Archu's Archive

Night Rider

Posted By Archu

10 PM by Bangalore weekend standards cannot be qualified as proper night, probably a late evening but not night. Even if it is, what’s the big deal about going out shopping provisions from the departmental store a few streets away from my residence, alright, even if I have to go alone and in my two-wheeler? The fact that I am carrying should not be an issue for ‘gentle careful’ ladies like me, would it? I might bump over a few pits on the road since the street lamps are not functioning but my baby would have got used to such bumps by now. I would whizz out and back in no time that my baby will hardly know. What’s this about safety concerns? When has Bangalore ever been safe for women, let alone pregnant women or when has it been safe for two-wheelers either? Life is all about risk-taking! Why is my hubby making all the fuss on the phone about a thing as simple as that? After all, I’m going out shopping to make a surprise yummy lunch tomorrow when he returns back from his friend’s place. Yes, that’s it…he’ll enter our house tomorrow noon, smell the aroma and realize how silly of him to have almost denied himself a treat by fussing over a bold daring lady like me into going out shopping at 10 PM.

There is it! See! Forty-five minutes and I am done with my purchases and riding back home. I am not scared about the fact that the local residents have tucked in for the day, deserting the dark alley nor am I scared of the street dogs that glare in my direction, deciding whether or not I’m worth giving a chase. I’m not scared of this strange fellow escorting me at a safe distance ever since I turned right from the main road. Men! Why was I born as attractive as I am? In spite of me being married and now pregnant with a slightly bulging belly, I’m never stopped from being pursued! Now what? He’ll follow me all the way to find my address and later pester me with anonymous phone calls? Give me a break! I’ve crossed teens a long time ago even if I do look so damn youthful.

Okie! Okie! Let me face it! On a new moon night as tonight, making out a silhouette is tough enough without having to fall head-over-heel about my fine-featured face. Who am I thinking I am? Ashwarya Rai’s younger sister? My vanity has flattered myself way too much. If I am, well, not so a beauty-queen, why is this fella following me? Is he someone I know? Is he my friend’s husband who I happened to stumble upon in the store? I must have missed something at the counter and the poor man is following me to return it. Should I stop and say hello?

“Hey there!”

Heyyyy…he just called me hey and I definitely don’t recognize his voice at all. If he knows me, why doesn’t he call me by name? Hey there it seems! Nah! He is someone else. He is after my purse and gold chain. Why did I don those fake stone earrings that glitter as bright as diamonds? Why did I don them at this hour of the night? 10PM! Where were my senses? I’m carrying my ATM debit card. What if he forces me to tell the PIN and makes a clean sweep of my account? He is still following me and if I ride any faster, I’ll hurt my baby. Oh no!

He seems to have accelerated, shortening the distance between us. Wait a min! What if he is not after just my money and jewelry? What if he is after me? He could be a gangster trying to kidnap me and hold me for a ransom? Or Heavens! For all I know, he could be a sadistic rapist! What am I going to do now? I don’t even carry a pepper-spray. I should have listened to my husband and waited till morning for the purchases. Who cares if we didn’t have an extra delicious lunch tomorrow? This is bad! This is really really bad!

I’m damned. He has just crossed me and parked his bike in front of mine, obstructing my way. I’m so damned! There is no escape in this dark alley. I’m sorry baby for making you go thru this as well. Hubby, I’ll miss you! Don’t cry over me forever. I’ll stay up above the world so high as your guardian angel and protect you from all evils.

“Hey there! Your duppatta is flying close to your Scooty wheels. Please tie it up before it gets caught and cause an accident.”

The stranger just said that, just that, gave me a disapproving look as if to mean “How the hell did this lady’s husband let her alone at this hour in her condition?” and sped off without voicing it.

“Oh yeah, right….thank you!” I called back in sweat and stammer and hurried home before I could get pursued again for real. Phew! That was so close!

At our dining table the next day, my husband relished the products of my culinary skills and also complimented me for being a brave lady. He says that as a father-to-become, he was a little over-protective of me and our baby but understands now that I know to manage myself. Well…I don’t think now is the moment to mention yesterday’s episode to him. No harm done and anyways what’s the big deal about it?

Baby Babble

Posted By Archu

“Ouch! Mommy, that hurts!”

“Oops sorry! I only rolled on to my sides very gently. You are a fussy kid! You can’t expect me to lay erect the whole night.”

