Sorting Out Sid (5 page)

After a small pause, Sid wordlessly held out his pen. Akash sat down next to him, picked up one of the loose sheets of paper on Sid’s desk and started to write. Sid watched him as he wrote with his head bent over the paper, the tip of his tongue sticking out as he concentrated on writing out three or four bullet points in his large, childlike handwriting. Sid thought he looked like a true imbecile, which of course, he was. He had never liked Akash’s bug-eyed bespectacled, potbellied, balding appearance, but today he found it more revolting than ever. He felt a strong urge to empty the contents of his coffee mug on Akash’s head, but by the time Akash looked up, Sid had his practised fake smile pasted on his face again.

‘So, can I expect this by lunch?’ asked Akash. ‘That’s okay, isn’t it? Four hours is plenty of time for a rising star like you!’

Sid took a deep breath. He knew he was screwed. He would have to cancel all his meetings for the day and set himself and his team back because of the delay. He widened his fake smile, looked Akash in the eye and said the only thing there really was to say: ‘Fine, FINE, boss.’

Sid worked furiously at his computer for the next few hours, pausing only for brief, hourly smoke breaks. He gathered market share details and put together a presentation on the cross-portfolio strategy, made his brand managers run helter-skelter for data, images and other information. He was irritated that Meenakshi, the head of HR, kept coming up to him with silly questions about his team’s appraisal process. It hadn’t escaped his notice that, of late, Meenakshi seemed to be flirting with him. Yeah, right, he thought, like he was going to fall for that one. She was the long-haired, sari-wearing, traditionally good-looking type, but Sid had always been a little wary of her, thinking of her as the ‘Office Vixen’ variety. She was known to be rather sly
–
and was surprisingly unpopular for someone heading the people function. All her bosses seemed to love her though, so she obviously knew how to keep them happy. Sid tried not to get distracted by thoughts of how Meenakshi kept her bosses happy. She had never paid that much attention to him earlier, so he didn’t really know what she was up to. He figured perhaps his innate animal magnetism had finally struck her. Whatever. Right now, he had a presentation to focus on.

At exactly 2 p.m., Sid took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, exhausted. He closed his eyes for a minute. He hadn’t had any lunch, and all the black coffee he had rapidly consumed was giving him a great buzz, although he did feel rather light-headed and dizzy. He knew the presentation he had put together was truly exemplary in terms of quality, given the short notice. He was still leaning back with his eyes shut, congratulating himself, trying to work up the strength to order a pizza, when Akash’s voice boomed in his ear.

‘Sleeping on the job, eh? Not done, young man … Hahaha.’ Akash cackled and Sid winced at the sound. He made the effort to put on a pleasant face before looking up at Akash.

‘Not sleeping, boss, just finished the presentation.’ He straightened up in his chair and continued, ‘I was just about to mail it to you
–
you want me to take you through it?’

‘The presentation?’ Akash looked blank. ‘Oh, but I told you it’s been cancelled, right? I thought I mailed you
–
stupid things these emails, it must be stuck in my outbox or something.’

Sid sat there, frozen in disbelief. He couldn’t believe how casual Akash was being about this. Akash seemed not to notice though because he just sat down and continued, ‘Or maybe I forgot … Anyway, Rakesh just called to say that he is travelling tomorrow. I told him that now we would put together a detailed strategy deck after our workshops over the next few weeks, and get back to him for a final discussion by the end of next month.’

Sid gripped the sides of his desk. ‘But what about this work? I’ve put together a complete plan over the last few hours
–
it’s going to go waste?’

Akash cackled again and Sid grit his teeth into his fake smile. Akash said, ‘You need to think bigger, Sid. This work has not gone to waste … it will serve as a great draft for our final presentation … sort of like…’

‘A broad framework? Or perhaps the strategic top-line thoughts?’ Sid suggested, unable to keep the biting sarcasm out of his words.

Akash beamed at him, oblivious. ‘Exactly, exactly, my friend. And, by the way … there’s some good news.’ He leaned over
conspiratorially and Sid leaned back a bit. ‘You may have heard there are some changes at the top taking place around here. If our presentation next month goes well, you and I could both be going places. I’m sure you know the rumours, eh?’

Sid was completely blank. ‘Rumours?’

‘Yes, son,’ said Akash in a supercilious tone, ‘I will be moving out to better things, and therefore, you may be moving on to
my
better thing.’ Akash made a sweeping gesture with one hand to indicate his podgy body. Sid cringed, but then, as he deciphered this to mean his position in the office, he felt a sudden thrill.

Moving up to a vice president rank? That would make him the youngest VP in the company, he thought. That would … wait a minute … No wonder Meenakshi had been so friendly of late. She would definitely want to be on the good side of the youngest VP in the company. It wasn’t his animal magnetism after all. Man … that woman was so annoying and…

Sid noticed Akash was waiting for his reaction. Though Sid thought it highly inappropriate for a man at VP level to be discussing rumours about forthcoming movements, he said, ‘Well, that’s definitely good news.’ He still felt irritated about wasting the morning, but this was really something.

