Read Corporate Carnival Online
Authors: P. G. Bhaskar
‘You should get Kitty and her husband to accompany you,’ she suggested. ‘One is a pretty lady and the other can talk football!’
I made a mental note of this. They were going to be there anyway. You never knew how these things worked; they might well come in useful.
‘There’s a huge power struggle going on here at the top, Jack. I think it will be good for us if the British group grabs power. Both Mr Fergusson and Mr Weatherford strongly support us. Even the chairman thinks the world of us. But if they decide to have a Dutch CEO globally, it could change power equations everywhere and things could go against us. We are going to be here another ten days. Teams from each location are making a series of presentations. It’s a real pain in the ass. Wish me luck, darling.’
‘Kitch and I will take care of everything in Dubai,’ I reassured her. ‘You just focus on what you need to do out there.’
Among the other things I had to do on behalf of Peggy before I left for South Africa was to do a draft half-yearly appraisal, redo some of the job descriptions and submit the resume of each member of the staff for the central database. Peggy asked me to ensure this was done for all the members of our team. The last one I was sending out before I left for the day was Gavaskar’s. I looked at the form he had completed. I was a bit puzzled. His first name read ‘Gavaskar’ and his surname read ‘Tendulkar’. Both were surnames that belonged to two of Indian cricket’s most famous sons.
‘Hey, Gavas,’ I beckoned to him as he walked past my room on his way out. ‘Is this a mistake? Or a joke? I have to send out this information to London.’
‘It is a joke,’ he said sadly, ‘and it’s on me.’
‘What do you mean? Is this really your name?’
‘Okay, I’ll tell you,’ he sighed. ‘You are probably the millionth person to ask me this.’
‘You can skip the story if you like,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to be sure there was no mistake.’
‘It’s okay. If I don’t tell you, you will not be at peace nor will I. But this should be a lesson to all parents not to indulge in personal whims while naming their kids.’ He let out another heavy sigh and the room took on a gloomy hue. ‘My father was a big fan of cricketer Sunil Gavaskar,’ he began in a dull, hollow monotone. ‘I was born on the day Gavaskar scored his thirtieth test century in Madras in 1984. As a mark of respect to him, my dad decided to name me after him. He could have named me “Sunil” like most people would have done, or even “Sunny” which is the cricketer’s nickname. But my father decided that would not be sufficiently respectful to him, because Sunil is a common first name. So he named me Gavaskar. Our family name is Tendulkar. I became Gavaskar Tendulkar. Of course, at that time we had never heard of Sachin Tendulkar. He came into the limelight five years later and complicated things for me right from kindergarten. Expectations from me were sky high. In school, my classmates would get applauded even if they scored just twenty runs. But if I scored fifty, I was considered a failure! So in high school, I refused to play cricket. But then they insisted on making me a sort of manager-cum-coach, almost like a non-playing captain. I hated it. I spent most of my time signing autographs for younger children and the rest of it either explaining my name or answering snide remarks. At my first job, my clients refused to take me seriously because of my name… It’s been tough, but I’ve learnt to take it in my stride.’
He turned away, shoulders drooping, head bowed, and I was left feeling like I had been drenched by a tidal wave of incredible sorrow. Like those tragic tales from history that envelop you in sadness and make you shudder. Or like the London Dungeon.
‘Don’t worry,’ I told him, hoping to cheer him up. ‘Think of Kitch! Kitch’s name is Brahmadesam Balasubramaniam Krishnan. Once, he shortened it to B.B. Krishnan on a Thai Airways frequent flier form, and they mistook the dot after the initials for an ‘o’ and sent him a letter addressing him as Bobo Krishnan! And in the Arabic computer system here, they have left out the name Krishnan altogether and misspelt the rest. It’s recorded as Bramesam Balasubra. The government officials look at him suspiciously if he says his name is Krishnan.’
A faint smile lit up Gavas’s face and he walked away with his head tilted at a slightly optimistic angle. It was my turn to sigh, this time in relief. I had done my good turn for the day.
There had been a few other developments of note in the last few days. Rachel had, well, not exactly broken up with Tim, but it was becoming increasingly clear that they were drifting apart. Tim was busy with his work in Abu Dhabi and Rach had opted to stay back in Dubai. Tim was on the verge of teaming up with an Abu Dhabi-based sheikh to start a solar energy venture. Unlike Peggy and her Abu Dhabi-based boyfriend Dan who made it a point to meet at least a couple of times a week, these two had let nature take its course and gently floated away from one another. No heated words, no argument; in fact, nothing was said at all, just quietly understood and accepted by both sides.
