Hasty Retreat

I jump ahead many years with this account, from what I think of as my third life.

I never promised you chronological accuracy anyway.

On this day, I was to encounter my most bizarre meeting ever. I was at the head office of a mid-sized company's MD for different reasons, perceived by me as altruistic and by him as predatory. I only realized this much later.

The most amazing thing is - this man got exactly what I now suppose he wanted out of the meeting - for me to beat a hasty retreat and never look back. Let's call him Mr. Marfatia*.

* Names have been changed, to protect me.

Introducing myself via the person who had referred me to him, I gave him a succinct background of the cause I was there to promote and a little printed information - a worthy dossier, I thought.

In hindsight, I ought to have come armed with a few idols, some 'prasad' and a quotation or two from the Bhagvad Gita which foretold his support of the cause.

I was ready for the questions which usually get asked about the non-profit organisation I was representing.

He leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowed and steepled fingers resting on his chin.

"You have an orange-yellowish aura. That's very interesting!" he said.

I had no comeback.

Especially as I was not sure whether an orange aura was good or bad according to the aura seers.

If, amongst aura seers, this was a shameful insult, I'd be a fool to smile and say 'Why, thank you!'. And what if this was the ideal colour? I'd alienate him forever if I spat out a 'Says you! I want a second opinion' at him. 

"You have gone through difficult times. And you are a nice, lovely person" he continued.

I could see where he was going with this. No person on earth would dispute these statements.

"And mature". I hoped he meant my mind, not age.

"I can see auras, y'know", he added unnecessarily.

I knew I had to say something soon. I couldn’t forever sit dumbfounded.

While he took a call on his deskphone, my gaze wandered to the extra-large prints of various Gods to Sai Baba's portrait on the wall to an array of idols on all available surfaces. He was clearly a god-fearing soul and I felt - surprisingly - less at ease.

An overly grandiose exhibition of spirituality, that too, in commercial surroundings like an office, amongst the wrong kind of people, causes an opposite reaction in me. It’s like the person is trying hard to disguise his real nature amidst the signage of all that is good and worthy in the eyes of the world.

The truly spiritual don’t need opulent physical expression of it except the little needed to sustain their faith. Especially at the workplace.

Mr. Marfatia in particular, suddenly seemed all wrong.

Instinct told me I'd met my match at repartee - when trying to get aid out of very rich people for a cause - simply because I had none.

Might as well get my fortune told.

"So, how did you find me?" he asked.

Now he was beginning to scare me. Perhaps there should be less agarbatti smoke and more oxygen in the room.

"In my mail requesting an appointment, I'd enclosed the reference from Mr & Mrs XY who had recommended you? They said that you'd expressed interest in supporting this group's work and gave us your details. After which I spoke with you and you confirmed this meeting."

"You met them on a flight", I helpfully added.

"Yes, yes, I remember them, amazing people. But this is my new office, how did you find the address?"

"When my first courier came back undelivered, I surfed online and found a listing of your new address and resent it." And overcame your attempts to avoid my visit.

"Very, very resourceful" he mused.

Not really, I thought. In this digital age, what I’d done was simply the manual equivalent of finding a name from a phone directory. No matter. I was waiting to see by how much he'd loosen his purse strings. Based on one or two past successes, I had a number in mind.

"Y'know, am surprised to see you. I had expected to see a lady in a cotton sari with a jhola. Maybe even an old lady", he went on to say.

Disclaimer: I have to insert this here for other good folks who may or may not be working with NGOs and may or may not be reading this. Please remember, the views expressed here are not my own and I am not liable for inflammatory statements made by others.

What I have left out here are the innumerable times I'd responded to his comments from this point on, with a little nugget about the ngo's achievements. Each time he looked at me blankly and continued speaking as if I hadn't.

"So what do you get out of it?"

I was ready for it. I was always asked this.

"I am not a college student hoping to earn a better score in a foreign university admission by showing non-profit work experience, and neither am I at the start of my career where I hope to add this to my cv to give it an edge. I don't take any monetary benefit." I rattled off glibly.

Or looking for self-publicity and get myself profiled across 4-page articles in popular women's reads like Femyna after barely 3 months of ngo "work experience". They would run a 'we'll feature you and a friend for free' special once in a few months. Curiously, in the half page outdoor pic, you'd find the ngo employees in Fabindia kurtas and stoles or demure 3-yard cotton dupattas swathed around a deprecating, just visible white salwar. No matter that no one ever saw them in such these clothes before or since. I'd been fooled in the past many a time by such features, once even calling up an ngo thinking that the person featured was a demi-goddess, who managed dangerous fieldwork to being the administrative brains behind the show and a star fundraiser, only to be told by the incredulous and actual founder that the lady in question was an office trainee hired for media coordination, who unwisely had access to all information. The founders occupied in managing the small ngo realized only much later that she had misunderstood the brief to mean - publicity for herself.

His eyes seemed to have misted over.

"You know, I feel very comfortable with you. I am cancelling my lunch appointment and extending our meeting beyond the 15 minutes I'd promised."

Far from rejoicing, I slid forward slightly, and glanced over my shoulder to memorize the position of the door, just in case I'd have to make a run for it. So far, he had not shown any interest in the non-profit he'd purportedly expressed interest in.

"I've also had great personal tragedy. My wife died y'know. She had this illness for a long time and was very weak towards the end and bedridden for months. The doctor was not sure what it was. My twin daughters have grown up well and taking the loss somehow. They are my only solace. I have been sent many trials. I have had to face so many losses - much much more than anyone else.

This man was officially wasting my time. All he needed was someone to talk to. Well, why not? He deserved sympathy. His life did sound hard. Maybe my intuition causing all this uneasiness was wrong for once.

"And then, I decided to move on. God gave me a second chance and I married again. Her twin sister. She is my wife now."

What?! I thought this happened only in Hindi movies.

Now, my instinct was clanging alarm bells at me.

For many reasons. Why was he going into such personal detail? I'd only known him some ten minutes. It felt wrong. Also, hadn't he said his daughters were his 'only' solace? What about his second wife?

"But you will not believe this. My happiness was shortlived. She has been ill too these last few months and is very nearly bedridden."

"You killed your first wife, married her twin in no time - how ghoulishly creepy is that! And now you're doing away with your second wife with slow poison just because you didn’t get caught the first time? You sex maniac!!" I screamed out.

But only in my head.

"Y'know, I can tell you’re a spiritual person."

"I don't think of myself that way" I replied, "I have yet to understand much about it."

"Which God do you pray to?" he asked.

This was all too much. Can’t a person be entitled to some spiritual privacy?

"All" was my answer.

He seemed displeased.

"You must come over and meet my daughters sometime" he suggested.

Why only daughters? I wondered, struck dumb again by the ramifications of what I thought he was saying - between the lines.

"Tell me about your family" he commanded.

As if hypnotized, and also because in India, it's considered acceptable for people you meet in the work context to ask you what your mother and father did and do, and what your siblings did and do, I answered.

"I have parents. Retired now." was all I allowed myself to say, keeping it to the barest minimum.

"I have a farmhouse in PQR. Why not join me on the drive down? Will take only 3 hours"

Through the haze of smoke, I noticed that he'd stood up behind his desk and was walking around it.

This comforted me, because standing up had made no noticeable difference to his height. I was sure I could overpower him in a struggle if it came to that. Stop being absurd, I told my intuition - that was a remote possibility. This was a civilized man.

He walked around me to get a file out of a cabinet.

"Why are you carrying a cloth folder? From now on, you must use this" he said grandly, handing me a glossy leather laptop case. Empty, ofcourse.

"I'm trying to cut down on leather" I managed not to say aloud. I didn't want to trigger anything that would send him over the edge.

Another part of my brain wondered purely academically, if I would have accepted the dinner-with-family invite if the case had contained a laptop too. The non-academic part of my brain reminded it that I would have refused to accept the gift in the first place. What if it was the latest Sony Viao? it countered. The non-academic part of my brain now kicked in full force with a reminder that this was no time for idle thought and I should get out of all this smoke before permanent damage occurred. Hadn't I read somewhere that inhaling the smoke of 4 agarbattis was the equivalent of smoking a whole pack of cigarettes?

"Tell me more about yourself. What is your time of birth?"

Picture yourself in my mules. How would you have avoided answering?

"No one is sure. My parents still argue about it. The hospital clock and wristwatches were all showing different times and though I could tell you the time, it could be +/- 5 minutes either way", I congratulated myself on this evasive reply.

Now I was convinced he was shopping for wife no. 3. Until he met wife no. 4? I wanted to say that I didn't have a twin. And maybe I was not desperate enough (yet) to marry someone 20 years older, no matter how many foreign offices he had. God forbid he find quadruplets the next time.

By now, all thoughts of selling the cause were forgotten. It was getting onto 6 pm and the outer office seemed to be emptying quickly. My herd instincts were urgently nudging me to join the outer throng.

"You must come with me to this party on Saturday. I'll introduce you to all sorts of bigwigs. We'll go to many parties."

He may look like Napolean, but this seemed my Waterloo.

Could this man get any more crass? Selling myself as an escort was not what I had in mind, no matter what the cause.

I knew how to put him off though.

"So Mrs. XY had said that you had given a firm commitment of Rs. 11 lakh?"

For once, Mr. Marfatia was speechless. As it very commonly is with such people, his generosity was in inverse proportion to his ego.

"I'll have to read the dossier first", he finally said.

"Ofcourse, Mr. Marfatia, I wouldn’t expect you to decide before knowing all the details. And I'd be happy to answer any other questions you may have."

I never heard from him again.

Postscript:

I have met people who are creative, brilliant, intelligent, (one even running his own ad firm) but are close to the thin edge of insanity. You may not realize this for a long time, especially when your interaction is at a superficial level of phone or mail. They are constantly angry with the world, constantly ranting about politics/ ideal defence strategies, criticizing soft targets and yet choose to sit afar, safely away from the action.

They see everything in extremes and nothing in between.

Case in point - if they decide that all armymen are saints, they will not accept that war crimes take place, or that 'civilians' are raped, tortured and killed by some of them. They may not believe that some army officers murder, rape, misuse and abuse the authority the uniform and weapon brings them. Worldwide evidence of psychopathic/ violent behaviour is ignored. They would refuse to agree that some Indian women army personnel have been driven to suicide by harassment by other officers. They know they are right and hate anyone disagreeing with their opinion. If you do, they fly into uncontrollable rage.

The same people who spew vituperation towards those who may disagree with the view that the sun shines out of the collective behinds of everyone in uniform, strangely never showed inclination to enrol themselves. If you dare ask why they didn’t sign up for the army themselves, they glibly respond with, 'Oh I'm in my forties now. I wanted to join the airforce but I failed the exam.' I wonder why one failure was enough to stop them, if they felt that strongly in the first place. And why only the air force? Is the army or navy beneath them? Who's the hypocrite here? If you point out one example of less than perfect behaviour, they take it as an insult upon the entire armed forces.

The person I am thinking of as I type this, does not even drive as Mumbai traffic scares him, rendering him inaccessible whenever his driver is on holiday. He won't use public transport as he is used to the comfort of his car. So was it fear of the army life that stopped him? Ofcourse not! Strike me down for that thought. This armchair warrior, one who can't even brave Mumbai road traffic wants compulsory conscription to the army except ofcourse their own nieces, nephews, sons and daughters. Ironical. What worries me is that the person with this view is looked upto for his opinions. What is even sadder is that this is a wonderful, interesting person- when he allows himself to be.

Maybe the adage is true, along with some genius has to lie some madness. What I hate about myself? I'm a natural magnet for them. I have met one or two who were also pathological liars - maybe a scientific term for people who have no conscience to stop them, people who misquote deliberately, with malicious intent. It's worse when the two types are mixed.

If sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, then a personal attack is the lowest form of debate.

The best thing about Bombay? (Mumbai, if I have to be p.c.)

It's big enough for all of us. And the Raj Thackeray clones.

Hell hath no fury? You bet.

What's an Introvert

…like you, doing in a field like this?

Good question. One that I got asked a lot. Of all the unlikely career choices, this was a big mistake, or so I was beginning to think.

Let some alternative titles I contemplated for this post serve as a warning in advance:

If Only I’d Known

While We're Dreaming

Speculation

Your Grass is SO much Greener

Everyone knows what an introvert is like. That would be my safe 'weakness' to list in a job app. So I've forced myself to cut you a break and delete a whole paragraph I just wrote on the subject.

Let me assure you - this is not a long whine about all the circumstances which led me to where I was. I've enjoyed my life. I totally get the fact that life does not run on some path that you imagined or romanticized in your teens. I never knew what career I was meant for and I probably still don't. I just went along. I still do. I'd better stop before this turns into a Dr. Seuss story.

I was quite happily settled into the routine, and more importantly, happy with what I was making. I liked what it did to my seriously introverted personality too. Nowadays, I languish somewhere in between the two extremes, but occasionally drift back to the Completely Introvert end of the scale. But off late, anyone I'd met or spoken with, who'd had the guts to start off doing something considered unlikely to survive at, was spectacularly better off for doing it.

Should I have taken the road less trampled? You bet.

I still remember the conversation that made me lose faith in the advice I'd come across so far. It was a rude awakening to how clueless we were.

The day had started with a news story about how roadside beggars in Mumbai, using ingenious methods were making more actual cash than, say, certain employed folks per day. Though it was sensationalized and glossed over the trials of the homeless, it was irksome to know I was making less per hour than the guy whose palm I'd dropped a buck into this morning.

On this day, my desk phone rang - a bright ex-batchmate. We'd all hung out together. We were all getting caught up in long hours and consequently keeping in touch less frequently than before.

Have cut out the preliminaries we chatted about - largely about a new cocktail he'd mixed which I simply had to taste and his coolest new pair of shoes.

College Batchmate (CB) : "So hey, am thinking of quitting..."

Me : "And go where? You're in such a fabulous job already"

CB : "Actually, I'm planning to join ##TV."

Me : "Really? Do they have much going on for Finance grads like you?"

CB: "Are you kidding me??"

CB (lowering his voice) : "That's what I wondered at first too. But this is the most amazing thing I've discovered."

Me (mystified and because it's catching, whispering): "What?? Go on"

CB : "This group, has something called a media sales team."

Me (finally in a position to display some competitive superiority) : "Yeah, I know all about that. We get them all the time, nearly half a dozen channels all day. But aren’t those marketing/ sales folks? Are you Switching Fields??"

Though I tried not to, my tone implied this was a sin that ranked higher than Moses' top 10. I was slightly prissy about such things*.

* Back then.

CB : No, no. They sell media spots…

Me (interrupting**): "Hey trust me. I could write a thesis on the subject. Have had the benefit of being involved in media planning for nearly five clients at the mo. We've had the top few agencies here - I know how it all works with them."

