Now That You're Rich: Let's fall in Love!

by Datta, Durjoy

  Two and half lakhs. Both Saurav and Abhijeet had plans; Saurav had eyes on a Tissot watch. Abhijeet wanted to gift his parents a foreign holiday. Still, they would have enough to last six months.

  Life was about to get better.

  Or maybe not.

  7

  It was the last day of their second week in Silverman. Just as they got up to leave, a sweet-looking man from the HR department came and addressed everybody in a very sweet tone, rubbing his hands together and smiling ear to ear.

  ‘Good evening, everybody. I am Tarun, from the HR department. I hope you have had a good time up till now. And that we have come up to your expectations.’

  Nobody answered and a few rolled their eyes.

  ‘It seems like all of you are very tired, so I will come straight to what I need to tell you. As you know, Silverman has very high standards and strict quality guidelines, and it is expected that you reach that level. Since you are all fresh out of college, you have a lot to learn and imbibe in terms of knowledge as well as how the corporate environment works. It has been decided by the management, purely because all of you are very raw and inexperienced, and not because you are not worthy enough, to put you all in an advanced internship programme.’

  Everybody woke up and listened closely.

  ‘It is nothing to worry about. It’s just a standard procedure. The internship programme is nothing but an evaluation of where you stand and how you have worked in the last six months.’ People started looking at each other and tried to find someone who was not surprised and knew what this was all about. Everybody sat up, all eyes set on him, hearts in their mouths.

  He continued, ‘After six months, every one of you will be evaluated and only then will you be a permanent employee in this firm. A few of you will have to say goodbye to the firm … that is, only if you don’t perform.’

  Their pulses shot through the roof. They were being pitted against each other. Their hearts sank and they started to sweat. They were being evaluated.

  ‘Bullshit,’ Saurav said out loud.

  ‘Quiet, class. If you have any questions, Ms Sumita Bhasin will clear them out. But first, somebody will come and give you the letter that stipulates all the conditions of the internship. Go through it, sign it, and submit a copy to me. My cubicle number is 783. And yes, till the time you don’t clear the programme, the remuneration given to you will be just your basic salary. That is because you would be under the training module and not essentially adding anything to the company. Thank you for your time. Everything is in that letter. Do go through it.’ He left and closed the door behind him. It was followed by pin-drop silence in the class.

  The circular was distributed and the mood was sombre. Some of the girls were in tears. The revised salary was seven lakhs. Their basic salary, down from the thirty they had been offered. No watches. No foreign holidays. Everybody sat with head hung low, as they thought about what lay in front of them. Seven lakhs, of the thirty promised.

  It wasn’t worth it any more. Twenty-odd years of hard work had withered these people away. Each one of them had spent days brooding behind closed doors, cursing themselves for every mistake they made whenever they came second in class. These people had beaten themselves down for every exam they didn’t top, every medal they missed.

  All they had accumulated all these years were some papers with numbers on them, a few medals, a few certificates. This was the time all that hard work would have meant something. They felt robbed.

  They deserved what they had been promised.

  They were crushed. The last six months, they had daydreamed about this day, when the many years of hard work would pay off and it would all be even. They’d missed movies, they’d missed friendships, they’d missed relationships, they’d missed parties, and ultimately, they’d deprived themselves of all the fun for this one day. The day they would race ahead of the lot. The day it would all be even. However, it did not happen. Their dreams were shattered, their hopes crushed. Silverman had not just taken away their promised salary, but had also stamped under its corporate foot, twenty years of their young lives.

  Shoulders drooped. Some of them cried, some leaned back into their chairs, slouched and ran over the last six months in which they had done nothing but think about this day. Abhijeet sat there open-mouthed. He felt cheated. Humiliated. Saurav kept swearing. Abhijeet didn’t even have the heart to tell his mom about this.

