By the time Savitha Tandavi had spent a year and was generally found fretful about her Grand Plan of Escape – which was, sort of, permanently logged into “I am going to America, baby!” mode – life in the roaming division began to take a different shade of character – which stood out in excelled brilliance and camaraderie. GG was at the helm of affairs and there was nothing unusual about his managerial skills because he continued to keep up his brutal tempo in full gear.
Balzie Gigamorthy wasn’t yet completely ruffled by the things GG was up to mainly his usual extreme bossism and his self-indulgent, atrocious language of the dreadful monstrosity that never mellowed even if there was Merion Roz Reyo, his favourite pupil, in hearing distance. Balzie Gigamorthy, roaming division’s point man, abhorred his way of twisted behaving but never said anything that could ruffle GG’s already insane mind. Roaming Division saw new additions in the manifestation of new personalities such as Renzo Anny Munny, Guyana Pracash, Shiv Charan ‘Joey’ Prachad, and Dilnawaz Khan and not to speak of J. Raju (alias Gutkha Raju), who believed in eating/chewing/chabaoing gutkha and wearing muscular white jazzy sports sneakers with formal trousers, a disastrous fashion statement!, to office.
On the personal front, my life was completely wrecked and I found myself clinging on to it with whatever moral strength I could foster up to live through its wreckage. Una was gone. She was no longer my girl and that was the primary reason why my life went kaput. I ended up nursing a broken heart all throughout my long and hard years at Satyam. And there was no getting away from my personal misery and how could you if your love becomes a sacrificial lamb on the altar of some people’s entrapping jealousies and masquerading mousetraps!
In Savitha’s hard hands Una became a gullible doll, completely coaxed, naïve at best, defenseless to her sermonizing plots and preachy machinations that Savitha adamantly wielded on her. Una was not able to get away from her yaar-dost friend’s scheming, conniving conspiracy theories (about the world in general), and I positively suspect she wasn’t even aware of Savitha’s heartless maneuverings; she was as though tightly fastened to Savitha’s shackles unable to even try and think by using her own indoctrinated head. All throughout those oppressive, unlivable years at Satyam, I had been contemplating nothing else except a craving for my dearly beloved Una – to see her, to talk to her, to hold her hand in mine and see her startled-deer black eyes smile at me; these became my fervent prayers and I uttered them daily to make her come back to me.
Una has gone on dealing with her life as best as she could in the malicious circle of Savitha’s domineering friendship that she never came close to realizing.
Professionally my life was doing good. Personally less said the better! That was the kind of perplexing reality I’ve had to endure during those younger years of my life at Satyam and I think I had succeeded in overcoming the hardest parts namely Chichcha, my boss/manager there; heartbreak from Una; Savitha’s hideous behavior; and even Satyam’s own parting shot of vile deception, which ultimately led me to put in my papers. And thank God I had resigned because it was impossible for me to work among the howling wolves of the Taikhana branch of Satyam. It was starting to choke my heart during the last months I’d spent at Satyam’s one and only ugly office extension at Taikhana.
Confessedly, the first three years at Satyam have been truly wonderful; but about the last two years there, there was scarcely anything of importance, apart from the usual work. Truth be told, out of the last two years of my association with Satyam, the first one to some degree was somewhat enjoyable especially because of good companionable colleagues that I have had since our unforgettable years at the great Tesser Towers, such as Deve ‘Sexy’ Prachad, Dopeynath Pundy (yes, the same Dopeynath Pundy who fell head over heels for the snooty Neetu Scootywali had joined Satyam! The guy who worked with one of my closest friends called Strong in the financial department of a large spinning mills firm in the city.) and a couple of other fair-minded friends, the second and the final year at Taikhana branch involved doing the most mundane work – and routinely encountering another unfortunate, prejudiced, arrogant, savage, antagonistic and cagey males and females – I’ve ever done. The name Taikhana, revolting as it sounds, suited very well for those disgusting souls I had the misfortune to come into contact with.
