Sorting Out Sid (8 page)

S
id read his email with growing dismay.

Great, just what he needed now
–
another visit by the Global Team from the headquarters in Germany, which his team referred to as the ‘Toilet Seat of Power’. In just ten days. Now, he and his team would have to make audio-visuals and walkthroughs and presentations for the goras instead of doing any actual work.

Sid became aware of someone speaking in the vicinity of his left ear. He turned and looked up to see the newest member of the marketing team, a management trainee, Ravi, whom he had privately labelled as ‘enthu cutlet’. Initially, his enthusiasm had been impressive, but now Sid found it so trying that he often felt the urge to bop him on the head with his laptop. But you just didn’t do stuff like that when you were the boss. Plus, it was hard to find people who could be enthusiastic about the toilet cleaner business. So he refrained from expressing his irritation.

Ravi was looking expectantly at him now, and Sid realized that he was supposed to respond. ‘Good, GOOD,’ he said, hoping that it would suffice.

Apparently, it didn’t. Ravi repeated his question, his enthusiasm undiminished, ‘Sid-boss, I said the ad-agency is here, and asked if you want to see them here or in Conference Room One?’

Sid tried to recollect what the meeting was for while Ravi continued, ‘I think Conference Room One would be better because they have some stuff to present and will be able to spread the layouts on the table … I was also thinking of calling in a couple of other people
–
if you don’t mind
–
just so that we’ll get multiple opinions, and that’s always good when we’re looking at creatives because we may have a certain point of view on what may work but actually our closeness to the brand may deter us from risk taking and thus a different perspective may…’

‘Fine, FINE!’ said Sid, standing up and steering Ravi away from his desk. ‘Go and call them into the conference room. Call anyone you want!’

Ravi trotted off with an air of importance. Sid rubbed his temple as he headed towards the conference room and stood waiting by the door, thinking hard. Agency presentation
–
of course, a script presentation for their lead brand, Kollinex. Sid realized he was losing track of things at work
–
he had always been so planned and organized. No matter, he squared his shoulders. Today was a new day, a good day, and scripts certainly always led to interesting discussions. Maybe today the agency would really present something good. Maybe it…

He lost his train of thought as he suddenly caught sight of Ravi some distance away, in conversation with Akash who had been sauntering around the office in his usual aimless way. What was that little squirt doing talking to him now? He then saw that they appeared to have reached an amicable
agreement, and with horror, he watched Ravi leading Akash towards him. He had called
Akash
to their meeting? Ravi was beaming and looked pleased with himself.

As they reached Sid, who stood frozen to his spot by the door, Akash boomed, ‘Agency presentation, eh? This young man just came to tell me about it and I said, of course, I need to join in on something as critical as a script presentation.’ He then started towards the loo saying, ‘Just give me a minute, okay? I’ll see you inside.’ He looked back as if something had just struck him. ‘Might as well get into the mood, eh?’ He indicated the toilet, and young Ravi laughed loudly and appreciatively. Sid waited till Akash had turned around again before glaring at Ravi to quell him. He just wished this kid didn’t remind him so much of himself in his younger days.

His shoulders sagged as the full realization sank in. Oh no! Akash in a script presentation? Sid had managed to convince Akash only a few months ago to leave marketing completely to him, working on him over several cigarette breaks. It had worked well, given Akash’s natural inclination to disengage from work. Pretty soon he had stepped out of marketing completely, using his freed-up time to do more strategic thinking. This, Sid had observed, apparently meant more cigarette breaks and conversations with his extramarital girlfriend. It never ceased to amaze Sid how Akash had come so far by doing so little actual work. In fact, just yesterday, while watching him whispering what were clearly sweet nothings into the phone, Sid had hit upon his new theory for Akash’s entry into the company. There had to be some sort of ‘secret sports quota’ or something. He resolved to ask Meenakshi about it now that she was all friendly with him.

