The Life of A Salesman

I am a salesman. I have different names. I am called sales leader, seller, executive, Account specialist. Sometimes when the organization I work for is happy with the business I get and the people who adorn the chairs and decide the chessboard of ruthless corporate games get excited, they call me fancy names like strategist or corporate warrior. I go to people talk to them about things the organization where I work, makes and prod them to buy them.

 

I do not sell harmful things. I sell things people need but do not have because they do not know sometimes that they need them. I wear suites and ties in sweltering heat and walk through the dust, cursing the eccentricities of the weather of my city. My face is full of grimace at every parking where I try to locate a place to park my vehicle. I try to hold on to my laptop when I am thrust from one end to another in public transport. I walk thinking about my little daughter lying in temperature unattended at home. But I reach my clients place and in one neat gesture wipe off both grimace and sadness and paste a warm smile on my face seeking time. Then the secretary, the sad lady with a smile as fake as mine tells me that the boss is late because his daughter is singing in school. I am once again sad and I smile even more as I wait.

 

I carry a card with fancy designation and am backed by the might of a billion dollar organization so I do not get pushed out. But I am also that man who admits that he has of late started forgetting the names of his customers but claims honestly that he knows them all. I am also that thin, feeble man who answers to even wrong allegations with, "I totally agree with you" and I am that man who carries a laptop bag on his shoulders and walks with a mild hunch through the Sun, while kids half his age drive across in fancy cars.

 

I am also that man who fakes knowing people that I have no way of knowing because I need people to believe that and because, well, my daughter is still in fever at home. I am that man who slips a twenty rupees note to the gate-keeper to enter the citadels of power which I elect every five years. I enter those citadels because I need to tell them what they need. I curse them and I tell myself, "I totally understand". This is one statement which helps me bear numerous people I meet through the day. I am all those people who walk the streets of cities and towns. I am honest person, who carries the burden of an image of a liar. I am not dumb. I do not get the glory of people who tells what great products they made. I tell people what those product could do for them. I bring money for people to make those fine products and to pay people to count and talk about the money which I bring. I live in shadows where the grays breathe, they shine in the splendor of the public suns.

 

We carry the knowledge and we tell people of new things. We bring those things to people and change their lives. We are the Prometheus who carry the fire to dark lives of people and fill them with light. I am Arthur Miller's Salesman, William Loman whose life isn't celebrated, but whose death becomes a classic. I am known as the company I represent. I am rarely seen as the person I am. I am the person who reads Dostoevsky, who smiles at daffodils, who goes home and looks into the eyes of my daughter, who waits for me on the days when I wear a coat and board a flight.

 

PS. I have not written any post for such a long time. I longed to write, to read, I longed to long. I wrote this unstructured post, with whatever came to my mind.