day in the morning I was in the office of Ranaq Internationals a red-colored building in Nehru Place situated in New Delhi. From there I reached Rasayani my work site via Bombay today’s Mumbai. Rasayani was a small hill station enriched with natural beauty. Hindustan Organic Chemicals{HOCL} was our client and Simon Carves was the EPC(Engineering & Procurement Contractor) contractor.I stayed there hardly for one month. Mr K.B. Mukherjee was the site in charge of Simon Carves. Every evening he used to sit on the lawn of the guest house in an easy chair with a Jumbo beer glass. He used to invite us to be a part of the beer party. He was the rarest person whom I had seen who after the finish of beer stock to order a new beer crate only writing on a simple piece of paper for the wine shop.I heard this type of story relating to musclemen or very powerful political identities. But in the course of my service life, I have to be a witness to such an incident that was really out of my imagination.

However, approximately after one month, I was transferred to Surat in KRIBHCO, HAZIRA project site. There the construction manager was one of my seniors Mr.Bhowmik of my previous company Haldia, Project site. I was designated there as a planning engineer. Since my elder brother was in Baroda very often I used to go there. It was a maximum five to six hours journey. There I met a site in charge of a government construction company. Mainly by his advice, I had resigned and after qualifying in the interview joined the new assignment as an Officer in the grade two equivalent to Assistant Engineer. There I was accommodated in a bachelor’s engineer’s mess with a few more colleagues of the company. There also I spent four years as a witness of several incidents. Out of many incidents, I can remember two incidents till today. This company was a Government Of India Undertaking Company.

In those days we preferred to see the night shows. So one night after the night show we four returned hiring an autorickshaw to our mess and offered the driver the normal fare but he argued with us demanding more money. And after some hot talks, he went away without taking the fare we offered. Finishing the dinner when we were in deep sleep at midnight the auto driver came accompanied by a policeman. The policeman asked us the reason why the driver was not paid the fare he deserved. Then we explained in detail to the policeman. He understood the situation & fined the auto driver. This is a burning example of how the administration acts in Gujrat.

Again I can recall the purchasing Bengali weekly magazine Desh which was costing in those days two rupees only. The current magazine was available only at the Baroda railway station & the up-down autorickshaw fare was four rupees. So to buy two rupees magazine merrily we were ready to spend four rupees. Another incident was of having Bengali's famous sweet rasgulla from a sweet shop near Sursagar Lake. All of a sudden we used to make a programme for Rasgulla. Then per piece of Rasgulla was four rupees and we used to consume hardly three numbers each. The size and taste both was really amazing. The total cost was hardly forty rupees but the up-down autorickshaw fare was eighty rupees.

Those memories thrill me today even. In this flow of incidents, I spent four years of my service life in Baroda. After that, I joined another new MNC resigning from the previous government service.

Part Four

This construction company had several projects all over India & abroad. In this company, my first posting was in the Reliance Industries project site, Patalganga at Raigarh district in MIDC. The distance between the Panvel where we were accommodated and the work site was approximately thirty kilometers. The travel time was almost two hours. Transportation was arranged by the company by bus & car both. I started my family life after joining this company. The project size was quite big. I was deputed in the power plant construction named Energy Center. Construction work of this RIL project site was on a war footing basis. The nature of the work trend was to finish the target before schedule if possible. However, duty hours were fixed. The company buses used to start at the dot 7-30 a.m. and the time of return from the site was 6-30p.m.The total time including the travel time was fourteen hours. For emergency work, we had to attend round-the-clock duty. And this was a regular feature of our duty. My immediate boss used to say “Do or die” for the nature of tough targets. In this way, time flows quietly on its own.

I was residing in CIDCO accommodation at Panvel with my family. During the initial days of my married life, a funny matter happened that I have to mention here. My wife had no idea about the lifestyle of construction people. After two months of our marriage, she said” See I have never experienced such nature of duty with my father and elder brother.I have seen the eight to ten-hour scheduled nature of duty only. What kind of service is this without any time limit?”Silently I laughed then. And one holiday morning I showed her our company buses to clear her doubts. Really what a mosaic nature of duty we are habituated with that having a fixed time to go out and the time to return is uncertain.

