Authors: ARUN GUPTA
‘Okay, it’s my fault. That is what you want to prove, right? I am a
confused, selfish, mean person right?’ she said.
I looked at her. I couldn’t believe I had loved her and those flared
nostrils for four years. And now it was difficult to say four sentences without
disagreeing.
I sighed. ‘I thought there was to be no arguing, blaming and sarcasm.
But we have done it all.’
‘I care a lot for you,’ she said and held my hand.
‘Me too,’ I said, ‘but I think we need to take care of other things in our
life as well.’
We asked for the bill and made cursory conversation about the weather,
traffic and the décor of the café. We were talking a lot, but we weren’t
communicating at all.
‘Call me in the evening if you’re free,’ I said as I paid the bill and got up
to leave.
It had come to this: we had to tell each other to call. Previously, not a
waking hour passed without one of us SMS-ing or calling the other.
‘Okay, or I will SMS you,’ she said. An SMS seemed simpler than dealing
with another conversation.
We did a basic hug, without really touching. A kiss was out of the
question.
‘Sure,’ I said, ‘it’s always nice to get your message.’
Sarcasm. Man, will I never learn?
#19
Mocha Café and its colored Arabian lights faded away from my mind as it
returned to WASG’s tube light-lit interiors. I checked the time: it was close to
2:00 a.m. I got up to take a short walk. I did not know what was more
disgusting—thinking about Priyanka’s mother or hearing the girls obsess about
Priyanka’s marriage. I went to the corner of the room where Military Uncle
sat. We nodded to each other. I looked at his screen and saw pictures of
animals—chimps, rhinos, lions and deer.
‘Are those your customers/’ I said and laughed at my own non-funny
joke.
Military Uncle smiled back. He was in one of his rare good moods.
‘These are pictures I took at the zero. I scanned them to send to my
grandson.’
‘Cool. He likes animals?’ I said and beet over to take a closer look at the
chimp. It bore an uncanny resemblance to Bakshi.
‘Yes, I’m sending it by email to my son. But I’m having trouble as our
emails do not allow more than four megabyte attachments.’
I decided to help Uncle, if only to avoid going back to the bay until the
systems guy had fixed the phones.
‘Hmm… these are large files,’ I said, as I took over his mouse. ‘I could
try to zip them—thought that won’t compress images much. The other way is
to make the pictures low resolution. Otherwise, you can leave a few animals
out.’
Military Uncle wanted to keep them high resolution. We agreed to leave
out the deer and the hippos as those were not his grandson’s favorite animals.
‘Thanks so much, Shyam,’ Military Uncle said, as I successfully pressed
‘send’ on his email. I looked at his face: there was genuine gratitude. It was
hard to believe he had been booted out because he was too bossy with his
daughter-in-law—a piece of gossip Radhika had once passed on to me.
‘You’re welcome,’ I said. I noticed Vroom signal to me to come back.
Hoping that the topic of Priyanka’s wedding was over, I returned to the desk.
Bakshi has sent us a copy of the proposal,’ Vroom said.
I sat at my desk and opened my inbox. There was a message from
Bakshi.
The calls had not resumed; the systems guy had gone back to his
department again to get new wires.
‘Let’s see which whit e bozos he sucked up to. Who has he sent it to?’
Vroom’s voice was excited.
I opened the mail to see who had been the original recipients. It was the
who’s who of Western Computers and Appliances in Boston: the sales
manager, the IT manager, the operations head and several others. Bakshi had
sent it to the entire directory of people in our client base. I have to say, he is
better at being a mass-suck-up than a gangbang porn star.
‘He has copied everyone. Senior management in Boston in the “to”
field, and then India senior management in the “cc” field,’ I said.
‘And yet somehow he forgot to copy us. Bakshi the great,’ Vroom said.
I read out the contents of his short mail:
‘Dear All,
Attached please find the much-awaited user manual of the customer
service website that changed the parameters of customer service at Western
Appliances. I just wrapped this up today. I would love to discus this more
when I’m in Boston…’
I let out a silence whistle.
‘Boston? How is that ass going to Boston,’ Vroom said.
‘Bakshi’s going to Boston,’ Vroom said. ‘Any of you ladies want to tag
along?’
‘What?’ Esha said. ‘What is he going to Boston for?’
‘To talk about our website. Must have swung a trip for himself,’ I said.
‘What the hell is going on here anyway? On one hand we are downsizing
to save costs, on the other hand there is cash to send idiots on trips to the
US?’ Vroom said and threw his stress ball on the table. It hit the pen stand and
the contents fell out.
‘Careful,’ Esha said, sounding irritated, as a few pens rolled towards
her. She had her mobile phone in her hand, probably still trying to call
someone.
‘Madness. That is what this Connexions is. Boston!’ Priyanka said and
shook her head. She was surfing the Internet. I wondered which sites she was
looking at—wedding dresses, life in the US, or the Lexus official website.
I was about to close Bakshi’s message when vroom stopped me.
‘Open the document,’ Vroom said, ‘just open the file he sent,
‘It’s the same file we sent him. The user manual,’ I said.
‘Did you open it?’
‘No, what is the need…’
‘Just open it,’ he said so loudly that Esha looked at us. I wondered
whom she was calling this late, but Vroom’s voice was battering into me.
I opened the file, which was our user manual.
