The Taste of life

1. Brij Mohan Singh

The old station road was crowded by people vendors, passengers, beggars. Occasional announcements of trains, passengers quarrelling with taxi drivers made the place pretty noisy. A bit away from the hustle Brij was sitting on a bench near the taxi stand. He had his luggage with him. One hand around his bag-pack and the other gripping his phone, he looked up at the digital clock on the head of the station and below it the date 12th December, 2020.

Brij Mohan Singh is a chef. Almost a year ago He came to this small town to work as a chef in a two star hotel. He had worked in many renowned hotels and restaurants. He had worked and travelled to many cities in and out the country for his passion and food blogging.

Brij had never lived or worked in a small city before. Hence, he desperately wanted this change. Everything went smooth as butter as he came to the city. He got a good room for rent in two days. His work place was good, well equipped kitchen, professional and passionate chefs as colleagues. But productive days seem to end quicker.

Within three months of enjoyable work, the government declared lockdown. Brij was confined to his rented room, and going out once or twice in a month to the near-by grocery shop. He spent all day reading books, watching Netflix or standing in the balcony. During these three months he got enough time to write his book 'Brij ka pittara'. But for some reason he did not complete it.

As lockdown ended things started getting back to the way the where. Brij got back his work place, but the place had lost its charm. Everyone had to work shift-wise and he had exposure to only four people. As a result he lost interest and quit the job in a month.

Brij had always been lucky in getting new jobs and so was he this time. Within two weeks he got another job in a Chinese restaurant. He joined there with a very low payment package. But as quick as he is in getting jobs, he is more quick in backing off and changing places. He quit the job within two months, complaining about the unprofessional behavior of the staff.

But this time he was not as lucky as he has always been in getting jobs. After a few months of tireless trying, interviews and job application he was hopelessly sitting outside the station with his luggage. He was surely uncertain about leaving the town. As he had developed a strange likeness for the place. Well, he was quick in emptying his room and presently had no-where to go.

He looked up again at the clock on the head of the station it was showing 16:06. He still had a bit more then one and half an hour to board a train. He looked at his phone and expected someone to call from his last interview. As it would have been the only thing to stop him from leaving the town.