However, with the flow of time, I turned into a full-fledged family man from a bachelor status. My first daughter was born there and is now married and blessed by a girl child my granddaughter. Almost one year later, I was transferred to Surat to the ONGC expansion project site Hazira industrial sector. There also my boss was Mr.Agrwal. A number of colleagues of those days are no more now left for heavenly abode. Those who are still there we have contacted over the telephone & some used to meet once in a blue moon. I spent more than five years in Hazira on five different project sites and changed three company accommodations. My second daughter was born there.

After transfer from Surat, I was posted at Nippon Denro Ispat & Steel Limited(NDIL), Pen at Wadhkal, Maharashtra site.NDIL was a steel plant project site owned by the famous Indian steel tycoon Laxmi Mittal. My accommodation was arranged in Vashi, Navi Mumbai. There also I spent more than two years. After that assignment getting a call from the Middle East I went to Saudi Arabia(KSA) & joined a power plant project site with a Lebanese construction company near Riyadh the capital of KSA.

Part Five

That was the end of 1996. After my transfer to Mumbai all of a sudden I applied to a Saudi-based Lebanese construction company. However, after joining this new company, I decided not to change to a new assignment. The nature of service in this new company was permanent although it was a private company. Whatever it is I was called for an interview and also got an offer letter from the company the offer was really attractive in those days in comparison to my salary in India although it was a renewable contract service. In the first stage, I was in a dilemma but I couldn’t control the attraction of the lucrative package offered by the Lebanese company.

So one fine evening I started for Riyadh via Dammam. As the company’s headquarters was in Dammam I had to report there to meet the pre-joining requirements. Soon after finishing the requisite formalities I reached to PP-9 power project where my boss was an Italian. He was the project manager there. His name was Fausto Charutini. Initially, I reported to him. His English pronunciation was very clear as they learned English like Indians only. After a brief introduction, he advised me” You report to Kabin our construction manager.”I was in a confusion as I had never heard this type of name at least in my life. I thought the boss had told me something by mistake but after a few minutes, the Indian secretary of the project manager cleared my confusion when he told me Mr. Kabin O’doneil was the construction manager and European culture is to call by first name only & that was reason behind. However this was the very beginning of a new assignment as a Project Coordinator.

One incident I should mention here. The inspection chief was Mr. Lionel Clutterham who was from Scotland and his pronunciation was very tough to understand. Then he was sixty-five years old. At that age, we Indians pass retired life. But in that stage, Mr. Clutterham is a full-fledged departmental head of the Inspection Department. One day just before lunch he came to me for a job to be done. He repeated me at least three times because of his complicated pronunciation. However, after understanding exactly what I had to do just after lunch I went to the particular location. And I was surprised he sent three more colleagues for the same job. This means he does not rely on one person’s report. This was his work philosophy. Then I understood the reality and the root cause of why the British ruled us for more than two hundred years. And this is the divide-and-rule policy. This tradition is still going on.In this way, I passed my first desert life in Saudi with the Europeans, Philippinos, Indians, Pakistanis & Bangladeshis.

In the eleventh month I had an argument with my Construction Manager Mr. Kabin caused my departure from that company. Started searching for new job opportunities once again. In that phase, I left Mumbai and started residing in Kolkata and used to come again to Mumbai. I had to wait at least one and a half years to get an opportunity in my old company on a short-term contract basis.I was posted at Indian Oil Refineries, Haldia expansion project site. After a long interval, I started Haldia to Kolkata travel once a week as my family was in Kolkata for the schooling of my two little daughters. Sometimes I used the Roychawk ferry service and sometimes through Mecheda via Howrah station by rail route.

