‘Guys,
do you want to go to Pristine resort for a day and you have to only spend Rs
11,000. By-the-way the tariff charges are Rs. 25,000,’ Laily informed to
Manjula and Ashmi.
‘In
11,000 you can stay a day and night in the resort, your kids can splash in the
pool and have goodies from the refrigerator,’ she said to hard-sell the deal
that had just landed in her inbox a few minutes ago.
On the occasion of Independence Day, which had fallen on a
Saturday, the resort had thrown a marketing weekend gimmick especially for the
people at Epicure Resorts. Even if you lived in the town, you could go and spend a weekend over there
and have fun. The audience to whom Laily was speaking to looked at her with an
expression which says that she has lost it completely.
‘It’s okay to behave like this on a Thursday
morning. The week takes its toll by now. Moreover the kind of salaries we get
at Epicure Exports, we just can’t afford such luxuries,’ Ashmi tried to
rationalize her temporary insanity.
‘Yes, I know, in the kind of money we make, we
will want to spend 11 days and nights in
11,000,’ summed Laily before she sauntered back to her desk, waiting for Jain to come to office from Trivandrum, where
he had gone to sign a new deal for opening a new store.
The Epicure Exports were venturing
beyond the Vindhyas with their chain of stores.
Jain had rescheduled his flight once again and he was coming half an
hour early, as he had texted her. Though
Laily had done web check in for him, still you can’t be sure with Jain. Until
he flew, there was no guarantee. And he would even go to the airport and ring
up Laily from there saying, I AM NOT TAKING THAT FLIGHT. BOOK ME AN ANOTHER
FLIGHT. RESCUE ME FROM HERE. I AM NOT GOING TO FLY IN THIS PLANE.
Name an excuse and Jain could come up with it. The buzz around
the Epicure Exports was that his booking followed by cancellation fees, would
suffice for a person’s trip to the world.
Today he had rescheduled his flight
again and he took the flight which was half an hour early.
‘This means that he will come at 12.00
to work instead of 1 pm,’ calculated Laily, as she opened her Microsoft Outlook
to check her emails.
Her
Microsoft Outlook beeped. An email had just landed in her inbox. I am not coming today. Book me a flight for
tomorrow. Something urgent has happened in Trivandrum and I need to be here to
sort it out.
Well, rescheduling flights and coming
early was common for him, but not flying was something unusual.
Desperately, Laily tried Jain’s number.
‘Did he get kidnapped?’ she pushed the envelope.
A sentence in Malyalam made her realize
that his mobile was switched off. That meant Jain was away for the day. A whole
day without his peering eyes on her computer screen was too much of a relief
for her. Her sentiments were echoed by almost everyone in the office.
‘Shall we have breakfast at my table?’
Laily called Ashmi to ask this.
‘But, what about boss?’ Ashmi said. ‘Oh! he is away for the day and his mobile is
not reachable either,’ she spoke
grinning.
As the gang huddled on her desk to have
breakfast, it was a signal for the rest of the folks at Epicure Exports
that Jain wasn’t coming for the day. The
intercom refused to stay quiet, she answered all of those calls with the stoic
patience of a doctor who answers the attendants of a terminally ill patient and
with a rehearsed line, ‘I am not sure about his whereabouts, he is
unreachable.’
‘Put the phone down and have
breakfast,’ screeched Manjula to Laily, while she chomped on a piece of idli.
‘Anyway, will anyone tell me what Jain does at work, besides rocking on the
plush chair throughout the day?,’ Manjula wished to know. She was irritated
because the pantry boy wasn’t reachable for the tea.
‘You bet, last week only I got the
third chair for him,’ filled in Laily, in my stint of two years.
‘That makes it six,’ added Ashmi,
because I have stayed longer in Epicure Exports than anyone of you.
‘That means you are a dinasour. Move
out fast or you are going to become extinct just like them,’ commented Laily
between mouthful of idli. ‘By the way, he plays Brickbreaker too all the time
on his Blackberry,’ she gave a new bit of information.
‘So who all are going for the retreat
at Pristine?’ Ashmi asked raising her eyebrow quizzically.
‘Practically, all those who are who’s who
of the company,’ answered Manjula.
Laily corrected her, ‘She is trying to
say all those who lick his a@# and man he has really big one.’
‘I have eaten breakfast but I am still
hungry,’ said Ashmi.
‘Why, you worked hard last night!’
Laily spoke raising her eyebrows at the same time.
Ashmi rolled her eyes at her and
Manjula missed the comment.
‘Girls, no need to act famished, we
will have something later. Now, like nice girls go back to work,’ suggested
Manjula who had her fill of idlis and now wanted wanted to check whether her
maid had reached the home to do the dishes or not.
‘Well, this sounds like a plan and let
me try Jain’s phone number once again,’ Laily agreed.
‘Why bother when he is not reachable? You wish to chirp in your sweet voice to
him,’ Ashmi repaid her banter in full.
‘Stop it, you are constantly trying to
hook me with him. If I ever go with him on a date it will be in a place for
where I would have arranged Free Dinner’ she said.
‘You are being mean now, it’s not free,
make it complimentary,’ Manjula joined the fun.
‘Whatever,’ Laily spoke with a shrug.
Now, get back to work.
The ladies went back to their desks.
Manjula started managing her home with a remote called telephone. Ashmi updated
her blog, chatted on Facebook with people other than Mathias, the so called
tribe of FB friends and Laily was on the phone trying to talk to her maasi in
Delhi. Her maasi a so-called crorepati, would only give her missed calls,
whenever she would like to talk to her.
That afternoon women who were behaving
like girls, sent a pantry boy to get few samosas packed.
‘This is my treat,’ announced Ashmi.
‘I’ll have a paneer pakoda too,’ Manjula added.
In no time the entire office joined in
the picnic. In fact, few enterprising one’s ordered the pantry boy to make
spicy pakodas because there was a nip in the air which officially marked the
arrival of winter in Delhi, just perfect to laze around on the chair, gossip
and to have pakodas. The relief of Jain’s absence for the whole day was too
much for everyone to contain and it spilled over on all sections of the office.
That day most of the senior management at Epicure Exports left early, because
they had meetings scheduled and for those who didn’t have appointments to
parade, the device called biometric attendance, which recorded thumb impression
of mere mortals to record their attendance malfunctioned, because a smart Alec
decided to scratch it with a coin.
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