** I do that a lot. Sometimes when you call, I'll carry on the whole conversation myself if you're not careful.

CB : "Cool. So you know about the commission, right?"

Me (even more mystified) : "Commission?"

CB : "Yeah, the media sales guys get commission.."

Me : "Wait, but the real work's all done by the media planners."

CB : "Really? But listen to this. At ## TV, you get the commission on whatever deals you freeze with media planners."

I felt I'd been sucker punched in the small of my tum and lost my breath, momentarily.

Me : "But these plans are worth crores for a year. Spends on one channel run in to lakhs for just one account!"

CB : "Exactly!"

I was about to throw up at this point, I felt so sick.

How come I didn't know this? I would have taken up working in Finance for a TV channel. Was this true? Or an urban legend, a myth sent out to lure bright stars like my friend here? Why couldn’t college equip us for this kind of knowledge?

CB : "Which is why am mostly taking this up - just waiting for another place's offer before I decide."

Me : "That is so good! Congrats!"

And I meant it. It's an instant mood lifter to hear of something good in anyone's life. It's our way of assuring ourselves that good things happen to good people. Maybe that's why the Chicken soup series are so popular. I may be wrong though, I haven't read any myself.

The day moved along in a slow crawl. I got this uneasy feeling I was working in the kind of place from which you could check out but never leave, when my cousin called.

Have cut out the preliminaries we chatted about - largely about designer unmentionables she'd splurged on and her coolest new pair of shoes.

Cuz : "So hey girl, come over, spend the weekend at my place."

Her place was this sprawling company acco in Breach Candy - always a pleasure.

Me : "Tempting! Let’s try catch the late night show too. And a much lighter dinner this time."

Post window shopping, we tended to eat out like we'd been starving all week.

Cuz : "I've just had the heaviest lunch ever at Lings, so don't worry about that. I'm still so full."

Me : "How come? Celebrating something?"

Cuz : "For an ex colleague - do you remember him? From my housewarming? He'd called us to celebrate his new job."

Me : "Nice. Everyone seems to be job hopping these days".

Cuz : "Yes...and he's moving to his penthouse soon. Can't wait for the parties there!"

Me : "Really? Penthouse? What kind of job gets you one?" 

Cuz : "Well, he's an investment banker, y'know. Packages are hitting the roof for them - given what's happening."

She meant economically.

I couldn’t quite picture the man I’d met as a successful investment banker. I mean, he was not THAT much different from me. To me***, investment bankers ranked somewhere up there with fighter plane pilots. The Tom Cruise in Top Gun kind.

*** Back then. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Me : "I've always wanted to know this, just how do companies afford investment bankers' salaries?"

Cuz : "Didn't you know? They get paid on every merger/ acquisition they work on."

Me (still not getting it) : "Sure, but why is it in crores? I mean, how come it's so stark a difference?"

Cuz : "It is a very high profile line of work and extremely high anxiety too, burn out rates are really high, a lot of them need counselling. I have a friend who apparently used to talk in his sleep, he was that stressed - but the incentive is, they get a percentage on the total amount of the deal for the acquisition."

Cuz : "Helloo…? You there?"

I was experiencing nausea once again.

Maybe this is fancy - but I swear I'd have studied harder had I known it was possible to earn in crores working a job! I could've conned my way somehow through one such deal and then joined something a little less stressful.

It made me think of what I could've or would've been if only I’d known better, or to be more honest, if I’d had the guts.

Or taken more interest. Or, to be fair, had the opportunity. Thank you, Malcolm Gladwell.

I seemed to have spent that entire week talking to people who were earning a comfortable living doing what they enjoyed and who were probably laughed down in their time for doing it. But this very same fact made worklife tolerable.

Sitting in my cramped space, I allowed myself a two-minute daydream of visualizing something wondrous I could've been doing work wise, if only I'd thought of it then.

I could see it all - with a backdrop of fruit laden green trees, fresh air, azure water, crisp blue sky, chirping birds and happy sunlight. Utopia for the employed.

To pen it all down, here's my list, which seems to grow longer each time I look at it.

If I hear you laugh, we're through.

An Indian classical dancer

An archaeologist

An anthropologist

A singer (you never know)

An Indian classical musician (you really never know)

An artist

Writer

Teacher (Preferably kindergarten or primary school)

College lecturer

A manager of museums (I don't know where that's coming from)

A book store owner

Gym aerobics instructor (where you get paid to conduct aerobics and end up with a fantastically toned body yourself on account of all that exercise)

Conservationist

A photographer (Ideally, following a conservationist)

At an embassy (Everyone says the perks are great)

Travelling show host (Or heck, more realistically, the camera asst., or equipment incharge or bag carrier or anything that gets me to go with them.)

The job of the desk guy overlooking boat trips at a holiday resort on Lake Vembanad in Kerala. (Am serious. You should see the view he's got.)

Exotic holiday home manager (In the wilderness, or any beautiful locale like Goa).

Wait. Any job in Goa.

Okay, this was fun.

Do you have a list?

If Men are from Mars

I liked the Patel brothers.

Quite apart from their ripping, unholy ambition to take on the mammoth market leader, and new launches almost at the speed of light as compared to Indian marketing standard time, they had well balanced family lives, or so I liked to believe.

Juggling four cell phones between the two of them, or at least the four that I'd seen, one cell phone each was allocated only for calls from wives and close family. This was more of a guess than a certainty, as of late, any meeting that crossed 8:30 p.m. had their phones ringing almost in unison. These were well buried within their jacket pockets and fished out to be spoken into staccato in rapid fire Gujarati. Though that's not a language I speak, it was clear from their uniquely docile tones that they were responding to timely wifely reminders to leave our office as soon as possible.

This was extremely welcome, as our meetings with them usually went on from about 4 p.m. to half past eleven at night.

Have I already griped that our office had no policy where I could charge a cab ride home from our middle of nowhere location even at this late hour, to LL's overflowing coffers? Lately, I'd been asking around for pepper spray.

On this day, the calls were repeated every 2 minutes and a quarter of an hour later, it was clear why. Their better halves were actually waiting under the building this time and decided to come upstairs to see for themselves our den of vice that held the Patel bros' collective interests.

I was mildly surprised. Whereas the good natured and nattily attired Patel brothers had the sheen of overconfidence and power that comes from a long lineage of a well-stocked family treasury, they would never find themselves on the uppermost end of any list drawn up of the best lookers in business.

Their wives however, were stunningly beautiful, perfectly proportioned, elegantly attired, with lovely and charming personalities, minus pretension. With such a wife, any man would think himself a Greek God.

Trying to self analyse* why I was surprised, it could be because I'd seen too many bored, beautiful women living in comfortable marital (dis)harmony with their fat and balding obsessively rich industrialist husbands.

*A purely academic side hobby.

Am not by default implying that looks are important to make a relationship work. It's about the eye of the beholder, I do believe that. I mean the couples where there's no respect for each other once they're home, or complete disinterest except in living upto the t & c of the virtual contract. Upsetting. Just like yours, my vote goes out to those who marry because they're in love. With the person they're getting married to, ofcourse. The alternative is simply sordid.

Over the weekend, this set off a chain of thought along the usual depressing lines. When was I going to meet The One?

I know what it's all about, ofcourse. The euphoric rush, besotted, sleepless nights, countless imaginary meetings/ conversations.

So what if my most long term, committed relationship has been with the Snickers bar?

When couples talk about falling more in love over time, I know what that means too. I felt the same way when Snickers Dark was launched.

These couples explain it’s about experiencing new delights and consequently even more respect for your partner. I feel the same for the folks at Snickers. Despite a guaranteed winner on their hands with the original, they still made Snickers Dark! What do you call that?

They know how to woo. And they have me.

You say tall, dark and handsome? Have you seen a Snickers bar lately? The description fits.

If men are from Mars, so are Snickers.

Okay so am on a sugar rush right now. I have been bingeing on you can guess what. So they probably have addictives. Big deal. I don't smoke, my last drink was over 5 months ago and that's usually the case each time you ask me. Leave me my Snickers. Sure I'll give them up when I find my human, male substitute.

Am familiar with the flip side of the coin too. A tough break-up can get you addicted to endless reruns of Under the Tuscan Sun, One Fine Day and Something's Gotta Give. Who wouldn't want to buy a charming, crumbling villa, befriend and feed grateful Polish workers, assist in their love life, hang out with Italians and end by meeting someone (non Polish) who likes the way you write? All this in Tuscany mind you.

Next day, however, brought my mind firmly down to earth and perhaps, lower. I was back at Marrkit after all.

The office saw minor excitement of the sordid kind as it was discovered that the Accounts guy who came in thrice a week from our outsourced tax expert's office, had spent a lot of his time researching delectable internet porn instead of deductible expenses.

Normally this bit of scandal would have been swept under our imitation oriental carpets, but since he had been surfing the internet from Mrs. LL's office and her very own PC in her absence, she was quite vocal in her denouncement of the accounts chap lest anyone think she was the one using her computer this way.

Outraged and on the warpath, she took it upon herself to root out hitherto unsuspected immorality amongst the lesser staff.

She triumphed while reviewing the monthly fax expenses which had hit the roof. Coupled with constant complaints from clients that they could never reach our fax line, she pounced upon the Head office boy one evening glued to the fax line phone, having spent many happy after hours connected to a phone sex line. This was even bigger scandal.

Which hardly came as a surprise to us.

My colleagues and I were quite sure that this particular head office boy who ruled the office floor and particularly the stationery supplies like the local representative of the mafia, was an established member of the underworld for some time now.

All Marrkitians had to fill out a form in triplicate to issue a five rupee ballpoint. The boy would then bring the requested stationery, with enough delay to boost his self importance and only after having surreptitiously inspected our workstation drawers lest we were indulging in some lucrative ball pen smuggling. Sure. He also controlled rationing of the tea and coffee supplies. Okay, am not sure what all this has to do with the point I was making, but it goes to show our bias. See, I can be fair.

We were not surprised when he was not sacked, as this office boy also doubled as LL's houseboy and presumably knew too much. The only downside from his point of view was that he had to from now on, show up in uniform and that too, clean shaven. We celebrated this miracle.

On this day, with Greeks and Italians very much in mind, a very creditable Indian version walked right into the office. I forget what he was there for, but knowing the laws of Murphy - as they applied to my world in particular - I knew he had to be engaged or married even before I noticed his diamond studded gold ring. All seemingly eligible guys are usually out of circulation. The Gujarati ones, far earlier.

I said as much to my colleague who couldn't take her eyes off his fair Kutchi face.

"I didn't know Murphy wrote about guys and stuff?" she said.

"Okay I don’t know if he ever actually said that, but you know what I mean".

I decided to test my theory, just in the interests of getting her expression back to normal. The guy seriously didn't need any more of an ego boost. Like those extremely good looking guys who know they're something special, he had that look on his face. He was so sure we fancied him. Annoying.

"So, congratulations", I smiled at him, "When was D-day?"

"Oh, last month. Just gotten back from our trip to Europe".

"Cool. We were just talking about how parents should support cross-cultural marriages. If you don't mind telling us, was it love or** arranged?"***

**Note to readers: Please don't send me impassioned mails saying the two don't have to be mutually exclusive. I agree they don't. Not always.

***Note to global readers: In India, this is a valid question. If you still don't know about the Great Indian Arranged Marriage, get back under your rock in Mars. Okay, that was mean. You may write in and I'll send you a list of movies you could watch to be clear about the concept.

"No, no. It was love at first sight", he grinned.

"Hey that’s so romantic. Did your parents take it well?"

"Ofcourse, they had no problem".

"That's really great". I meant that genuinely. I'd have to get back to my mom and tell her that Gujarati parents were also equally as progressive.

"That's so nice, your kids would learn at least two Indian languages and absorb both cultures" I gushed. Indians are bilingual at the very least. We know a native language or two and English, a fact noticed particularly by China while analysing why Indians who landed upon foreign shores in equal hordes had an edge over them. The next generation would be a super generation, linguistically. Learning two or more native languages and English to boot.

"So you would teach your kids Kutchi. What language would they learn from her? Just calculating how many languages an average Indian kid would know", I explained while imagining his future tots prattling in 4-5 tongues.

He looked at me as if I were a dunce.

"She's Kutchi, ofcourse!"

Now I looked at him as if I were a dunce.

"Ofcourse?" I had to ask, confused.

Perhaps this was a twist of fate. What were the odds? I thought of my Parsi friend who wanted to marry a Gujarati guy and had to go through major drama including excommunication. She could've used such luck.

"Well, I would always follow my parents' wishes" he replied, still looking at me like I was a lot dumber than he'd first estimated.

This guy was beginning to bug me.

"I just mean it’s lucky that she turned out to be Kutchi. What if you had fallen in love with…a Catholic, or Parsi or an American? Would your parents still be cool?" I went on purely because we seemed to be talking at cross purposes.

"Oh no, I'd never do that!" he said, genuinely horrified. "I knew she was Kutchi before I fell in love with her!"

Sure my job's hazardous. I owe some of my greys to this conversation.

The Pursuit of Bollyness-II : Wagging the Dog

Continued from P of B Part-I…

For the next couple of weeks things got so hectic that there was no time to worry about the promise made to Mr. Prakash and the next meeting due.

A scene I was beginning to picture increasingly with graphic images of dangling Damocles' swords and me as the hapless Damocles. Uneasy, however, did not seem to lie our modern day Dionysius' head. At least, to all outward appearance.

I tried calling Karan Sabjan for his opinion on whether the Big M would be interested. Sabjan thanked me for adding years to his life by giving him his best laugh of the month.

This was one situation where I had nothing further to contribute. Either one knew how to get to Amibath Machchan or didn’t. I didn’t.

Feeling a bit like Pandora, with thoughts leaning increasingly towards aftermaths of usual Greek tragedies, I decided to broach the subject with LL.

As the days went by, this was not easy though. Surely he wasn't avoiding me?

With the next meeting just a couple of days away, I redoubled my efforts to corner LL and ask him for strategic guidance*.

*This is polite subordinate to boss management-speak for: Hey, you got us into this mess, and this time, you've gotta get us out.

"Get me Prakash", said LL.

Having got him on phone, LL proceeded to tell him how his father had an urgent though minor surgical procedure due on the very same morning of the next meeting scheduled and could we reschedule it? Mr. P was fortunately off to Denmark and so the next meeting was fixed up to be a whole two and a half weeks away.

Admiring this adroit manoeuvre; I admit it freely, would have never thought of it - we heaved collective sighs of relief, but I felt the figurative dangling thread fray a bit, and the sword inch closer.

But LL had thought of something.

There were only two possible approaches as advised by LL's role model Confucius:
One - Man who run in front of car get tired.
Conversely, also known as - Man who run behind car get exhausted.
Two - He who will not economize will agonize.