  The only consolation that the circular provided was that a month later, a few of them were to be taken to Singapore for a training schedule. That gladdened them, but the word ‘few’ reminded them of the choppy waters that lay ahead. The person next to them could cost them a training trip to Singapore and possibly the job. Before people could start knowing each other, a big wall was drawn up between them. Everyone was competition now and the field was set.

  ‘Wonder how much I would be earning had I not been greedy,’ Abhijeet looked at the ceiling and sighed. He would have been working at HLL, like the guy who came second in class.

  ‘This sucks, man,’ Saurav said as he looked around to see faces hung in disappointment.

  Everyone wanted the money. That is what jobs are for. Money. Of all the new joinees, it was Shruti who went through the letter most frantically, time and time again, hoping the letter would change.

  ‘Unfair,’ Garima said and rocked in her chair.

  ‘Huh?’ Shruti said, her mind still blank.

  ‘It is very unfair, I said.’

  ‘Yes,’ Shruti said, her eyes wet.

  ‘We could have done better. A lot better. Are you okay?’ Garima asked her.

  The class started leaving. Garima waited for Shruti to say something, but Shruti just stared at the letter as her eyes got wetter. She didn’t even blink. The whole class had left but Shruti kept sitting there. Like a corpse. ‘Yes,’ Shruti said.

  ‘You want me to bring you something. Water?’ Garima handed over a bottle to her. Shruti broke down, dug her head inside her palms and wept bitterly. Garima put her hand on her head and tapped it soothingly. Half an hour passed by the time she stopped crying.

  ‘Thank you,’ Shruti said.

  ‘For?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Shruti walked, still dazed. She stumbled over chairs.

  ‘Are you sure you are okay? You don’t look fine to me. You want to sit in the cafeteria?’

  ‘I don’t want to stay in the office.’

  ‘Come to my place,’ Garima said.

  ‘My parents won’t allow that.’

  ‘They don’t have to know,’ Garima argued. Shruti broke down again and Garima insisted that she spend the night at her place.

  They took a cab to Garima’s place and Garima gave her pyjamas to wear. Garima asked her to choose a top for herself from the wardrobe. Shruti was still crying in small bouts, cursing her luck, and cursing Silverman Finance.

  ‘I haven’t really unpacked, but you can choose anything to wear from my closet,’ Garima said.

  Shruti peeked into the wardrobe and for the first time that evening, her expression changed. It brought a twinkle to her eye. She stood there, rummaging through the tonnes of fabric Garima had stashed in her cupboard.

  ‘Do you like anything?’ Garima asked apologetically.

  ‘I like everything. I have never worn anything so … nice … and expensive … You really have nice taste and lots and lots of clothes.’

  ‘Actually, my friend in college bought all my clothes for me. I have never worn most of them.’

  Garima noticed that everything Shruti wore was stitched. No labels. But she still managed to look smashing. The pyjama she gave Shruti seemed like it was made for her. Not that Garima was fat, she was miles away from it, but she lacked the supermodel legs that Shruti had. And she lacked the brown-chocolate-fantasy complexion.

  ‘You can have anything you want,’ Garima said. She felt a sudden surge of liking towards Shruti. She spent the next hour dressing Shruti up in the finest of her tops and dresses and felt g
ood about it. Shruti obviously had no qualms about getting into clothes she had never dreamt of. If two girls can share their clothes, they can share almost everything.

  Beyond everything, the only thing I could think about when they narrated this incident to me was whether Shruti changed in front of Garima or not.

  Tired, both of them lay down on the bed, laughing and giggling.

  ‘You can keep anything you want to,’ Garima said. ‘I am serious. I don’t wear any of this! And I am anyway too fat for any of this.’

  ‘Oh, c’mon, Garima, you’re not fat. You’re so fit! I’m too skinny. And I can’t just take it like that. They are yours,’ Shruti said, even though she wanted to say yes.

  ‘You can. I don’t wear them anyway. I will be happy if you take them,’ she said, as she lit up a cigarette.

  ‘Why do you smoke?’