Part Six

After passing almost seven months this way again I got a call from abroad. This time the offer was from Sudan a remote country in North Africa the neighboring country of Ethiopia. However, after finishing the medical formalities including the injection for Yellow fever from Mazgaon Dock one fine early morning I started my journey from Mumbai airport for my destination Sudan via Dubai. By the next day evening, I reached to Khartoum airport. Khartoum is the capital city of Sudan & the Nile is the national river of Sudan like our river Ganges. Sugar cane fields are there on both banks of the river Nile. Another wonder is where the blue Nile meets the white Nile. At the junction of the river water, both the colours blue & white are visible. This river Nile flows through eleven countries. The taste of fish from the River Nile is delicious like Indian river fishes. I was accommodated there in a hotel & after two days I started for my workplace in Port Of Sudan by a domestic sixty-seater flight and reached the project site in the early morning at around 2-30 a.m.There we were accommodated in a camp very near to the Red Sea.

The very next day, I started the routine duty from 8-00 a.m. to 6-00 p.m. including the lunch break. A few days later I came to know the reason behind the name Red Sea. I heard the history from a local man there. Almost five hundred years ago there was a fierce battle then in between Muslims& Christians resulting in furious bloodshed. It is believed that by that blood only the colour water turned to red & that is the justification for the name of Sea as the Red Sea there. This type of story is one of the stories that is very famous there among the local people. One day I was surprised to hear the gigantic local man with curled hair who used to assist me in singing a very old famous Hindi song minutely by whistling & he was fully absorbed in the song. He was middle-aged and John by name more than six feet in height. Owing to my curiosity I asked him how does he do that without knowing Hindi. He said in his childhood he used to see a Hindi picture with his father there only he listened to the tune The song was “Nile Gagan Ki Tale” sung by Mahendra Kapoor. I have also seen the pictures of Mithun Chakraborty, and Shammi Kapoor are a normal affair in the movie halls in Sudan. That was the reason without knowing the language how they were attracted only by the tune. Till now it’s a mystery for me. Anyway, I spent three months in an environment of high temperatures more than sixty degrees. I heard from them that this high temperature is the reason behind their deep black color and the curled hair. This was the outcome of the nature. What a gift by nature!

During night-time time we were habituated to listening to the sound of bullets. Later we came to know that Osama Bin Laden was hiding there. After knowing this I lost my confidence to stay in such a place of security concern. Ultimately returned to Kolkata again via Mumbai requesting the company for my immediate release.

Part Seven

After the abroad assignment I joined a medium-sized construction company in Haldia again. Weekly once I used to come to Kolkata via Roychak ferry ghat was a routine life then. Again almost after two years, I returned to Mumbai with a new assignment there closing the Kolkata chapter.I spent there almost one year and parallelly the search for a better opportunity was continued & I was offered by an Indian MNC a fitment in their Gasco Buhasha project site in the oilfield of core dessert approximately two hundred kilometers away from Abu Dhabi the capital city of UAE. The camp where I was initially accommodated was named Binthani Camp. Besides the camp was sand and sand only and sometimes camels were the only animals of the desert. That was an ideal haunted environment after the evening only a few lights were visible of the other camps far away in the core desert. We used to make fun of the name of the place saying Bhuthasha means where the ghost laughed. Sometimes we saw the camel herd consisting a dozen of camels making a line. The owner of those camels was the Baddus. The Baddus were the tribals of Arab countries & original inhabitants there.

Sometimes I noticed that the owner of the camels used to enter the camp and the owner used to take the lunch. After lunch, they used to go in their own way. And to take food was their fundamental right as per the law of the land. I can remember one night when we were returning from Abu Dhabi the car by which we were travelling it was suddenly stopped. Asking I came to know that one huge Ostrich was crossing the road in that dark midnight. Also witnessed serial accidents in the dense foggy climate of the core desert. The nature of fog in the desert was also strange by nature. There we had our breakfast timing at from 6-00a.m to 7-30 am. When we entered in the canteen I noticed the sky was very clear but after finishing breakfast after coming out I experienced the sky was dark and covered with clouds with deep darkness. Who knows from where the clouds accumulated within a short period of a maximum of half an hour? The same foggy weather used to continue for at least for two hours duration jobs were permitted during that time span. During the summer season, the lunch break was for three hours. We used to enjoy sound sleep after lunch at least for two hours. Although the duty time was fixed there. In this manner with such types of incidents when three years passed off in Abu Dhabi without my notice. In the meanwhile, I came to India five times on vacation. As the renewal date of my passport was getting due I had to report at our headquarters in Powai, Mumbai for a three-month deputation. During that period I got a better offer from an Iran-based consulting company and started the preparation for joining the new assignment resigning from my current company.

