My Place

I remember my first day in school. When I entered into class room, I saw some low and high benches. Four (or may be five) boys were supposed to sit on each bench. It was just 1.5 ft space on the low bench to sit and similar area on the high bench to keep your bag, books etc. The same low bench-high bench concept continued till my eighth standard. The only change came in, was the amount of space to occupy. From 1.5 ft, it came to 2 ft. In my ninth standard class room I saw individual desks. It was really a very good feeling for me at least thinking on my own desk. Geometrically I got the same space, but the comfort was more. It was designed to keep your bag under the desk-top, separate place to keep the pen/pencil started making me proud of my desk.
In college days the look and feel of the desk got changed. It wasn’t wooden anymore. The structure was framed using rot iron pipes and plywood. I was overwhelmed with the sophistication.
Once I left college and join L&T InfoTech in Mumbai, the definition of “My Place” has got changed again. In training days we used to sit on push back revolving chairs but the concept of cubicle was not there. After training when I joined in Pune office, I got my cubicle, my own cubicle. Wow!!! For me it was like dream came true. My work place, my cubicle, what else do you want in life. The size of the cubicle was almost 7ft by 6 ft which accommodates 4 persons. I got my chair, my desktop, clipboard, one small board, one big and three small table drawers, my name plate and most important my own desk phone set. I was not anyone special there; everybody around me was having the same stuffs but did they feel like me when first time they got their cubicle? May be I was so happy with all these because I never thought of all these. I saw people decorating their cubicle with show pieces. I never decorated my cubicle but still I loved mine more than anyone. It was my heaven and I liked to spend most of the time of the day their only. It was real fun working there. Like everybody I also used to share my cubicle with three other colleagues. Chit chat between works, pulling their chairs, messing up with their show pieces just kept adding more on the fun part.
Once I got moved from Pune to USA, the definition of cubicle got changed. Here I got a complete separate cube of size 8ft by 7ft. having a desktop with larger screen, attached lights for reading, some big drawers, multi functional phone set, hanger rack to keep jackets, big white board to write something. Phone set was allocated to my name so whenever I call someone, they can see my name also. I was having so much of space that I can put all my study books I read in my life. I again thought WOW!!! This is life all about. What better thing could I get? I stood in front of mirror and said to myself “Hey listen, now you got the best work place so don’t think anything better at this age and at least for next ten years”. It was true also, ten years down the line if I can get myself up to some position then only I can think of my own cabin.

I was completely wrong; something more was waiting for me. Once I moved into some other project my cubicle got changed and now I am sitting in a cubicle whose size is 8ft by 12ft. I am having all the stuffs in my cube which I can think of. I also have a separate discussion table in my cubicle. In Pune I never decorated my cubicle but now I already started thinking to decorate this one. The first day I entered in this cubicle, I was just looking at it for several minutes. I was so amazed. In the very next night a little boy came in to my dream and I saw him calling me to sit with him. It was a tiny bench and while sitting there my knees were almost touching my chin. But I started loving it. I was also shouting with them “Jack and Jill went up the hill ..... It took me to my nursery days and I realized that 1.5 ft space is still sufficient to be happy if you want to be happy.