  ‘I like to smoke. I can’t sleep if I don’t smoke, I can’t wake up if I don’t smoke, and I can’t even function if I don’t smoke. I am basically handicapped without my cigarettes. Also, if you’re smoking, you can avoid conversations with people.’

  ‘I should stop talking then,’ Shruti said.

  She stubbed the cigarette out. ‘Aw! You can talk, I allow you to.’

  ‘Conversation is a two-way street. You have to talk, too, just in case.’

  ‘Start,’ Garima said and smiled at her.

  Shruti spent the night telling her about everything she had gone through. Garima cried more than once as she told Shruti about Karan and told her how she always thought life had been unfair to her. Garima told her not to worry about anything and that things would be alright. They both felt sorry for each other and hugged each other to sleep.

  Garima woke up the next day to a hot cup of coffee, French toast and freshly cut fruit. For Shruti, domestic chores was a way of life. They went out shopping that day, Shruti wanted to dust Garima’s place but Garima insisted they go out.

  ‘That is looking great … that blue really suits you,’ Garima said.

  ‘It does? Why don’t you buy it, too? We will both have it then. Won’t that be cool?’ Shruti gushed.

  ‘I don’t like dressing up,’ Garima conceded.

  ‘Why not? You would look much better than you look in those loose jeans and the dull oversized T-shirt,’ Shruti argued.

  ‘There is no one to dress up for. Try this …’ Garima handed her a yellow summer dress.

  ‘Then find someone!’ Shruti shouted from the dressing room and laughed. ‘How is this?’

  ‘Great. We will take both and I am paying,’ Garima said.

  ‘Garima … I don’t want you to pay.’

  ‘Zip it. Just this time, Shruti. You can pay me back by setting me up with a cute boy. Once you do that, we will find you a rich guy!’

  ‘Yes, right,’ Shruti said sarcastically.

  ‘Why not? Any guy would love to have you. So we will find you a rich guy, just like your brother said.’

  ‘I would rather turn, you know, lesbian and let you pay for me.’ They giggled.

  ‘You will find a guy, Shruti. Nice and rich and someone who will love you. It is the best career option, you see. Better than Silverman Finance. We can then go shopping every day and we don’t have to care about Ms Bhasin or internships or Jagjit Singhs.’

  ‘Why don’t you find yourself a nice, cute guy? I am sure you would have plenty of them around you.’

  ‘I just can’t trust anyone now,’ Garima sighed.

  ‘Aw! Don’t worry, we will find you a poor guy who will find it very tough to live without you. But I think I will settle for a rich one.’ They both laughed.

  ‘Done! Rich guy for you,’ Garima said.

  ‘Nice guy for you,’ Shruti said and they laughed again.

  Garima ended up buying the first of the girly, frilly stuff for herself in years, and she admitted that she liked what she had bought.

  8

  As if Silverman Finance wasn’t enough, they were making it tougher for themselves. It had been a week and a half since the announcement and everyone tried harder.

  Classes were longer now. They all wanted to stick around. Everybody concentrated. Everybody asked questions. Everybody was back in their college frame of mind and they were giving it their all. Notes were taken and filed and coffee was gulped in ridiculous amounts and water was splashed on faces at every break.

  They were exhausted. Many of them skipped breakfast and a morning bath just to get a few extra minutes of sleep. Tea breaks were replaced by short naps. A few of them puked and felt dizzy, but it didn’t matter for it was a race and they couldn’t afford to lose.

  ‘Do you want coffee?’ Saurav asked Abhijeet, who was going through his notes.

  ‘No. You go ahead. I have to read this thing. I just can’t wrap my head around these debt structures. This whole thing is so complex.’

  ‘C’mon, Abhijeet. You can take a break. Five minutes won’t make a difference.’

  ‘It might. I don’t want to get into more trouble and you’re like the black hole; you invite trouble wherever you go.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Saurav looked away.

  ‘Okay. I will come, but only five minutes and then you will make me understand this.’