“I’m not a fussy kid! YOU ARE A CARELESS MOM!”

“Careless? Me? I gave up coffee, I gave up wearing jeans, I gave up doing all the crazy things that I do and you call me careless? Now, you are a fussy UNGRATEFUL kid!”

“Oh yeah? Do responsible moms participate in badminton matches when their baby is one and a half month inside the womb? You have no idea how difficult it is to cling onto your slippery uterine wall!”

“Don’t start on that again! I wasn’t aware that I was pregnant then. I can’t be responsible for that.”

“Well…you know now, don’t you? So, stop behaving careless!”

“Oh God! Why can’t I be blessed with a nice non-pestering peaceful baby?”

“Listen mom! We only have to put up with each other physically for another 6 months or so and then later we’ll part ways. So, let’s not make life difficult for each other.”

“What do you want me to do now?”

“Just roll on to your sides very very gently, okie.”

“Alright, alright and you better don’t wake me up again until dawn.”

As daylight filters itself through the dark curtains of our window, I lazily open my eyes and heave a longing sigh at my hubby who sleeps like a contented kid. Obviously, he isn’t the one carrying our kid.

“Wake up, wake up!” I was all enthused to disturb my husband just like I was disturbed in the night by our baby in my womb. After all, someone did call women jealous.

“Good Morning Archu!” (followed by a big yawn) “Its weekend…one more hour, pleaseeee.”

Look at that! He hasn’t even opened his eyes yet. “No grace hours today. Your baby didn’t let me sleep yesterday night. It’s only fair that you give up some sleep too.”

“Ha! Like mom, like kid!”

“What are you talking about? I was such a sweet well-behaved baby.”

“Really? Your mom wasn’t so sure about that when she talked about how you rushed out into the world 10 days before the expected due date…how you cried through the night soon after your mom’s C-section.”

“Err…well…your mom did tell about what a fatty you were at birth making her go thru intense labor. You are no better than me.”

“Certainly! That is why we cannot expect our baby to be calm and cool. Mischief is in its genes and considering that it is going to be born to a crazy couple like us, I’d disown the kid if it was any less naughty.”

“Whatever! Now you better wake up. WAKE UP!” I pull out his blankets, switch off the fan and walk out of the room, satisfied that his slumber is shaken. He will have to wake up now…haa haa haa hee hee hee (imagine a devilish grin on my face).

As I boiled milk in the kitchen, I felt my tummy and there was no tweeky feeling there. After having disturbed my sleep most devilishly as it does every night, there is my baby, all quiet and angelic in the morning. Like mom, like kid, uh? I was just about to acknowledge my hubby when he casually walked into the kitchen.

“Did you have your breakfast and pill? Care for some Horlicks?” My hubby was all caring and concerned. O’course he is usually of the caring type but my pregnancy makes him extra caring (I wonder if our kid would call him careless too).

“That’s okie, I am done. You go and get ready. We need to go for the ultrasound scan today.” My lips play a smile as I reply to him. Pregnancy has its advantages though, at least during the initial stages. You are properly pampered and all your cravings are made to be met. That is without mentioning the goodies specially prepared and packed for you from your family. You ask for juice and there is it. You try to do some work and someone rushes to your aid. I feel like a princess…a princess with a jumpy froggy baby inside my belly.

My husband and I waited at the hospital lobby for my turn to get scanned. My eyes though scanned the lot of expectant mothers at various stages of pregnancy. How many of them are first timers like me? Do they feel the way I do or do they feel different? Should I have a small talk with the mom-to-be next to me? As I sat wondering , with thoughts wandering around, I was called in into the sonology room.

The doctor, who with his spectacles and comp, looked like a programmer to me greeted us with a plastered pleasing smile. He wasted no time in pleasantries and got to his job, placing the ultrasound device over me. That must have been the moment when my hubby and I got so engrossed into the monitor. A blurry image beamed on the screen which got clearer with the doc’s explanation. A tiny little being almost the size of an orange was floating within a confined space, wriggling its very very tiny arms and feet. The doctor pointed out the miniscule heart and almost simultaneously our heart skipped a beat. To know that at the very moment, this little being was happening inside me was so exhilarating that I could feel goose pimples over my hands. Miracle! Surely, every little baby is a miracle!

My hubby and I talked about the baby all day and still didn’t feel enough. The one minute scan video was recorded and replayed in our minds over and over again that all we did all day was relish it and relish it again. That night, our junior started off at its usual time.

