How ridiculous Chapter 18

Laily strode to Ashmi’s desk with a smile on her lips like a cat that had eaten a bowl of cream.

‘What happened? Why are you grinning?’ Ashmi asked unable to contain her eagerness, to listen the latest gossip around Epicure Exports. The moment Paras would give reprieve to his rocking official chair to go grudgingly for meetings, as he couldn’t play Brickbreaker for a while, Laily would begin to chirp around the office like a free bird. She was like the live wire in the whole of office and when she chirped around the morose faces began to get lit up. 

‘You wouldn’t believe something, really interesting happened today,’ she spilled out immediately.

‘And what was that?’ she prodded. Sinha had given me a fax in which Zafar Maqsood had requested for a separate printer and scanner in his office. Epicure Exports worked on the principle of sharing of printers. In fact, Jain was cost cutting personified. If he could save a penny, he would, more so if it involved people working at Epicure Exports. There was an exception for this rule and that was only for himself.

‘Now, what did Jain revert to that fax?’ she asked.

‘Ridiculous,’ Laily said.  ‘What?’ Ashmi asked once again.

‘Just what you heard, ridiculous,’ she replied hanging on to the expression of a smug cat.

 Then, Ashmi prodded her. The conversation had to flow.

‘I went and told Sinha that Jain had said ridiculous to the fax request,’ she said.

‘Then what? He probably didn’t understand what ridiculous meant?’ Ashmi exclaimed.

 ‘Ridiculous.’ Hey continue, we need more dope,’ interjected Manjula.

‘ Then what, he came staggering to Jain’s office flourishing that fax in his hand to find out for himself what  Jain meant by ridiculous?  Was he going to grant approval with ridiculous? Or was he contemplating and will grant it later?’

She paused dramatically to see the expression of her audience. Naturally they were enthralled. 

‘Continue,’ urged Ashmi.

‘Then Jain started in English, but when he saw the befuddled expression on the face of Sinha,’ he told him that Maqsood’s request was baseless and Epicure Exports just couldn’t keep granting everyone printers.

‘So, now did he understand the meaning of ridiculous or not,’ Manjula verbalized her thoughts.

‘Now I think he did. By-the-way, folks I took my revenge from Sinha. He had banned my Facebook account for three months and now he paid back by understanding the meaning of ridiculous,’ Laily was contented.

 Epicure Exports had three pillars: Sinha who handled Information Technology and made sure that it moved at the pace of a tractor, Midas Raghav, the finance head and Zafar Maqsood who was the Buying Agent. Who among these three was a greater evil was a point of  debate? Ashmi hated all three of them, but she hated Maqsood more. Laily was dead against Sinha and Manjula’s chosen favourite for hatred was Midas Raghav because she reported to him.  While Ashmi and Laily had personal reasons to hate the two pillars, Sinha annoyed women by his lecherous glances. He was notorious  for talking to women’s breasts. Women working at Epicure Exports, led by Manjula thought of a plan to teach Sinha a lesson.

 ‘Let’s get Sinha downstairs in the board room, and we will aggregate there. When he would come in women would throw their dupattas to the floor and ask him to have a close look of the part of female anatomy, with which he always strikes a conversation,’ Manjula said convinced enough on her plan.

Laily found it amateurish.

‘Guys, I am out of it,’ she spoke her mind.

‘Okay, we are not even counting you in,’ chipped in Manjula.

‘We believe that the public humiliation would be a trigger factor for him to mend his ways,’ she answered.

‘And do you think you would be able to achieve your objective?’ asked Ashmi quite surprised.

‘There is no harm in trying,’ assured Manjula trying her best to defend her plan.  As providence had it Sinha got wind of the plan. For the next whole week his eyes were glued to the floor when he talked to women. After a week, his eyes began their upward travel to the so-called part of the female anatomy once again.

‘May be he is impotent,’ Laily commented and he gets all his satisfaction just by staring at women.

This much is sure that he is ‘cheapness’ personified, added Ashmi, because I have seen at his desk key ring designed in the shape of a condom with KS written below it. And when you go he usually puts the key ring in front of you, said Manjula.

 Ashmi hated Zafar Maqsood the most and for the simple reason that he had back stabbed her blowing her unintentional mistake out of proportion in which she had given his designation wrong in the official in-house communication called Epicureans. Epicureans started as a ten-page official communication to forge bonding between employees. But it went on a reverse track and its size diminished to four pages, which would be sent through email. Now, the workers in the factory had no access to emails, hence Epicureans was the voice of the office, where Jain’s blue-eyed-boys patted each other on their back. On the receipt of Epicureans he wrote back a terse email to her.

Just to refresh your memory I am Zafar Maqsood and I have been working with Epicure Exports for the last five years. I recently got promoted as Head Buying and Merchandising and I am part of the XCOM at Epicure Exports, the acronym XCOM stands for Executive Committee.

This much humiliation was acceptable, but he bcced  Jain in the email.

This left Ashmi with an expression which Julius Caesar felt for the first time, when he said,  ‘Et tu Brutus’ . She trusted Maqsood, more so because they had joined Epicure almost together and shared that bonding which new joinees share with the fellow joinees.

Maqsood had joined Epicure Exports as a bean pole, but as years went by his girth improved drastically. However, he was quite sensitive about his weight. The moment anyone indicated about his weight, Maqsood would retort back, by saying, ‘I am in shape, because I have been wearing the same trousers for so many years.’ Laily once countered him publicly, ‘Yes, you are in shape, because round is a shape. And to think of trousers, now, it’s high time, you got yourself another pair of trousers.’ He never forgave her for that and since she was untouchable, as she was the Executive Assistant of  Jain and Epicure Exports belonged to his father, he wreaked his vengeance on the next, best option: Ashmi.

Midas Raghav was certainly a man with the midas touch. His expertise lied in two areas: cutting costs and getting girl friends. Did he spend on them was the whole of Epicure Export dying to know. Manjula hated him for the simple reason, because he made her do all the dirty jobs and walked away with all the accolades.

From top to bottom Epicure Exports, functioned on two ‘F’ words: FYI and Follow up.

Fyi was the guiding principle for all email actions and follow up ensured that the worker class, middle management level in which the three ladies were entrapped had to ensure it. No prizes to guess they were overworked and under paid. The bottom rung was in a state of unrest altogether. In such scenario, the retreat happened to improve the working conditions and bonhomie at Epicure Exports. The venue was decided as Pristine Resorts where the leadership team of Epicure Exports would do some soul searching and bonding over free liquor.