The Tough Decision

Madan sat staring at the two reports lying on his table - he hadn't intended placing them like that, but subconsciously he had placed them on either side, as if weighing them. One was not a surprise, but delightful still.

Nikesh, his marketing manager - marketing, had pulled off the impossible - what was impossible for others but nothing to him. He had single-handedly signed up four major clients for the products they manufactured. It was a coup, four coups in fact, of sorts. But that was expected of Nikesh - he was a brilliant communicator, a great marketing guy who had risen up the hierarchy very fast and a great charmer who could charm the poison off a snake.

The revenues as a result of bagging these contracts would take the company to the next level. The down the line sales people would be challenged and motivated to achieve more. The production would go up and it was a win-win for all.

Madan had known Nikesh for long, and he knew his Sr. MM was brilliant. He had been planning how to reward this high achiever when the other report - or rather, the note - had been brought in.

In one moment, he felt as if the rug under him had been pulled. Since then, he had been unable to focus on anything, shuffling and unshuffling the two reports. Placing one on top of the other and then pushing them both away.

The success story tasted bitter. For along with it came an accusation that he could not ignore. One of the marketing executives who had helped Nikesh in signing up one of the clients accused Nikesh of not just taking all the credit, but also of gender discrimination and sexual exploitation.

She had clipped together the interactions with the senior management in the client company to prove that she was already pursuing that deal. For the other two, it was only her word against his.

Madan's head reeled. Unable to decide on a course of action, he quietly left for the day and avoided taking any calls. Finally, at night, he called Nikesh - to congratulate him on the sales and then gradually bring up the matter of the complaint.

"Shit!" Nikesh blurted. Madan's heart sank. He was left in no doubt of Nikesh's guilt. Nikesh was pleading, blaming the drinks, the high of achieving the deal closure, the ambiance and all other irrelevant reasons for his unforgivable behaviour.

Suddenly Nikesh stopped speaking. "Madan... I am sorry yaar. I even apologised to that girl and told her not to bring it up to you. I promised to make good..."

"Please, will you stop it?" Madan snapped.

There was a brief silence before Nikesh said, "By the way, remember the multinational you wanted to tap for the niche product we are developing?"

Madan's interest was piqued. "Yes?"

"I am in touch with the Indian head. His boss from the HO is coming next month and he promised to get me a meeting. Of course, that was before..."

Madan sighed. "We will talk about it tomorrow."

As he ended the call, he started seeing dollars and how Nikesh would be able to pull this one too. In less than six months, his company would be a global company.

Next morning, there was only one report on his table. The other one had been shredded and the writer promoted to head her own sales office in a city of her choice.

The hero

"Your dad looks so handsome!" whispered Niharika in her friend Sangeeta's ears. The two giggled.

Sangeeta felt justifiable pride. Even young men paled in front of her middle-aged father. He was tall, trim, smart, his salt and pepper hair kept short. But what made him most attractive was the confidence he oozed. People hung on his words, seeking his views on economic trends; they watched him for fashion trends; they imitated his high-profile lifestyle.

Niharika grinned and said, "I know where I am going to apply for work," and rushed towards her friend's father. "Uncle!"

Sangeeta shook her head, laughing. The two had just completed MBA in finance from a reputed institution. Even she did not think of seeking her father's help for a job - but then, she also had to prove her mettle to him, that she could keep her head over water without his help. Niharika had no such compulsions.

"Is Niharika good?" her father asked her at dinner.

"You mean in her subjects? Yes, she is a rank holder."

"That does not mean much," Shekhar said dismissively. "Anyway, she asked me for a job and I have asked her to apply. I will ask the HR to test her before committing anything."

Sangeeta's heart swelled. Yes, she expected no less; definitely no sentimental nonsense about Niharika being his daughter's friend. She nodded noncommittally. And so, when her friend was selected, she was even more thrilled, glad that her friend had proved herself worthy of it. Now her father need never be ashamed of recommending Niharika for a job.

As a management trainee, Niharika seemed to shine. But she seemed too busy for Sangeeta, who was still hanging around, waiting for an opportunity. And then, she met her friend in a restaurant one evening, her face belying her quick growth at work, from trainee to assistant manager in a matter of months.

"Congrats! I called you, but you never returned my call!" she said accusingly. Niharika smiled but seemed uncomfortable. She got up abruptly and said, "You are meeting someone here? How sad I can't stop to chat! I am in a rush," she excused herself. Sangeeta found it strange, and even felt resentful. After all, Niharika's busy-ness was thanks to her dad!

