ONE NIGHT (9 page)

‘What is that? A hundred thousand US dollars a year?’

Vroom nodded. I tried to convert hundred thousand US dollars to rupees

and divide it by twelve to get the monthly salary. There were too many zeros

and it was a tough calculation to do in my head. I racked my brain for a few

seconds.

‘Stop calculating in rupees,’ Vroom said and smiled.

‘I’m not doing any calculations.’

‘Priyanka’s got a catch. I’m telling you,’ Vroom repeated.

He paused and looked at me. His eyes were wet like a puppy’s brown

and kind to look at. I could see why girls flocked to him. It was the eyes.

‘I’m going to ask you a question. Will you answer it honestly?’ Vroom

said.

‘Sure.’

‘Are you upset she is getting married? I know you have feelings for her.’

‘No,’ I said and stated laughing. ‘I just find it a bit strange. But I

wouldn’t say I’m upset. That is too strong a word. It is not like we’re going

around now or anything. No sir, I am not
upset
.’

Vroom waited while I continued to laugh exaggeratedly. When I’d

stopped he said, ‘Okay, don’t bullshit me. What happened to your re-proposal

plans?’

I remained silent.

It’s okay man. You can tell me.’

I sighed, ‘Well, of course I feel for her. But they are just vestigial

feelings.’

‘Vesti what?’

‘Like vestigial organs. They serve no purpose or value. But they can give

you a pain in the appendix. Same with my feelings for Priyanka. I’m supposed

to have moved on, but obviously it hasn’t happened. Meanwhile, MR NRI

comes and gives me a kick in the rear end,’ I said.

‘Talk to her. Don’t tell me you’re not going to,’ Vroom said and exhaled

two smoke rings.

‘I was planning to real soon. I though we’d submit the website user

manual and hopefully that would have made it easier for Boston to approve

my promotion. How did I know there would be milk cake distribution tonight?

How was it by the way? I didn’t touch it.’

‘Milk cake was great. Never sulk when food is at stable dude. Anyways,

screw that. Listen, you still have some time. She has only said yes.’

‘I hope so. Though even as team leader, it’s hard to compete with Mr

Microsoft,’ I said.

We remained silent for a few more seconds. Vroom spoke again.

‘Yeah man, Girls are strategic. They’ll take about love and romance and

all, that crap—but when it comes to doing the deal, they will choose the

fattest chicken,’ he said, and bunched up the leaf ashtray so it became like a

bowl.

‘I guess I can only become fat, not a fat chicken,’ I said.

‘Yeah, you need to be far, fresh and fluffy. Girls know their stuff. That’s

why you shouldn’t feel so upset. We aren’t good husband material—just

accept it.’

‘Thanks Vroom, that really makes my day.’ I said. I did agree with

Vroom though. It was evolution. Maybe nature wanted dimple-cheeked,

software-geek, mini-Ganesh babies. They were of far more value to society

than depressed, good-for-nothing junior Shyams.

‘And anyway, it’s the girl who always gets to choose. Men propose and

women accept the proposal or, as in many cases, reject it.’

It’s true. Girls go around rejecting men like it is their birthright. They

have no idea how much it hurts us. I read once (or maybe saw it during one of

my Discovery Channel phases) that the reason for this is that the female of

the species has to beat their offspring with a lot of effort. Hence they choose

their mates carefully. Meanwhile, men dance around, spend cash, make them

laugh, write stupid poems, anything to win them over. The only species where

courting works in reverse is the sea horse. Instead of the females, the male

sea horse bears the offspring: they carry baby sea horse eggs in their pockets.

Guess what? The female sea horses are always hitting on the males, while the

latter pucker their noses and get to pick the cutest female. I wished if I were

a sea horse. How hard can it be to carry a couple of eggs in a backpack?

Vroom interrupted my thoughts.

‘But who knows. Priyanka isn’t like other girls, or maybe she is after all.

Either way, don’t give up man. Try to get her back,’ Vroom said and patted

my shoulder in encouragement.

‘Speaking of back, shouldn’t we be heading back to the bay?’ I said and

looked at my watch, it’s 11:45 p.m.’

We passed the Western Computers main bay as we returned from the

parking lot. The main bay sounded like a noisy school, except the kids

weren’t talking to each other, but to customers. Monitor problem, viruses,

strange error message—there was nothing Connexions could not help you

with.

‘Still looks busy,’ I said.

‘Not at all. People have told me call traffic is down forty percent. I think

they’ll cut a lot of staff, or worst case scenario, cut all people and shift the

client to the Bangalore center.’

‘Bangalore? What will happen here?’ I said.

They’ll close this poorly managed madhouse down. What else? That is

what happens when people like Bakshi spend half their time playing politics

with other managers,’ Vroom said. He spotted a good looking girl in the

Western Computers bay and pointed her out to me.

‘Close down!’ I said, after studying the pretty girl for half a second.

‘Are you serious, what will happen to the hundreds of jobs here?’

‘Like they care. You think Bakshi cares?’ Vroom said and shrugged his

lanky shoulders.

‘Crap happens in life. It could happen tonight,’ Vroom said as we

reached the WASG.

#9

The systems guy was under the table again.

‘No calls yet. They’ve called for a senior engineer,’ Priyanka said.

‘It’s an external fault. Some cables are damaged I think. Gurgaon is

going nuts with constructions,’ the systems guy said, as he emerged from

under the table.

