My composition - An hour in a grown up office

It was like I was 14 all over again. I was asked to explain why I had turned up at work in my usual ripped jeans and t-shirt when it was supposed to be Traditional Day. The problem was not so much about me and my attire, but that because of some weird stroke of misfortune, all the guys in my team had come in regular clothes, and all the girls in an astonishingly elaborate, super-ethnic attire. Somehow, apparently, that "makes us guys look like losers". And I was asked to explain.

The boss kept saying, "Come on guys, its just one day and there have been posters and emails and everything for quite a while now. The girls have shown so much interest and look at us. Is it that hard to not wear jeans and tees for one day?"

But I kept hearing, "You, roll no. 7, why is your uniform not ironed, and why is your hair so shaggy?"

And so, like a real fourteen year old, I honestly answered, "All that hype was last week. I totally forgot about it over the weekend. And so did all the other guys, apparently". Though I have weaseled my way out of such slimy jams in school all the time, I must have lost my edge. Because I couldn't sell the "I forgot" reason with reasonable credibility. Or maybe I just didn't care enough anymore.

Now the fact that the boss himself was wearing something that could not be more untraditional, is besides the point. He accounted for his own gaffe with smooth usage of the words "us" and "we" when reprimanding yours truly. The point is that it somehow appeared that the "rot" in the team came from me. Like somehow, I had secretly arranged an attire-coup of sorts to sabotage celebrations. I could not help control my laughter at how ridiculous the whole thing was sounding. I even thought that this was a perfect occasion to get mad and throw a tantrum and stand up for myself (seriously, someday I am going to do that). But the whole thing was too kiddish, so I just couldn't get mad! I got a vibe that things would still have been alright had only I been in trad clothes. What that the rest of the team had worn wouldn't look so bad then. I also suspected slightly that the boss and the woman in HR had some weird fetish to see me dressed in ethnic clothes, because that was the only sense I could make off their insistence.

Now I am not saying that anything the HR does is complete baloney. It is no more or less pointless than what I do, and what I think everyone else does, in every other office, in an existential sense. So I don't intend to trivialize their feeble endeavor to spice up our dreary, workaday lives. Its actually quite sweet of them. But I somehow don't see the sense of forcing a particular template of happiness or positivity on everyone. Not just in office, but generally. I have done that in the past myself. So I know it rarely works. Unfortunately, there is no known middle ground here. So we walk the line, the best we can. And sometimes, when we fall short, we need to step up our game. Whatever. And to be fair, the way this whole thing was unfolding, it actually was quite fun and amusing. Definitely better than a regular Monday morning. So, well...

Anyway, I had to "step up" and decide how things could be made right. I had to decide to either postpone the celebrations to another day (not feasible, not desirable, would imply delaying the inevitable) or to somehow ensure that the team made it home and back in ethnics in the least time possible. Kinda annoyed with the whole thing, we decided that everyone would leave and rush back in "proper" clothing. Basically, get over with it. There we were, a bunch of grown ups, being sent home from school in the middle of the day, essentially because the principal had objected to the properness of our uniforms. Just to get my kicks out of it, and also because the whole thing was kind of amusing, I did my bit to act the 14 year old. "Actually, I don't mind going home and putting on some nice clothes. But you see, I don't have the keys to my place with me. So I don't know when I will be able to come back." There! As lame an excuse as any 14 year old has ever given. (I have actually given the exact same excuse 13 years ago when I was asked to go home and get a haircut. The excuse had worked then. Full circle.) Obviously, no one bought it this time and I just had to figure something out.

I always have to. I always do.