Una was no longer there in my life and with Una gone Monami too beat a hasty retreat. Better to get out of here now than when it becomes necessary to remain a mute spectator and not having the capacity to say anything ‘for’ anybody or ‘against’ anybody. Monami apparently had to just beat it. She is a fish sketcher, remember? But how could she go away without even formally announcing her going? It’s her wish and will, after all. She perhaps knew this could come. So let’s beat it before I get entangled in its fiery back-draft, she must have thought. Besides, why will Monami have any say in Arinvan’s matter when Una forms no part of the miserable scene anymore? Yeah, the one which entirely was of Una’s dear old friend Savitha’s making.
On The Same Page
Balzie Gigamorthy wasn’t yet completely ruffled by the things GG was up to mainly his usual extreme bossism and his self-indulgent, atrocious language of the dreadful monstrosity that never mellowed even if there was Merion Roz Reyo, his favourite pupil, in hearing distance. Balzie Gigamorthy, roaming division’s point man, abhorred his way of twisted behaving but never said anything that could ruffle GG’s already insane mind. Roaming Division saw new additions in the manifestation of new personalities such as Renzo Anny Munny, Guyana Pracash, Shiv Charan ‘Joey’ Prachad, and Dilnawaz Khan and not to speak of J. Raju (alias Gutkha Raju), who believed in eating/chewing/chabaoing gutkha and wearing muscular white jazzy sports sneakers with formal trousers, a disastrous fashion statement!, to office.
On the personal front, my life was completely wrecked and I found myself clinging on to it with whatever moral strength I could foster up to live through its wreckage. Una was gone. She was no longer my girl and that was the primary reason why my life went kaput. I ended up nursing a broken heart all throughout my long and hard years at Satyam. And there was no getting away from my personal misery and how could you if your love becomes a sacrificial lamb on the altar of some people’s entrapping jealousies and masquerading mousetraps!
In Savitha’s hard hands Una became a gullible doll, completely coaxed, naïve at best, defenseless to her sermonizing plots and preachy machinations that Savitha adamantly wielded on her. Una was not able to get away from her yaar-dost friend’s scheming, conniving conspiracy theories (about the world in general), and I positively suspect she wasn’t even aware of Savitha’s heartless maneuverings; she was as though tightly fastened to Savitha’s shackles unable to even try and think by using her own indoctrinated head. All throughout those oppressive, unlivable years at Satyam, I had been contemplating nothing else except a craving for my dearly beloved Una – to see her, to talk to her, to hold her hand in mine and see her startled-deer black eyes smile at me; these became my fervent prayers and I uttered them daily to make her come back to me.
Una has gone on dealing with her life as best as she could in the malicious circle of Savitha’s domineering friendship that she never came close to realizing.
Professionally my life was doing good. Personally less said the better! That was the kind of perplexing reality I’ve had to endure during those younger years of my life at Satyam and I think I had succeeded in overcoming the hardest parts namely Chichcha, my boss/manager there; heartbreak from Una; Savitha’s hideous behavior; and even Satyam’s own parting shot of vile deception, which ultimately led me to put in my papers. And thank God I had resigned because it was impossible for me to work among the howling wolves of the Taikhana branch of Satyam. It was starting to choke my heart during the last months I’d spent at Satyam’s one and only ugly office extension at Taikhana.
Confessedly, the first three years at Satyam have been truly wonderful; but about the last two years there, there was scarcely anything of importance, apart from the usual work. Truth be told, out of the last two years of my association with Satyam, the first one to some degree was somewhat enjoyable especially because of good companionable colleagues that I have had since our unforgettable years at the great Tesser Towers, such as Deve ‘Sexy’ Prachad, Dopeynath Pundy (yes, the same Dopeynath Pundy who fell head over heels for the snooty Neetu Scootywali had joined Satyam! The guy who worked with one of my closest friends called Strong in the financial department of a large spinning mills firm in the city.) and a couple of other fair-minded friends, the second and the final year at Taikhana branch involved doing the most mundane work – and routinely encountering another unfortunate, prejudiced, arrogant, savage, antagonistic and cagey males and females – I’ve ever done. The name Taikhana, revolting as it sounds, suited very well for those disgusting souls I had the misfortune to come into contact with.
