Sasha's Bike

My training with Or started as soon as we had set up the required infrastructure. The project was completely technical, related to testing and quality assurance. It was nothing like what I had studied in MBA or the job I did in Finance. Learning IT from ground zero was challenging but venturing into different professions had always been my forte. So I kept pushing myself to learn more about that alien field. Or was extremely helpful in teaching me everything right from the basics. I would keep bothering him with my questions shamelessly. That was something unique in me: Asking questions. If I was interested in knowing something then I would go all in exploring it and raising questions without any hesitation. Doubt was my best friend on the path of learning. But you won't learn much if you keep changing your lanes every now and then. My career graph had been very diverse from Finance, to Fitness, to Massage Therapy, to Tourism, to Stock Trading and now to IT. In short, jake of all trades master of none. I was very sure that I was clueless about life. What an irony!

I and Or used to work in his room from 9 am to 5pm. I learnt something unique about the work culture while working with foreigners. They would work and get paid on an hourly basis and not on monthly basis. It took me a while to understand their work culture after coming from an Indian one. Work time was followed strictly and there was no requirement to stay back and work extra after office hours. In the case of overtime, you would get paid for each extra hour worked. That was something surprising for me as I had not seen that before. In India, there was no concept of the minimum wage. Hence, people hardly valued their time as no one knew how much each hour of theirs was worth. Slogging for extra working hours without getting extra payment was the norm of Indian work culture. There were many beautiful things we could have imbibed from foreigners like the value of time, equality, respect, cleanliness, work ethics and much more. But what had we imbibed? Indulging into pizza, burger, alcohol, clubbing, the craze for western clothes, music, movies and fake accent. The desire to become a second-rated western version while discarding the Indianness with shame was the cool thing among people. As I was going to manage the project, I had decided to create a fantastic value-driven work culture in the company.

After the office hours, we all would go to the beach and return after watching the sunset on Morjim beach. Our friend Sasha had an amazing bike which she wasn't using and was lying in the dust. She asked me if I want to drive it then I could take it, at least the engine would be in use. Which man would refuse to drive Yamaha? I happily took the bike and drove it with full excitement from Aldona to Morjim. That 1-hour bike ride was memorable. The beauty of Yamaha bikes would lie in their sound and pick up. That bike was a head-turner. You didn't need to look at the bike to recognise it if that was a Yamaha. Its unique soul touching sound was its introduction. The biker in me was in heaven as that had always been one of my dream bikes. I took that bike almost everywhere while it was with me. I would park it right in front of our porch. Just by looking at it, it would bring a smile to my face. One day I and Or went to the beach on that bike. To my surprise that was Or's second time to sit on the bike in his entire life. I couldn't imagine such a life. That was the first thing I found which was not common in us. Memories of Goa would be incomplete without Sasha's Yamaha.

Every Cloud Of Mine Had A Silver Lining.