Resurgence

After having been posted at Panipat for nearly six long years, I guess it is finally time to move again, thanks to my life’s first official transfer, to a place none other than the gateway of North-East India, Guwahati. To say that this order was a shocker would be an understatement, as so many in our company have tried for the same in vain, Guwahati being one of only two major refinery locations under the Indian Oil banner (the other being Baroda), where you do not have to run to another city for the nearest airport, and the only one out of the two to be situated in the lap of nature.

But these aren’t normal times, are they? Yeah! I’m talking about COVID-19, a pandemic which has again raised its loathsome head in our country, with this wave being far worse than the first, with more than 350,000 new cases being reported daily and no signs of slowing down. Medical systems are on the brink of collapse, with a severe deficit of oxygen being faced across most major hospitals pan India, and Govt. organizations and public sectors diving into the mix, converting industrial grade oxygen to medical grade, and supplying thousands of tonnes of this life saving resource to the nearest cities. The air-force too have been tasked to airlift liquid oxygen tankers and mobile oxygen generation units to locations being overrun by the corona virus. Even the ongoing vaccination process promises to save you only from the severity of the disease rather than to prevent contracting the virus in the first place. These turbulent eddies have a grim outlook indeed! But life must go on as always...

Personally, despite the challenges involved, I’m happy with the anticipation of settling at a new place. Well, not completely new though... Our family might have chosen to settle at Pune for the long term, but my parents grew up in the North-East, with my father hailing from Shillong and my mother from Guwahati itself, making it my ancestral place of sorts. The tales of my great grandfather, Prof. Atul Ch. Dutta, who was the founding father of the Botany Department of Guwahati's 116 years old Cotton University, are legendary. And the memory of my grandparents’ glory days will forever be linked to that titular Assam-style house near Paltan Bazaar, proudly standing to this date, surrounded by concrete highrises. Sad that the tenants to whom we’ve rented the place, could hardly understand its significance to us.

Anyway, although some might call this transfer ill-timed due to present global circumstances, I would say the timing couldn’t have been any better. Not only does it give me an opportunity to trace back my roots, but one must admit that after a certain while spent somewhere other than probably one’s home, one simply outgrows the place, which is exactly how I feel about Panipat now. Other than leisure, although I have put in some of the best work of my career in the past couple of years here, be it the actual assignments or the necessary peripherals, it has unfortunately been the least rewarding, with possible effects of distasteful workplace politics, incompetent audit committees having the nerve to criticize those who perform their role for them, and an unwillingness to provide leaves even when practically unavoidable, causing me to lose the little faith I had in the system. A private firm even with all its follies, would know how to value its assets. Oh, well... Having squeezed every bit of worth out of this place and its surroundings, I guess it is time to gracefully bow out.

Thank you Guwahati Refinery, IOCL for the warm welcome!