Part Eight

One fine day on Iran Airway’s flight afternoon flight I started on the way to Teheran the capital city of Iran from Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. When landed to the Teheran airport I noticed the greeneries just the same as any India’s state. Everything is fine here except for the language. Very few people speak in English in this country. However, from the office, a car with a driver was arranged who arrived a little late with a placard on handwritten my name in English. The time difference between India & Teheran is two hours. India is two hours ahead in time count. On the way to the office, I noticed modern flyovers in the city. Iran is a self-sufficient country that doesn’t import anything from other countries. That’s the reason no imported vehicle was noticed on the road. After spending almost ten days in the company’s headquarters in Tehran we started for the project site Assaluyeh by domestic flight. We mean we are three Indians from three different states Punjab. Gujarat & West Bengal. Teheran and other nearby cities like Ispahan or Shiraz etc. have no heavy industries to avoid environmental pollution. Hence Asaluyeh, Bandar Abbas, and Bandar Imam six hundred kilometers along the reclaimed shore of Persian Gulf is the Industrial zone. After crossing the sea and mountain we reached the airport of Asaluyeh.On the other bank of the Persian Gulf, the shadowy Dubai city is visible. These industrial zones are also pollution-free as the flare stack is at least five kilometers away from the plant carried through a pipeline. This way they are very much health concern.

In Teheran, I had seen very few government hospitals. When I asked the reason from local people they said they very rarely get sick. Only a few hospitals are there for emergency treatments like accidents etc. There are three seasons in Iran summer, spring & winter. In that respect, we Indians are lucky enough to enjoy six seasons in a year. Snow falls in Iran during the January month like jasmine flowers. There is no separate arrangement for drinking water there. The source of water in Iran is the fountain water from the nearby hills. The same water was used for multipurpose. The water was cent percent pure & healthy. For all these reasons Teheran is also called Kashmir of Gulf. There apple trees are visible on the roadsides. I spent my best phase during the Iran assignment without any doubt. I witnessed the celebration of common people after Sadam Hussain was hanged. The camp where we stayed they arranged for a lavish dinner on that night.I noticed the Irani people never bent by aging because they have to pass mandatory military training. So they are young physically & mentally at the age of seventy even. I have never seen them arguing in between. When they were speaking in between them it seemed to be some sweet tune of music waving around. Within all these, there was a basic problem with the language as very few Iranians can understand English. Only those who went to the USA or European countries for higher studies. After seven months I returned to India means came back to Mumbai again.

Part Nine

After three again I got a call from Saudi Arabia and joined there in an Irish construction company in their headquarters at Al Khobar via Dammam Airport. Then performing various official formalities including medical checkups I started for Al Jubail the industrial hub of Saudi Arabia with my project manager from the USA. I was accommodated there in a camp named Tamimi. That camp was a mini-township and I was allotted there in senior accommodation. A few days later a Bengali colleague from Kolkata also joined our company. His name was S Mukherjee but he was called by his short name Mukho. His name was curtailed by our European bosses as his title was too big for them as they are comfortable with their first name in short. they also used to call me by my first name. In Saudi the weekend was

Thursday and Friday were weekly off. Thursday was famous in Gulf countries as Jumma Day. On Jumma night we used to go for marketing and a few more just to roam in the city. On Friday mornings Mukho used to knock on my room with two glasses full of tea and pass some time simply gossiping and singing Bengali folk songs. How four years passed away attending regular duty from early in the morning till evening I couldn't keep track.

