Sorting Out Sid (32 page)

‘So, young man…’

Ah, the opening he loathed. Sid set his face firmly into his usual ingratiating smile as he looked up. ‘Hi, boss. Take a seat…’

Akash had already plonked himself onto a chair even before Sid finished speaking. ‘Today,’ he announced, ‘I have some good news.’

Sid waited a moment, gazing at Akash’s smug face and then asked politely, ‘Yes, boss?’

Now what? Was Akash inordinately tickled about some new toilet joke? Of late, in addition to his various other vile habits, Akash had taken to cracking ‘Potty-Susu’ jokes. It seemed that since they handled the toilet category, he considered them fitting. ‘Bathroom-Fitting’, the pun just occurred to Sid and he mentally filed it away. Akash had confided in Sid the previous week that his attempt was to ensure that spirits were always high in the office and everyone enjoyed their work. His so-called jokes always had everyone in splits of loud and forced laughter. Of course, Sid knew that the minute Akash left the room, the laughter changed quickly into depression, and desperate online job searches.

‘So.’ Akash leaned forward with that annoying know-it-all smile. ‘It seems you are going to Germany.’

Sid’s heart leapt into his throat. Kollin’s headquarters? Was he being promoted again? So soon? Had they already recognized the sparks of brilliance that he was demonstrating in his new role? This sounded unlikely given that there had been none, yet. Still, Kollin’s was a strange company. What would this mean? Was he going to head all of the European toilet category?

‘… for the annual Kollin’s conference in October.’

Oh. Sid felt deflated, but apart from his ears having flushed in excitement and now paling away, he exhibited no emotion. Akash didn’t seem too concerned about his reaction anyway, and continued in that same smarmy tone of his.

‘Only the country heads are going for this one and my level, of course. But I’ve recommended your name, too, so that you can get this international exposure and visibility. Of course,’ Akash’s smile became even smarmier, ‘you’ll have to make a killer presentation that makes us all look good in front of all the global toilet heads. If we impress them, it’ll make a huge difference to all of our future movements.’

Aha. That’s what it was. Akash wanted to palm off all the actual hard work to him in return for the trip. Hmm. Not that bad a deal, Sid decided. He hadn’t said a word so far, but now came back with, ‘
All
our future movements, boss. Including,’ he paused for effect, ‘bowel movements!’

Akash looked stunned for a moment and then started to laugh loudly, slapping his thigh. Sid didn’t know whether he was more disgusted at himself for pandering to his boss’s new crude taste in jokes, or at Akash for actually thinking it was funny. To cover up his feelings, Sid joined in with a loud
‘Ha ha ha’ himself. As soon as he thought it was polite, Sid interrupted Akash’s laughter with, ‘Don’t worry, boss. I’ll ensure we make the most of this opportunity.’

Okay, so, it wasn’t yet another promotion, but it was still good news. Besides, he reasoned, Neha might not have been ready to move to Germany with him just yet. But hey, that gave him an idea, maybe she would like to accompany him on this trip. It would be great, and would give them the chance to be alone for a while. Sid already knew that the Kollin’s annual conference was carefully timed each year to coincide with the Oktoberfest. Wow … A beer fest in Germany with Neha by his side. It couldn’t possibly get any better. Plus, Akash was right in his own slimy way, it would be an opportunity for Sid to get to know the biggies in the Kollin’s global team. And that could trigger good things for his career. Sid started to feel excited again and gave Akash a bright, confident smile that wasn’t as fake as usual.

‘So, good, GOOD,’ said Akash, ‘we’ll discuss the contours of the presentation, you just have three months to work on it. I think you should kick off work on it this week.’

Sid almost choked at these words, but managed to maintain his composure. ‘Fine, FINE, boss.’ As Akash got up, Sid couldn’t resist asking, ‘Hey, boss. Aren’t you perhaps going to send me a…’ Sid paused, trying to recall the correct phrase, ‘rough skeleton draft?’

Akash gave him a reproachful smile, and said in a patronizing manner, ‘Sid, Sid, Sid. Remember what we talked about? You’re a VP now, you don’t need inputs from me. I’m sure you’ll have it all under control. Just send me the final draft when it’s ready.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Sid muttered.

Akash paused at the door to say, ‘Now remember, this is a very important, high-quality event where every country will put its best foot forward. It’s very important to make an impression with the powers that be.’ He pointed reverently upwards and Sid followed his gaze. He knew the people Akash referred to weren’t actually on the tenth floor, they were in Europe. Sid thought it best not to mention it.

‘Yes, boss. You bet. We’ll show the powers that be.’ Sid thought about controlling it, but figured why the hell not just say it. ‘And the powers that pee!’

Akash blinked at him for a minute and then burst out ‘Hahahahahaha’, slapping his thigh again and pointing at him. Sid laughed back and pointed with a ‘right back at ya’ gesture, going hahahahaha, until Akash finally turned around to leave his office. Sid was sure he was going to go and write these terrible jokes down so that he could use them later. Well, he could go right ahead and take credit for them. Sid began to feel more kindly towards the Susu-Potty jokes, they definitely provided a release. Release? Hey, he could use that one later too.

Hahahaha … Akash’s laughter was still audible as he sauntered away from Sid’s office and within a second Sid’s face had a scowl on it again. He shook his head as he started to glare again at his laptop, muttering, ‘Should launch a special category of toilet cleaners for people like him … king-sized asshole.’