Next meeting, Mr. Prakash walked in fully expecting to see Machchan ensconced in our humble office abode. In his best suit and tie too. Mr. P, I mean.

LL informed him that we had contacted the Big M and that he had quoted an astronomical rate similar to his Badur contract.

I adjusted my expression accordingly so as to try look like we were the sort of people who had Machchan on call.

Knowing fully well Mr. Prakash would have never been able to loosen his purse strings to this extent, LL then commenced upon a severe campaign against using celebrities in advertising. Having embarked upon the celebrity route once, you are stuck with them forever. You've got to continue using a well known face else all will be lost. The fickle customer would move on. The astronomical fees you pay would have to be permanently budgeted for.

In short, hiring a celebrity for advertising would be like riding a tiger. You couldn't ever get off.

And what if the celebrity you've chosen lost popularity suddenly? Made a racist slur or in a drunken haze drive over a number of innocent people on the footpath. It would rub off negatively on your brand. A dreadful fate indeed.

Having made this convincing argument, LL decided to hammer the final nail in the coffin.

Amibath Machchan, while shooting in a rural, drought prone area for his next film, had insisted on a truckload of mineral water bottles. No, not for distributing amongst the thirsty populace as you may be excused for imagining. The popular brand of bottled water was used by him - wait for it - to bathe.

As LL would have it, this generated a lot of controversy and criticism for the Big M. In reality, it was soon forgotten.

This same region incidentally was an important one for Mr. Prakash's brands, generating a substantial amount of sales. As LL drew an eloquent picture as to what would have happened had we paid so many millions for the Big M; Mr. Prakash's disillusionment was complete.

Having reacted true to type, he now thanked us fervently as we had been personally responsible for saving him from a fate worse than death.

It took him only another ten more minutes to decide that he had actually arrived at this conclusion himself and claim that he had already planned to decline the offer for Machchan's endorsement should he have been ready and willing.

It is just as well the Big M would never know how far he fell from grace in our conference room in that one hour.

To soften the overall blow, LL suggested several second and third level Bollywood stars but Mr. Prakash was now a staunch convert to our cause. He happily agreed to endorsement from a humbler actor, known for playing character-led roles, suggested by Karan Sabjan.

Thus concluded another successful chapter of a highly strategic, skilfully played zero sum game.

Mafia Marketing

For weeks now, we had been noticing a simmering of excitement in LL's demeanour.

He would spend hours closeted in his cabin with his EA, who would then stumble out unsteadily, with sheaves of papers spilling out of her file.

Post such a tete-a-tete, we would often see her stagger back into our workstation* with a disoriented air, blinking a little. A bit like a convict let out into the free world after long incarceration. Then spend the rest of her time feverishly typing at her top speed.

* For those who've chanced upon this only now, scroll through the archives for a description of the Workstation in the introductory paragraphs of 'The Day of the Call - I'

I didn't ask her what it was all about as she'd been working beyond her usual 5 p.m. deadline and was consequently frazzled and tight-lipped.

I didn’t mind. It was so good to have some human company in the evening hours besides the hunk of machinery that crowded in from every angle.

I knew LL would tell us himself. All in good time. Ever paranoid about leaked secrets, it was usual for him to act like we were the headquarters of the NSA**. Or that there were hostile agents out to get his cherished trade secrets. This delusion was so much part of his personality that we learned to work with it.

** Oh c'mon! You've read Dan Brown, haven't you?

Besides we'd already guessed. His desktop was littered with mountainous piles of books on branding and marketing by authors both Indian and international.

On this day, he called me in to be witness to a contract for his first literary effort. The success of the Ries' recently launched book on 22 laws had cut him to the quick. Not to be left far behind, he'd decided to pen his own, for Indian markets. He was fulfilling yet another desire to be famous, this time as an author.

Over the next few weeks, any activity that wasn't linked to his book's launch was put on the back burner.

We sent out mailers on priority basis to every unfortunate who'd ever had reason to mail us in the past. No one was spared - this included job applicants to our organisation, cumulatively numbering in their hundreds.

The uncharitable would've called it spam, which we did try explaining but he chose to be conveniently obtuse and said that he didn't understand all these new age words.

Still marvelling at LL's clever and precautionary brainwave of inviting a whole regional sales team to the book launch event ensuring that the venue would appear to be bursting at the seams by his eager fans, we also prepared to attend it ourselves.

After LL grudgingly agreed to contribute cab fare for our 'voluntary' visit to his event, we all closed the office down early, for the first time in the history of Marrkit.

LL had also the foresight to order us to buy one copy each of his book that same evening from the store.

Needless to say, the launch event was deemed a success by the store manager who was bedazzled by the record sales of the book that same evening.

But LL couldn’t relax just yet.

Like an anxious new mother, he would daily scan the 'Bestseller' lists published by a variety of newspapers.

Finally, his book entered second from last - that too in a local rag.

This was unthinkable. Clearly the world would have to be made to sit up and take notice.

The lists were based on sales of books in categories of fiction and non-fiction compiled weekly book-shop wise, which the newspaper then printed as gospel. Having ascertained this fact from the newspaper's editor, LL set his well thought out master plan into motion.

It remains the most perfect campaign I've ever seen. With a hundred percent success rate.

Directed personally by LL, with great finesse and precision.

To digress a bit, altruist that I am, here are pointers for those authors who aspire to bestseller glory:

• Call up certain friendly college principals and tell them about how the book has taken everyone by storm.

• Corleone style, make them an offer they can't refuse. Suggest that you would, as a friendly gesture, like to donate your book to the college library.

• Further suggest that one book would not do for so many b-school students. You'd like to donate one for each student, but please don't tell them that as you would like to keep your act of generosity anonymous.

• Send out an office employee, your very own trusted Sonny, to various bookstores in each suburb that happen to stock your book to place orders for it. Payments to be made only in cash, lest anyone suspect that the buyer is linked with you in any capacity.

• Give your gang of employees the mandate to buy your book, minimum 12 copies each over the weekend, again - payments to be made only in cash without revealing names or whom they really work for. Later, reimburse the amount to each employee. Extra books thus amassed at the office can be gifted complimentary to your clients or anyone who happens to wander in at your workplace.

• Ring up the remaining institute directors and drop into the conversation that so-and-so college has ordered 40 copies of your book for their marketing students and how they are simply cutting-edge when it comes to providing every sort of facility to their students.

• Tell anyone else who happens to ask that you don't believe in the 'Bestseller' lists and that's not important to you at all. After all, who ever understood the TRP racket? This is much the same. What matters to you is that only one, just one person find your book useful. That is all that would make you feel completely fulfilled. Really.

• Dial store managers of leading book shops and tell them how successful your book launch event at the other store was. Suggest that you are booked up for various other such launches but you can make time for their store if need be. Do this for all other metro cities too and plan your travel accordingly.

• Never let anyone outside the Family, know any of this.

Follow this and success is guaranteed. If you are a marketing person***, all this should come easily to you.

*** See 'Glossary' section for definition of a marketing person.

Thank you in advance and the least you could do to express your gratitude is send me a complimentary copy of your book.

And well, some day, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me.

Nothing personal, strictly business.

Oh and before I forget, for those wondering about the fate of LL's first book, by next fortnight it had blazed its way right to the top, no less than Number 1 on the bestseller lists of the two leading newspapers.

Heil LL!

Just a Random Day at Work

Venue: Client's office, one fine day.

As always, do bear with the poor quality of sketch.

The options presented did stump me at first glance. But you can guess which door I chose.

And hey, if you can draw better than this with a mouse, please feel free to volunteer your services for the future. Versus my previous image, hope you've noticed that I've graduated from using boxes to depict bodies to curved shapes. And no, am not missing half a limb. I just can't draw hands yet.

(Click on the image to see it clearly... only if you want to.)

Answering Queries from Willing Victims - II

Have stuck to adverbatim questions so readers can recognize their own.

Q: Why do you keep leaving 'notes for global readers'?

Me: Hey, c'mon mate, allow me the dream. Besides, I really do have global readers (I hope).

Q: How do I leave a comment anonymously?

Me: Click on the option that says 'Anonymous' in the comment section. If you're not a complete stranger, do leave me a clue that it's you as it's a bit creepy not knowing who it is.

Q: I hate your blog. Is my name in it? I'm going to send you a legal notice.

Me: No, it isn't. No one knows it's you. No one even knows it's me, really. No one cares. So tell your lawyer to take the day off.

Q: I want to leave a comment about how bad it is, but I know you'll delete my comment.

Me: You again? Go ahead, do your worst. No, I won't delete your comments. I can take the bad with the good, buddy.

Q: On second thoughts, writing on your blog would give it importance it doesn't deserve. I wouldn't want to even acknowledge it or demean myself by writing on it.

Me: Sure.

Please note my level of self-deprecation - I've truly included all reader feedback sans editing.

Note to self: The fact that I find it necessary to point this out means that LL has rubbed off on me a bit.

I have understandably hit writer's block after this critique. So, do bear with me while I recover.

The Curious Case of a Chocolate Flan

On the personal front, I'd started feeling that anyone interesting of the male variety I'd lately met (or not met), fell into five categories. By interesting I mean - humane, witty, intelligent and attractive (to me).

This only reconfirmed my theory refined over the years, that all the good guys:

1. Have left the country for the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand or S.E.A.*
2. Are about to leave the country for USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand or S.E.A.
3. Are married or taken.
4. Are gay.
5. Are too young for me.

For obvious reasons I refuse to acknowledge those who were just not interested in me.

* These are the most attractive destinations for all working professionals out here. In USA it would be NY winning hands down as the leading destination of the pack.

Not that it mattered. My working hours and the way I consequently looked over weekends - eyes ringed with dark c's, the occasional sniffle attack due to sudden transition from heavy cool air-conditioning to searing or humid heat - did not leave me with the time nor inclination to socialize. Story of my life, so far.

On this day, I was geared up for my first day long excursion with LL. Naïve newcomer that I was, as per his instructions, I'd shown up on the dot at 7 a.m. below his residence building and was instructed to wait in his car, manned by his driver.

LL joined us at 8.30 a.m.

Though my enthusiasm for the exciting day ahead had wilted somewhat, it quickly revived as we started our journey.

In stark contrast to our claustrophobic workstation sans windows, it was nice to look at the blue sky, puffs of clouds and the lazy marshes whiz by.

Running late for the first meeting meant that we were hard pressed for time, and by late afternoon, having managed to pacify and satisfy various clients along the way who were not expecting us to show up considerably more than an hour after the scheduled time, we unpacked our delayed lunch tiffins of biryani (LL's) and soggy sandwiches (mine) as we drove to our final two meetings from the suburbs to the South of Bombay.

On such days LL's car resembled a mobile makeshift office, with files piled up on whatever space the driver, LL and I didn't occupy.

Both LL, I and the driver were usually on calls the entire time, with brief intervals of respite.

Why was the driver on phone? Because LL never spoke directly to his driver.

All instructions were conveyed by LL's wife from home to the driver. For any last minute change in route, LL would first call his wife and then she would call his driver. Watching this ritual did get my blood pressure up a little higher, but I never knew why it was done, so don't ask.

Despite everything, our meetings were successful and the view from the window again captivated me. Okay, so this time, it was more buildings, shopfronts, hoardings and less horizon, but Bombay looks progressively cleaner and somewhat wealthier as you head southwards which gives a feeling of ascension to something better that really lifts your spirits. Only true Bombay 'burbies will understand this.

Just before we reached our client's office, he called LL and cancelled the meeting due to some urgent reasons. This gave us a couple of hours to kill until our next one.

I stayed quiet, waiting to hear what his next instruction to Mrs. LL would be. Strangely, LL made no move to speed dial her number. Curious and curiouser.

"Oberoi chalo", said LL, spraying Polo liberally all over himself.

The car swerved slightly.

Bablu the driver recovered quickly from his shock at being addressed directly and drove on.

I slid open my window slightly so I could breathe again.

For once, the scenic curve of Marine Drive failed to capture my attention. The expression on LL's face was very familiar - I'd seen it before. On kids who’ve discovered the junk food stash and TV remote while their parents are out.

"Let's take a break, eh? If Mrs. L calls up on your cell just pretend it's on silent", puffed LL. What fun. This was a side to LL I didn't know existed.

We plonked ourselves down on the plush couches in front of the famous windows at the cafe overlooking the sea. It was exciting. In pre office days and window shopping at the Oberoi, I would look with wonder at all the super-busy men and women lounging around the lobbies and cafes for power brunches, power lunches and power teas. It was all so aspirational. I wanted to be part of that fascinating world.

And there we were. I was no longer awe-struck student, walking past looking at all the corporate movers and shakers, but felt at home amongst them.

Well, once you're seated, anywhere in the Oberoi can make you feel that way.

All around us were people just like us, seemingly in between meetings or conducting them. It was fun to mimic their snooty expression while glancing over to check them out.

LL, feigning disinterest, tried eavesdropping on the conversation at the next table. He fed me snippets of what he occasionally overheard.

I wondered though if that's all he would feed me on.

I also wondered if it was okay to order myself, or wait for him to ask. I tried recalling etiquette pointers on 'when unexpectedly out with the Boss, first time'**, but nothing really came to mind. Slightly tense and conscious, on this my first social outing with the boss, I wanted to avoid a faux pas of any kind. Or what LL the Martian, oops sorry, LL the Marrkitian would consider one.

Even after half an hour of arriving, LL showed no signs of encouraging the occasionally hovering server.

I remembered how my day had begun and steeled myself. "I think I'll have a juice", I ventured.

"Sure! Ofcourse!!", said LL, ever the gentleman. "In fact, I'll have one too!", he boomed.

Midway through our juices, LL had thawed greatly.

This was partly because, given his uncanny luck, the conversation he'd eavesdropped upon had yielded results. One of our client's competing product's advertising strategy was being laid bare by the loud and eloquent ad account manager to our left, straight into LL's eager ears. Having secured this little titbit of a nugget, LL leaned over to wink and whisper, "His voice got louder after he saw you. What a show off!".

I didn't get it for quite some time. Hey I was younger and innocent then. Ofcourse it stumped me. A compliment? From LL? I didn't know how to react.

The other reason LL was really happy was that a group of newly hatched, smart MBAs at another table had recognised him and clustered around briefly telling him how much they admired him. Nothing made LL's day more than public recognition. After subjecting them to a fifteen minute homily, he'd let them go.

Meanwhile, LL, feeling expansive, said, "Let's celebrate. Order anything! This is for you, you deserve it!"

Recovering from this shocker, I took the menu he proffered. I knew him well enough to wait a bit.

"From here", he suggested, pointing to the truffles and pastries section. He still held on to one end of the massive menu so I pretended to study it and waited some more.

"Let me help you. How about the chocolate flan? It's really good here, you must have it."

I can never say no to chocolate but I knew LL well enough now not to get my hopes up.