Rach was beginning to get into the groove at work. It helped that we were around to help, because this bank took some getting used to. It also worked in her favour that our team was currently riding a wave of popularity. She had lost a good bit of weight in the last couple of months and she was looking as becoming as she did two years ago. This had won her a few fans around the office. People went out of their way to talk to her or do her favours.
Meanwhile, Harry, always fitness conscious, persuaded me to shift allegiance to his gym. I was quite happy to do so because Kamal Lalwani went to my current gym around the same time as I did and kept talking shop. I hate discussing currencies and stocks during my workout. Besides, he had this annoying habit of letting out self-motivating shouts while lifting weights and even on the treadmill. He moaned and groaned like a porn star. ‘Aaah!’ he went. ‘Oooh! Oh, yeah! C’mon, Kamal, faster!’ At first I found this amusing but it soon got irritating. So I was quite relieved when Harry suggested I join his gym.
Both at work and in the gym, Harry got going with his methodical approach. He was a stickler for punctuality and discipline. He was at the gym at exactly the same time every evening and his routine was clearly structured. Even at work, he was extremely systematic and regular. His clients always knew exactly what to expect from him. He had several prospects, most of them senior executives. His database and spreadsheets generated regular updates, portfolio charts and clients’ birthday letters.
Omar, on the other hand, did things his way. First, he took the rather liberal auto loan that the bank provided and bought a BMW 7 Series. Then, he took the housing loan, put in a million of his own, and bought a 6 million dirham place at the Palm Jumeirah. Once he had set up these ‘basic’ things, he brought in the account of one of Pakistan’s largest industrialists, initially with remittance of 25 million dollars. It was the biggest account we had opened so far. That was Omar’s style. He always focussed on the big fish.
Kitch had opened a couple of large accounts from Dubai and also met and cut some ice with someone from Tanzania.
It was good going. But minor irritants were multiplying at the same time. While compliance had relaxed their grip, facilitating easier account opening, the internal audit chaps were beginning to gnaw at us. Three months after Sunny Singh’s account was opened, I got an email from them saying they had rejected his account because the account form had been filled up as ‘Satwinder Singh Bali’ while the passport copy read ‘Satwinder Sing Bali’. I tried convincing them that it was just a clerical error at the consulate office and showed them copies of the previous passport which had the correct name. But they refused to consider the previous passport because ‘the old passport is not a valid document any more’. Then they said I should either get a new set of account opening forms from him or get the spelling of his name changed on the passport. Since the latter could be a lengthy process, I troubled Sunny and his wife for six more signatures each and changed his correct account name to match the wrong passport name.
‘Your bank people have no brains,’ Sunny told me as I adroitly deflected the blame to my colleagues in audit. ‘If they are asking me to sign so many papers because of this small thing, your well-paid senior colleagues are no different from the clerks in the passport office. In fact, they are far worse!’
A stream of frustrating issues followed. ‘MILK’ Shah’s account got frozen because while I had submitted a utility bill in Mr Shah’s name with their residence address, they wanted one in Mrs Shah’s name as well. My plea that a husband and wife living together would not have two different bills didn’t move them an inch. I had mentioned in my accompanying note that Madan Dodhia had been the governor of the Lions Club in Kisumu. A young upstart from audit sent an email asking me to outline the activities of the Lions Club in Kisumu. I told them that the activities of the Lions Club were irrelevant to the opening of the account. The reply came in double-quick time. It said: if the information was not relevant I should not have mentioned the club in the first place. Since I had mentioned it, I had to jolly well give all details asked for. I lost my cool. I sent a stinker copied to Peggy, Fergs and the head of audit.
‘Is this audit or is this farce?’ I queried, sounding like a Shakespearean character. ‘I simply mentioned his governorship in the Lions Club to emphasize his standing in society. What does it matter what the club does? What is the Lions Club supposed to do, anyway? Promote drug trafficking? Conduct midnight orgies? I am all for audit. But it needs to be meaningful. It must make sense in the context of our requirements. We cannot afford to waste time in the name of audit.’
As I clicked the ‘send’ button I felt a sense of triumph. The next second, I got a severe bout of cold feet. As I re-read it, the feet got colder. No one wrote such directly nasty mails in this bank. Everything was couched and worded in an appropriately roundabout way. At any moment, I expected something to explode. I wished I could talk to Peggy. But she’d still be in bed; it was 5.30 a.m. London time. Luckily for me, the suspense lasted only forty minutes. Fergs sent a mail to the upstart copied to all of us. It simply said, ‘The Lions Club is an international organization whose activities are well-known. We ourselves have been associated with them in the past. If there are no other issues, I suggest we proceed with the opening of this account.’