‘Good! Good!’ said Akash. He slapped Sid on the back and said loudly, ‘Keep it up, young man.’ With a conspiratorial wink and a thumbs-up, Akash finally got up. Sid couldn’t bring himself to return the wink but made up by giving two thumbs-up with a tight smile. As Akash left, he turned back to his computer, allowing his features to melt into a scowl. Asshole, muttered Sid to himself.

As a result of having wasted the first half of his Monday on a presentation that would never see the light of day, Sid was completely caught up after lunch in trying to finish the day’s tasks. When he next looked up it was already 7 p.m.

Just one more email, Sid vowed, and then I’m going straight home. He couldn’t wait to curl up with the television and a mug of cold beer. It had always been his idea of the perfect evening, and today of all days he deserved it.

He finally stepped out of his office to find that it was already dark. Shit. Night driving. Reminding himself silently about which one was the high beam and which was low, he got into the car and drove home, slowly and carefully.

Congratulating himself on having made it home without incident, Sid took the lift up to his eighth-floor apartment and let himself in. He was whistling as he walked in, and the echo made him aware of the unusual silence in the house. Where was Mandira?

Must have made some plan of her own, he thought. Could have at least let me know. Now what was he going to do for dinner?

Dinner! It suddenly came upon him in a flash. Mandira had mentioned something in the morning about dinner. Oh damn it. Dinner tonight was with Vikas and Sunny. She had said 8 p.m. He looked at his watch
–
8.30 already. Double damn!

Mandira was really uptight about things like this
–
even a regular, informal dinner like this had to be treated with military precision. The worst part now was that he didn’t even feel like going
–
he toyed with the idea of cancelling. He could just say that he was tired and didn’t feel like coming over, that he wanted to watch TV and have some cold beer in the comfort of his own home. Or maybe, he thought, I should
pretend I’m really unwell and can’t get out of the house. But he knew that Mandira would end up getting upset with him for not coming no matter what he said.

He sighed heavily and picked up his car keys again. Chalo, he tried to console himself philosophically, there would be television and cold beer at Vikas and Sunny’s too.

And where there was beer, there was hope.

5

Meeting Ms Meenakshi

‘S
id! I really need to discuss your team’s appraisal with you. When will you be able to take out time for me?’ Sid looked up to see Meenakshi leaning over his table, her face unnecessarily close to his. The words were perfectly normal, but her singsong tone, the coquettish tilt of her head, and the petulant expression were blatantly flirtatious. She stopped short of actually pouting her pink lips, but the overall effect was fairly pouty.

He cleared his throat and said, ‘We can discuss it anytime, I never said we can’t.’ He looked confused. ‘Did I?’

Meenakshi threw her head back and laughed. Peals of high-pitched laughter. Sid winced slightly. Usually, he loved bringing about such a reaction, especially in women
–
he suddenly remembered Aditi’s party where that pocket-sized Coorg-not-Coorgi Bangalorean Neha’s loud laughter had almost hypnotized him. But in Meenakshi’s case, the laughter sounded fake. Also, he noticed for the first time that while her face was quite pretty in a smooth well-made-up feline way, her gums showed too prominently when she laughed, and he found that mildly creepy. Besides, he thought self-righteously, it was clear that she had other intentions. Well, I’m a married man, lady. He patiently waited for her to finish laughing. He would have to be careful not to be ‘Witty Office Sid’ with her. If a simple two-word question could get that reaction out of her, what would happen when he made a real joke? No, no
–
would have to avoid funny, just stay cool and polite.

Meenakshi finally caught her breath, leaned over him again and said, her voice suddenly changing to throaty and businesslike, ‘Let’s talk now, shall we?’ Sid nodded mutely. In one smooth motion, with a rustle of her green sari, she straightened up and sashayed to the closest conference room, long straight hair swinging slightly. He watched her for a second before scrambling to get up and follow her. He had to admit the woman had style
–
how had he never noticed before? Well, he was being forced to notice it these days, given her sudden interest in him. But that was only because of his forthcoming promotion and he wasn’t falling for it!

He settled himself down in one of the conference room chairs and leaned back, waiting for Meenakshi to begin. Since Sid hadn’t been able to concentrate much today, he was actually kind of glad about this distraction from the routine. In fact, before she interrupted him, Sid had been staring at his screensaver for a full fifteen minutes. For once, he had been unable to force thoughts of the previous night’s argument out of his head.

Mandira and he had fought late into the night after their evening with Vikas and Sunny. Well, it was she who had fought, really. He had just stayed quiet, while she ranted about what had happened during the evening. Which, as far as he was concerned, was not his fault at all.

Sid sighed, resolving that the next time Mandira suggested they go over to Vikas and Sunny’s, he would refuse. Now they were arguing even in front of other people. It had embarrassed him immensely. What had things come to? They couldn’t pretend to be ‘Happy-Sid-and-Mandira’ for even their best friends any more?