But now this idiot had invited Akash into the script
presentation. Sid grit his teeth. He would deal with Ravi later, probably send him for all the upcoming in-house product researches. Sid recalled that during his induction he had been forced to watch product demonstrations of how Kollinex worked its magic on all kinds of toilet stains in Indian as well as Western-style toilets. It had been a nauseating experience
–
although of course he had later gushed about how extremely interesting and educational it had been. Yes, that’s what Ravi deserved, except that given how ‘enthu’ Ravi was, he would probably enjoy it, cheerfully chalking it up as a brilliant learning experience, and even mean it
–
little twit!

Sid slammed his way into the conference room and took one of the seats. Akash would naturally expect to sit at the head of the table although he would come in and make a bad joke about why it had been left empty for him when these young guys from Sid’s team were the bosses!

Sid tapped his fingers on the table for a while in a pensive mood. Finally, the door swung open and Ravi ushered in the agency team along with a couple of other brand managers. The first person to enter was Murali, the head of the agency. He burst in with his usual boisterous confidence and flourishing moustache, booming, ‘How are you, Sid?’ and extended his hand.

‘Fine, FINE,’ said Sid in a loud and deep voice that came pretty close to matching Murali’s in terms of pitch, allowing his hand to be pumped in Murali’s death grip. They had never really liked each other. Sid thought Murali was a condescending gasbag, and he had always felt Murali resented dealing with a client so much younger than himself. They stood there smiling affably at one another. ‘Take a seat, Murali, so good to see you. Coffee?’

‘Sure, would love one,’ said Murali, and plonked himself heavily on one of the chairs as the rest of his team piled in. Sid greeted each one and noted with a heavy heart that it was a crowd today
–
about ten people? His heart sank. This was bad news; he knew this only happened when there was a particularly horrendous script idea, and thus the need for reinforcements. Right now in the room, Sid noted, were people from the servicing team, the copy team, the creative head, the account director and one small fellow whom Sid hadn’t seen before, and vaguely suspected to be the office tea boy. Still, one would hear them out
–
one hardly had a choice.

Once everyone had settled down and the pleasantries about the weather were out of the way, Sid cleared his throat and said, ‘So, can we start?’

Murali opened his mouth to speak, but Ravi piped in, ‘Sid, Akash said he would join us, should we wait for him?’ Sid gave Ravi a withering look which had absolutely no impact on the young man. He was about to say that there was no need to wait, and that Akash would pick up the threads, when the door opened and Akash came in, bustling with self-importance. Murali stood up to greet Akash as did the rest of the agency. Sid cringed inwardly. Whenever Murali and Akash met, the conversation between them was always extended and jovial, with entirely senseless rambling. It was to be no different this time. After ten minutes more of poor jokes, meaningless reminiscing and comments about the weather, a lull in the conversation indicated it was finally time to start the script presentation. Sid looked at his watch
–
11.30 a.m., already! And not one useful task had yet been accomplished all morning.

Murali put on his serious business face and turned to Akash. ‘Akash, we have something brilliant for you today, you’re going
to love it. It’s brilliant, boss! When you hear it, you’re going to say, “brilliant!”.’ Akash nodded as if under a spell, but Murali continued with a warning in his tone, ‘But, you have to be able to see it, you have to be able to visualize … and if you can’t visualize it…’ He shook his head sorrowfully. ‘… you won’t be able to appreciate it.’

Akash nodded sagely and Sid cleared his throat, irritated that Murali seemed to be addressing only Akash. Murali continued, ‘Rimi came up with this script, so, I’d like her to present. Go ahead, Rimi.’

Sid noted that Akash had assumed his listening stance
–
he leaned back on his chair with a serious expression and covered his eyes with his hand. Rimi looked confused but Murali indicated that she should go ahead.

Rimi was a thin, pale young girl with long, flowing, black hair who had always given Sid the impression of being an anorexic ghost who smoked too much. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and started narrating the script in a low monotone that she presumably thought was very captivating and sexy.