I had won this round. It filled me with exhilaration. I could feel adrenalin sloshing within me. For the rest of the day, I walked about with a swagger.
That night I was a tiger in bed.
I
t was Friday and I could only apply for my South African visa early the following week. So when I got a call from Kitch asking if I could spend a day or two with him in Chennai, I jumped at the offer. He wanted me and a few other friends to be mystery diners at his three restaurants – Kitcha Hut, Kitcha Inn and Kitcha Corner. I was quite excited about indulging in this rather novel experience. The idea was to act like a regular customer and use the opportunity to observe how well or badly the system functioned, something the owner himself might not know since employees tend to behave differently in the presence of their employer. Mina was still in Kenya. She would fly down directly to South Africa from Nairobi.
On the flight to Chennai, I noticed the airhostess paying particular attention to a passenger sitting on my right. I took a closer look. It was Shankar Mahadevan! I started. What a coincidence! It was just a few days ago that my client told me he had signed him up for a film and now here he was. I was a fan of Shankar’s and was glad to have a chance to tell him that. The last time I was with a celebrity on a flight was when Katrina Kaif sat next to me on a flight from London. At that time, while every cell in my body urged me to strike up a smart conversation with her, I couldn’t for the life of me think of anything to say. I didn’t want to tell her I was her fan, because I had seen all of one film of hers. Once, I did think of something to say but when I turned and saw her long legs, my mind went blank. So I spent the entire journey discreetly eyeing her, but not exchanging a single word. On another occasion, I found myself just behind Amitabh Bachchan as we were walking out of the aircraft. As I walked towards the luggage area, I thought of a few bright things to say to him, including a point about Abhishek’s acting in
Guru
. But he never came to the luggage area. It was only then that I realized that the luggage of superstars is probably handled separately.
But this was different. There had not been a single day in the past few months when I did not listen to the ‘Iktara’ song from
Wake up Sid
. All of last year, my favourite had been ‘Sapno se bhare naina’. So I rather fancied we had this ‘bond’. Besides, we had a common producer friend.
‘Hi!’ I said suavely. ‘I’m Jai Patel.’
He smiled. Not in that cagey, wary manner that most celebrities adopt while dealing with a potentially chatty fan inside an aircraft, but crisp and matter-of-fact. ‘I’m Shankar,’ he said.
‘I know!’ I gushed in a rather silly way and suddenly couldn’t think of anything else to say. I think I simply have a problem when it comes to celebrities. I am just not at ease.
I struggled for a few moments. He busied himself with a book.
‘I met Mr Dodhia last month,’ I blurted out.
‘Sorry?’
‘Mr Dodhia.’
‘Who is he?’
I was discouraged. How could he not know his producer’s name? That too, of the first film in which he was to star as a hero. Then a thought struck me. Maybe it was still under wraps.
‘It’s okay,’ I told him with a half wink. ‘Mr Dodhia told me about roping you in as a hero in his film.’
He stared at me blankly.
Suddenly I started having all kinds of doubts. ‘Er… maybe not as a hero…’ I mumbled, desperate to see some trace of recognition on his face. ‘Mr Madan Dodhia… he… er… his son is making a film starring you? That’s what he told me. Mr Dodhia from Nairobi? Used to live in Kisumu,’ I concluded unhappily. All I could see from the expression on his face was that he was getting irritated.
He shook his head. ‘My name is Shankar Mahadevan,’ he said sharply, like he thought I had mistaken him for someone else.
‘I know, but this friend of mine said his son was making a film with you in it.’
‘Where is this guy?’
‘In Kenya,’ I replied. ‘His name is Chimpu.’
‘Chimpu from Africa!’ he exclaimed. Then he clammed up, put on his headphones and closed his eyes. I decided to give it a break. I slipped over to the back of the business class section to pick up a magazine. Behind me, I could hear Shankar talking to the airhostess. I chose an
Economist
and walked back to my seat. The renowned music director, stage performer and singer was once more immersed in his music. But not next to me. The airhostess had accommodated him elsewhere, a good three rows and fifteen feet ahead of me. Any further and he would have been seated in the cockpit.
Later, in the middle of the flight, our eyes met once but he quickly looked away, as though afraid that I would again start talking to him about my African filmmaker friends. It wasn’t a happy flight and it was a disturbing half an hour after the flight. England had crashed out of the FIFA World Cup, beaten by Germany. Netherlands, on the other hand, was going strong. Peggy called to tell me that the English mancom members were so crushed after the team’s performance that they had lost the will to fight for management control. The Dutch, boosted by their team’s unexpected performance, were gung-ho about their presentations and were clearly getting the better of the Englishmen in every debate. It looked like some of the plum posts at the senior levels would go to the Dutch. If that happened, all the good work done by us so far would be undone.
