Friday was the most exciting day at work in the little over 2 years I have spent as a child labourer in this sweatshop. No, the company didn’t shutdown. Not that exciting you moron. But yea we did have a bomb scare. Yea, a bomb scare for real.

Now those of you living in happening places like the Gaza strip, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Rwanda etc will be wondering, “Now what’s so special about that, that aint the real thing”. Well that is as exciting as I want my office work to be, I prefer my limbs still attached to my body thank you very much.

Anyways so my office is in a 7 story building. There are many different gangs of slavers that operate from here. Every few hours a van or bus full of slaves, are dragged here to work in 10-11 hour shifts in peak-time-mumbai-local kind of conditions. Yes you cant move, you can’t take a piss, you cant eat or drink anything, you can barely talk on the phone over the din around you and anytime you want to get off, I mean take a break, there are always too many in queue before you and you end up getting stuck inside. But I won’t get too much into the graphic details.

So another company in the same goddamn building got a phone call about the bomb. They took it very seriously and evacuated their employees, ie, made them stand out in the sun on the road right outside the building. But they forgot that my company also has office in this building. So while they were all standing outside, all ready with their camera phones to capture the apocalypse, my team was busy working away in our own lalaland, completely oblivious of the golden opportunity passing us by. Luckily my Boss was leaving a little early so when he was leaving he realized something was wrong and he called up and asked me to free the slaves from their chains and let them run, we will capture them later on. Dead slaves are of no use I guess.

So I commanded their attention and told them very calmly, so as to not induce any panic, “Guys there is a bomb in the building, end your calls and get out of here. Now!”. And they all looked at me as if I was a unicorn or something and laughed. Haha. Funny. It’s already very annoying to be laughed at. It’s even more annoying to be laughed at by your slaves. But nothing can describe the humiliation of being laughed at by your slaves when you are trying to save their own goddamn asses!

So I repeated myself once again. No one moved. Wtf. Aren’t humans supposed to panic and run around in circles in situations like these? They looked pretty human to me. Finally one of the new age Dodos decided to peek out of the windows and when he saw the crowd outside the building he realized that I for once was not kidding. And then the panic set in. Sweetness. I was walking towards the exit when I felt everything around me shake and a loud thumping noise approaching me fast from behind. I turned around just in time to see a tech, who I can best describe as an overweight cow that has undergone a sex exchange procedure, ready to sacrifice my life to save his own pathetic one. I barely managed to side step as he thundered past me. It was kinda like watching a Hippo run a 50m dash in a world record time. Any ways within few minutes we were all out there on the road like others. The Cops were all over the place doing, well, nothing. They were sauntering inside or sitting at the Coffee shop, not placing orders of course as the bill for a coffee there has the same effect as being hit by a bomb in the face.

We also realized the guys from our Admin staff were bomb proof, either that or they were already tipped off that there was no bomb but were just playing along for fun or something, as they were holding long discussions within themselves, all within the perimeter of the building which was supposed to explode in to an awesome display of pre-diwali fireworks.

Well after 2-3 hours of “searching”, the crowd had dwindled down a mere handful, the bomb turned out to be MIA. Everyone else heaved a sigh of relief and it was now my turn to panic. Now that rest of them were heading home as the shift had gotten over by then, I had to head back in, collects all the collectibles guys had left behind in their panic stricken last gasp effort to save their lives, half eaten lunch boxes, water bottles, jackets, files, bags etc and of course make reports. So thanks to that stupid bomb, that was a no show by the way, I was in office till 7 pm. And what was even worse, the building was still standing and I had to come back to work again. Such are the cruel and sadistic ways of life, it dangles hope in front of you and as you try to grab it, it just pulls it away and laughs right in you face. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it turns out the next day was my birthday. Oh Crap! I will put up a detailed report on that later.