“WHY don’t you keep the key with you,” Uma, my wife, invariably shouted after yet again being woken up by the irritating doorbell, sometimes at 2, or 3, or 4 in the morning.

“Sorry, I forgot,” my eldest Kartick would sheepishly mumble, though I suspected whether he really meant it.

For Kartick, who joined a leading BPO soon after university, night was day and day night. 

Even his name changed at night. At work, he was "Logan" as he called up American clients across the time-zone to promote products of a leading US computer manufacturer.

Having studied in an American school, the Yankee drawl came easily to Kartick, though thankfully for us, he did not inflict it on us at home.

Like all wives, my wife said it was all my fault. “He should have joined a 9-to-5 job,” she used to say, forgetting her own husband does not have that luxury.

After invading the fridge, fiddling with the computer even when it works fine, playing online games or listening to loud music, punctuated with "close-the-door" shouts from my wife, Kartick will go to sleep with no worries as the rest of the house begins to stir awake.

“Who will marry a fellow who is not at home at nights? I’m warning you we are in for trouble if you don’t advice him to change the job,” was my wife’s constant refrain.

That "Who" turned out to be a Gauri, plump, cherubic, quick to laugh and who was apparently impressed by Kartick’s height, gait and bluster.

“Hope the girl knows what she is getting into,” my wife and I murmured to each other before they married two years ago.

Gauri “knew” everything about Kartick’s job – office parties, picnics, enough money to take a nice flat on rent.

What she did not know was the never-ending graveyard shifts and the "daily" nights spent alone.

Initially, working as she did with her father at his advertisement agency, Gauri adjusted her weekly days off to be at home when Kartick got his. But the pressure of the ad world is such that it was not always possible.

“I think your father will give you the sack one of these days,” I used to tease her.

Gauri slowly began to pour her heart out to my wife. She said even when she took off from work to be with Kartick, they could hardly talk or go out together because he was always sleeping.

“Amma, I wish he'd change his job,” she told my wife.

So now, I have to suffer the accusing look of two women as if it's all my fault.

But we noticed that Kartick was also not enjoying his job as he used to. His heart was not in it anymore and increasingly he skipped office parties, attendance at which the call centres said was mandatory as it helped develop camaraderie.

So after nearly six years at the BPO, Kartick suddenly quit his job without telling anyone - without another job lined up.

“How will you pay your rent, other expenses? You cannot behave as if you are a bachelor,” my wife told him, changing her tune.

Kartick didn’t seem unduly worried. And sure enough, within weeks, he had two better offers from two IT companies. He  chose the one he liked, not the one all of us thought and advised he should take up. And it is a NORMAL job, as my wife would put it. 

That’s when I realised the different world that today’s Indian youth live. Unlike my generation, which worried about jobs and rents, these youngsters are confident, know what they want. 

To paraphrase a TV commercial for a handphone, these guys and gals think they hold "duniya mutti me" - Hindi for “hold the world in the fist.”

They've got the whole world in their hands.