‘Bakshi knows?’ I said.

‘I don’t know,’ Priyanka said.

Vroom and I sat down at our desk.

‘It’s not too bad. Nice break,’ Esha said as she filed her nails with a

weirdly shaped nail cutter.

Priyanka’s cell phone began to rung startling everyone.

‘Who is calling you so late?’ Radhika said, still knitting her scarf.’

‘Long distance I think,’ Priyanka said and smiled.

‘Oooh!’ Esha squealed, like a two-year-old on a bounce castle. What is

the big deal about a long distance phone call? I thought.

‘Hi Ganesh. I just switched my phone on,’ Priyanka said. ‘I can’t believe

you called so soon.’

I could not hear Ganesh’s response. Thank God.

‘Fifteen times? I can’t believe you tried my number fifteen times…so

sorry,’ Priyanka said, looking idiotic with happiness.

‘Yes I’m at work. But it’s really chaotic today. Systems are down…

Hello?... How come you’re working on Thanksgiving? Oh, nice of the Indians to

offer to work…hello? Priyanka said.

‘What happened?’ Esha said.

‘There’s hardly any network,’ Priyanka said, shaking her phone as if

that would improve the reception. I felt like shaking her.

‘We’re in the basement. Nothing comes into this black hole,’ Vroom

said. He was surfing the internet, and was on the Formula I website.

‘Landline,’ Esha said, pointing to the spare phone on one desk. Every

team in Connexions had a spare independent landline at their desk for

emergency use. ‘Tell him to call on the landline.’

‘Here?’ Priyanka asked, looking to me for permission.

Normally this would be unthinkable, but our systems were down so it

did not really matter. Also, I did not want to look like a sore loser preventing

a new couple from starting their romance.

I nodded and pretended to be absorbed by my computer screen. As the

ad-hoc team leader, I had some powers. I could approve any personal calls. I

could also listen in on any line on the desk on my headset. However, I could

not listen in on the independent emergency phone. Not unless. I went under

the table and tapped it.

‘
Tap the landline
,’ a faint voice echoed in my head.

‘No, it’s wrong,’ I said and mentally reprimanded myself.

I could still hear one side of the conversation though.

‘Hello… Ganesh, call the landline… yes 2246343 and 11, for Delhi… Call

after ten minutes, our boss might come on his rounds soon… I knew ten

minutes is six hundred seconds, I’m sure you’ll survive, she laughed

uncontrollably and hung up. When women laugh non-stop, they’re flirting. I

hate Priyanka.

‘He sounds so
cute
,’ Esha said, stretching the last word to five times its

normal length.

‘Enough is enough, I’m going to call Bakshi. We need to fix the systems,’

I said and stood up. I couldn’t bear the systems guy lurking under the table

anymore. More than that, I could not bear six-hundred-seconds-without-you

survival stories.

I was walking towards Bakshi’s office when I noticed him walking

towards me.

‘Agent Sam, why aren’t you on your desk?’ Bakshi said.

‘I was looking for you sir,’ I said.

‘I’m all yours,’ Bakshi said as his face broke into a smile. He came and

placed his arm around my shoulder. I hate it when he does that.

Bakshi and I returned to WASG. Everyone heard the sound of Bakshi’s

heavy steps. Radhika hid her knitting gear under the table. Esha pout her nail

file in her bag. Vroom opened his screen to an empty MSWord document.

The systems guy came out from under the table and called his boss, the

head of the IT department.

‘Looks like we have technology issues here’ Bakshi said and the systems

guy nodded his head.

The head of IT came soon after. He and the systems guy discussed geek

stuff between themselves in so-called English. When the discussions were

over, the IT head ranted out incomprehensible technical details to us. I only

understood that the system was under a strain: eighty percent of the WASG

capacity was damaged, and the remaining twenty percent could not handle

the current load.

‘Hmmm,’ Bakshi said, his left hand rubbing his chin ‘hmmm…that’s

really bad, isn’t it?’

‘So, what do you want us to do?’ the IT head asked.

All eyes turned to Bakshi, it was a situation Bakshi hated—to be asked to

take a decision or recommend action.

‘Hmmm,’ Bakshi said and flexed his knees, knee by slow knee, to buy

time. ‘We really need a methodical game plan here.’

‘We can shut down the WASG system tonight. Western Computers main

bay is running fine anyway,’ the junior IT guy suggested.

‘But, WASG has one lost all its capacity. Boston won’t like it if we shut

the bay,’ the IT head said, referring to the Western Computers and appliances

headquarters in Boston.

‘Hmmm,’ Bakshi said again and pressed a sweaty palm on my desk.

‘Upsetting Boston will not be good at this time. We are already on a slippery

slope at Connexions. Let’s try to be proactively oriented here.’

Vroom couldn’t resist a snigger at Bakshi’s jargon. He looked away and

clenched his teeth.

‘Sir, can I make a suggestion,’ I said, even though I should have kept my

trap shut.

‘What?’ Bakshi said.

‘We could take Bangalore’s help,’ I said, referring to the location of the

second Western Appliances and Computers call center in India.

‘Bangalore?’ Bakshi and the IT head said in unison.

‘Yes sir. It is thanksgiving and call volumes are low. So Bangalore will be

running light as well. If we pass most of our calls there, it will get busier for

them, but it won’t overload them. Meanwhile, we can handle a limited flow

here,’ I said.

‘That makes sense. We can easily switch the flow for a few hours. We