Una was no longer there in my life and with Una gone Monami too beat a hasty retreat. Better to get out of here now than when it becomes necessary to remain a mute spectator and not having the capacity to say anything ‘for’ anybody or ‘against’ anybody. Monami apparently had to just beat it. She is a fish sketcher, remember? But how could she go away without even formally announcing her going? It’s her wish and will, after all. She perhaps knew this could come. So let’s beat it before I get entangled in its fiery back-draft, she must have thought. Besides, why will Monami have any say in Arinvan’s matter when Una forms no part of the miserable scene anymore? Yeah, the one which entirely was of Una’s dear old friend Savitha’s making.
On The Same Page
Arinvan Maliek and Manpreet Singh had come to be acknowledged as the torch-bearers of their division. Balzie Gigamorthy, Chichcha’s first right-hand man, was “on the same page” with us. ‘Truck Driver’ Suraj came in later to become a ‘right-hand man’ for GG. Both I and Manpreet, with Susanna Garlowe pitching in from Denmark, were very happy with what we used to do: we used to execute, figure out, solve, sort out, complete, resolve, and made fine accomplishments of our daily duties and tasks – all by sitting, working and pontificating within the cubicle of our great roaming division. We were very proud and well-poised to achieve what we achieved, on a daily basis that is. It was so much fun.
The two most important challenges were to solve problems and keep abreast of all issues to all the team members at the roaming division, escalation of issues (if there are any), and send daily reports to all customers involved, including senior management.
Merion Roz Reyo used to pout her lips and quip “SO BUSY!” in our general direction while she passed by our cubicle.
At other times she used to say, "Hey Shakespeare! How's it going?" to Arinvan and keep an ever-ready smile on her face for him to take notice of.
That's how Merion Roz Reyo was famous for. Always up and about for some new emotionally draining urban angst that never really subsided. When perpetually bored with someone, she'd like to move on by branding the one she was going steady within such a way as to intentionally make him the one who is 'way out of her league' and so 'tata bye bye'! For her, the grass was always greener, temptingly greener, on the other side of the pasture! Poor girl!
And then one fine day Savitha Tandavi went off handing GG a rip-roaring but supposedly strongly-worded resignation letter; she hooted, whooped, and howled at the wretched goons-like mentality of a boss we all so loved to dislike. As a result, for some time, Savitha’s ‘Big Hand’ exit (as we called it) became a topic of discussion amongst us even as we knew that GG was going to go full bonkers on this issue for some time before he actually comes round and subjects himself to the task of “giving” his “precious time” in interviewing and recruiting new hires (some folks used to wrongly put it as: “new joinees”. The word ‘joinees’ doesn’t exist in the English language!) for the roaming division.
That’s when the sprightly Shiv Charan ‘Joey’ Prachad and smiling-Buddha like Dilnawaz Khan were hired by GG. But GG was not done yet with his hiring business; he went a step further and a less-than-impressive, run-off-the-mill character by the name Jagan Raju was appointed. At first, Arinvan was a little taken aback and clearly dejected over Jagan’s recruitment into the team. Reminding himself that first impressions often belie the truth, he took it into his stride without bothering to bother himself. Manpreet too felt the same way as Arinvan when it came to his point of view is kept in check about this altogether unnecessary ‘development’ in the roaming division. It was all of GG’s making, and there’s no disputing his call on this. Though it was not Jagan Raju’s fault to have been hired by GG, we simply couldn’t approve of Jagan’s coarse personal character which was evidently redolent of shrewd impropriety: gutkha-chabowing (gutkha-chewing) is one of them. His breast pocket was almost always crammed with these individual-sized carcinogenic packets. Typically, he would stink away to glory day after day of flagrant gutkha.
And above all, the fact that he was miserably inarticulate brought the whole house down sometimes. But thankfully, unlike Gutkha Raju, Shiv and Dilnawaz were found to be able-bodied well enough additions to our division.
Revanthi Rakani and Raufia Begum after spending more than a year at the roaming division had consigned each and every task to our resurgent team: then consisting of Manpreet, Savitha, and Arinvan as new members. Revs and Rafs (we were so fond of calling them by those short-sized westernized nicknames) moved on to other greener pastures within the much-vaunted rolls of Satyam’s large database of software projects.