By 6 p.m. Sid couldn’t wait to get out of the office. He had determined that he would celebrate all the little joys of life with Neha. And the news about his Germany visit definitely fell in the category of little joys. Also, he hadn’t seen Neha for three whole days because she had been busy. This was the perfect opportunity for them to go out and have a good time.

He would take her to that ritzy new Beer Bar … what was it called again? Sid struggled to remember as the phone rang and he waited for Neha to answer. ‘Rockmann!’ he exclaimed.

‘What, Sid?’ She sounded a bit distracted. Oh. He hadn’t realized that she was already on the line. He giggled at himself and then went on.

‘I meant let’s rock, man!’

‘Sid…’

‘Okay, okay, listen, wait … I have big news…’

‘Sid, I can’t talk now, Kippy isn’t well at all…’

‘Oh.’ He felt disappointed. He paused for a second and said, ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said in a hurried manner, ‘I think it must be food poisoning, something they gave her at day-care … she’s in bad … wait, she’s throwing up again.’ Sid winced as her next words rang loudly in his ear, ‘Julie … ussko bathroom le jao … jaldi…’ Neha dropped her voice again. ‘Look, Sid, I can’t talk now, can you please…’

‘Sure, sure, no worries. I can see you have your hands full … I’ll call later.’

There was a slight pause and Neha’s voice was quieter when she said, ‘Okay. Thanks. Bye.’

Was it his imagination or was that a bit abrupt, the way she had just hung up on him? He dismissed the thought
–
she was just busy. Must be tough taking care of a small vomiting kid all by yourself. But then, she had Julie to help out. That was good. They would be all right.

But now what was he going to do? He didn’t feel like being alone tonight. Anyway, he couldn’t just sit at home, especially after telling Mandira he had plans. He packed up slowly, thinking about his options. He ran them through his head as he picked up his bag, headed out of his office and took the lift down to the basement car parking.

A crazy thought entered his head as he opened the car door and tossed his laptop into the passenger seat.

The Oktober fest. Almost every year, right from their college days, Vikas and he had made plans to go for it, but it had never worked out. That was why he was now thinking about his old friend. He sat silently in his car for a while. He couldn’t get the conversation of this morning with Mandira out of his mind.

Out of his mind! That’s what he was.

Still, what was the harm, really? Why hold a grudge? The marriage was over anyway. Did that have to mean the end of everything?

Sid took a deep breath as he dialled her number.

‘Yes.’ Her voice was more resigned than annoyed.

‘Mandira.’ He cleared his throat. ‘About what you said this morning … the thing is … my evening just cleared up.’

‘Madam, aap aa rahi hain?’

There was an urgent note in Julie’s voice as she struggled with Kippy in the loo. Her words startled Neha. She’d been staring at her phone for the last few moments, deep in thought. She could hear Kippy having a particularly violent bout of vomiting. She stood up quickly, feeling harried and confused.
Her movement was too sudden, and it made her head spin. She paused for a moment to steady herself.

It had been stupid of her. Expecting Sid to offer to come over. She had almost blurted out to him that she needed him to buy some medicine for Kippy on his way. How idiotic. Kippy was
her
daughter and Sid didn’t ever really need to be there for her. Or even for Neha, for that matter. She had to stop being so silly. Clearly, this thing with him was distracting her from what she really needed to be doing. That was irresponsible of her.

Kippy was crying for her in between bouts of throwing up. Neha hurried towards the bathroom, calling, ‘Wait, mama’s here, baby.’

She wasn’t even annoyed at Sid. It was her fault for kidding herself. He couldn’t know what this felt like. It wasn’t as if he was a parent himself. He needed to do some growing up. Well, maybe they both did. The difference was that he could afford to take his time growing up. She couldn’t.

Neha paused for a second at the bathroom door, resolving to focus a lot more on the only relationship in her life that really mattered. And then stepped over the threshold to comfort her crying, puking, desperately unhappy little daughter.

6

Aap Single Hain Ki Bachelor?

‘I
t doesn’t look like the Premium Toilet Cleaner range is taking off. Why is that?’ Rakesh, the group CEO of Kollin’s looked around the room. ‘Sid?’

Sid was caught off-guard. He had been busy checking his phone yet again to see if there was a message from Neha. All eyes in the boardroom were now on him and he became aware that he was supposed to respond. Akash was trying to appear knowledgeable and yet as distant as possible from the problem. It was perhaps the most complex expression Akash had ever managed on his face, but all Sid could think was that somehow it made him look uncannily like a … yes, a
commode
. That was it.

Sid cleared his throat to buy himself some more time. He had a pretty good theory about why the new range of Premium Toilet Cleaners wasn’t taking off. But it would be politically incorrect to reply, ‘Boss, that’s because its price is twice as high as any other brand in the category while the product efficacy is only about 10 per cent higher. The product development team thought that a better perfume connoting “premiumness” would make consumers react with delight, but the consumer
research team has now come back with their analysis that consumers don’t care about better perfume when it comes to toilet cleaners. In fact, they try hard not to breathe when cleaning their toilets. Besides, the core target audience for this range actually have domestic help for this kind of thing. So, the cleaning experience doesn’t even matter to them. In short, it was a stupid idea in the first place, and the man responsible is sitting across from me, looking like a commode.’