‘Here, it is the same,’ I said, and scrolled down. As I reached the bottom
of the first page, my jaw grew lax, partly in horror and partly in reflex
preparation to voice some major curse words.
Western Computers Troubleshooting Website
Project Details and User Manual.
Developed by Connexions, Delhi
Subhash Bakshi
Manager, Connexions
‘Like fuck it is the same,’ Vroom said and threw the pens he had
collected back on the table. One landed on Esha’s lap, who by this time had
tried to connect to a number at least twenty times. She threw an angry look
at Vroom and hurled the pen back at him. He ignored her as his eyes were on
my screen.
‘It says it is by fucking Subhash Bakshi,’ Vroom said., tapping his finger
hard on my monitor. ‘Check this out. Mr Moron, who can’t tell a computer
from a piano, has done this website and this manual. Like crap he has.’
Vroom banged his fists on the table. In a mini-fit, he violently swept the
table with his hands. All the pens fell on the floor.
‘What is wrong with you?’ Esha said and pulled her chair away to avoid
to shower of pens. Desperately shaking the phone to get a connection, she got
up and went to the conference room.
‘He passed off our work as his, Shyam. Do you realize that/’ he said and
shook my shoulder hard.
I was numb as I started at the first page of our, or rather Bakshi’s,
manual. This time Bakshi had bypassed himself in stealing credit. My head felt
dizzy and I fought to breathe.
‘This is so crap. Six months of work on this manual alone,’ I said and
closed the file. ‘I never thought he would stoop this low.’
‘And?’ Vroom said.
‘And what? I don’t really know what to do. I’m in shock. Plus, right now
there is this fear he may downsize us…’ I said.
‘Downsize us?’ Vroom said and stood up. ‘We worked on it for six
months man. And all you can say is we can’t do anything as he may downsize
us? This fucking loser Bakshi is turning you into a loser. Mr Shyam, you are
turning into a mousepad, people are rolling over you everyday. Priyanka tell
him t say something. Go to Bakshi’s office and hold his damn collar.’
Priyanka looked up at us, and for the second time that night, our eyes
met bang on. She had that look; that same gaze that had made me feel small
before. Like what was the point of even shouting at me.
She shook her head and gave a wry smile. I knew that wry smile by
heart, too. Like she had known this was coming all along. I had the urge to go
shake her by the collar. It is freaking easy to give those looks when you have a
Lexus waiting for you, I wanted to say. But I didn’t say anything. Bakshi’s
move had hurt me—it wasn’t just the six months of efforts, but also that the
prospects for my promotion were gone. And that meant—proof!—Priyanka was
going too. But right now the people see you as weak if you express hurt. They
always want to see you strong, meaning in a raging temper. Maybe I do not
have it in me. That is why I am not a team leader. That is why no girls
distribute sweets in the office for me.
‘Are you there, My Shyam?’ Vroom said. ‘Let’s email all the people this
was sent to and tell them what is going on.’
‘Just cool down Vroom. There is no need to act like a hero,’ I snapped.
‘Oh really? So, what should we act like? Losers? Tell us Shyam, you
should be the expert on that,’ Vroom said.
A surge of anger chocked me. ‘Just shut up and sit down,’ I said. ‘What
do you want to do? Send another mail to the whites? And tell them there’s in-
fighting going on here? And whom are they going to believe: somebody who is
going to Boston to meet them or some frustrated agent who claim he did all
the work? Get real Mr Vroom. You’ll get fired and noting else. Bakshi is
management—he manages, yes, he does. But only his own even notice
Radhika. She was standing next to me with a bottle of water in her hand.
‘Thanks,’ I said and took a few noisy sips.
‘Feeling better?’ Radhika said.
I raised my hand to stop her from saying more. ‘I don’t want to talk
about this anymore. It is between us and Bakshi. And I don’t want some
random people, whose life is one big party, to give their opinion on it. Yes,
my boss sucks. Most bosses suck. It isn’t such a big deal,’ I said and sat down. I
glared at Vroom. He sat down as well.
Vroom opened a notepad and drew a 2x2 matrix.
‘What the fuck is that/’ I said.
‘I think I’ve finally figured Bakshi out. Let me explain with the help of a
diagram,’ Vroom said.
‘Don’t mess with me. I don’t want any diagrams,’ I said.
‘Just hear me,’ Vroom said as he labeled the matrix.
On the horizontal axis he wrote ‘good’ and ‘evil’ next to each box. On
the vertical axis, he wrote ‘smart’ and ‘stupid.’
‘Okay, here is my theory about people like Bakshi,’ Vroom said and
pointed with his pen to the matrix. ‘There are four kinds of bosses in this
world based on two dimensions: a) how smart or stupid they are, and b)
whether they are good or evil. Only with extreme good luck do you get a boss
who is smart
and
a good human being. However, Bakshi is the most dangerous
but common category. He is stupid, as we all know. But more than that—he is
evil,’ Vroom said, tapping his pen in the relevant quadrant of the matrix.
‘Stupid-evil,’ I echoed.
‘Yes, we understand him. He is scary one. He is like a blind snake: you
feel sorry for it, but it still has a poisonous bite. You can see it—he is stupid,
hence the call center is so mismanaged. But he is also evil, so he will make
sure all of us go down instead of him.’
I shook my head.
‘Forget it. Destiny has put an asshole in my path. What can I say,’ I said