Meanwhile, I got a new Bengali friend by the name of S Chatterjee. To change the food taste one day we purchased a very big Rohu fish from the market... Then we approached the head cook of the canteen for preparation but he refused. Then Chatterjee told me to keep the fish in his refrigerator and he told by the weekend he shall prepare the fish properly. So by the weekend when I went to his room and asked him about the fish he told it was already rotten and the fish he had thrown outside which was enjoyed by the cats outside his windows. Whatever it is I missed the taste of fresh fish preparation.

In that camp, the number of people from the Southern states was higher. Out of them, Malaayalis were more in number from Kerala state. Bangladesh nationals were mainly engaged as supporting staff for the camp activities. Some Filipinos were there & few Pakistani nationals as well. However this way time was flowing in its direction. I had to travel far for inspection work weekly twice. A Filipino inspector from the contractor side always accompanied me. Like us fish and rice were delicious dishes for them also. Although the preparation is different for them. During lunchtime, he used to take me to a Bangladeshi hotel, and I enjoyed there variety of fish preparation from Rohu to Hilsha including the delicious preparation of small fish. I still remember the taste of Hilsha fish from the river Padma. The specialty of that shop was after finishing lunch he used to serve sweet curd with rasgullah. I can remember the tastes of those delicious preparations to date. However, everything has an end. So after the end of my Saudi assignment. I had a two to three-month halt at Kolkata and then again went on the way to Mumbai in search of a new assignment.

Part Ten

Almost three months after my arrival in Mumbai I received an offer letter from the Noida headquarters of a global MNC in India. In that company, I was initially deputed in the Hindustan Petroleum Refineries expansion project site in Vizag. There my tenure was only about one and a half months only then I was transferred to Jindal Steel & Power Plant Limited(JSPL) in Angul(Odisha). So I reached the new chemical project site there. A junior engineer accompanied me there who was from Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh). We had a feeling that we reached some unknown planet on Earth. The project site was surrounded by deep green forests all around and the tribals are inhabitants there. All nearby villages were full of natural beauty. The project site had almost one thousand acres.

Following us one by one other new staff reached the project site. The speed of work also gained momentum steadily as the project schedule was time-bound. However, very often the locals used to attack us in demand to resolve their grievances as the owner grabbed their lands without giving proper compensation.

Once they stopped all the activities of the project including the township for seven days continuously to fulfill their demands. Our accommodation was arranged inside the Jindal township. That township was like a mini paradise on the earth. It was excellent in one word. Everything was available inside the township. But in that period of agitation by the tribals it was made a hale. The residents of the township suffered a lot during those days even the supply of milk for kids was also stopped then. However, the situation was made normal by the interference of the high court. Although stray incidents used to happen off and on. In the beginning, we used to be excited but with time we were habituated to such incidents.

In this way with the turbulence of time life was flowing in its direction. From there we went to visit Puri two times. One incident still I could recall which happened on the 31st December 2011. That particular day reached Puri in the evening and went for dinner in Dada Baudi’s restaurant well well-known for its delicious food preparation. After dinner, we ordered there for big-size Pomfret fry as parcel packing to celebrate New Year's night after reaching the hotel we booked. But on the way we enjoyed the spectacular fireworks display on the seabeach by the hotels there. We were very much absorbed in the show with wonderful scenarios there. Almost after two hours when the celebration finished, we started to return on the way to our hotel and we had forgotten about the fish packet. When somebody reminded we went back & searched for the fish packet and found it was picked up by someone. So it was a really sad experience. And maybe it was natural and we had to accept it.

The next day morning on New Year’s Day our destination was Chilka Lake. That was also an amazing experience. We six hired a motorboat and floated on the lake from 11-00 am to 5-00 pm. Like us lot of people were there who enjoyed the New Year's Day on the lake. There just at dawn on the junction of Sea & the lake, our motor boat and a few others also stood silently to see the Dolphin jump.If any sound is there then Dolphins will not come that’s the reason all the other motor boats also kept pin-drop silence. We were astonished by the show of Dolphin’s jump. That Dolphin dance still I see in my subconscious mind.

