Sorting Out Sid

by Lal, Yashodra

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘I meant let’s rock, man!’

  ‘Sid…’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Out of his mind! That’s what he was.

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

  Sid took a deep breath as he dialled her number.

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

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

  ‘Madam, aap aa rahi hain?’

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

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

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

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

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

  6

  Aap Single Hain Ki Bachelor?

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

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

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

  Instead, he said, ‘Early stages, boss. We, uh, haven’t yet done justice to marketing its actual proposition to the right audience. After all, there’s a segment of affluent consumers that we’ve identified who are in the psychographic segment of the “indulgents” and these can be reached only through a specific communication channel plan. Their media habits are distinct from the rest of the mass audience. We should appropriately target them with a clearly different voice to convey the personality of the new range and also generate awareness and education about the distinct promise of the enhanced product range. This will automatically lead to higher demand and trial, post which we can expect to hit the tipping point.’

  There was another pause, and the CEO nodded curtly and said, ‘A new ad, eh? That makes sense. Create the proposal for it and let’s discuss it next week.’

  Saved. Thanks to the idiocy that existed in such abundance across levels of the company. Sid sighed and noticed that Akash was looking at him again, this time with approval. Akash then glanced around the room with a smirk, and the message was clear, ‘I’ve taught this kid all he knows today.’

  Sid checked his phone twice on the way to his office from the boardroom, and once more after he was seated. He sat staring in disappointment. He still hadn’t received a reply from Neha to his last message. What was going on? He knew Kippy had been unwell, but it had been quite a few days now. So why was she still so busy?

  Neha had taken inordinately long to reply to his messages over the last few days. The one sent three days ago, ‘Hope all well?’ had got a ‘Managing, thanks.’ with a smiley. But it came several hours later and with no invitation to come over.

  Sid hadn’t wanted to push her, thinking she was caught up with a sick baby. So he hadn’t offered to come over himself. Then, two days ago, he had sent her a, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ and she hadn’t replied all day, eventually getting back in the night with a mere, ‘Sorry, saw your message only now. Been caught up.’ With a smiley.

  Sid didn’t know why, but the smileys were bothering him vaguely. Had she used them with him before? He didn’t think so. Sid scrolled through her previous messages and noticed the smileys were all conspicuous by their absence. Strange – did it mean something? And now, ever since his text to her last night he had heard nothing, and that message most definitely did warrant a reaction.

  ‘Up for a work trip in October to Munich! How cool is that? Other news too. Meet soon?’

  Sid had wanted to tell her in person about the upcoming trip to Germany, but they just had not got the chance. However, what he really wanted to tell her was what happened two days ago, on Wednesday.

  The all-important date had rolled around. Mandira and he made their final trip to the court for signing the divorce papers. The formalities were all over and they were now legally divorced. And then, yesterday, Mandira announced that her new flat was ready and she would be moving out immediately. Sid had been surprised by the suddenness of it all. He had offered to help her move, but of course, she had refused his help.

  ‘I’m hardly taking anything with me, anyway,’ Mandira had snapped, so he had not pursued the matter. Fine. Let her move by herself while he was busy at work. She was supposed to be done with the shifting today.

  He was now a free man. Finally. The next step was to focus on things with Neha so that they could begin to figure out their future together. You couldn’t discuss all this on SMS, though.

  But no response from her. Why? Was she mad at him? Was she playing hard to get? They had moved kind of fast in the last few weeks. Sid was suddenly afraid. Had he been acting too desperate? That might have put her off, she was definitely one of those free-spirited types. Calling her or messaging her again might drive her further away. He frowned at his phone. What could he do?

  Akash’s voice boomed in his ear, startling him. ‘So, Sid! Making good progress on that presentation for the annual conference?’

  Sid gritted his teeth. Akash always entered his room without any warning. Usually, Sid was vigilant enough to spot him coming from a mile away, but today he was too distracted by the whole thing with Neha.

  ‘It’s all good, boss. Don’t worry,’ Sid said. He was lying of course. He hadn’t even started on the presentation and didn’t intend to for another month. This time he was going to outsmart Akash. Sid knew his boss wouldn’t ask to review until the last possible minute anyway.

  Akash cleared his throat. ‘So, I’m glad you made that point to Rakesh in the meeting today. Good thing we discussed it earlier.’ Sid almost choked in indignation, but Akash went on, ‘But, Sid, I’m getting the impression you’ve been a little … distracted this week. Why is that?’

  Sid narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his boss for a second before making a conscious effort to relax his facial features. Had Meenakshi gone and blabbered something to him? Or was his distraction so obvious that even Akash could pick up on it? Of course, a lot had happened this week.

  Apart from his worry about Neha, he had also been dealing with the after-effects of his little evening out as a foursome with Mandira, Vikas and Sunny. They had had a rollicking time. Sid had been at his funniest, regaling them all with tales of the office. Mandira hadn’t passed a single sarcastic remark – i
n fact, she had been much quieter than usual, casting glances around the room at all three of them. Sid thought she was deliberately ensuring that her gaze didn’t linger on Vikas for too long. Vikas had laughed uproariously at Sid’s jokes, exclaiming loudly at regular intervals how good it was to see him after such a long time, and warning him not to disappear again. Sunny appeared quietly pleased, smiling happily that the four of them were together once more. Sid wondered if Sunny even had an inkling about what had happened. Immaterial. Sid doubled his efforts at being funny to avoid thinking about that.

  The entire act had killed him from inside and put him in a black mood whenever he thought of it. That was the other reason he had been missing Neha. Not that he planned to tell her about that night. He wouldn’t get into all of that. It was too murky. But she always proved to be such a great distraction. That’s what he really needed – and now, he hadn’t seen her in several days.

  But for Akash to be able to see through his ‘I’m-Fine-at-Office’ act? Clearly, Sid was losing his touch – the mask slipping would mean the end of everything.

  ‘Just exhausted, I think, boss.’ Sid attempted to look tired. ‘It’s been a long week.’

  Akash had on a concerned-boss face. ‘How much leave have you got piled up, son?’

  Sid did the maths and said, ‘About seven weeks, in fact…’

  Akash started. ‘Seven weeks! Then you must take a couple of days off soon.’