  ‘Five minutes only and I will teach whatever the fuck you want me to teach you,’ Saurav said. ‘By the way, first salary today. Want to go out and celebrate? It’s been so many days and we haven’t even seen what Hyderabad is like!’

  ‘We will talk about it later.’

  They were back just before the lecture started. Everyone sat with the bottom of their spines touching the back of the chair. Nobody dared to blink or look at their watches or cell phones as the Wharton-educated, Ermenegildo Zegna suited man talked something about enterprise value and comparative analysis in his heavy American accent. He took breaks to tell them how he rose in the company to become its Managing Director.

  Managing Director!

  He was hardly forty and looked younger than most of the people working outside.

  ‘I know it gets tough here. However, you will get used to it. Let me tell you, this is the honeymoon period. You can either make money or lose it. Right now, you are expected to do neither. So you can enjoy yourselves. I know it’s a stupid thing to say to you when you work eighteen hours a day, but this is the reality of investment banking!’ he said and smiled, quite sympathetically.

  It had been eight months since Thapar had shifted from the US office to India to head the department and people had mixed feelings about him.

  ‘The more we work, the more credit he gets.’

  Thapar gave the US office everything they wanted and expected from the India office. People were working late hours, weekends, Sundays and national holidays, and they were getting paid for it. The employees were free to leave the company any time they wanted to. It was fair.

  Thapar was a sweet talker. It was hard to dislike him and even harder to argue with him. He was a godfather for young people, a friend for people of same age and people older than him were either in awe or in envy. He was there to stay. I never liked him, though. I don’t like men who are better than me and especially if they have the hots for a girl named Avantika. You will know who she is in due course of time.

  He continued the lecture and now questions poured aplenty. Every time a question was asked, Saurav gave Abhijeet a disgusted look. Abhijeet ignored Saurav and would be busy writing everything down.

  The girls were trying desperately to get his attention. By now, they had noticed that Thapar was undeniably charming. Peppered hair, chiselled features, a pointed nose and a tanned European complexion, not to mention, immaculately dressed. He looked like an Indian Daniel Ocean from the Ocean’s trilogy.

  Thapar left and left everyone behind, discussing him.

  ‘What did she say?’ Garima asked the two guys who were known to get into trouble with Sumita Bhasin.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Abhijeet said.

  Abhijeet and Saurav were again called up b
y Sumita for some disciplinary issue.

  ‘I could have killed her,’ Saurav butted in, banging his fist on his palm.

  ‘Was it that bad? What is her problem with the two of you? Someone told me you were called to her office before as well? Is that true?’ Garima asked and Abhijeet nodded.

  ‘She is a bitch,’ Saurav cursed.

  ‘Shut up. He is here,’ Garima said as she opened her notebook.

  The trainer for the day was from the IT department and was there to make the joinees familiar with the various information security issues.

  ‘Do you think he heard us?’ Garima asked.

  Abhijeet had not been able to take his eyes off her from the moment she came and sat next to them, even though he was embarrassed that she knew that Saurav and he were already labelled as the troublemakers of the group. Abhijeet had always noticed her sitting in the opposite corner of the class.

  ‘I don’t think he cares. Probably he agrees with what we think of Sumita,’ Abhijeet said.

  The class started and the IT guy started stressing on the importance of passwords and other related topics. All mails are tracked, they were told, inviting scorn from many.

  They were relieved when he said the class would end early. Nobody showed it but every one of them envied the jobs they had once looked down upon. They envied their friends who were back home by seven every day, while they slogged till two. Though, nobody said it. They had heard stories of how speaking against the firm often resulted in unpleasant things. Sumita took special care of them and no one wanted to get on the wrong side of her.

  The class went on and everyone kept fighting to keep their eyes from closing shut and headaches.

  Movie today? Ask her too. If you can. Saurav wrote on his pad and passed it on to Abhijeet. Garima peeked in and noticed what Saurav had written. There was an awkward silence before Abhijeet scribbled on his notebook and shoved it in front of Garima.

  Abhijeet: Movie today? Salary celebration?