The Benefit Season (18 page)

Preeti shrugs and passes on the phone. Monal
just won’t give up! Dudes take time to gloat over the vibrating
boobs while passing the damn thing on. The house is in splits and
I’m just standing there looking on, with my cheeks burning a tomato
red.

‘
Ok snap out of it! That’s
quite enough fun for the day fellows- you don’t get to laugh
anymore on company time. So, if no one wants to own up to this
damnation let’s crunch these numbers again’.

People are still simpering
but I soon manage to grab their attention and we are back on our
way to the next couple of charts and graphs, when the blasted thing
goes off again. This time it’s the
Vishnu
Aarti
blaring from the useless device-
that should only be used in great moderation.

‘
I thought I asked you to
switch it off or keep it out!’ I blast off poor Preeti. She
scrambles across the desk and grabs the phone off the hands of the
chump who is still hanging on to it hoping for another call from
Monal.

She is about to carry it off when she pauses
and says,’ sir it’s mom’.

I shrug exasperatedly,’ so whose mom is it
this time?’

Bad question. Taking it as an order to trace
the caller she dutifully nods and presses the call button before I
can lunge for it. ‘ Hello ma’am… yes ma’am … I’m Preeti ma’am… I’m
from the office … fine ma’am … thank you ma’am … no I’m not married
ma’am… yes, I’m Punjabi ma’am… yes, he’s here… please hold on…’ She
offers me the cursed, portable, cancer-causing device sent down
especially from hell to make me atone for my sins. ‘Sir, it’s your
mom!’ she says.

The house breaks into loud guffaws as I slam
the door behind me, cursing myself for being so careless.

ϖ

It has been a week since I
dumped the brain fryer. Now every one calls me on the landline at
home, or through Preeti in the office, or mostly not at all.
Landlines are too much trouble- remembering ISD and STD codes etc.
and they have only banal ringtones and no scandalous images or
videos to set you up for a rap when you aren’t looking. Monal has
to explain to the Assistant why she is calling every five minutes,
so she has gradually petered off, resigned to shoving a knee in my
crotch whenever she crosses me in the hallway, or to biting off my
ear if she catches me on her CC TV taking a coffee break. Now she
is seated across me in the
Vijay Hazare
Hall
where motivational speaker Josh Batra
has been invited to conduct an open house workshop on “The Mission
Statement: Who We Are”. I came last so took the last chair at the
end of the long oval table. Monal came even later and took the
empty chair opposite me, ignoring the guy who pulled an empty chair
for her at the head of the table where she should be. The lights go
off and the speaker arrives dot on time and begins to turn out
jarring clichés and sad anecdotes from his past.

‘
Sigh
’, I say.

‘
Sigh’
, replies the wrestler with the rump tattoo on my
right.

I take out my PDA, and he
pockets his glasses as we slide a couple of inches into our seats,
preparing for a long inertia of being at restless rest, at the
mercy of a ruthless instigator straining at the leash to throw
himself at us on that fateful
Annual
Inspiration Day
. He has rehearsed for
weeks, and isn’t in any mood to show mercy to a body of youngsters
well-nourished on an elaborate three-course meal in his honor, now
lulled into sweet slumber in a dark, air-conditioned, thickly
carpeted, sound proof hall with comfortable chairs and the welcome
prospect of a long and lazy afternoon with nothing to do except to
pretend to be awake.

Preeti had prepared me for it lasting two
hours, I had mentally prepared myself for one, and the ordeal
actually lasted for only three. Preeti had also timed her fast on
this day and had hence escaped the artery-choking refreshments and
the consequent physical urge to sleep sit through it all: she
watched me keenly from the front, to check if I stole a wink or
not. The company policy obviously was oblivious to the virtues of a
well-stocked bar that makes such occasions quite bearable and in
fact rather enjoyable. The performer who on the other hand was on a
natural high, and being egged on by doting front-benchers, dragged
every note, every syllable, every last vowel, impromptu wisecrack,
and sermon into the dying throes of our silently groaning patience.
Before long the wrestler is snoring softly with his head cradled
safely and snugly into the ample bosom of a napping secretary
seated next to him.

