The auto left me at the lobby at the Powai office of Lehman Brothers. My summer internship at Lehman Brothers was something I was looking forward to for quite some time now. I took a deep breath, entered the lobby, gave my name at the security desk and walked in. The receptionist pointed to a room and asked me to wait there.
As I walked into the room, I met with 17 pairs of hopeful eyes. As I looked back at them absolutely clueless, I guess they realized that I am not the one they were looking for. They went back to what they were doing, disappointed. There were around 17 young adults in there, and all of them were just looking at the floor, or playing with their cell phones. The complete silence was almost deafening. 17 people in a room and not even a single one talking.. Wow! Lehman Brothers is definitely a formal environment. Anyways, I managed to find a place to sit and placed myself there comfortably.
People were looking at their shoes, man… ‘Gimme a break!’ was the 1st thought that struck me. I am sure a lot of you may have gone through the same experience. You enter a room full of silent people or you sit next to a few strangers. You would like to start a conversation, because you don’t really like the silence. And even these people look uncomfortable about the silence. But in that case, how come these people are not talking to each other? And by the time you gather the guts to say something to the person next to you, she starts playing on her cell phone. Damn it!
You then look to your other side. This guy seems bored. Maybe he’s a good candidate. But wait a minute… Don’t you think you have been silent for too long? Wouldn’t it be awkward to start a conversation now? But you don’t want to be enslaved by the silence.
Finally, I managed to smile at a girl sitting opposite to me. She smiles back pleasantly. But then you realize that she’s too far for you to sit where you are and talk to her… you can’t break the silence with a big bang, can you? And she’s too close to get up from my seat and walk to her and talk… Ok! There goes my well thought out plan... Back to the awkward silence…
Now.. think! What can be done to break the silence? I was struck with a great idea.. I'll just keep looking at the person next to me.. When she realises that I am looking at her (you know, the sixth sense na!) she'll turn and look at me.. n then I can strike a conversation.
So, I started Operation SilenceBreaker. Stared and stared.. only to realise that I was not staring at her, but her cell phone. But how I realised it was when she looked back at me in a very offensive manner.. I took the opportunity..
"Oh! I'm so sorry! I didn't realise I was looking at your cell phone. I am so terribly sorry", I said with an apologetic smile. She smiled back, "Hey! That's ok! So, are you a new joinee?" "No." I replied. "I am a summer intern with the HR department." "Oh!" She exclaimed..
BINGO! I had successfuly broken the silence!
5 comments:
whoaaaaaaa...i can hear the silence till here!!!
ok ok ..listen nex time u want to brk the silence....try BURPING real loud...
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n then look at someone weak n shy and shout....U R GROSE!!!!
i think it'll work :)
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P.S. u rite really well :)
ha ha.. good one.. i'll try that next time..
P.S: thanks for the compliment..:)
Writing works two ways, one it destroys the negative, by giving a vent to all those piled in emotions, and second, it creates......it creates a sense of peace, and it creates a piece of ART!!! So keep it going, and let the creation and destruction balance your life!!!!
hey aanchal.. never would have thought busy ladies like u would check my boring blogs out.. haha.. but thanks so much for the comments gal.. really means a lot to me.. :)
Hey, nice blog. I got engrossed reading it. The way you portray the scene is superb. I could feel the silence as well. I really hate room full of silent people myself.
I read your other articles as well. They were nice reads as well. 'The strength of a woman' was a really nice, particularly the part when you talked about your mother.
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