‘The story opens with the camera panning out over a modern-looking room. There is a row of four beds, each of which has one person fast asleep under the covers. We cannot see who they are until suddenly there is a ray of sunshine that beams through the window over each of the beds in quick succession. As this happens, the people on the bed throw off their bed covers in perfect synchronization. As they emerge, we see that they are four very beautiful, young girls. They stretch in synchronization and step out of their beds in synchronization. In perfect synchronization they get ready quickly and have their breakfast. They step out of the house
in synchronized steps. We then see that they have reached another building. At this building, they step inside and go into a changing room where there are four empty booths waiting for them. In perfect synchronization, they step into the changing booths and when they step out we see they are in swimming suits. In the climax of the film, all four dive in perfect synchronization into a swimming pool and it is revealed to us that they are in fact
–
synchronized swimmers!’

There were a few long moments of silence
–
of anticipation on the agency’s side, horror on Sid’s part. Akash was nodding slowly, his hand still covering his eyes.

As per protocol, Akash, as the most senior person, was supposed to speak first. Everyone waited … and waited. Finally, Akash uncovered his eyes and spoke, but only to sidestep smoothly by saying, ‘I’m still absorbing it. Sid, you want to react first?’

This was exactly what Sid had been hoping for. Biting back sarcasm, he asked politely, ‘This is supposed to be an ad for our lead toilet cleaner, Kollinex. I must have missed the part where that came in?’

Rimi fumbled with her script, the very picture of ghostly, pale confusion, but Murali stepped in, booming, ‘Well, obviously Rimi didn’t spell it out, Sid, but the very idea here is to bring a certain glamour to the category. These girls are well rested and fresh in the morning. “Fresh in the morning”. The morning routine consists of bathroom visits
–
it’s about the concept. Here we are trying to give you a feel of the whole story without the boring product windows and brand specifics.’ He paused for impact, and to give Sid a look that magnificently combined superiority with reproach. ‘But of course, you have to be able to
visualize
it.’

Work Sid prided himself on being a cool character whose feathers rarely got ruffled. Right now, however, he felt the blood rushing to his ears. He was on the verge of telling Murali to
visualize
exactly where he could stuff his lousy script, when Akash finally cleared his throat and looked up at the several tense faces around the room.

He exclaimed, ‘I can see it! I can visualize!’

As Sid looked on in dumbstruck horror, unable to believe his ears, Akash continued, ‘Apart from the minor point that Sid has mentioned, I think this is indeed brilliant!’ The agency faces lit up with happy, relieved smiles as he continued, ‘It is attention grabbing! It has glamour! It has a story! Brilliant! Let’s create the storyboard and put it into research quickly!’

He got up to shake Murali’s hand. The meeting was concluded amidst happy laughter and jubilation all around. Sid sat glued to his chair, numb with shock. His team looked confused and disappointed, with one notable exception
–
young, enthusiastic Ravi who continued to take what appeared to be copious notes, pausing every now and then to shoot gleeful looks around the room.

The agency left shortly thereafter. Sid presumed they planned to take the rest of the day off getting drunk. He bade them farewell, his fake work-smile pasted on his face. The room emptied and Sid was the last to leave. He sighed as he went back to his desk with heavy steps, and a thought entered his mind
–
would it be premature to resign before finding alternative employment?

He quashed the thought almost immediately. This was only a minor setback. In the overall scheme of things, his career was progressing well here. And besides, the script would never go through to become a film. It could never hope to clear any
consumer research. Thankfully, there were enough checks in the company’s systems to avoid such mistakes. Of course, he thought a tad bitterly that the system had clearly and utterly failed when Akash managed to sidle in
–
secret sports quota or no secret sports quota.

Back at his desk, Sid found himself staring at his laptop blankly. It was already well past noon and he was yet to even begin putting together some sort of a priority list of tasks for the day. This had hardly ever happened to him before. He sighed
–
the unpleasant situation at home was probably weighing him down.

His cell phone rang
–
it was from his home landline number. Ah yes, Mandira was working from home today. He had just been thinking about her. What timing! Maybe this was a sign that it was time to finally make up, maybe they would be able to sort things out and then everything would get back to normal. He picked up and said in a warm, friendly tone, ‘Hellooo…’ Maybe his day was finally about to turn around.