"We'll have a chocolate flan pastry", said he to the server.

"Just one?", the superior looking server raised his eyebrows, flicking his glance at me.

Just in case you're wondering, the times I speak of, were not those of recession or economic slump.

"Yes, yes, just one will do. It's for her, my colleague - I'm not allowed to have all this. I was telling her it's the best here", said LL loudly, playing the part of magnanimous, indulgent boss taking his employee out for a meal, for the benefit of his fans at the next table who were paying us a lot of attention.

The flan arrived and I suddenly realized that it was a wise move on LL's part to order just one. It was massive, and flanked on either side by two dessert spoons. The server strategically placed it in the exact centre of the space between LL and me.

I picked up my spoon and waited for LL's move. He slid the plate slightly closer to my end of the table.

Here was another etiquette related quandary. Given his oddities, would LL really not mind if I dug into the same pastry he would later have? Did he really want me to have it all?

"I'm not allowed, this is all for you", he mourned.

Unable to resist the charms of a good chocolate for long, I dug out a minuscule piece. It was melt-in-the-mouth gooey, dreamy, dark chocolate, and I couldn't wait to have more.

I pushed the dish over to his side.

"Do have some, it's great", I offered, inviting him to taste it before I polished the rest off.

"No, no, I really am not allowed, if Mrs. LL finds out…" His gaze was fixed on the flan and his fist was clenched hard around the dessert spoon.

Perhaps I'd misjudged LL. He wasn't all self-centred and self-serving. I felt glad that he meant it this time and wasn't faking it. It's always a pity when people have to deprive themselves of the good things life has to offer. For the first time, I looked at LL with new eyes. I was slowly getting to see the real persona behind his "Boss" image.

I waited for form's sake while he took a call on his cell.

The loud-spoken agency guy had apparently finished his meeting and I watched him swagger out with his client.

My gaze wandered to the spectacular view which relaxed and mesmerized me once again. The gently swaying palms and the wide expanse of the aqua sea looked beautiful through the tinted windows.

LL was right. I deserved to indulge in chocolate like that. Eagerly anticipating the rest of it, I decided to pull the plate back to devote myself exclusively to the flan as the mandatory polite interval from the time I made the offer had passed.

I turned around and reached out. To an empty plate.

And saw LL, licking the last few crumbs off his spoon.

It hadn't even taken him a minute. More fool me.

He caught my eye. "We won't tell Mrs. L about this okay?", he winked.

"Sure".

** Given my valuable experience working with LL all these years, I decided to pen my own helpful list called "Etiquette pointers when out with the Boss, especially if he's LL ". Flatteringly, the list became worth it's weight in gold and folklore amongst Marrkitians old and new. Will add it to the archives another time, if you like.

The Pursuit of Bollyness - I

There are some who have the ability to catnap anytime, anywhere.

An enviable trait, unless they happen to be sitting next to you at a movie show.

Having snoozed peacefully through the crucial part of a thriller*, they awake newly refreshed, demanding that you fill them in on the intricacies of the plot.

* A Hindi movie allows a lot of opportunity for the sleep deprived, as the average flick is a three-hour long saga. At least.

Knowing they won't connect with the rest of the movie unless you do, you summon all your extempore précis skills to give an expert synopsis of the story so far, in a very audible whisper.

How the (tycoon) male action lead or the "hero" - actual age 45, playing 28, in a complicated flashback recalls how he met and fell for the yet-to-be brutally murdered (impoverished & orphaned) female lead - actual age 16, playing 22, ultimately executing violent, gory revenge to the evil doer. Note to global readers: Yes, such movies exist.

If you're lucky, a Hindi song starts just in time, sparing you homicidal glances from neighbours as you yak on.

Such an audience is however an exception. The average Hindi movie addict would willingly watch any movie released, over and over again, with complete attention.

Entertainment apart, Bollywood fascinates one and all.

If there is a common element that brings people together - young and old, homemaker and the career oriented, scientist and DJ, teacher and socialite, whether slumdog or penthouse millionaire, man and woman, it has to be the Hindi Movie. Or even, the Hindi movie star.

Our clients were no different.

They would simply lose their heads at the dizzying thought of attending their ad film shoot with a leading luminary of Bollywood.

Throwing caution and indeed, their budgets to the winds, they were suddenly willing to overlook a lot of past parsimony.

Having spent the last two quarters of the year haggling over not having to hike budgets, employee bonuses and even employee strength, they were categorically ready to pay obscene amounts to see their favourite film star shooting loving glances at or cuddling their bottle of hair oil, shampoo, toilet bleach, wall paint, soap or toothpaste as the case may be. All permanently frozen in celluloid.

Just in time for boosting the bottomline, final quarter. I refer ofcourse to the balance sheet bottomline, as in, profits. Not keeping your bottom in shape by dancing to the latest Bollywood track. Don't be offended. This clarification is meant more for a certain cross section of ex-clients who may be reading this, like the one written about here, not you. Just pre-empting queries, as it were.

In some cases, we were able to make their dreams come true - not so much we, but the media pundits who ruled all things Bollywood - the well connected ad folks and the production houses, including the occasional Bolly movie director, like Karan Sabjan who also made ad films on the side just for fun and some pocket change. Given that he had direct access to most of the top stars, he was one of our most popular and in demand ad makers.

On this day, one of our cow belt* clients settled himself down for our next meeting. He headed a (largely) junk food company that was mid-sized, unheard of in the West zone, but popular in the North.

* It was interesting to discover that the media world referred to the certain sections of the North and Central zone of India as the "cow belt". This may give a general impression of dairy farming, rustic poverty and the simple life, which is indeed the common man's way of life in rural India. However, the entrepreneurs that belong to the 'cow belt' are multi-millionaires to say the least. Their lifestyles are luxurious owing to the subsidies they enjoy as "farmers" and forget to pass on to their farm labourers. Modern day zamindars, they own sprawling designer farmhouses, a fleet of cars, and their wives would put any fashionista to shame given her accumulated knowledge and wealth of international designer labels. Don't believe me? Go see. No surprise that Indians hold the largest number of offshore Swiss bank accounts.

"I want Amibath Machchan*", said Mr. Prakash, once ensconced comfortably in our conference room. His bratty offspring, let's call him Bottompincher Jatin or BJ, was busy settling his array of four cell phones in front of him. Two of them were the latest models of mobiles, just launched. Each meeting that he attended once a month, at least two of his phones were replaced by a newer model.

* Since am painstakingly disguising all identities here, this is just to keep up with the overall theme.

Amibath Machchan also known as the Big M, is one of the leading stars here. Which is an understatement as anyone knows. For those who are visiting our planet from elsewhere in the universe and still haven't understood his significance, it would suffice to say that in certain parts of India, he had temples dedicated to him, with people garlanding his effigy.

I looked over at LL and he at me. For once, we were in empathy.

"Well, he's certainly the biggest", said LL. What he meant is, the Big M had been around since the last 30 (or was it 40?) odd years, having in no way eroded his appeal. Nor his price.

He was also known as the King of endorsements. Not wishful thinking, in this case.

A fact we were sure Mr. P was missing the significance of - financially speaking.

"Exactly why he would be perrrrfect ji. Our sweets are the best and so is he. A best to best* tie-up, as you always say, ha!", countered Mr. Prakash. "Besides, he's doing Badur's ads! If he doesn't mind selling their hair oil, mosquito repellent and Gawd knows what else, then he should certainly have no problem with our brand. Everything of superb quality! What say Jatin?" BJ, jolted from his unmoving gaze at his new palm pilot, nodded.

* The term we used was 'leader to leader'. Not quite 'best to best', but I guess Mr. P had absorbed the point well, which is the important thing.

Badur was Mr. Prakash's pet bugbear. Now, we happened to have heard only last week from Karan Sabjan, the exact amount Big M had negotiated for the Badur campaign for a two year exclusive. Nothing less than Rs. 12 crores. Or 120 million.

Mr. Prakash's new brand wasn't even selling that much yet. Realistically it wouldn't, even for the next 5 years.

This was going to be difficult. There was no way of breaking it gently to Mr. Prakash.

He was one of those obstinate ones who once having made up their minds, considered it unthinkable to change it. Failure on our part to follow his decree would mean loss of face for him, and loss of revenue for us. Why? Because he'd drop our consultancy like a hot brick.

Bitten by the Bollywood bug, he'd have to be weaned off some other way. It was easy to guess why he'd succumbed. All the top actors were on an endorsing spree, from male innerwear to outerwear, shoes to hair gel, perfumes to pens. Small wonder that Mr. P felt the urge to take a flying leap onto the celebrity bandwagon.

"Okay, we'll see what we can do", said LL, taking the easy way out.

I let my jaw get back to normal position before the client could notice.

We'd ended the meeting satisfactorily. I backed out of the room, making sure never to face my bottomline, er, behind towards BJ. The small matter remained however, of signing up Big M for Mr. Prakash's cow belt brands.

If A. Machchan could be called the King of Endorsements, and M. Jackson the King of Pop, then that would make LL the undisputed King of Manipulation.

If anyone could do this, he could. It was time to wag the dog.

To be continued…

Hex and the City

After week upon week of meeting heads of businesses big and small, the psyche of entrepreneurs still fascinated.

I never tired of discovering anew another facet to their personality and work ethic. To add to this, the sheer variety of personalities was mind boggling, to say the least.

Some were their polished best and others downright boorish. However, it seemed that though entrepreneurs may differ widely in appearance, mannerisms and behaviour, they all had something in common. Canny business sense, a no-nonsense risk-taker's ability and all the qualities that various management gurus have written more knowledgeably about.

Knowing that sound business sense was the only driving force behind anything the directors decreed, I puzzled long and hard over what could be the logic and reasoning behind their decisions.

The reason I bothered with bending my mind towards this, is that I was interested in what's called Acquired Learning*. Which is what I saw as a job perk, given that we didn't have anything else that could be labelled such.

*In case anyone's planning to acquire learning from me, note how I made the term sound like management-speak just by using caps. Refer to the "Glossary of Marrkit's Marketing Terms/ Office Jargon" section from the Archives for the definition of Acquired Learning.

Let me explain what I mean. For instance, one of our flamboyant clients, Mr. Mistry, closely connected with all things Bollywood (or so he claimed), apparently paid through his nose for our services. And let us know it each time he visited, at the top of his cultured voice - which seemed to lose that polished accent at the same rate that his temper accelerated.

Watching him part with our monthly cheque due was like watching a schizophrenic will at work. He never presented it except with great reluctance, always implying that this was his last meeting with us ever. That we were leeches sucking his lifeblood away.

Each time, I watched with bated breath to see if his iron grip on the cheque would relax enough to hand it over without tearing it into two. Just like the melodramatic movies he financed, after a few minutes he was back to feeling sentimental and maudlin about his not so veiled taunts and usually ended by spewing equally liberal praise on us.

We didn't hold this against him though, as he had great charm, was otherwise cheerful to work with and one simply could not remain annoyed with him for more than a few seconds. Not with someone who usually offered us passes for the latest A-list movie premieres. Ofcourse not.

Given this, it was odd to notice that he usually skipped two meetings a month. This was pointed out to me by LL's EA, who was similarly puzzled.

Two meetings a month on an average was huge, as from his point of view it was a considerable financial loss.

What was more of a mystery was that his team seemed to know in advance they needn't visit, even though he always made a last minute call to us cancelling his meeting. I know this because he had me do the tedious job of calling his team up one by one, to tell them the meeting was off. Yes, we also threw in such secretarial add-ons for our clients, especially ones like Mr. Mistry who felt that by getting us to do these small additional tasks, he was getting his money's worth out of our firm.

His being the last meeting of the day, scheduled at the unearthly hour of 8 p.m. onwards and ending at roughly 11 p.m., I celebrated each cancellation. It meant I'd reach home while my parents were still up and not have mom suspecting I'd been doing the usual movie and dinner thing with some unidentified guy about to lead me astray. As if. I'd have killed for that sort of attention. But unfortunately, the eligible single male did not ever enter the borders of the office complex we worked out of. The sort that did make it deserve an exclusively devoted chapter - some other time.

One week, on the day Mr. Mistry's meeting was scheduled, I made a routine reminder call to Andy, Mr. Mistry's operations head.

"Morning Andy! Just wanted to warn you that the report you're looking for won't actually be ready for Mr. Mistry and you in time for today's meeting, but it will be done day after for sure", I said.

"No probs, Ash", said Andy, warmly. "Send it whenever. In fact, I don't need it today for sure. Take your time."

Hoping that Mr. Mistry would take this news as breezily as Andy had, I decided to bite the bullet and break the bad news to him in person. "That's great Andy, but I'd still better speak to Mr. Mistry now and explain why."

"Oh, he's not here. How about a movie this evening? A group of us from office are planning to see the 8 p.m. show. We have complimentary passes. Join us?", trilled Andy.

"You're kidding, right. Are you planning a mass bunk? Have you forgotten, your meeting with us is for today!"

"Ha ha!" sang Andy, sounding way too cheerful. "There won't be a meeting today. Except, yeah, at the cinema."

"Okay", I said, "are you officially informing me that the meeting is off?"

"No", said Andy, "Unofficially. And you didn't hear it from me."

"How can you be sure? And where is Mr. Mistry? Travelling?", I asked, hoping this tale of cancellation was true and not just something to do with Andy's quirky humour.

"No, he's very much at his own home, watching the match."

"Right. And we both know even cricket wouldn't keep him away from our expensive doors", I said, disappointed that that was all Andy was making a fuss about. "So, forget the movie."

"You mean you were ready to make it for the movie? Cool! So am holding a pass for you", persisted Andy, maddeningly.

"Noooo!", I screeched, sounding a lot like Mr. Mistry at a cheque parting. "You go ahead and take on Mr. Mistry if you want, but I can't bunk the meeting."

"Hey chill", said Andy, "Okay, tell me, how many meetings has he cancelled in the last three months?"

"That would be…seven at least?", I answered, marvelling anew at this statistic.

"And what reasons did he give?", questioned Andy.

"The usual kind, I guess", I said, trying to remember. "Someone visiting for dinner, another important meeting, or travelling."

"Well, that's all bull!"

"How's that?"

"I'll tell you, but you can't let onto Mr. M or anyone that you know this. And one more thing - you have to come for the show", said Andy, cunningly.

"Sure, Andy. I do like the big screen experience. Just not at the cost of Mr. Mistry. So tell all." I was intrigued by all this suspense and partly convinced that Andy was just wasting my time.

"What's today's date?" asked Andy.

"17th", I said, wondering where this was going.

"Which adds up to the dreaded number 8. Mr. Mistry's worst nightmare. He's rabidly afraid of the number and his astrologer told him to never step out of the house on those days. Woooo… careful, it’s the 17th today!", hooted Andy, irreverently.