“Oh Mom! You don’t understand! It hurts!”

“My dear, I love you!”

“Errr…what?”

“I said, I love you.”

“Well…uhmm…okie.”

“Just okie?”

“You see mom, you don’t want me to be the super-senti- serial types, do you? I wouldn’t be disturbing you every night and be craving for your attention if I didn’t love you. I love you too mom!”

FREEZE! The rest is silence. Anything said more would taint the charm. I am freezing this post here.

Stars Shine Down

Posted By Archu

Hi! This is Archu back at ArchuzArchive. We’ve had a long-time-no-see for almost two months now that I feel it wouldn’t hurt to do a little re-introduction. Two months really and that’s longer than the longest breaks that I had ever taken over here!! A few friendly folks had pinged me to enquire on my continued absence at my blogspot, wondering if I were up to something else or had given up blogging altogether. That wasn’t something that hadn’t occurred to me. I was taking a voluntarily career break to attend to a few personal priorities but blogging would most definitely fall under that category for which I was taking a break for. Yet, I had remained all still and silent, which as it turns out was totally unintentional. Well, to write something, you need something to write on. Having been busy for a long while, the first thing one would want to do during a break would be to stretch out and relax. That’s exactly what I did, only that I never let it go.

A fish out of water is always fidgety even if it were blessed to be an amphibian. I was that restless amphibian who wanted to plunge back into IT waters within one month of a so called break, more out of habit than need. I dived into job portals on look out for another job and recession times necessitated deep diving that I wasn’t exactly used to in spite of my frequent job hops. I sank and surfaced a number of times, not really knowing why I was getting so desperate when I had my hubby to support me. Maybe I needed to satisfy my ego that kept pricking me every day that I spent as a home maker. Not that home making is easy. Infact, from these three months of experience, I understand that home making is even difficult than breaking our heads in front of our comps. Even though timelines are tighter, I would gladly prefer to do my household chores alongside my career, not the chores alone. It has taken me three months to realise that I was not cut out for that.

Stubborn and steadfastness are characteristic Taurean traits that made my life even difficult. If you were pushed to do something by someone, you can always rebel and retaliate but when it’s you who is pushing yourself, you have no choice but to succumb. My restless soul was pushing me every moment to begin working again and with house EMI commitments, I felt guilty staying at home and letting my husband bear the full burden. I tried and tried but recession rejected me making me get fully frustrated.

Had it been only that, I wouldn’t have given up so easily but strangely I found that my body wasn’t exactly co-operating with my mind. I felt lazy and lethargic. I felt like lying down and resting in the bed all the time, even after 10 hours of sleep. I had lost my appetite and lived on bread and ‘Lays’ chips that I promptly threw up in a little while. Doing the slightest task felt like a huge ordeal and my mood swings were erratic. One day I brightly tell my husband that I would stay confident and get a job and the next day I would be weeping in his arms. My decisions were confused and it seemed like I had no control on myself. I was so not being me.

DEPRESSION! I was going down a depression drain helplessly. That’s what I had concluded to myself. Depressions affect not only the victim but the people associated with the victim as well. I couldn’t let it happen, or at least I didn’t want to pull my husband along too. So, I gradually became mute. I kept myself alone, away from friends and family. I stopped visiting friends. I stopped blogging, afraid if I would let my depressed mood ooze in here as well. I greeted my hubby with a smile when he returned from office but while he was away, I just kept sleeping and sleeping as if nothing could console me better. I was cheating myself.

I would not have been writing this blog now if I hadn’t learnt a news last week that changed my world around, from dull greyscale to jubilant technicolor. As I was enjoying my self-diagnosed depression, I puked away all my favourite food for the nth time last week. I decided it was time I did something about my sickness and googled for the cause. As the links kept popping up, my eyes grew wider and I quickly rushed to re-check my menstrual chart. It was then that it hit me like a lightening that I COULD BE PREGNANT.

As soon as my husband returned from office, I told him my doubts. He immediately suggested me to take a home pregnancy test which sharply turned positive. We went through a swell of emotions in a few minutes – from shock to surprise to excitement. We again hurried to a gynaecologist who confirmed pregnancy and subsequent scans told us that the junior was already 2 months old. No wonder I felt like sleeping all the time, no wonder I was sick, I was not depressed. In fact, this isn’t a news to get depressed at all. It calls for celebration!!! We were happy and elated and laughed at the prospect of us as responsible parents. No matter, we’ll be just good friends to our kid! We informed the good news to all our well-wishers who made the news even merrier with their enthusiasm.