She sat in a corner and was surprised to see her father walk in through the doors, his eyes scanning the restaurant. He didn't notice her and stared intently at the mobile. Sangeeta called out to him.

He turned, with something akin to shock, but quickly recovered. He walked up to her and after the briefest of conversations, excused himself and left. Sangeeta shrugged. Maybe she was poor company.

She asked her dad that evening how Niharika was. "Your friend?" he asked, sipping whiskey and soda. "How should I know?"

She laughed. "Isn't she still working in your company? Don't act so hoity-toity, dad!" she rebuked him affectionately.

His eyes twinkled. "My managers keep the young girls hidden from me."

But Niharika had a different story to tell. She called Sangeeta the early next morning, asking to meet urgently. She wanted to meet in her house. No one else was there.

Sangeeta was stunned to find her friend in tears. "I am sorry!" Niharika sobbed.

"It's okay... Is it about last evening?" Sangeeta asked.

"About last evening, about all the evenings."

"Hey, no issues! I know you have been busy at work."

"Not so much at work," Niharika said after a brief pause. "But other things."

"Other things?" Sangeeta asked, surprised.

Niharika avoided looking at her. Sangeeta wished she had avoided telling her too.

Initially, it all seemed like fun - being favoured, getting special treatment, even the light flirtation; then it gave her a sense of power, that she was privileged; and then it scared her, the price she had to pay. All the growth and trust came at a cost that she had missed reading in fine print. Flirting had been with the intention of baiting, not the harmless time pass she had imagined it to be. The most powerful man in the organisation did not dole out favours lightly. And when he did, pay up time followed soon after, relentlessly.

But what killed her was not the betrayal of trust, but the hurt she would cause in revealing it to her friend. She had delayed, agonised over it and even decided to slink out of her friend's life forever, till they happened to meet in the very restaurant where she had a rendezvous with the father. It was a moment of truth - of knowing the truth would come out one day as sleaze.

There was no gently way of pulling the mask off the most admired man, of telling his daughter that he could not be trusted within a mile of a pretty girl but to be direct...

Sangeeta slapped her friend and ran from her house. What a bitch! It was Niharika who had admired her father and probably thrown herself on him shamelessly. And now, when her father must have dissuaded her and put her in place, it was all coming out as venom, maligning a respectable man.

She ran into her mother's arms and sobbed. With great difficulty, fearing hurting her mother, she narrated what Niharika had told her, expecting her mother to pooh-pooh it all. She watched her mother's bright eyes dimming and then the glow dying altogether. Her mother pulled Sangeeta to her bosom and held her tightly. "I wished to protect you from this!" Then, moving her back and looking into Sangeeta's eyes, her mother said, "It will be hard at first, but you will learn to live with it."

Sangeeta stared at her mother in disbelief. She felt something die within her.

The Rozabal Line

Ashwin Sanghi's 'Chanakya's Chant' disappointed me in the end. His historical reconstruction was amazing, but the current day political drama lacked something - maybe, a larger purpose.

So I picked up this book - The Rozabal Line - with apprehension. He proved me wrong. With amazing cross linking of events culled from research across online and library sources, he reconstructs a wonderfully plausible story. He links events, words and philosophies across multiple religions with ease and weaves it into a thrilling story of the hunt for proof.

From the word go, this book was unputdownable. But what I loved the most in the end was the answer to the question, are religions bad?

"There is something good to be found in all faiths, Vincent. The problem has never been belief but the deliberate misinterpretation and misuse of it."

I don't remember any controversies surrounding this book, and I am surprised.

Light Up The Mind

Through the dark winter nights
When gloom and despair weaken our minds
Oh delicate lady of prosperity
May your light burn a path so bright

The black silence rouses our fears
Demons mock our very weakness
Oh brave lord of courage
Destroy them so we may see the way

Lights and sounds fill the air
Should we shouldn't we, the debate rages
And yet lights and crackers ablaze
The festive season of joy arrives

The bright lights, the crackers say
Have fun, share the joy
Destroy the darkness of your mind
Let the mind light up from within.

The Wail

"Sorry, I just couldn't get away earlier," Suparna apologised as she entered Radha's home, sighing and breathless.

"I don't know why you kill yourself like this!" Radha replied smugly. She handed her two-year-old boy to the nanny.