"So, you see", continued Andy, "He'll never show up for a meeting on the 8th, 17th and 26th of the month. See you at the movie, then!"

Okay, well.

Sometimes there was no logic or reasoning.

Say Cheers

A meeting which typically had an agency/ freelancer or two present in addition to the client sometimes posed diplomatic conundrums.

Especially when it came to Desmond, who for some unknown reason, was LL's favourite man of all work of the small time advertising kind. Drinking Desmond was my moniker for him, for reasons which will become clear as you read on.

Desmond wore a jacket for most meetings, which really impressed me, since no one bothered with very formal attire at work except for certain occasions. In Bombay, the weather does not permit it.

Having believed in always erring on the side of being formal rather than informal when in doubt, I liked the formal corporate image Desmond projected amidst the denim clad, unshaven, pony-tailed, often tattooed and earring-adorned men which dominate the creative half of the advertising world. And there's something about a jacket that just adds oodles of personality to any man.

I'm a sucker for just three things - guys who play the guitar/ drums, very tall guys and guys in jackets. I don't know why, but these three and if luckily in combination together, are quite irresistible. Okay, getting back to the point now. And hey am not that shallow really - it's always about the brain, not brawn.

My admiration for Desmond lasted only briefly however. Right upto the moment I realized exactly why he'd invested in a jacket.

It had a useful inner pocket that made a snug receptor for his favourite whiskey flask from which he no doubt derived great solace and sustenance for all the stressful meetings he had to make. Meetings where he had to explain to my maddened clients why he had skipped yet another deadline.

A typical meeting would consist of these attendees:

From the Client's end:
- Owners/ managing directors (very often, a pair of brothers or, father & son, or MD & CFO)
- Their EAs or PAs as the case may be
- Resident astrologer and/ or current pundit in favour
- Family friend and/ or time-honoured well-wisher

Allied agency:

- The freelancer/s or head of agency handling any allied function like communication, PR, events, and so on

From our end:
- LL
- Me
- LL's wife (sometimes)
- One of LL's children (sometimes)*

* This was LL's big family succession plan. His worst nightmare was that his children would not want to take over the mantle when the time came and fly away from his overprotective nest. So, LL decided to give new meaning to the devious gambit of starting them young. That his children were just 9 and 12 years of age, seemed to make no difference.

Our meetings were always extremely formal occasions - with preset agendas, and time limits to be adhered to. There were however, exceptions to this rule and this is one such chronicle.

One of our clients from an exotic state far, far away, whose company stock was considered the bluest of blue chip, was visiting us for a marathon session of meetings that would last the entire day.

The Director of this group, lets call him Mr. Kapil, was a born tycoon, with a stiff, aristocratic demeanour to match. I'd never ever seen him smile. Post meetings, I could never quite recall what I'd ever said to him. Somehow it was always blanked out thanks to his intimidating persona. I was always conscious of being in the presence of someone who personally contributed a healthy percentage to the annual GDP of India and generated employment for hundreds of people across rural areas.

Often, the meeting would take place in a room in our office that resembled the living room cum lounge of a typical home - complete with wall unit, couches lining the walls and helpfully placed corner tables, apart from two largish centrally placed ones. The couches were deep and comfortable.

That a client meeting held here consequently resembled a drawing room reunion amongst family members, some of whom are glad to meet each other again and some not, was not surprising.

On this day in my routine check of the room before the meeting, it struck me that some of the ceiling incandescent lights had blown out. It left the room much more dimly lit than usual. We'd still have to use this room as no other room would accommodate the sheer number of people we had to meet.

The reasons why I did not allow any of my clients to walk into this room without having checked it first were manifold. I remember one occasion when the client got settled comfortably in, and the air conditioning refused to work. Another time, the lights fused at one go. Yet another time, an office boy was found stretched full length and snoring on the couch.

The best or worst incident, depending on how you see it, was when a swarm of dragonflies flew out of the room straight at three co-directors about to walk in when the door was opened. Somehow, they'd gotten in through the window of an adjoining room and gotten locked in. Those directors flew out of our office too and were never seen again after making understandably snide remarks about the ten plagues of Marrkit.

On this day, the client arrived at 8:30 a.m. on the dot with an excited air and a bright glitter in his eye. Along with him came a pair of large carry-ons and he requested to be left alone for a while with his team of attendant CFO, wife, uncle, marketing manager, sales head, admin manager and other assorted coterie accompanying him.

Intrigued, LL and I waited for him to unveil the surprise. Which indeed it was.

Every table in the room was covered with a set of totally 3 dozen roughly pint sized bottles, called alcopops or breezers here. One half of these were a recently launched popular brand of alcopops that had taken metros in India by storm for it's low price, low alcohol content and flavours like cranberry, cola and lime, attracting the young, and especially women.

Explaining that this was a new business he was planning to invest in, the Director waved us in and stated that most of his existing infrastructure would double to produce what is known here as Indian Made Foreign Liquor. For those who don’t believe I didn't just make that term up, google IMFL and read all about it. Would not like to bore my better informed readers here.

The client was cleverly taking advantage of the fact that as per our terms, we would consult within the same fee for all their businesses, and any new ventures. We never dreamed that he would want to diversify into country liquor.

I wasn't feeling comfortable about this.

My support lay entirely with those brave rural women who'd recently kicked their no-good drunkard husbands out in a mini-revolution of sorts. And now we would be contributing to placing a new label within reach of their misguided men.

It was disillusionment of a different kind. That of all people, it had to be Mr. Kapil indulging in a spectacular breakaway from the respectable family business, a cherished dream, handed down over generations and sow his alcoholic oats within the populace, so to speak.

But the sight of all the glowing colourful bottles had a different effect on LL.

He now appeared just as excited as every other man in the room.

Mentally, I started formulating strategy of a different kind. To ease away from this client - and how to bring that up with LL. I passed him a quick note saying I'd like to meet him briefly in private, whenever possible. No doubt, he'd be difficult. He had only one criteria for client selection - that they be able to pay our fees on time. No ethical scruples would be entertained.

This was apparently a tasting ceremony. Having come well prepared with lots of disposable glasses, the client flatteringly wanted our opinion on each and every flavour and help shortlist the final four to be selected for launch. Mine, particularly for what would appeal to the palate of women in general.

All the bottles were stuffed into every inch of our pantry fridge and so it came to pass that by 11 a.m. the bottles were pulled out and pressed into service. In that time we'd quickly prepared enough prints of an evaluation matrix with attributes for everyone to mark down rankings, flavour-wise, for the home brand versus the competitor's. I mention this only so everyone knows some work actually got done too.

Before that, we called in Desmond to finalise the newsletter design and complete other sundry matters. For once Desmond had been suitably awed to actually bring the artwork and proofs along without mistakes, and in a generous mood, the Client invited him to join the tasting spree.

Desmond appeared delighted to oblige. I was sure he had taken a few fortifying swigs already to steady himself before the meeting but the client had no way of knowing that. Desmond, who couldn't take his eyes off the glittering array of bottles, happily settled down in a nook.

We all dutifully sipped just one or two mouthfuls of each flavour and I was surprised to note that I couldn't really tell the difference between the branded and the yet to be launched brand - but for one or two exceptions, which we duly noted.

I had seen wine tasting ceremonies on TV where people discreetly spit out the wine in a handy receptor, but come on, what do etiquette books say about doing the same thing in such a context? I wouldn't dream of doing something that crass in front of people who probably rounded each meal off with caviar. Besides, they may have found it insulting, given they'd brewed it in the first place.

After a few more rounds of tasting everything, the client suggested a repeat of the whole thing. His point was that we should have a second round just in case we changed our minds about what we thought the first time.

No one disagreed with him.

As I sipped on, I had to admit it, the bottles looked really pretty.

An array of golden yellow, cranberry red, deep purple and sparkling lime, which seemed to glow from within as I gazed at them.

The soft clinking sound of bottles being passed around merged well with the dim, diffused yellow lights of the room.

Conversation began to flow more freely. We discussed a whole lot of interesting subjects - where we'd all vacationed last, what we did weekends, which movies we had caught lately, which book we would pick to read on a two-hour flight and many other absorbing issues like that. Mr. Kapil's most trusted right hand man, the finance whiz, Mr. Jha suggested I use his first name only and offered to give me advice anytime on my tax planning. The jackets were flung over armchairs and the men's ties seemed to have lost their perfected knots. I idly watched Desmond, lulled into a happy snooze, who was still sitting upright with one of the bottles balanced precariously on his belly.

Mr. Kapil described their huge family estate and invited LL and I to schedule an offsite visit. We were duly flattered to accept.

For the first time, I heard Mr. Kapil laugh out loud. A nice, honest laugh.

He seemed to be listing slightly to one side on his couch, but looked immensely comfortable and somehow more humane. Like just another regular guy, not a tycoon. Finding it more and more difficult to remember what exactly my objections were, I couldn't understand why I'd ever thought of him as uptight or sombre.

Settling back more comfortably amongst the deep cushions in a happy haze, and helping myself to more of the cranberry, I realized LL was trying to catch my eye. He'd seen Desmond too and I could tell he hoped the client wouldn't notice. He waved me over and said that he was stepping into his office cabin briefly. I guessed the excess alcohol was catching up with him.

I was still wondering why on earth LL wanted me to go along, unless I had to help carry him, when LL prompted, "Didn’t you want to see me about something?"

"Who me?", I responded. "No, not at all!"

Most guys I know have been found imbibing before noon at least once, and I had always found their tales intriguing. The scene of the crime in such cases is usually a destination like Goa, a land where all is forgiven. This is one account where I too stood guilty as charged, but as I'm sure you agree - amidst impeccable company.

Just a Random Day at Work

Venue : Boss's cabin, one fine day.

I know you'll excuse the overall poor sketch quality and the fact that I couldn't quite draw the bodies.

Yes, those figures represent people.

The ones without any visible hair are male.

(Click on the image to see it clearly)

Marrkit's Memorable Memos

If one studied the memos which did the rounds, one could quite easily imagine the events that led to it.

Each crisis faced was thus chronicled by an appropriately worded memo. New administrative rules were created at the drop of a hat. No matter how absurd.

The current memo in circulation often indicated an accurate reading of the administrative woes of the company. Good practices of HR & Personnel Management were, however, realms that no one in this department had ever entered.

At other times, the memos reflected the diabolical cunning with which the small organisation (read LL & co) found new ways to frustrate us and take the joy out of living.

Office Memo no. 91

Dear Marrkitians,

We are happy to see that our new policy of introducing alternate Saturdays as a half-day off for the first time in the history of this company was welcomed by all.

However, we have noticed that some employees have taken undue advantage of our leave rules. (Author's note: One of the newcomers had had the temerity to club his compensatory leave with a Sunday)

Here are new amendments to the Marrkit leave rule policy:-

1. If you have not taken an alternate Saturday off in the month, you are entitled to take a compensatory half-day leave on any other day of the week.
2. This compensatory leave can only be taken in the week following the Saturday you worked on. It expires thereafter.
3. It cannot be taken on any day preceding or succeeding a holiday, including Sundays. (Saturdays & Mondays, therefore, cannot be taken as a half day off)
4. Care should be taken, after permission from your respective group head, that your day of leave does not hinder regular flow of work. (Author's note: The clincher. This clause effectively meant that no one could take any compensatory leave… ever.)
5. More than two persons cannot take the compensatory leave on the same day. More than one person in the same group cannot take the compensatory leave on the same day.
6. Please submit your application letter for compensatory leave in triplicate, that is, one copy to LL, one to the EA and one to the respective group head.

Kindly adhere to these rules. This memo is available in the leave rule file for reference.

Signed

LL

Office Memo no. 123

Dear Marrkitians,

Greetings for this festive season!

The Diwali bonus cheques will be given out on the day of Diwali at 8 a.m.

Kindly be present for the pooja and to receive the swami's blessings. The swami will be from Iskcon temple.

Signed

LL

Office Memo no. 145

Dear Marrkitians,

Days on which Marrkit will observe a public holiday for this year:

1. 1st January
2. Republic Day - 26th January
3. Independence Day - 15th August
4. Diwali day

No other public or bank holiday will be recognized.

Signed

LL

Office Memo no. 162

Dear Marrkitians,

The biscuits and snacks provided in the office pantry are for all to enjoy as a facility, however they are primarily provided to be served to clients.

Our office boys have reported that in the last month, the standard biscuit, tea and coffee stock has depleted far more quickly.

This is a gentle reminder that as per our new Marrkit Cost Cutting policy, we would like to hope that we can refrain from having to increase supplies for the next month. We appreciate your support.

Signed

LL

Office Memo no. 179

Dear Marrkitians,

I will be going for my annual vacation to Switzerland from 15th April to 29th May.

Kindly note that no group heads are allowed to take leave during this time. I am confident that you will ensure that the office remains fully operational in every way.

During my absence, I will call at 9.00 a.m. (IST) to speak to the group heads, everyday.

Signed

LL

Office Memo no. 185

Dear Marrkitians,

It has been brought to our notice that two employees left for lunch outside of the office premises for 25 minutes.

We expect you to be present in the office during your lunch in case of call, emergency or requirement for your clients.

Signed

LL

Office Memo no. 204

Dear Marrkitians,

Your cars are parked at the parking space within building premises at your own risk.

We regret to state that in the event of any Marrkit office boy helping himself to your car keys and damaging your car, this organisation will not take responsibility for the same.

Signed

LL

Office Memo no. 222

Dear Marrkitians,

It has been brought to our notice that some of you are not printing out all emails received at the company email id.

Kindly see to it that all emails received and sent are maintained as a printout.

Signed

LL

Office Memo no. 244

To A. Joshi,

Still awaiting a printout of the complete company website for review.

Signed

LL

A Brief Digression - Friends & Hearts of Gold

Am sure you'll forgive the brief digression from work-related chronicles for a random break from frivolity.

Found myself thinking of what makes a heart of gold and had to put this down.

As we go through life, it gets rarer to meet people you form close friendships or even friendships with, irrespective of their gender.

It happens, but at a slower pace, as one's growing years of school, college and sometimes early work days usually chronicle the start of lasting friendships which can easily pick up over the years where you left them off - if at all.

What differentiates a good soul from the selfish? Or from those who go through life blissfully unaware of anyone but themselves and their own problems?

I have been fortunate to keep meeting lovely people at every stage of life, some of whom slowly mature into lasting friends.

What tends to stick in my memory are simple acts of kindnesses, which have been good markers for the best human beings one knows - the good souls you meet through life.

Just small, simple, acts of consideration.

Whether a pal from yesteryears who makes it fun on the dance floor without making you feel like a dweeb, even though you can't shake a leg to save your life.

Or those who sacrifice a Saturday evening to attend a boring documentary film screening, get there early and stay right to the end, because they sense you need the moral support of a friendly face around.