In parallel, I had received a job offer from IBM. We had not exactly planned for a kid but the news comes as an unexpected astonishment. I had been trying for jobs everywhere but now I have an offer from a company that is known for its work-life balance, which is a huge boon for pregnant women. Sometimes, we never get what we crave for. But again, something better turns up which we never would have even thought of. In my life, miracles never cease to happen. I experienced it once in choosing my life-partner and yet again now with my baby. Speak about destiny!!!! TOUCH WOOD!!! TOUCH WOOD!!! TOUCH WOOD!!!

Home Sweet Home

Posted By Archu

Have you ever participated in a 600 m running race? A race where you start out slow, accelerate your limbs with every lap and run with your fullest towards the end. A race where you finally reach the end point, panting and pounding that before you could even absorb the victory, you would feel a relief beyond relief that the race has ended fully. An end where you crave to gulp a whole bottle of mineral water and lay back, before your lips break into a broad smile and a satisfactory glow radiates from your sweaty face.

Building a house, or in our case buying an apartment in Bangalore and doing a few alterations is akin to a 600m running race. Seriously! A race where my husband and I were the only participants on the track, competing not against each other but running together to attain our common goal – to buy a house and make it our home! It didn’t seem like such a big feat when we started off until we really put our feet down and realized that it was a bottomless abyss, at least it seemed so at one point of time during our 8 months journey. Now that we’ve got somewhat settled, I was like ‘Why not list our experiences as advices to others with home dreams?’ After going through a neck-choking schedule to become proud house owners, a little boasting and offering unsolicited advices should be agreeable. I mean, come on!

This is how it goes.

Decide the kind of house that you want. 2 BHK, 3BHK etc., the locality, accessibility to everyday needs, built up area, and layout. In short, imagine your dream house in your mind before you set out to action.

Start on a house hunt to find the place that you want. Check out with real estate agents, cyber space, visit a few sites and everything till you get satisfied and cross your fingers on a house.

Enquire the cost per sq. feet and make sure it is within your budget. Remember, on top of the house cost, there are registration charges, service tax, katha, woodwork, bathroom extra fittings, re-paint (if needed), furniture, decoration and stuff in that order. It would easily come to nearly 30-35% of the cost of the house itself. If your budget is 43 lakhs (for example), make sure that the cost of the house is somewhere around 33 lakhs.

Next and the most important. Enquire on the credibility of the land and the builder. There are so many varieties of real estate fraud happening around and you surely wouldn’t want to get fooled in any way in as big a project as a house.

You are happy with the house and with the builders (although you can never 100% be), next comes the home loans for all the middle class folks whose pockets wouldn’t be able to shell out lakhs. Decide on the bank from which you’d like to take the loan. Government banks like SBI are always preferable for lower interest rates but again, they wouldn’t offer more than 70% of the house cost as loan during recession times as now. And again, they’ll require a lot more procedures and visits that unless you know it’s within your scope, do not venture. As for the private banks, they steal from you anyway with higher interest rates. Just find a bank that steals the lowest of the lot!

Once you have finalized on the bank with the help of Google and enquiries from others’ experiences, approach them (read as, beg them). Fill in all the forms, submit all the requested documents, sign in all the so many places and wait…wait patiently!

One fine day, you will know that your home loan is approved. Before the bank changes its mind, go to the registration office and register the house to your name. Phew! That completes lap one.

While the first lap involves a lot of self work, the next involves getting work done. Drive the site engineers with calls and visits as frequently as possible or the work gets done like forever. Polite pleases will never do the trick. There would come a time when you realize that a few loud authoritative words is the only language that the workers understand.

Design the wood work for the wardrobes and stuff on an A4 sheet and find a sincere carpenter who would be able to replicate it for you. Make sure the carpenter doesn’t compromise on quality for cost or vice versa.

Purchase things and provide as and when the workers demand. Shopping for geysers, bathroom rods, fans, tube lights, plumbing fittings, floor and kitchen tiles, paints etc. is certainly a different kind of experience from the everyday shopping that you do and gosh, everything costs like hell!

Check if there are necessary electrical points in the house. Else, make sure you get the electrician to fix it all up before the painting begins.