Monal keeps tossing random tidbits from the
table at me that keep me from slipping into coma myself. There’s a
mad glint in her eyes as she aims for my nose with cashews,
erasers, and half-sucked lozenges. Then she throws back her head
and sips from the pet bottle and empties it in one gulp. Then she
swallows it in her mouth till it nearly vanishes and then she
slowly pulls it out, looking me in the eyes all the while. She
begins to swirl her tongue on its tip, and wraps her wet, slippery
lips around it. She licks, blows, and sucks on it, pumping it with
her fist, in sync with her mouth, till I can watch no more. She
sees my agony and deep throats the bottle even harder, till the
sleepyhead on her side begins to show early signs of stirring from
that entire racket. Thankfully, she finishes performing fellatio on
the poor bottle and that ceases somewhat the tumult in my loins.
But she’s not done yet and she smiles roguishly and reaches under
the table with her hands, wriggling and twisting on her seat. I
watch on in horror expecting another bizarre performance from her.
But all she does it to tear off a sheet from her perfumed, ruled
notebook and pass it under the table. After a few baited breaths
pop comes out a crumpled paper ball hurtling across the table,
smacking me square on the nose, and rolling into my lap after doing
service. She leers across at me, gesturing that I open the rude
package. I warily open the paper, and lo and behold, find a piece
of soft, embroidered red silk with lace and satin bows. It has a
strong, familiar musky smell; I bring it near my nose and inhale
deeply- what the- it’s Monal’s thong! And wet! I look around the
dark hall to see if anyone has seen it and then hastily wrap it
back in paper and slip it into my pocket, my heart hammering
away.

She chuckles softly,
watching me like a sharp-shinned hawk biding time before it bursts
out from a hidden perch with a rush of speed to snatch a helpless
songbird and disappear with it in a flurry of feathers, to pluck
and eat it at leisure later. Monal is not the kind of woman who
takes lightly to rejection, that too at the hands of an employee at
the bottom of the food chain; I get it, I am the songbird, and it’s
a matter of time before I’m laid flat out on a nest of leveled
twigs lined with bark somewhere up there in the treetops, as hot
meal for a hungry raptor.
But how… when? I
don’t know, but have a feeling it’ll be just around the
bend.

Luckily the lights come on and the songbird
is safe, at least for now. The speaker up there is saying something
about people dipping into the neighbor’s pockets and replacing the
objects they find on the table. ‘Things we carry show who we are’,
his soft voice that barely carries to the back seems to be
saying.

Before I can scurry out of my scary reverie
into the safety of reality the wrestler has dipped his hammy fist
into my pocket and drawn the paper ball out and dumped it into the
basket the speaker is bringing to each of his audience. The speaker
has vanished before I can protest and demand my paper ball back.
Monal is smiling from ear to ear with the dainty brows raised till
the hairline at my predicament. She cups a slim hand around her
mouth to hide her mirth.

Is it time to pluck up that, which is
planted? Is the time of the songbird come already?

The speaker pours the
contents of his basket on a large table in the center of the dais,
illuminated brilliantly by the lights above; there being no lurking
shadows where
my
paper ball- whose unsolicited ownership has been transferred
to me by default, may melt into.

‘
Let’s begin, what do we
have here? The first object- the holy bible! Santa saw your
Facebook picture- you got a bible for Christmas. Ha! Next, a diary,
indeed! It reads, “ Uday spent 45 minutes at the water dispenser
with Rani on so and so date, so and so time.” A logbook! A spy for
the boss, an unscrupulous ratter on his friends; a double-edged
dagger who will demand a ransom when you serve up the pink
slip!’

I can see a female covering her face with
her hands and slipping down her chair; she must be Rani. Uday is
obviously the guy waving his fist at a man occupying discreetly one
of the chairs lining the wall, out of sight. Thank god, no one can
trace the thong back to Monal; it can’t have her autograph. Or can
it? I sit up in my chair, a chill running down my spine. I’ve heard
of men putting initials on handkerchiefs, but do they put them on
panties also? I wished I’d checked for signatures.