Includes you in a gathering of their intimate buddies for a fun evening, probably knowing you’d be doing nothing otherwise.

At midnight, fixed up an emergency consultation with a top specialist doc for your friend (whom he doesn't even know), for 8 a.m. next morning.

Or someone who planned and surprised you with tickets and a visit to a one-dayer, knowing you hate watching cricket but still wanted you to experience it, live.

Contacts you occasionally long distance, nationally or internationally, just to say hullo in case you're wallowing in a rare bout of self-pity or loneliness.

Calls you up for your professional opinion on an issue, knowing fully well that he doesn’t really need it but just wanted you to feel involved.

Or indulged in a leisurely bout of shopping and long conversations over coffee, knowing you enjoy her company as much as she does yours.

Or invites you to visit and stay over with their family, in a new city.

Or sends over a tasty snack or special dish for a meal when you're alone, knowing you'd have lost motivation to cook.

Or have dedicated their lives to a social cause leading to a manic lifestyle and hectic schedule but still find time to call and see if you're doing okay every once in a while.

Or drives over at midnight on Xmas eve just for a leisurely chat over coffee.

These are only a few examples but what they all have in common is that none of them would ever mention this ever again, or possibly even remember it.

Or feel that it was any kind of a big deal.

This is a tribute to the truest hearts of gold I know for real, throughout my life - am fortunate and thankful for them.

One of the boys

Have been described as one of the boys with such monotonous regularity from platonic guy friends (most of them - either happily married or happily separated and/or divorced) that I no longer automatically imagine a fast-forwarded Kafkaesque metamorphosis into a male version of myself. To picture this if you have nothing better to do, hark back to MJ’s Black or White video. Hey, judge the man(”?”), not his music.

But back as a newbie corpie, I would’ve been horrified to be described such.

Most of our clients were pushing 60 plus, which was good. Kept my mind on the job.

It was usually the least personable ones who chose to display certain annoying traits. Like the self-important EA to the MD of a mammoth group that probably contributed to a substantial percentage of India’s GDP with their taxes, who wanted to generate my horoscope to see compatibility with the company & presumably the managerial cadre. (Note to global readers: No further explanation on this follows, cause I haven’t understood how this was supposed to work either.) Ofcourse, I’d refused.

Or, the young marketing head of an FMCG competing with the brand leader, whose ambition was to reach no. 2 position versus them. Currently somewhere at no. 6, his part-time mission however, was to get home phone numbers of anything that crossed his path in a skirt.

Dealing with unwanted male attention in a world where you were the only one in the room with ovaries, became second nature. Strange and inventive tactics had to be adopted to deal with it which perhaps will catalogue some other time.

It often resulted in conversations like this:

Occasion no. 1: Last 10 minutes of training for reluctantly assembled sales reps

Me (in a mix of Hindi & English): Okay everyone, this was how to fill in the stock & sales summary every cycle. You already know how to analyse your daily sales numbers to get this information. And this wraps it up! (Pause) We have ten minutes for clarifications. (Long pause…) Any questions?

Sales reps (in a resounding chorus, with their murderous expressions being replaced by those of relief): No, SIR!!!

Rather than taking it as a slur, it amused.

Entering the training room often meant being thrust in a male dominated scenario with an audience that largely resembled a collection of our early ancestral primates across various stages of evolution, with the smells and scratching that went with it. And gold chains glinting from hairy chests visible through unbuttoned shirts.

Sorry if am grossing anyone out here. Am in a realist mood and feel like exploring or rather, exposing gritty underbellies of worklife. What’s that you ask? No, no. In most cases, the bellies were well confined. What I’m trying to say is, am in a gritty underbelly state of mind. Due apologies to Billy Joel.

Okay, let’s get a move on before this deteriorates further.

However, the first time I realized that I was viewed as ‘one of the boys’ in a professional context, was in completely different circumstances.

Occasion no. 2: A giant boardroom with a beautifully polished circular mammoth table, in a building tastefully and impeccably furnished, seated across from a team consisting of the VP, GMs & Brand managers of two SBUs of a multi-crore company whose brands are a household name here.

Watching their MDs at these meetings was extremely edifying. It was a privilege watching them make quick, incisive decisions. Cutting through the pfaff that was usually discussed for agonizing hours or even months by all of us.

In these meetings everyone would state their stances on various issues after which the MDs joined in and took the final call. This was standard procedure every month.

The half of the meeting that took place before the directors joined in was much more casual. Everyone relaxed in various comfortable poses in their chairs, legs stretched and one particular guy always took this opportunity to catch up on his nap. He had a trick of blending into the background somehow - all the while with an expression that looked like he was in deep, profound thought. I was convinced otherwise. The occasional gentle snore helped me arrive at that conclusion.

Once in two weeks, the ad agencies joined in. This was one of those weeks.

We’d already had an excruciating 3 hour long discussion. The tray of biscuits had nothing left on it but a few crumbs. And this was before it even reached my end of the table. Well, the room had 10 men full of hearty appetites. The office boy, fed up of serving and teas and coffees, substituted with glasses of water instead.

The room appeared animated briefly once he refilled the tray of biscuits. The sleeper opened one eye and grabbed 3 at the same time. I was deeply offended at this lack of consideration.

The Britannia Bourbon ones disappeared at record speed about 6 people down the row from me.

The Parle Gs were last to go, under duress.

Clearly, no one felt in need of any glucose supplementation. Empty tray at my end yet again.

Why was I even noticing this? It was to keep from throwing myself out the window on yet another endless repetition of all the pros and cons being discussed ad nauseum.

Their ACs worked super efficiently, and the temperature was Siberian. I couldn’t get more uncomfortable.

Suddenly, the door behind me opened with a decisive swing, which could only be the director.

What caught my eye was the sudden, amazing transformation. It was like watching a Domino effect.

The veep right across from me sat up straight, one hand automatically flying to his tie. His partner, did the same. Sleepy guy suddenly looked wide awake and alert and uncurled his spine. It was wonderful to watch. Buttons got buttoned and biscuit crumbs got brushed away. All in a few discreet split seconds.

LL who’d sneaked a look over my shoulder, looked a little red and was similarly fingering his tie and straightening his files. This was odd. He was usually unintimidated and unfazed by the directors.

The new entrant walked into my line of vision.

She was the stunning, new creative director (CD) from the agency, taking over to present a few concepts.

No wonder the wilted team now looked its smart and shiny best. It was just like a shot from one of those David Attenborough nature shows where mushrooms grew in fast-forward or petals unfolded at high speed. Like watching a stadium crowd wave.

This was human stimulus-response at its best.

Yep, I was clearly - one of the guys.

Resuscitation

It was one of those days again.

Had reached office at 8 a.m. and a whole 12 and a half hours later, was still there.

Did I mention that we were understaffed and overburdened? Or that we could have held a record for the highest attrition? Lately, I'd forgotten what sunlight looked like.

Since it had always been my burning ambition since childhood to be 'independent', I was happy to be working in an office, earning my own income, rubbing shoulders with - well, not exactly the 'who's who' of the advertising and marketing world, but quite close.

Plus, the terrible impression I had of those who worked in "business" was slowly changing. Some of the people who did this were actually human. Not heartless, cut-throat, ready to sell their own grandmother.

'Some' is the key word here, of course.

LL was a brilliant orator and he was quite different while interacting with our clients. He was charming, affable and humorous. He bent a sensitive ear to our clients' woes when required and when a client wasn't quite convinced, he was passionate and forceful in making his point.

Witnessing this for the first time, I was amazed at the transformation. I counted myself amongst his many admirers, for his intelligence and genuinely successful marketing tactics. And I was still proud to be amongst the chosen few recruited by him. (Notice the subtle self-flattery).

Thinking back, this must have been the quality that Adolf H. aroused whenever he spoke publicly. I'd read somewhere that without quite being able to recall any particular sentence of his speech, budding or fellow Nazis were willing to follow his ideology blindly, once at the receiving end of his magnetic oratory.

I was similarly still overawed by LL and admired the fact that he had set up a whole organisation like this, which ran on professional lines.

Ofcourse, I had many misconceptions as will become clear over time.

This was one of the days everyone at work had witnessed him being unnecessarily nasty with a newly recruited sweet, timid girl who had made a simple error in a communiqué to the client. His sarcastic comments yelled at the topped of his voice reduced her to tears. We also watched him spectacularly lose his temper with another guy who'd dared send a press-release write-up to the client without LL's having seen it first. What upset him primarily was that his own quote was not included in the press release. LL did not like losing any opportunity of being quoted in media and ranked any journalist's call as the highest priority.

I was sure he'd have a couple of resignations on his table by tomorrow morning. And we’d continue losing people almost as fast as we hired them.

All us Marrkitians* soon understood that LL was rabid about getting credit for his contributions no matter how negligible. We were so used to him taking credit publicly, even for our team's ideas that we never thought about why he couldn't share the credit a bit. Or use "we" instead of "I" while talking of a successful launch or repositioning.

*Refer to 'Glossary of Marrkit's Marketing Terms/ Office Jargon' section for meanings

Still trying to come to terms with what colossal ego could get a kick out of picking on youngsters like that, I was revising my earlier impressions of him - largely got from his media personality. Oh yes, he was very often to be seen on the business news channels and widely quoted in marketing articles.

Did I mention already that we all had many misconceptions?

One of his favourite quotes recently was that the fifth 'P' - 'People' are most important in an organisation and must be treated well. Well, he didn't seem to be acting on it himself, did he? I did reflect on how he had never taken such liberties with some of us who were still loyal. I would never have stood for this sort of treatment. I'd made errors in judgement too, but followed that adage of never repeating a mistake again, which was getting me 'good' to 'excellent' performance ratings every quarter. (I'm sure you'll allow the continuing self-flattery here)

He also chose to mentor me, as this was my first job. This meant I was exposed to long, lengthy reminisces from him of his first job and subsequent ones. By now I knew his life history by heart. He was highly experienced in the corporate way of life, and passed on lots of useful tips on handling various situations, clients, people. I appreciated this interest and this was one of the reasons he fostered loyalty.

Over tea (for him), coffee (for me) and soggy biscuits in his office, he would narrate many interesting anecdotes from his early working days. I found these fascinating - each episode ended with him achieving fantastic targets, or reaching glorious new levels of sales for the companies in question, or devising a brilliant marketing strategy in the nick of time to save the brand from ruin by the new, deadly competitor. Or reaching hitherto unaccessed markets in remote locations and placing the product there.

I was enchanted and saw him as the gladiator of the sales and marketing world, who had now retired into consulting for lesser mortals.

Or perhaps it would be more correct to say - he saw himself that way.

I was beginning though, to feel uncomfortable about the fact that I was tending to take the easy way out. By simply doing everything his way - compromising on what anyone else thought was best for the situation, including my own judgement. To use a trivial example, in any press release we penned on the client's behalf, I would automatically include a discerning quote from LL, which he sometimes found good enough to not improve on at times. One clearly needed to develop a very thick skin to be working with him. Was I getting one? Telling myself that I had to earn a living and that he was basically honest and ethical as far as I could see, I decided that we had no right to question any of his tactics. After all, we were earning a living thanks to him, and it was his company. Things could be worse.

All in all, the day was one of those which whizzed by with unimaginable speed, ate up my lunch break, and included uncomfortable thoughts crowding in, about my employer.

I badly needed to cheer up, get home, relax, watch some Frasier.

And an 'approval' from LL on another strategic note drawn up and his signature on it. Knowing that once I got this, I was a free bird for the day, nay, for the evening, I barged into his cabin.

I knew he was getting an update from another Sales head (let's call him Mr. Milkah) on what was going on in his territory. Mr. Milkah had a naturally lugubrious countenance and I wondered why the atmosphere seemed funereal.

This was not one of my clients, however, so I barely listened to what was going on.

LL didn't mind that I'd intruded. He knew that this note had to be sent right away. While nodding at Mr. Milkah across from him, he casually skimmed through my file.

"And our team is doing a really good job. We have expanded in many new territories already. A lot of first-time orders", said Mr. Milkah, looking mournful.

"Good, good..", said LL absentmindedly. His Cheshire cat grin was in place like a fixture. Depending on his mood, it could make him look menacing or happy.

"And we have even converted some outlets completely. They have stopped keeping our competitor's product".

"That's great news. Congratulations..", chuckled LL, still not looking up.

Mr. Milkah didn't mind. He was on a roll.

"All thanks to you Mr. LL", he said dolefully, giving credit where it was due.

Now I started to pay attention. I badly needed to hear something good, something that would affirm that I was working for a marketing whiz and that all this daily drama with emotionally battered colleagues, was worth it.

I looked over at Mr. Milkah. He finally smiled and so did I. LL very flatteringly introduced me as one of his brightest and best and spoke of how my clients had increased their business with us since I'd taken charge. Flattered, I promptly forgave him his past sins.

Yep, back in those days, it was usually that easy with me. And well, timely bonuses and pay hikes also helped.

Mr. Milkah decided to impress me, though his words again seemed at variance with his demeanour.

"You know", he added, "Thanks to LL, our business has increased and my area's sales have gone up so much that our Directors are really happy."

"That's wonderful", I responded. "But I'm not surprised. That's what we usually deliver for all our clients".

"And that amazing idea he gave us, was so good..", Mr. Milkah continued, looking even more depressed. I wondered if something was wrong, despite the breaking news of record sales he seemed to be reporting.

LL pointed out a minor rephrasing to me in the document. I peeked over while nodding at Mr. Milkah, now paying attention to what LL was trying to whisper.

Mr. Milkah continued his woeful rave, "The team was so reluctant at first, but I explained it to them like LL had to me. We arranged a bus ride for them and called them all for a training…"

I listened with half an ear trying to simultaneously fix my expression such that either party would feel I was paying them attention.

"…I had to give them all, what is it called? My English is not so good. I am so bad at all these terms. Ah yes, mouth-to-mouth. I personally gave them. Each and every one.."

My attention snapped back. My God! He was describing a catastrophe. Hadn't I read something about it in today's papers? A bus load of tourists got stuck in a landslide? Surely that wasn't Mr. Milkah's sales team? And that too, headed for a training that Marrkit was indirectly responsible for!

LL too was looking over his glasses at Mr. Milkah. He looked over and noticed my expression. And went back to reading the file. Thick-skinned indeed.

Unable to believe that even LL could be so completely heartless to this tale of mayhem and horror, I stared with shock at Mr. Milkah.

"Oh my God, how are they now?", I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

Mr. Milkah too, apart from his general expression of woe, seemed to be maintaining his composure quite well. He frowned at my question.

"Who?"

"The sales team!"

"They are fine, thank you".

"Glad to hear it", was all I could say, still in some shock. I imagined them all in a row of beds, in some hospital, recovering from the accident and showing up for work swathed in bandages.

LL finally looked up. "Mr. Milkah, Mr. Milkah...", he chortled. By now I was feeling sick that he could giggle at such news.