Painting surely does the magic in spite of all the tougher businesses behind. A few strokes of shades transforms the look of the whole place. So chose proper shades as per your liking and if you are planning for a house warming ceremony, stop with a single coat of paint where the pooja is to happen or the smoke would tarnish the look a little.

Getting the cleaners to do the acid wash would finally remove the construction mess and make the house ready for occupation. So much marks lap two.

The final lap is the house warming ceremony. I would almost equate it to the convocation ceremony after your degree program and so you would want to do no less than what you did for the house.

Fix an auspicious date and arrange for a priest to conduct the pooja. Get a list of pooja items from him and run around the city in search of them until every item is ticked. Make a list of invitees and invite them. Arrange for catering including rented tables and chairs and arrange for transport and lodging for outstation invitees.

Look your best during the ceremony even though you might be deprived of sleep and suffocated from the pooja smoke. It’s your house and you want to drive the evil spirits away from it (that’s the point of the pooja, isn’t it?). If you sport the natural look which would have been totally screwed up due to all the efforts so long, your dark-eyes and soggy self might make the priest mistake you for the evil-spirit that he had come to drive away.

House warming done, officially announces that your house is livable. Wait no more! Pack your bag and baggage from wherever it is that you are put up and shift over to your new place. Why pay rent anymore when you are a proud house owner yourself?

Dump your belongings in your new place and unpack them. You would need another shopping spree for curtains, door mats, cloth hangers and what not. There is this final stage of losing hairs to the workers for painting re-coat, a nail here, a wedge there and a crack on the fourth tile in the second bathroom. I know, its pretty irritating and frustrating to have someone hammering and polishing after you have moved in but believe me, the earlier you get this all done, the warmer your house would be.

Bring in the furnishing now to fill up your house. A couch to sink in, a dinning table to eat (often used for multiple purposes) and a cot to stretch are certainly luxurious at the moment but necessities nevertheless.

Last but not the least is decoration. A flower vase, a wall clock and a painting is all it takes to finally transform your house to a cozy home, understood that you are going to scent it up with love and care and all that is good in the world.

Phew! Until I wrote this post, I didn’t realize that we had actually undergone all of these steps. OH MY! I am feeling mighty proud and rightfully too! My husband and I had to go through each of these phases all by ourselves and together. Right from a tooth brush holder to bedroom dresser, both of us had equal consent in everything and that is why we love this house so much. Now, as I rest myself on this soft sofa, after sipping hot tea at our dinning table, a tea prepared in our altered kitchen, before I go and inhale fresh air from the balcony and stretch my tired bones on our cot, I lift my chin and give myself a pat, this is our dream house and forever it will be!

Word Warriors

Posted By Archu

This post is entirely a piece of fiction. Any resemblance to real people - living or dead - is purely conincidental.

“Prasad, our MD would like to meet you at 5 PM. Can you make it?”

Prasad checked his watch when the HR requested for the meeting. It showed 4:45 PM and there was a little more than an hour before the office timing for the day ends.

“Of course, I’ll go.” he replied politely. “And I know why I am being summoned.” he thought. Since the day he disagreed with his MD in an open town hall meeting on work-life balance, they had started sharing a silent rapport. Even after a year, the debate had not perished but the communication channel has been opened. It was no big surprise to figure out the reason to be called now.

Prasad walked to the MD’s cabin and told his PA that he was expected. MD was on a conference call and the PA assured to inform him once he was done. Prasad came back to his desk.

“Hey dude, what’s the matter? The big guy wants you?” His colleague poked in.

“Oh yeah, we have a date at 5.”

“Looks like someone more important has intervened his appointment with you.”

“That’s right! If our MD couldn’t make his appointment before 6, he’ll have to wait for mine until tomorrow.”

“I know… Pretty strict time principles uh? MD or MLA, you never budge. Some nerve you’ve got.” His colleague smiled and turned around to face his monitor, “which makes you YOU”, he added carelessly.

Prasad really didn’t have a choice. He was already juggling between his work and family in tight schedules. His wife falling sick suddenly tightened his schedule even more that he was about to snap. He wasn’t able to align with the company’s culture of stretching for long hours and extending weekends at work which he wouldn’t do even otherwise. He believes that work, agreed, consumes a major part of our life but there are things outside work as well that demands equal attention. There should be a balance!

“It doesn’t work that way dude, atleast here in this company. The philosophy is, the longer you sit in office, the more efficient they claim you to be.” One other friend told him previously over a cup of coffee, just like many others who had been cribbing to him casually on how their personal lives were getting screwed as well.