Meanwhile the man has found a scrapbook.
‘This guy is a born artist’, he goes, ‘ a keen doodler. Let’s see
what he has drawn lately- a pretty cross between a she-vampire with
talons and a skinny bitch wearing a dark business suit with
stripes’. There is stunned silence as he looks around the hall for
the victim; everyone knows it’s only Monal who wears striped
business suits; rest of the description is needless. Monal glares
at a spot where the speaker’s solar plexus is most likely to be and
where a sock will take his breath away, perhaps for good. ‘Well,
it’s obviously a loving rendition of a boss, not very flattering,
but he is a fan nevertheless, and observes her minutely!’ Now it’s
my turn to let a light smile course my lips. I can see Vishal up in
the front row sit up in his sofa and puff out the broad chest and
glower at the man. The speaker senses the hostility in the crowd
and hastily skips to the last object on the table- my paper ball-
crumpled, fat, perfumed, in signature pink, ruled and imported
stationery, that- it strikes me suddenly- only Monal uses in this
office. He opens the paper and holds up Monal’s red silk thong with
the lace and satin bows, still a little wet, still a lot musky, in
the bright light for all to see. It’s like the vision of an alien
ship descending on the sea in the purple glare of the setting sun.
People suck in their breaths and a loud gasp travels the hushed
hall.

‘
Do you guys need any more
proof? You need help- my help! Call me. I rest my case!’ There is a
loud burst of standing applause as he draws with his forefinger his
telephone number in the air triumphantly while being escorted out
of the hall by a furious Vishal, who it seems has recognized his
wife’s personal paraphernalia.

ϖ

Sooner or later Vishal will find out who was
carrying his wife’s private property crumpled up in a piece of
perfumed paper- again ill-gotten from her personal notebook-
provided he has recognized the thong, which I believe he has no
reason not to, unless he has never set eyes upon her in a
semi-unclothed state, and that would be a crying shame. It shall
soon come to pass that the wrestler will own up to having secured
the said package from my pocket- unless- he had omitted to
un-pocket the spectacles I faintly remember he had pocketed as he
had slipped into his seat and, placing his square head upon the
buxom lady’s rounded bosom proceeded to snore like a baby well-fed
on breast milk and gripe water. In such a case there’s an outside
chance that he may not have clearly seen what the revered speaker
had held up that afternoon in the glare of the overhead lights.
Mostly having had only outside chances in my life, I might yet
escape the truth machine.

Till then, the days must
be passed, and more immediate events be attended to, such as the
forthcoming passage by sea by the gigayacht,
The Dubai,
from Port of Mumbai to
Diu, a small ex-Portuguese colony on the southern coast of Gujarat
in the Saurashtra region. One of the prominent partners of our
company: an anonymous royal from the UAE, has lent his luxury boat
for ferrying around 30 handpicked guests from all over the world
for a grand finale of our annual foundation day convention, and the
inevitable bacchanalia that precedes as well as follows it, at the
Radhika Beach Resort at Diu.

Having seen the maniacal behavior of Monal
in the last few days, the prospect of being out at sea with her,
and in a beachside lair thereafter doesn’t enthuse me much; if she
can be so crazy when she’s sober in the office, I don’t care to
think much about how she will be when she and I both are high on
the lights, the music, the sights and finally the endless rounds of
drinks. But with her lady-killer husband around and other society
ladies present in droves with their inhibitions as well as clothes
shed, the chances of her preying upon me seem slim, and of her
keeping instead a sharp lookout on her consenting husband
plentiful. There seems no way out except to boldly go right in and
then stay out of sight.

The distance to Diu
happens to be around 188 nautical miles (NM), and even if we keep a
decent speed of 10 knots we can be there in a couple of hours. We
are to board her at 8 PM this Friday, and expect to moor at Diu
port the following morning comfortably. After spending a week there
the rest fly back to Mumbai while I proceed to Delhi for my
engagement with Aarti, scheduled on the 3
^rd
of January as per the
propitious hour determined by Khosla’s astrologer. Aarti has
already left for Delhi and hasn’t spoken to me ever since she saw
me dutifully attending to Monal’s twinkly toes in the
office.