"Mr. Milkah….", LL said, wagging a finger at him, "It's called 'Word of Mouth'. Not Mouth to Mouth. Hahaha! It's word-of-mouth marketing - THAT's what it's called".

The Point is Missing

In the course of acclimatization to the new work-world, which seemed to have till now few opportunities of applying what we had slogged over in b-school, I sometimes felt that my new work life was full of plain good old troubleshooting.

At this stage, I was assigned clients for Account Planning/ Client Servicing, which is the function I was handling within my firm. A lot of it involved receiving and making telephone calls to clients, and ancillary organizations like ad agencies, outdoor media specialists, media agencies, direct marketing companies, PR firms and Event management companies.

Most calls were mundane; fairly routine in nature. However some ended up being a little unusual. Far from the hallowed semi-intellectual, insightful discussions I'd imagined myself participating in.

Particularly so when they were in full hearing of my by now inevitable audience. The same pair who witnessed my embarrassing personal call a few days ago, had walked into LL's cabin where I had to take the call as per our ever helpful Executive Assistant's suggestion. This maneuver was necessary as our workstation was so noisy that it easily sounded like peak lunch hour at an Udipi restaurant.

On this day, Mr. Sen, the General Manager-Marketing, of one of the largest industrial houses of India dealing in commodities had called up. India, still largely 70:30 urban-rural, this was one of my largest-sized clients in terms of revenue.

Mr. Sen was a somewhat elderly gentleman, and spoke with a lisp, in a pronounced Assamese accent, which took some getting used to. Every conversation with him usually left me with a surreal feeling, and this time was no different as I was still rusty at interpreting his accent. I liked him though, as he was always polite and spoke with respect, which was a distinct pleasure in the new circles I found myself moving in, primarily consisting of disgruntled and tough as nails sales managers.

“Ah shit… ", he drawled, "thank you for sending the meeting report on time." No, he wasn't being profane. That's how he pronounced my name, Ashita.

He continued, "However, as I went through it, I realized that the whole point is missing."

Now, the last meeting was pretty much as per the agenda framed earlier and to my mind had gone well, with each point being discussed, debated upon and a consensus reached quite satisfactorily.

Consequently, getting this feedback from the client really shocked me. He was questioning the way I had planned it all.

“The whole point's missing?” I blankly repeated. This was a person who usually never had a negative word, or always phrased things diplomatically. Plus, this was an account where I was involved right from the pitch stage and had the joy of having them sign up with us. I had left no stone unturned and had created new standards of servicing for them. Each interaction was a new discovery into the world of commerce, the diversity of each geographical zone and I was thrilled with mini-new epiphanies every now and then.

A new account for us, this was the crucial stage where the company could easily decide to cut their losses and move on (from us) if they were dissatisfied with anything. Also, their move would influence a lot of future, Potential clients. (Refer to the Glossary section for definitions).

Having an audience at the wrong moment, that too, the same one, was yet another instance of the aforementioned Murphy in my life. Why no one was around to witness it when I received a professional compliment, I could never understand. Yet, the first whiff of negativity from the client and hark - there you had a ready pair of interested ears perking up.

“Yes”, replied Mr. Sen with what seemed like ghoulish insistence on the subject.

Deciding to defend my reputation and put up a fight, I firmly responded with, “Mr. Sen, we went as per the pre-decided agenda, covering a few additional matters as well and we made great progress on several key issues”. As you can see, I’d by now got the hang of saying a lot without actually saying anything, if you know what I mean.

Mr. Sen responded very nicely to this and affirmed that yes, everything was covered, however the point, as he could see, was missing.

Despite the negative feedback, I felt a tingle of pleasant surprise. Till now, he had seemed a man of simple thinking, very easy-going, almost bucolic. While talking with him, one always felt that he wasn't quite all there. Discovering this philosophical depth to his mind was intriguing.

Pondering on his comment, I had to agree. There were times when I'd wondered at the futility of what we did for the brands we handled as it seldom translated into the utopian objectives we had for it. Of course, I say this in confidence. You'd never catch me admitting this to a client. What I mean is, I could make a research analysis interpretation on the product attributes with consumers sound positive or negative by interpreting it's findings accordingly. Devious LL was an expert at this. My conscience was still alive and kicking so I'd managed to avoid manipulating results thus far. Spiderman really had it all figured out. With great power came great responsibility. You'd have a hard time convincing LL of though. He would agree and yet manage to convince you that manipulating research results was being responsible. More on this some other time, though.

Anyway, getting back to the call, I decided to go with the flow, consequences be damned.

“You know, Mr. Sen, its true. This needed to be said. Am so glad someone did. I do think about it very often. Am relatively new at this and still trying to make sense of the corporate world, but working for someone who makes a hundred thousand a day while I make under a thousand and for clients who very often are purely into profiteering makes me wonder what the point of it all is. We get stuck with our own selfish money-making agendas and it’s not fulfilling…”.

“Yes, yes… so you’ll send me the point?” said Mr. Sen who was clearly not paying attention.

“What???”. I wondered why Grammar was such a neglected subject.

Thinking feverishly about what he could mean, I gestured to my team-member who’d entered a minute ago, to bring me a copy of the alleged report of the meeting, from notes I had taken. Since I was now Manager, I had people reporting to me. In effect, the only difference was it meant that they keyed in the report, not me. And I could delegate the more boring tasks to them.

My hopes of breaking into new insightful territories with Mr. Sen were all too good to be true. He clearly wasn't commenting on the futility of most of what we did. I thought about Mr. Sen and our past conversations. And suddenly got it.

I heard the door open and spotted my boss about to walk in. He was partly wedged into the room as his opening the door meant that my team-mate was half squashed behind the door and the cabin wall. No other sight made my mind race as much. If LL smelled a complaint, it meant a blot on my as yet unblemished record. Not to mention my reputation to be salvaged in front of my interested audience.

I suddenly felt a burst of goodwill towards Mr. Sen. Must be the endorphins from the adrenalin rush, a reaction to the stress I always felt on seeing LL. In a way, I was happy. With Mr. Sen, what you saw was what you got. I'd rather have a client who was easily satisfied. Knowing LL was keenly listening, I continued.

“Mr. Sen, before I respond, let me state how much of a pleasure it is to work with you and your team. Let me assure you that there’s no 'point missing'. Yes, the automatic paragraph numbering in the MS-Word typed report has jumped from 14. to 16. Am planning to write to Bill Gates on this matter. Why the numbering goes haywire in a saved document, whenever a print command is given to the printer shall always remain a mystery to me. Meanwhile, I’m sorry for the inconvenience, and Seema will re-send the report with the correct numbering in serial order.”

As I paused to draw in breath, Mr. Sen slowly said, “So, the point is not missing?”

“No, Mr. Sen.”

I sent an obligatory frown to Seema to indicate the least she could do was check the bullet point numbering on what was sent out. In case you are smarter than the average reader and use an operating system different from Microsoft, then read this explanation. He had meant “a” point was missing. A numbering point like this:-

1.Phase I of Product launch to be on Dassera*

2.Media rollout on 1st Dec

4.Phase II commences 15th Jan

Notice how 2 skips to 4. I swear it happens. For anyone who's suffered this, and wants to gripe, do get in touch. Will be happy to offer words of wisdom and the solution.

*Auspicious day of launch as per the Hindu calendar. All clients were deeply terrified of earning the ire of Gods by launching at an inauspicious time. All us Group heads had a mandatory calendar of religious dates taped to our desktops.

“Are you sure?”, repeated Mr. Sen.

Clearly he needed time to get used to the new state of affairs.

“Yes, Mr. Sen. Everything discussed and every decision taken has been included fully in the report. How did you find the report otherwise?” I quickly added.

“Oh, excellent, excellent as always” replied Mr. Sen, very gratifyingly, and clearly enough for LL to hear. "They are always helpful. So all points are there, eh?”

I reflected on how one never learned things like this, how to interpret and use keen psychology, deep perceptual insights, to understand what the client actually meant.

After due reassurance I bid adieu and turned to LL.

I felt naughty and bold. It was time to say it. Especially, with the right number of witnesses present. I looked straight at my nemesis.

“Don’t you think I deserve a raise, LL?".

I saw my faithful audience nod.

The Day of the Call...continued

Bro: Not bad!

Me: Why are you on the extension! Buzz off!!

Bro: No way

Me: Get off or you’ll regret it.

At this point, it struck me that this interruption could be used to my advantage.

‘When embarrassing conversation occurs, shift focus’. Did Sun Tzu say that or Confucius? Maybe the last fortune cookie at that Chinese place.

Me: Mom, you need to concentrate on Akshay. He is going wayward. And Aksh, if you don’t put the phone down, this is my last warning.

Bro: There’s nothing you can do about it.

Me: Oh yeah? I was thinking of NOT telling mom about the cigarette I found in your jacket pocket.

Mom: What!

Bro: Oh Sh@#!!

Me: How long have you been smoking.

Bro: I don’t smoke. It’s a friend’s.

Me: And I’m Jennifer Lopez

Bro: By the way… what did you do with it?

Me: Threw it in the dustbin. And don’t dare go looking for it.

Yes, he was capable.

Bro: I thought you had lofty ideals, so how come you went through my jacket pockets?

Me: I wouldn’t touch your filthy jacket with a barge pole. It was lying in the middle of my bed and when I lifted it up, the cig fell out.

(And, digressing) Me: Why is even my bed not sacrosanct? I come home after a hard day’s work and why do I have to find some dusty heavy duty metal lump in middle of my bed!?!

Bro: They are my new guitar pedals. They are actually very cool. They were hard to find here. They are..

Me : I’m not interested in the case history!!! Next time, they go out the window. Okay now, here’s the deal. I won’t mention the other thing if you get mom off the line.

Bro: What other thing?

Me: Do. you. want. me. to. say. it.!

This time I was bluffing, but he didn’t know it.

Bro: Mom has settled down on the sofa with two cups of tea and the telephone. It is beyond my powers to get her off the line.

Me: I have already spent two hours talking to her.

Bro: I know. I was listening.

Of course, it had actually been only 20 minutes. I also found it surprising that Mom had stopped participating in the conversation. Apparently in the Joshi household, sons could get away with more than daughters. Or perhaps she was marveling at our long distance communication - that we were actually speaking without chucking things and/ or threatening dire consequences to each other’s cherished possessions.

By this time, enlightenment had dawned on my brother. He was actually smarter than me even though he was younger. I hate it when that happens.

Mom meanwhile continued the conversation as if this were a family intervention cum conference.

Mom: At least tell him to cut his hair. He listens to you.

Me: That last statement again proves how deluded you are mom. Anyway, on that point, Aksh, do see the Eagles’ latest acoustic track. They’ve all cut their hair. The guy from Pink Floyd’s cut his hair. What about RHCP*- they’ve cut their hair too. For the first time, I actually saw their faces. Long hair is passe. Jon Bon Jovi’s cut his hair too.

*Red Hot Chilli Peppers for the uninitiated.

Bro: Whatever

It was time to cut to the chase.

Me: Okay so hang up the phone and I’ll pay for your next gig equipment rental.

Bro: Done.

Me: Bye.

Bro: Bye.

Conversation finally over, I felt as if I’d survived a marathon still standing.

And ofcourse, my humiliation was complete. For now.

Answering commonly asked questions by faithful readers

Have stuck to adverbatim questions so readers can recognise their questions. Send your questions to exmarrkitian@gmail.com.

Q: Why the double R in Marrkit? And what the heck does it mean anyway?

Me: Look, I wondered too. We are Marrkit Marketing Consultants. We Capture the Marrkit. (Capture the Marrkit is our baseline. Get the pun? Marrkit, Market? LL is particularly proud of it). As per Indian law, you cannot register an English dictionary word as a Company name. Therefore, the twist in the spelling.

Q: What do you look like?

Me: Read the blog and draw your own conclusions!

Glossary of Marrkit’s Marketing Terms/ Office Jargon

Marrkit: An orifice (oops.. office) in Bombay - a marketing consultancy

Marrkitians: Employees at Marrkit.

Marrkitians Unofficial Definition of a Marketing Person: Start with a good human being; and take away his/ her innocence, commonsense, ethics, morals, values and add some ruthlessness, pedanticism, ego, ego and some more ego. That’s good to start with. Obviously, I really don’t think of myself as an MP.

Contact: Potential Prospects

Prospect: Potential Clients.

Client: Prospects converted into Clients.

Ex-Client: Clients who saw reason and quit while they still had some money, market share, self-respect and were tired of being conned.

Market Share: Share of Market. For more, refer to Kotler, Aaker etc

Acquired Learning (AL): When one learns, not so much by doing, but by watching what other people do. This is an Acquired Skill (AS).

Acquired Skill (AS): Achieved once Acquired Learning is perfected.

Flexi-time: Have replicated the office memo here exactly:-

Congratulations Marrkitians! We are happy to announce that as per your feedback, we are introducing "Flexi Timings". This is an initiative taken to improve your Quality of Life. Please follow as under. Please follow only one on any given day.

8 am to 5 pm

9 am to 6 pm

10 am to 7 pm

Note: For those who sign in later than 11 am, it will be considered one day’s leave. By tomorrow, kindly submit in advance on which day you will adhere to which of the above three time bands.

Now, I have the actual Feedback form, and have replicated the adverbatim suggestions from it. Suggestions were given anonymously.

(Disclaimer: Content is shocking, not for the weak hearted and is recommended for those above 18 years of age only.)

Dear Marrkitians, we believe that employees are our assets, and do help us serve you better by giving us our valuable feedback regarding Marrkit. Please use only 2 lines to answer. This is in line with our quest to Save Paper and Save the Environment.

PS : Filling the form is compulsory.

1. My whole team has quit! When are we going to stop being treated as slaves - how can we be expected to work 14 hours a day without overtime. I will quit if things don’t change.

2. I am married now. I have to reach home on time to cook. My mother in law is fed up of cooking alone. My husband is complaining. Let the married people at least leave first.

3. If we are expected to work till 10-11 pm at night, kindly allow cab-fare. Other companies allow cab-fare.

4. I am the sole supporting member of my family. I should be allowed to leave on time.

5. I come all the way from Kalyan. I leave my home in the morning at 5 am and reach home only at 11.30 pm. My daddy is saying I should leave this job. My dad wants to speak to LL.

6. There are cockroaches in my workstation.

7. There is no drinking water in the office.

8. There is no water in the toilet.

9. I cannot fit in the toilet. (Author’s note: This is possible. It happens with those who cross Body Mass Index (BMI) limits. To understand, stand up and extend your left arm straight ahead and the other arm to your right. That’s the dimension of the office loo. I’m guessing the office was designed keeping LL’s body proportions in mind. This is not only possible but also probable, because the office was designed by his wife.)