Suparna eyed the neat-looking woman and felt a pang of jealousy. "Where did you find her?"

"A friend referred. She has been here a week now, and what a relief!" Radha exaggerated dramatically.

Suparna reclined on the diva watching Sameer resist being carried in. "Mama," he said plaintively, but Radha just rolled her eyes and faced Suparna blocking her son off. "He has to get used to her, of course... But I think he will in a few days." Suparna looked sceptical. Radha looked at her pityingly. "Who is taking care of your girl?"

"Manoj... He finally managed to find the time. Of course, he cribbed. He wanted us to spend time together, but our evening-out had been so long pending... Don't you think you should check on Sameer?" she asked, unable to bear the wail from the other room.

Radha got up and picked up her hand bag. "Let's move. Teething trouble, but I am sure he will settle more easily if I am not around."

Suparna frowned uncertainly, hesitant to follow her friend out. "Are you sure? Maybe you should wait for him to settle down, sleep or something?"

"You know what your problem is?" Radha affectionately put an arm around her friend and dragged her out. "You fret too much and your hubby puts too many ideas into your head! What's wrong with employing a nanny if it makes your life easier? You don't have to kill yourself just because you are a mother, you know? Get a life man! We have been planning this for weeks!"

"Well," Suparna's eyes glittered with resentment. "It is not as if you were free either! If I remember right, you found the previous one stealing money!"

"Well, there are bound to be risks! You walk on the road, you may die. But you don't stop walking, do you?"

Suparna shrugged. "It is a matter of another year and a half at the most..."

"18 months! I would die if all I had to do was watch my baby, much as I love him!"

"Sigh! Yes, sometimes I do lose my cool. But I am also quite apprehensive. What if the woman is not trustworthy? Girl children are so vulnerable, aren't they?"

Radha burst out laughing as she started the car. "I am so relieved I don't have to worry about that, though I don't what you are worried about! You are after all going to employ a female... So...?" She raised an eyebrow.

Suparna shrugged, wondering why she tended to nod her head when Manoj pointed out the drawbacks of a nanny. Maybe, deep within, she really didn't want someone else playing with her child's life. She looked at Radha and admired her cool. What an obsessive mother she herself was! Even when leaving her daughter with Manoj, she had started writing so many instructions and then given up, hoping Manoj would know what to do.

The wailing, though far behind, bothered her. She really must stop obsessing.

*
"Hi Suparna! Want to go out for lunch? My mom is here and I can do with an afternoon off..." Radha called Suparna a month later, sounding very light hearted.

"Oh! I didn't know your mother was coming!" Suparna replied, genuinely surprised.

"Sameer has been acting strangely. He refuses to use the toilet, and you know he was potty trained. He is giving the nanny hell, and oh, he is giving me hell! I haven't slept in a week. My mom came a couple of days ago, and what a relief! She is helping me settle Sameer again."

Suparna remembered the same dramatic tone she had heard from Radha a month ago. She remembered the wailing child and her own misgivings. But before she could say anything, she heard someone call Radha urgently. Must be her mother. "One sec," Radha told her and holding the received away, called back to her mom. "What ma?"

"Come here! Look at this!" her mother sounded very scared.

"Suparna, will call you in a minute," Radha said, worried and scared at her mother's expression.

She followed her mother quickly to where Sameer was whimpering. "Come baby," the granny crouched and opened her arms. The boy toddled up to her slowly. Radha frowned. "Has he polio?" she whispered in fear.

Her mother did not reply but just hugged the boy to her. "You are hurt?" she asked gently. "Show mama..."

The boy lay down obediently and the grandmother gently parted his legs. Radha was shocked to see a weal screaming at her in red. "How did it happen?"

The boy's eyes looked at her in panic. The grandmother raised a hand to silence her daughter and said softly to the child. "How did this happen, baba?"

"Aunty..." the boy said and covered his organ with his fist.

Radha sat down devastated. How had she not known. The wail, the wail... it had become so part of routine, every time the damn woman changed his dress. She frowned - she changed his dress almost five to six times a day. He refused to let that woman take him to the toilet! He fought hard every time that woman carried the boy in her arms. He wailed in his dreams, in fact, almost throughout the day.

And she, Radha, the mother, had gritted the teeth and riled at the wailing. Where had she been? What had she been doing?

She had trusted another woman, a mother of two, to bring up her child too. While she sat back to get some me time.