At the Angul project site, my stay was for one & half years. Then again I was transferred to the Indian Oil Refinery expansion project site, Mathura. They also had experiences of exciting incidents. One of those incidents was related to Kamal Sing who was a notorious Don there. In Uttar Pradesh, these types of Dons are called Pahelban. That was an indifferent experience indeed in my service career. I spent almost one year there as a witness to several incidents related to that Pahelban.

Another incident whose memory is an asset of the long journey of my life was visiting Janmabhumi of Lord Shree Krishna on his sacred Birth Day which is well-known as Janmashtami. In Mathura, Janabhumi means the birthplace of Lord Shree Krishna & it was nearby of the area where we were accommodated by our company. At around 8 pm I

stood in the queue behind countless people. Millions of people use to visit Janamabhumi that particular Day from all over the country & abroad. At 12-00 am I could reach the place where the Janmashtami celebration place. In a long queue, people were shouting different slogans relating to Lord Shree Krishna. The place of birth of Lord Krishna was in Kansha's jail who was the king of Mathura and then at the same time maternal uncle of Lord Shree Krishna. Inside the place, it was full of deep darkness.

In this way, my Mathura assignment came to an end and I switched over to a new global consultancy company and joined their Indian Oil Corporation’s mega project site in Paradeeep, Odisha.

The MNC that I joined was basically a global consultancy organization having headquarters in the UK & after a few months, the HQ was shifted to the USA.However again my routine service life took inertia.But here duty timings were fixed from dot 8-00 AM to 5-00 PM.Here also I’m the witness of several new incidents in the Yellow Pages of the diary of my life. After four months of my joining on the day of Durga Sashthi, the sky was fully covered with deep black clouds and the disaster of cyclone named by Phailin. Maximum people left the township just when they came to know the weather forecast. Very few of us only were in the refinery township. Out of two thousand people, hardly a hundred people were there in those days of the cyclone like myself. First two days we took only snacks & dry foods. But in one matter, we were lucky enough as an uninterrupted power supply was arranged by the Executive Director (ED) of IOCL.But outside the township, a vast area up to Bhubaneswar had no electricity. So those who left the township suffered a lot outside the township. The whistling terror sound of that cyclone I can never forget. The duration of the cyclone was exactly forty-eight hours. On the third day morning slowly the situation outside became normal. The biggest marketplace of Paradeep named Barbatia was totally closed for almost two weeks. And the normal site activities started after almost a month. The Odisha government takes war footing measures as they are aware of the cyclone from the metrological office.

Such type of devastating cyclone caused the loss of life for unaccounted people in the year 1999 end.The memory of that wound is still fresh in the minds of the Odisha people. Till then the identification of cyclones by name was not stated.

Other than the cyclone I can recall parties were arranged by the company very frequently. In this way I passed there upto the March end of 2015. The maximum number of colleagues of my age are living retired life now. But for me, the flow of life is still going ahead in its direction sometimes in Bengaluru with my daughter & in the two BHK flat of Kolkata. In this manner, I am walking the beach on both sides of the Arabian Sea by the gesture of the destiny. This is the diary of a common man who is every moment moving with confusion. The each spell of life I am going ahead without knowing the right direction. Without knowing the goal like a pendulum every day and night may be towards the infinity. In this manner I’m still collecting the precious pearls of experience from the beach of the Ocean of life. And there ends the diary of a common man.

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About The Author:

From childhood, the author was affectionate with writing. In the course of time when that affectionate feeling turns to an addiction he himself was unknown to the author. In that addiction, he started to self-expose by writing over as time flows. That may be the wall magazine of the IIEST, Shibpur, Shibpur(Howrah), or in various magazines on the way of his long journey in India & abroad.

Dedicated To:

This article is dedicated to all the “Common Men” of the world who are struggling for survival every moment in every nook & corner of this world.