10. My internet is not working.

11. My printer is not working.

12. The AC (air-conditioner) is not working.

13. My AC is also not working.

14. Can there be some biscuits kept in the office. I fainted yesterday as there was nothing to eat. Since there is no restaurant one can order food from, can we at least have a pantry? All offices have a pantry at the very least. (Author’s note: We did have a Pantry. It was called a Pantry, but it consisted of a gas stove. Only tea and coffee* could be made there. For this, there were four Office Boys. 2 Office Boys were actually LL’s cook and houseboy too. Our company size was 16 employees excluding Office Boys.)

*: The unwritten rule was, coffee is not to be asked for by Marrkitians, as it is more expensive. Tea was okay. Of course, one asked for coffee, but getting it was dependant on the Office Boy’s mood. If you got it while it was hot, with sugar and without an insect floating in it, it meant you were having a good day.

15. Please excuse that Sheetal has not filled in the form. She has resigned today and left the office.

Books to read to become a Marketing Consultant (in Recommended Order):

• How to Surprise Your Competition
• How to Kill the Competition
• Don’t Focus on Competitors
• Get Your Customer
• Know Your Customer
• Keep Your Customer
• What To Do When the Customer Starts Leaving
• Stop Selling, Start Living… Start Marketing
• Ageless Product, Timeless Profit
• So What if Your Product Doesn’t Meet Any Consumer Need?
• Reap First, Sow Later
• Principles of Marketing
• Business Ethics for Newcomers
• How to be Ethical and Yet Succeed - All New Secrets!
  
• Marketing For Dummies
• Marketing Is For Dummies
• It’s Not About Marketing!
• It’s About Brand Building
• 360 Degree Communication
• Zen and the Art of Customer Maintenance

Author's note: These books may not be easily available at your friendly neighbourhood bookstore as they are usually sold out. At least, they were when I tried.

The Day of the Call

I was about to take a call from my boss’s cabin, owing to my workstation phone being out of order yet again. The official work-lingo for a little 2 by 2 feet space that I was allocated was religiously referred to as the Workstation. It consisted of a table on which my PC and printer jostled for space along with my ancient phone instrument.

My phone was surely one of the items the Indian chapter of Greenpeace had protested against sometime in the past. It was hopelessly outdated technology. I was convinced that it was one of the items that had been illegally dumped into the Indian ocean by one of the “developed” countries. I was sure that LL had found it washed ashore one day during his morning walk.

I couldn’t spread my legs out fully under the table as there were mysterious cardboard boxes there. The first time my curiosity overcame caution, I tried opening the top flap, only to set free certain baby cockroaches from their cozy home. That experience brought home the meaning of the phrase “erring on the side of caution” which I decided to follow.

I hate jargon and aphorisms pretty much equally. But I do get the point now. Of course, being a “Marketing Person” meant I could talk pretty much all the time in a mix of aphorisms and jargon. It wasn’t for nothing that I did my MBA!

I still haven’t decided on the right definition of MBA. It officially stands for Masters in Business Administration. Alternate definitions are:-

• Mostly Boring & Avoidable
• Minimise your Brains in Administration
• Masters in Bullshitting Also

Pardon the use of bullet points. Am so conditioned to using them. A habit I can’t break.

Anyway, walking into my boss’s cabin, unoccupied by him, I noticed two guests, seated opposite his desk. I guessed they were either Prospects* or Clients*.

*For Definitions, refer to the GLOSSARY OF TERMS/ OFFICE JARGON Section

Prospects as per LL were to be treated with kid gloves as they represented people who could sign up for our services. It was easier for me to recognise prospects whenever LL was around as you could see the dollar signs in his eyes.

These guys however looked different from our usual set of Clients as they were well-dressed, well-read, looked like they had an IQ of over 130 and knew English.

I noticed his phone instrument’s receiver was missing and took the call on speakerphone. Big Mistake. The conversation went something like this. Have put down all I could remember, may have blocked some memories due to trauma.

Mom: Why aren’t you picking up your cell phone?

Me: Umm..its in my bag. Didn’t hear it

Mom: So what were you doing?

Me: Working. Is it anything urgent?

Mom: What time are you coming home today?

Me: Don’t know yet.

Mom: Why don’t you know? What sort of office do you work in. Make sure you reach by 7.30, the Khanna’s are coming for dinner.

Me: Why?

Mom: What do you mean why?

Me: As in, why are they coming over for dinner?

Mom: What type of a question is this??

Me: And why do I have to come home on time?

Mom: Because they are coming to meet you.

Me: Why?

Mom: What do you mean why!

Me: But they are your friends, why ‘coming to meet me’?

Mom: They have a son - have you forgotten?

Me: Don’t they have two?

Mom: Two what?

Me: Sons!

Mom: Yes, so what?

Me: Nevermind, whatever, will try to get home. Okay bye.

Mom: You’re not hanging up on me today! You never speak to me at home! You purposely didn’t pick up your cellphone. Don’t think I don’t know. Now today, you will have to listen to me..

Me: (Interrupting the flow and slightly red in the face): Err.. there are prospects here right now..

Mom: That is what I’m talking about. Prospects. They are interested in you for their son.

Me: He needs a marketing consultant..?

Mom: Don’t get funny with me. You are already too old. Everyone is asking about your marriage plans. Mrs. Shrikhande, Mrs. Holekar, Mrs. Gokhale, Mrs. Joshi, Mrs. Kulkarni and Mrs. Sapre-some of them, probably for their own sons.

Me (in an attempt to distract): Hmm.. interesting. How come all these moms didn’t have any daughters? This is an interesting trend which needs investigating, about bias and gender discrimination amongst those of their generation. This is clearly a case of women discriminating against women unless their husbands were involved in the conspiracy.

Mom: All are not as highly educated as us. We belong to the highest caste of Brahmins. (Let me explain. I have a sister and a brother, which made my parents Equal Opportunity parents, I guess.)

Me: Okay great. I have to get back to work now.

Mom: Nahin. I have not finished! And I know you are not working. Isn’t it supposed to be lunch time? For two minutes can’t you talk with your own mother? Is this the respect I get after years and years of bringing you up? You have gone out of control. You must pay more attention to your brother. He is getting wayward. He needs your guidance and attention.

Mom tended to wander in terms of topics. By the way, she’s done her Bachelor of Education in English Literature and Masters in Psychology. A troublesome combination.

The said brother was one who from childhood had modelled himself on a combination of Dennis the Menace and Damien (of Omen fame). He was four years younger.

By this time, the clients or whoever they were had perked up. Previously looking bored, one had been idly looking out the window and the other was presumably surfing the net on his cell phone. But now, they had given up all pretence and were openly listening.

I don’t blame them.

I appreciated the fact that they were well-bred enough to keep a straight face. And also that if I glanced over at them directly, one casually glanced at his shoes and the other studied the table top. Which reflected good manners.

Me: He doesn’t listen to me

Mom: So what? As a sister you have a duty to mentor him.

Me: Can we discuss this when I get home?

Mom: When you get home?! When do you get home? You have been coming home at 10 o clock!! Why don’t you just admit it. Which movie did you go for? With whom did you go out for dinner?

Me: I was at work!

Mom: What sort of office do you work in? Tell your boss you have to leave.

Me: Everyone in Bombay works late.

Mom: Mrs. Phule from Pune called up today

Maybe abrupt topic change is a psychological ploy.

Me: Can we catch up on life, the universe & everything when I get home?

Mom: No, enough is enough. Get home before the Khanna’s reach and wear a salwar-kurta.

Me: Why?

Mom: What impression will they get about you?

Me: But they’ve known us since we were kids, how does my attire matter?

Mom: Because they are interested in you for Chetak.

Me: I don’t think of him that way

Mom (ever the practical): So start thinking

Me: We have nothing in common.

Mom: How do you know?

Me: That’s my point. He never talks, he’s weird.

Now what I really meant was that this dude was the type who didn’t meet my eye. My problem with that was that I didn’t like where his eye usually was… about 6 inches southwards of my chin.

Mom (in a tone of voice implying irrefutable logic): He’s A Marine Engineer.

Now, this is what I thought of Marine Engineers, at least of the variety I’d met so far. Please don’t get me wrong. Am not implying all are like that. Maybe I’d just met the wrong type. Marine engineers are an interesting subject for a thesis. What happens to marine engineers? They lead cloistered lives. It’s my theory that marine engineers are mostly gay (as in of the homosexual variety) out of habit. Some commit suicide and others after spending so much time on a ship, usually get depraved and/ or very sex-starved. Many, I’d heard on good authority, had wives in every port. Interestingly, in India, Marine Engineers are considered good husbands as they are paid extremely well. I guess that’s to compensate for the fact that they work in adverse conditions.

I feel for them, truly. Just not the ones I’ve met so far.

I was about to express my opinion about Marine Engineers aloud, but Murphy’s Law and its ramifications in my life made me keep mum on the subject.

For those not familiar with this adage, Murphy’s Law broadly states that ‘Whatever can go wrong, will.’ I completely believe in it, because this tenet proved to have startling accuracy in the future course of events. Will elaborate on this with suitable examples later. To cut a long story short, the people in the cabin could have been marine engineers for all I knew.

Me: Am quoting Shania Twain here, ‘That don’t impress me much’.

Mom: Charu is also engaged.

Me: So?

Mom: Now you are the only one left.

Me: So?

Mom: Bakwaas band karo. (Stop talking nonsense). He’s a smart boy.

I was speechless. Only for a second however.

Me: On what basis do you claim that. Define smart.

Mom: His parents are nice.

Me: Okkayyy… I don’t dispute that. What sort of a life will I have with a Marine Engineer? He spends 8 to 9 months on a ship. Didn’t you read the last article in Femina about Marine Widows?

Mom: What about them?

Me: The fact that they are widowed!

Mom: What rubbish. It’s a good life. You are supposed to leave your job and stay on the ship with him.

Me (with irrefutable logic): If I wanted to spend 8 months on a ship, I would’ve done Marine Engineering.

Mom: You’ve become too spoilt. I’ve let you get out of hand. When was the last time you visited any temple? When was the last time you cooked dinner?

Me: You’ve been watching too many Balaji teleserials. Sure. If you like, I’ll come home, wear a sari with full make-up and way too much jewellery, will visit a temple everyday and diligently cook at least three meals a day. I’ll ofcourse, have to quit my job, and sit idle, and plot against various family members.

For those not familiar with the top ranking Indian TV soap operas, this is pretty much what happens. Spread over an excruciating 200 episodes at a minimum level.

Mom: Mrs. Trivedi came over today

Me (getting desperate by now): Mom, we have an audience.

Mom: She was telling me about her son. I think she wants you to marry him. She told Mrs. Gargi who told Mrs. Shrikhande. I heard it from Mrs. Joshi when I met her downstairs.

Me (I found this easy to follow as I was used to conversing with my mom): Do you mean Dheeraj?

Mom: No, Kapil

Me: What?! I have no idea who he is! Mom, I have unfortunately had to take this call on speakerphone in my boss’s cabin, so let me put the phone down, and call you back from elsewhere.

Mom: No, today I will not hear excuses. You are making up stories.

Me: Mom, believe me, there are unwitting hostages to this conversation!

At this moment, the senior Managing Director-type got up and walked out of the cabin. Apparently he had headed towards the washroom. We had a network of office boys who usually kept track of client movements - that’s how I know. This is easy as the office is small enough for everyone to know where everyone else is.

Me: Mummy, half of the audience has walked out, and the other half is probably contemplating jumping out of the nearest window.

I saw the remaining Client smile. Quite nicely.

I also heard laughter. It struck me that our home phone had a recently installed extension.

Good Manners

“May I speak to Manisha please?” asked the deep and polite male voice in my entire history of working here. Man, I thought, transferring the call, who says, “please”? Certainly not callers to Marrkit.

Though designated “Group Brand Head”, am expected to pick up phone calls as we supposedly cannot afford to hire a telephone operator. Special timings are allocated for calls to be picked up in rotation by everyone who works here. The list of timings was taped to my Workstation desktop.

By the way, when I joined, I was designated Brand Executive. Then I was confirmed as Brand Executive. The career path then dictated that I become a Senior Brand Executive, then Brand Manager and then Senior Brand Manager. This was as per the Marrkit Career Path. This was also framed by LL.

However, fate and perhaps my work skills intervened and I received an “accelerated promotion” which meant I became a Brand Manager directly after Brand Executive.

It did make me proud.

At this stage, I was a Group Brand Head. Go figure.

The Beginning

Let’s start with when I took up my first job. I was 23 then. A small marketing consultancy called Marrkit. People working for Marrkit were known as “Marrkitians”.

Am not kidding.

Each time I heard myself being referred to as one, I felt as if I’d turned into a distant species of some creepy-crawly alien life form.

The firm is headed by a super-thin and tall “Boss” whom you almost can’t see if he turns sideways. He’s called LL by most. Not short for LL Cool J, but Luvleen Lalitlalkishen. Don’t blame ‘em. There were a few diligent ones in our office who still persisted, or rather, laboured with “Mister Lalitlalkishen”. His wife called him Luvleen. I decided to join the throng of those who called him LL.

He loved jargon. For those who don’t know, jargon is official management speak. Let me elaborate.

You know how when you call up and the Secretary, oops, Executive Assistant* says, “He’s not available right now”? That really means, “He’s on his favourite toilet seat, pondering over the next marketing strategy. And taking way too long. Call later”. He also loved creating his own jargon.

My name is Aashita Joshi, of Hindu (Indian) origin, and means, ‘one who is full of hope’. I guess now I just have one small correction - ‘One who was full of hope’. I haven’t fully recovered yet.

Scott Adams had nothing on me, man!

*: At Marrkit, it was a mortal sin to call a secretary a secretary. You had to call her Executive Assistant. Yes, it was always a ‘Her‘ at Marrkit. You could tell which one she was as she was the only one who left at 5:15 pm sharp. Our office timings were from 9 am to 6 pm.

Not! far from the madding crowd

This is a narrative with a difference.

That it reflects what went on in the past, being jotted down only now, experience by experience. Another difference is that names have been changed, as the objective is not to be offensive to any one or provide publicity, positive or harmful, to any of the personalities mentioned.

This is about my first job. In the most ‘happening’ city of India - Mumbai. This is also a compilation of conversations and experiences from my somewhat eventful life (at least to me) interspersed with meeting an astonishingly varied and interesting set of people, some nice, some odd. I haven’t simply invented this. There are frequent jumps between space and time and myriad digressions, so pay attention. If it still doesn’t make sense, I’ll endeavour to clarify.

So what is this about? Read on to know more. Some of it would be in the form of conversations, or just plain rambling. Do visit often and comment if you like. Would be nice hearing from you.

I’m a single gal, living in India, in a city called Mumbai, also known earlier as Bombay, a teeming metropolis; like no other.