“But as long as I complete my work within the normal working hours, why should that matter? Isn’t completing work in lesser time more efficient than slogging and stretching for the same result?” Prasad argued.

“You are right, Prasad! But you are right in the wrong place!” He realized that his friend made sense. That’s when he decided to quit.

It was 5:30PM now and the PA came to his desk saying that the MD was now free. Prasad followed.

“Good evening, Shankar!”

“Good evening, Prasad! Well, not so good an evening as I’ve just learnt that you have given your resignation. I am disappointed. What’s the problem?”

Prasad was glad that the MD came to the point right away instead of beating around the bush. That’s why they like and respect each other in spite of conflict of ideas. Both Shankar and Prasad personally prefer upfront conversations to buttery, sugar coated ones. Like minded people at the two extreme and opposite rungs of the corporate ladder!

“My wife is sick and I need some time off.”

“Is that all? So how long do you need?”

“Two months would be a great time. I have decided to take a break, get things settled and then resume my career.”

“Two months it is then. You can take off for two months and come back to work. Resignation is a big step.”

“Not really, Shankar! I did request for a sabbatical break without salary from the HR and it wasn’t granted, rightfully of course as I had no leave balance anyways.”

“We can make exceptions for ‘A’ players. I’ll talk to the HR. I just accidently happened to hear of your resignation and am here talking to you. I wonder how many such people I have already lost!”

“That’s exactly the point. You have known me and we are here talking. There were and are people with similar concerns who have been and would be leaving for the similar reasons. If I were allowed a break, it should have come from the HR as it always does for everyone. I don’t want to take advantage of your influence.”

“Good! That’s why I always ask people to express themselves, express themselves to the HR or me or to whomsoever they are comfortable with. It almost never happens. They crib within themselves and call it quits on a fine day. I thought you were different Prasad.”

“I am no different from anyone who wants a proper work-life balance and I believe I did my expression when I had to.”

“Don’t go on again about work-life balance. The term eludes you to think that work and life are different entities. Work is a part of life.”

“PART of life, not life itself.”

“I didn’t say it is. I only hate the terminology. Call it work-family balance, work-kids balance, whatever, why work-life as if they both are poles apart?”

“Alright then. It’s just a terminology and I wasn’t the one who coined it. The concept still remains the same, doesn’t it?”

“I keep hearing it all the time that there is no work-life balance in this company. Do you really think so? It’s true that we have loads of work but that’s something we pride ourselves of. We leave it to the individuals to take accountability of their work. Its upto the people to balance their lives.”

“Not when there are official mails floating asking them to stretch. Not when they are set up with over-ambitious work estimates. You can’t be accountable for something that’s beyond you.”

“Agreed! We do not have proper estimates. Our customers are as demanding as we are at a grocery shop.”

“Customers demand quality and delivery, not the means adopted to produce it. Most of the extra hours are spent on rework than work, re-work because of errors that happened by tired people at odd hours of the night.”

“We are only asking our people to make centuries, we encourage them to. It’s for their own growth, for their own good.”

“We are ready to make centuries, even more. But limit the overs to 50; please don’t take 70 and 80 overs for granted.”

“What if it happens to exceed 50 overs then?”

“Once in awhile is fine. Else, call for another match!”

“Look here Prasad, every soil has its pests. The farmer should decide the pesticides he wants to.”

“The soil is fertile, Shankar. I just don’t see it fertile for my crop.”

“That’s it then, you are going in search of fertile pastures?”

“The weather is not good. I have halted cultivation for the time being.”

Small silence…

“You know you can influence people here, Prasad, if you want to. You have the capability.”

“Unfortunately, I am on a technical job, not political.”

“Fine! You win! You always manage to win Prasad. I wonder if your wife ever has a chance in an argument with you!” Shankar gave a defeated smile.

“Oh! She does and she wins. That’s how she married me.” Prasad returned an I-am-so-sorry smile.

“Good luck to you! You are welcome back anytime.”

“Thank you, Shankar! I do wish I would.”

Prasad comes out of the MD’s cabin and checks his watch – 6 PM sharp. He locks his machine, grabs his bag and walks to his bus-stop, remembering a few indirect incidents and unpleasant discussions that he was subjected to with his other superiors, the discussions and superiors that he entirely kept away in his conversation with his MD. He knew what he was doing; he knew he had to move on and that’s exactly what he did.