Much later when Revanthi’s and Raufia’s have departed to some other project within the vicinity of the Tesser Towers building and Savitha Tandavi’s rushed exit from Satyam a couple of months before, GG, our own boss from hell, called me into his office and said laboriously in his deep baritone voice:
"Arinvan, I want you to take the lead. Balzie will be moving to someplace else; maybe a different project. I want you to take charge and lead from the front. We will soon have others joining us. I have given it to HR, and we will have two more to come on board. Things will have to move on, without any hiccups or problems.” GG looked a little pained and at ease in the same breath before saying, “Okay?” Pained because Balzie was leaving, at ease because he found a replacement in a perfect bakra and that was me!
I beat a hasty retreat after replying, “Yes, GG”.
Once out of his office room and in the hallway of the West Flank, where admin professional Neetu Scootywali and HR specialists Pavan Bommaraju and Tania Bhatroy, the Queen of the Kalimpong Hills, were seated and fast at work. After nodding my head to say “Hi” to them I looked away and I felt a deep sense of fearfulness, almost a presentiment, enveloping me. I walked through the green-marbled corridor where I met Merion’s gaze and her sphinxlike smile; acknowledging it by commenting "nice wardrobe!" on the saree she wore I paced up to my den feeling distressed thinking about GG’s latest doppelganger.
I was happy about doing the honours as per GG’s newfound expectation, but I was also confused to know if GG things were good enough for each one of us at the great roaming division. I mean far from feeling a mere puppet in GG’s hands, I felt completely ill at ease after I came back to my seat and stared blankly at Manpreet for him to say something.
Instead, Manpreet gave a quizzical look and said, “What?”
I said, “Nothing…GG called me to say that he wants me to take the lead.”
“What are you saying? Is this true? Hum kya mar gaye the?” said Manpreet in his typical Punjabi twang indicating that he too could have been entitled to the task.
Not to undermine Manpreet credentials to become a leader or something in that rank, I too was ill at ease with GG’s decision. Invariably, I had thought, “Why me? Why not Manpreet?”
“Nahee yaar, mujhe koi lead weed nahi karna. Tu hi samhaal”, I said dejectedly. ‘Taking lead or take charge’ was all right, but for some reason, I was not finding this thing OK. Yes, Manpreet could equally have been the person to take this up. I didn’t want to ‘take charge’ and that too under GG’s tutelage. It's dreadful, to say the least.
“Kyoon? Kya hua? Lead karo after all Chichcha said that” said he.
I didn’t answer that, instead, I said, “Do nayeh bande aane wale hain.”
“Achcha”, he said before adding funnily, “Aane do unko!”
After a moment, Manpreet said, “Aane do. We need more people. Yahan par bahoth kaam hai yaar, at least thoda toh relief milega hameh.”
Manpreet and I had been making gradual requests to both Balzie and Mr. Howdy to get a couple of more guys hired for the roaming division because the workload had increased substantially and it was becoming almost agonizing for only two of us to handle the job.
I smiled at his joke and felt a little better. But strangely that useless ‘feeling’ never left me. We knew GG’s unpredictable mentality and his way of doing things. Maybe this very thing was the reason for the trouble I was facing, but I don’t know I was still not clear-headed about this. As far as GG was concerned, I am sure he doesn’t give a damn about anything that brings happiness to his subordinates like me and Manpreet. Well, it’s not that we want him to.
I never knew GG, for all his crankiness we always looked down upon without anything let known to him, would be so ‘generous’ to me, instead of being the same with Manpreet Singh. Why did he call me and tell me that I should “take the lead” instead of Manpreet? While I realize that it must be good for me, but somehow I was sure it’s not for nothing that GG is considering me over Manpreet, after all, Manpreet too is quite capable. I had firmly believed in the fact that for GG or anyone else, there was hardly any choice left to make when it is tantamount to both me and Manpreet being eligible “to take lead” or whatever. He wants me “to take the lead”? Now that’s one hell of a thing to have come from the mouth of this one crazy boss the world could ever have! As professional individuals do, I did what I can be expected to do; I appreciatively said yes to GG’s decree and even managed a modest smile on my face for GG to take a positive hint that I had accepted his, let’s say, challenge.
END OF PART 1 of 'CHAPTER 27 - A Life to Die For - I'.
(To be continued...)
By Arindam Moulick
Click here for PART II of the story
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. All incidences, places, and characters portrayed in the story are fictional and entirely imaginary. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. No similarity to any person either living or dead is intended or should be inferred.
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