CHAPTER 34 - Making Sense of the Past

Life at the roaming division did not change even a tiny bit. It was much the same for another year or two. 

Due to Savitha’s leaving, we were one sharp-short of a resource. But her days at Satyam were already over when her passport and visa applications were ready; she knew she would drop a bombshell of ‘resignation’ and leave for good. Which she did. She never looked back. Not even for once did she visit the Satyam office when she came back to India for holiday. Probably, she never liked Satyam, and GG Howdy could have been the main reason she avoided coming over.

Life goes on… I and Manpreet could never find ourselves talking about her, except maybe once or twice did we make any mention about her.TD Suraj, a remarkable guy – GG’s right-hand much-harangued man!, whom we shared a cordial professional relationship with had talked about Savitha just once during the subsequent year when our beloved Roaming Division was in full glory. Perhaps, it was not too important to be talking or sharing memories about a colleague like Savitha who left in a huff.

An Unnecessary Lady

I guess Savitha had made herself really caustic and an unnecessary lady. I had always thought that how could a person live a life without being 'friends' with anyone. She was not ‘friends’ with me and that was hardly a problem because I had never cared about it. I suspect all that she ever wanted was to escape to America and forget about India.

Before she actually left office, she made sure that she’d get twisty and throw in a spanner in the wheels of Arinvan’s personal life. Which she did. She thought it was smart enough of her to spoil someone developing private feelings about her friend Una. Which she did. She made sure that Arinvan and Una break up and never meet again. She bore such misplaced ill-will and a profound grudge against Arinvan.

It was the same old GG Howdy’s world of tantrums, his horrendous calls for horrendous meetings, and Balzie Gigamorthy’s helpful art of tackling the foul-mouthed T-Rex!

GG's Tantrums

Manpreet and Arinvan were constantly on the edge to engage in customer issues that arrived in our email inboxes daily. In fact, in addition to solving customer issues on a priority basis, our plenty other in-house web-based software issues and developments, financial marketing reports, roaming data updates, etc. were also there to be tackled on the side – and all these issues were supposed to continually drive our enthusiasm and be able to stay sane and resolve each issue that landed on our computer.

Once when GG Howdy had called Manpreet into his cabin, he hollered and reprimanded him on account of something that he missed listing in our daily information-sharing agreement with GG. Needless to mention, Manpreet was dreadfully cross with GG. It was truly unbelievable and downright decadent of GG ruffling with Manpreet. Manpreet’s decency and diligence brought value to our operations and GG clearly knew that. So why does a boss in clear judgment fall prey to mess things up with anyone from his own department? Why does he have to be so ruthlessly predisposed when discussing with a professional like Manpreet? Or for that matter Arinvan or Shiv or Dilnawaz bhai or the emotional-circus-acrobat Savitha Tandavi? That’s GG for you – a twisted-tail-never-becomes-straight nut case!

Anyone who comes in contact with this Sharko of a boss is bound to feel awful and extremely discomforted with his perpetually unctuous behaviour. It was that bad. No difference at all treatment-wise when Manpreet’s turn materialized one day out of the blue. Or Arinvan’s or Savitha’s turn, or Dilnawaz’s or Shiv’s turn or TD Suraj’s turn or even Sexy Devee’s turn to face GG’s daily wrath. Each of us has our own pathetic story to recount! “Helpless”, “not supported”, “pathetic”, “no one to look into our situation” were some of the words that raced through one’s sensitive, easily upset young mind.

“Now who asked you to do this, Manpreet?” said GG ferociously and began warming up to start a heated round of discussion in his loony den with Manpreet. Manpreet, the poor guy, cringed.

I was on the general shift that day and probably was preparing marketing reports at my computer. The computer I was working at was solely used for that purpose and not for daily operations and I was very happy to be away from the clients' issues that day. The huge amount of data selection and processing one had to do to generate individualized marketing reports for every client was one humongous job.

“Did it anytime occur to you that they are going to blame us for this problem?” said GG by putting his fingertips tightly together and hit his large forehead to make a point! “If the INDSC doesn’t get those files, do you think you will survive one moment longer here?!” GG threatened Manpreet.

Manpreet just stood still without moving, not even breathing (he was tight shut), not willing to speak lest it might tick GG off further. He wisely decided to keep a straight face while GG, the Raccoon went on a rampage.

GG Howdy continued to thunder: “What was the problem when you guys knew that those set of files never have been sent to INDSC? If Dann Natte did not send these files, then is it not your responsibility to check with them whether or not those files will be sent or not? Now INDSC will have to think hard about the issues that might get entangled in their latest financial settlement when it will come out without those files data duly processed and billed this month. What were you guys doing?"

Manpreet took a chance and replied thus: “GG, we repeatedly asked them about those files, but Dan Natte never sent the files to INDSC. In fact, we wrote to Susanna Garlow almost daily mentioning it in our daily operations email.”

Not satisfied with Manpreet’s reply, GG hollered thus: ”Then what happened? What were you thinking of sitting on this issue for that long and not telling me about it?

“No… uhh…GG…,” Manpreet ventured to say something but GG cut him short.

“If you say one more word I’ll throw you out of my cabin!” GG seethed in anger.

Manpreet knew that we have been writing and calling INDSC about the issue and put cc copies to GG as well. If only GG could check the emails he received from us! But of course, that part couldn’t be said and Manpreet (or anyone for that matter) could never hope to say that to GG even if it seemed quite logical to do so: it would be like showing a red rag to the bull. Naa baba naa!

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick

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.