I needed something really good to pull me out of my depression and I found it: bingeing on my favourite comfort food at Kitch’s restaurants. I loved it. In fact, I would have no objection at all to making this a full-time profession – pigging out at restaurants and coming up with some important sounding comments at the end of the day. In this case, however, I think we managed to put together some pretty useful feedback at the end of day two. We agreed that two of the waiters were pulling down the ambience with their approach. We found that a very slight change in the arrangement of the tables would help accommodate four more chairs, always useful during peak hours. We calculated that the time spent bringing the bill to the table took up to seven minutes on average. This reduced the turnover as those who didn’t find a table immediately tended to walk across to ‘Raman Idli’, the restaurant located just opposite Kitch’s. The food there was not as tasty as Kitch’s, the place was not air-conditioned and the waiters tended to be sloppy, but they had much more space and many more tables. We spent some time working out numbers on a proposed profit-sharing arrangement with the waiters and the cooks. We also considered a few common tricks followed by some of the other eateries in town, like leaving bottled water on each table. The margins on drinks were much higher than on food. Getting customers to drink water, juice or milk-based drinks would raise profits significantly. We knew of a restaurant that charged separately for milagai podi (a specially blended chilli powder which many North Indians refer to as ‘gunpowder’) and oil if they wanted that along with their idli, sambar and chutney. We also considered keeping the price per idli low and charging for every serve of accompaniments.
‘I wish I could buy out that restaurant opposite ours,’ Kitch said. ‘Then all the restaurants on this road would be ours. Maybe we will not air-condition that one. If it’s too comfortable, people just hang around longer and the spend per minute goes down. There is no point air-conditioning a restaurant if it keeps potential customers waiting outside.’
On the second day, we had dinner at Kitch’s house. His parents weren’t too bucked about our new business ideas. ‘You make all kinds of high-flying plans,’ Kitch’s father admonished him. ‘And we have to spend most of our time trying to implement them.’
There was more berating and his father wondered aloud whether sending Andy to Dubai was the best thing that could have been done under the circumstances. ‘Maybe we should have encouraged him to help run the restaurants,’ he said. ‘After all, what is the point of having two sons if both of them live abroad?’
Kitch’s mother turned to me. She seemed to find me a more sympathetic listener than Kitch, whose only response to whatever his parents said was to keep eating and say nothing. ‘I go to the school behind our house thrice a week to distribute fruits, nuts and sweets. Anand insists I go personally. Uncle has to go to Kitcha’s restaurants every single day, sometimes twice a day. If the manager is not well, he has to spend several hours a day there, leaving his own work aside. I hope you boys will come back next year. After that you can make all the plans you want. We cannot have all the good children leaving the country! Our neighbour’s daughter has just left to study in the US. I think it is all because of the government’s silly reservation policy. They reserve seats for hundreds of communities, win all their votes, come into power and then make enough money for the next seven generations. And our children suffer and go abroad.’
The next day, I managed to spend a few hours with my own parents, when there was more conversation along similar lines. ‘You have spent two whole days in Chennai,’ my mother said, ‘and I have spoken to you only as much as I do when you are in Dubai. Free food doesn’t mean you should forget your own parents!’
‘Mum!’ I protested. ‘It’s not that! I’m here to advise Kitch on how to improve the business. I’m a highly regarded consultant, not a free loader.’
Later that night, I called up Madan Dodhia’s son to clarify something that had been nibbling away at me for the past two days. ‘Chimpu! Listen, tell me, who is the hero of your film?’
‘I’m thinking of that hero from Chennai, Madhavan. Y’know, the guy in
3 Idiots
?’
‘
Madhavan!
’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Your father told me it was Shankar Mahadevan.’
‘Pappa doesn’t know anyone beyond Amitabh Bachchan. He does not even know Aamir Khan.’
‘What’s the film about, Chimpu?’
‘Oh, it’s a period film, man. It’s on Emperor Ashoka. I know it has been made before, but this script is too good, yaar. Mind-blowing! Only problem is, I am told that after
3 Idiots
Madhavan insists on a plane scene in every film. It is like his lucky mascot. But how can we have a plane in a period film? If you have any ideas, let me know.’ ‘I will. Good luck, Chimpu!’ I rang off and swore silently at his father.