She dissolved in tears when her mother's sharp voice pulled her short. "Get hold of yourself. Wash your face, smile and pick up that child. He needs you more than anyone else right now."

Dream Lover

My head on your lap
Your hand on my head
You take me gently
To the world of oblivion

My eyes closed
My breath even
My limbs loose
My mind on leave

Drifting, floating
Safe in your arms
In a world of our own
Untouched by harm

You remain true
Till I surrender to you
Angry when anxiety
Claims me for its own

Don't desert me
When worries beset me
For in you I find
True love that affects me

Love me, kiss me
Heal me, cure me
Sleep, my dream lover
Embrace me, forever and ever.

The Conversation: Part IV

Getting Engaged - Part III

Meeting the Groom - Part II

The Arranged Marriage - Part I

What does a rock feel like? Just as she felt right now? When the breeze failed to cool you? When the blood froze? When you forgot to breathe and stood stock still like this? When the gaze was fixed on a pinpoint between his two eyes and just along the nose?

“I am sorry,” a voice whispered. Was it he or she? His eyes held hers captive and she felt the solid thawing. “Then why?”

He shrugged and looked away. She felt cold and shivered, though the night was warm. “I told my father you deserved better, but he thinks I am the best around, naturally. So I tried talking to your father and he wanted to know if you were not good enough for me.”

Something pricked her heart, but she didn’t know what. Maybe it was the ‘great catch’ bit.

“I will tell my father I don’t want to marry you,” she said with determination.

He looked at her sharply. “You don’t?”

She bit her lower lip in agony. “I don’t want you to be unhappy,” she said finally, unable to bear the pain. She was mortified to feel tears running down her cheek and hoped that he wouldn’t notice in the darkness.

“Why would I be unhappy marrying you! It is you I fear hurting,” he said energetically.

“Why then…? Hurt me… how?” Her voice trembled. Nothing he said could hurt her. “Neelam?”

“Neelam?” he asked then shook his head. Sighing deeply, he said, “No, of course not.” She waited silently, not wanting to disturb his thoughts. “I don’t know how to say it… Only last year I discovered I have a four-year-old son.”

“What!” she couldn’t help exclaiming.

He didn’t look at her. “Deepa and I had been going steady in college but we broke up sometime soon after finishing because she went abroad to study. We met a couple of times but long distance didn’t work for me. We lost touch after we broke up. Last year, I happened to meet a girl when returning from London. She was very young, maybe in college, and had a small boy with her. I helped her with her luggage and completing the travel formalities. We ended up in seats next to each other and easily slipped into conversation, telling us little insignificant details about each other. When I mentioned my college, she got curious and asked me if I knew Deepa – that was her sister’s name. I am ashamed to think that I didn’t have to courage to say I knew her well – but that we were batchmates. She wanted to know if I knew who Deepa went around with, because this child was that man’s, born soon after our break up. I was stunned, speechless and a coward. I didn’t have the courage to admit I was the man, that that child was mine. I evaded answering, shut my eyes and pretended to be asleep. When we got off, I just rushed as if I had another plane to catch. She thrust a paper in my hand, her address… But I dropped it somewhere without a thought.”

A heavy silence lay between them. She stood uncertainly, a part of her wanting to reach out and touch him and the other part, turn around and run away. Where was this headed?

“I became distracted, that boy’s face bothering me. I had carried him, talked to him and try as hard as I could, it wouldn’t go away. Neelam and I started having problems, and finally we broke up. But even that did not bother me as much as losing that boy did.”

Kirti stepped closer and whispered. “You are trying to locate that boy now?”

He stood still. “Yes… I remembered where she lived in London and also the college she had studied in. I made several false starts…” He turned to her. “The last time we met… I had just returned from one such futile trip. I was frustrated and tired. I am sorry, I know it didn’t go off well.”

She looked down, avoiding his eyes. A dull ache hurt her chest. He touched her chin and gently lifted her face. “My parents don’t know about this. I wish I had had the time to talk to you properly. But I returned only last night, after finally meeting Deepa’s sister and…my son.”

A drop rolled down her cheek and fell on his index finger.

“What do you plan to do now,” she managed to ask, before he could pity her.

“Bring the child, be his father.”

“Oh!” she said flatly.

“Tell me now,” he asked when she did not say anything more, “do you still wish to marry me?”

The dull ache turned to anger. “No,” she said, turned and walked away, trembling. She felt his eyes on her back. But he had left her with little choice.