Cat's Squirrel

all right, all right, all right

all right, all right, all right

all right, all right, all right

all right, all right, all right

Large banks are collapsing all around us, financial Armageddon they are calling it, everyone is nervous, but I can't help but think – isn’t this the coolest time to be selling detergent. And then almost as soon as I began to take some pride in what I do – here I am, my first all-night at work. It’s come as a terrible shock to me. Something needs to be changed in the software we use to sell our stuff to the market. Everything related to that is changing and it needs to be done over night because we can’t lose a day of sale and I misunderstood and thought it would be ‘okay’ if I did all this by the end of tomorrow. Of course Bombay thought it wouldn’t and I had to make immediate plans to get this done tonight – and in an exemplary display of leadership here I am, spending the night with the IT people here. Of course I am only listening to loud music and writing this while eating Twix.

I tend to switch from one tense to another in a single post. Have you noticed that? In class 9-10 when I had the best English teacher I have ever had in my life, she’d say that I could be a writer if only I learnt how to use when, while and the tenses. Of course I never learnt. When. She also called be Camus’ outsider. For a bit, in college, I thought it was cool. Now I don’t know what to say – it also depends on who is reading this?

I have lost my ability to stay up all night. In school I did it for every stupid test, and in the second year of graduation I stayed up for three consecutive days. Guess I am getting old. Nothing is worse than waking up early, and I was the only one in the hostel who slept early to wake up in the wee hours. I’d do mathematics.

It’s been a crazy week at work – but at the end of it I have found new motivation for it. Guess after a great first year, I was waiting for things to happen and not repeating the behaviour that delivered the goods last year. October should change everything – but so many bloody holidays.

Tiwari lost his parents when he was really young. His uncle sold him to a zamindaar for thirty eight rupees. The zamindaar would beat up Tiwari every night in a drunken state. Tiwari ran away as an eight year old. He then picked garbage at a railway station for many years. There he became a drug addict and nearly died of it. He reformed and went back to the zamindaar who was by then much older and also calmer. Tiwari served him for three years but the zamindaar’s sons kicked out Tiwari after the latter’s death. He then worked as a loader at a godown and married but his wife ran away with a neighbour and friend. Tiwari married again but this time he took to alcohol and the wife left him and took the two kids with her. He lay half frozen on the street when one of the press vehicles found him a few winters ago. He now owns a pan shop. He visits the temple every Tuesday and Saturday and has vowed never to marry or do drugs. Alcohol is fine, but only in moderation.

Gaurav’s brother works for IBM in London. He is as educated as his brother. But he works here in Patna because his father wants the elder son to stay back. There is quiet resentment in his eyes. I tell him to get an MBA degree through correspondence and to work on his English. He could earn much more than now. But he says his father is really stubborn about him staying back at home and looking after the family even if it means sacrificing his career. I give him the instance of my own father who in his later years hated my grandfather for not letting him go to SOAS as a lecturer. Anyway, the conversation brought us together. The next bit of data I requested for arrived in record time. “Agar main try karoon Sir toh mujeh issey achcha job, with better pay milega?”

Sunil, how I hate him, he is a first rate scoundrel. But I have to bear with him. He is exceptionally intelligent. He is really quick but equally evil, in a naughty childlike manner. Sunil’s dad owned a transport company in Jharkhand. Money was never an issue in the household, and this led Sunil astray. He got into bad company so much so that his dad threw him out of his house. He came to this city and studied computers and lived on the railway platform. Now he works here, but realises that with some more education he could be in a much better job. He wants to go back home too, to his mother, but is scared. He married a year ago but his wife is still with her parents. He visits occasionally. “Aap mujeh English sikhayenge Sir?”

Manoj is our oldest employee. He has seen many managers come and go, even two distributors. His problem is alcohol. He can’t sleep unless he has had seven or more rounds of it. Last year his kidneys gave in and his liver has suffered too. Since then he drinks only on weekends. He took to it when his brother gambled some twenty Lakhs of Manoj’s money. He borrowed from some local goons and then defaulted. The louts recovered the amount from Manoj. That ruined his business. He is the observer in the organisation. Doesn’t get into anyone’s way and won’t tolerate it if others get in to his. He has vowed to eventually quit drinking before the winters this year. “Sir, meri ladki ka admission nahin ho raha hai, aap kisi ko jaante hain Don Bosco main?”