Love...Coming of age

Audience and critics says that movies influence the masses and movie makers say that movies are an expression of societal norms and beliefs. It’s a chicken and egg situation – who did it first. But this debate is not new. The trend has been on for decades.

Going into flashback there were stories of commitment, integrity, love, grit, sacrifice and passion. Movies were crafted with these emotions playing an important role in the plot. Even though it was love story, societal issues played a central role in the movie – Sujata (1959) is a love story with societal message of equal rights of an untouchable girl falling in love with a brahmin boy and the hardships there on.

In movies like Pyasa, kagaz ke phool, saheb biwi aur ghulam – love meant adjustment and sacrifice. No one would dare to go against the family and societal norms. Ab yehi meri kismat, yahi meri zindagi hai was the usual feelings amongst all the protagonist. It was a herculean task to voice out your feelings, opinions, desires even when in Free India. Though India was free by then but mind was not free. Hence stories depicted same feelings of acceptance and adjustment.

Then came era of rebel love. In 1980s, there was a new generation of India which was trying to establish themselves. This generation was not burdened with freedom fighting emotions, as they had not witnessed the same. This was the generation who was following footsteps of parents of following societal norms at the same time adapting to western culture. Films like Qayamat se qyamat tak, Ek duje ke liye saw a different form of love. By this time Young India was not ready to adjust. Even if it required to sacrifice their lives. Though in real life it was not this extreme, couples chose to elope and get married instead of committing suicide. Couples even felt a lack of thrill if both side parents agreed and there was no rivalry.

There was new wave of love that swept the country with Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jaayenge. It was not just wooing the girl anymore, now the hero has to woo entire family and how!! Earlier there was no expression of love – it was parents who chose love for you. Then came a rebellious love, hero heroine didn’t bother to explain the love to parents – siddha bhaag jaao. Then came SRK – Adity Chopra who took the challenge of convincing the parents. Till date, every girl dreams to have a Raj in her life who will do all the convincing in life for her. Aajkal ke fathers are not even like Amrish Puri, still girls want Raj. That’s one of the reason the movie is a cult. It changed the definition of love, now it came up with responsibility of respect, culture, upbringing and more.

And the most amazing and annoying is the new age love. People are trying to get married to take revenge, to fulfill their desires or just get rid of societal pressure. The most ridiculous one is where male protagonist is a break up artist and runs business of breaking up relationships. Seriously, now we are this low in depicting love? Agreed there are break ups and has been on since ages but am not sure where are we going with highlighting this aspect of relationship. What message films are giving to young kids about love and commitment. Youngsters are copying the films or actually the films are depicting the society? As a matter of fact, it is true that its been easier than ever to give up on relationships, love and commitment. Adjustment, sacrifice doesn’t exist neither in the dictionary nor in the storyline.

Its not just movies, the idea of love was there in stories from history from fiction and real. Term roadside Romeo has come from the Romeo who was half the definition of love. Don’t know if millennials even know who he is or what his character stands for. It would be amazing to know what is idea of love for the millennials and who is their idol.

 

Validation

 

When did Society become the moral conscience of an individual. It has become such that everything you do has to be validated by society, even if your conscience doesn’t allow it. Society wants to validate everything that is not from the manual of regular common life rule. If it is out of syllabus then you are ought to give explanation for it.

Ex : No one wants to question or seeks explanation for – Why you want to get married? You don’t require a valid reason for that. But if you want to get divorced then there has to be some valid reason. Imagine you are getting invited for a marriage party, the minute you get invitation you start checking your calendar, wardrobes, location, etc. You don’t even ask the bride/groom as why they have decided to take such big decision in life. Probably because its normal to do so, following the suite of rest of human beings. And ofcourse it is validated by the common rules of society.

Now imagine if you are invited to a divorce party. The scenario completely changes – you check with other people if they are invited, you think whether you want to go, you make a joke of it that is a divorce party really a thing. You call up the person and ask what went wrong and do they really want to throw a party for it.

Why the scenario completely changes here? Its an individual choice to do so. But the Great socio- cultural rules don’t advocate this. And hence even if the person is free from a broken relationship, he/she goes into self-doubt to celebrate it. This act is not validated. Divorce has got acceptance in changing years but again it needs to have a valid reason. For a middle class common person in India there are ground rules – extra marital affair, domestic violence, dowry, physical abuse. These are few of the valid reason to move out of a relationship. ‘Its not working out’ is not a valid reason, its not in the dictionary of socio cultural norms. But what people fail to understand is that since there was no valid reason in the first place to get married, there are high chances that individual will lack the motivation to work towards it. People tend to be lost in such relationships and prefer to stay lost because they could not find strong enough reason to move out. And irony is people blame the lost state as a reason for not working out. Then the social pressure forces them to create or find a reason which was not present in the first place J

Its not just marriage, its in professional life as well. When youths after completing their studies are asked – what plans next? Answer expected is either job or business. Why cant answer be exploring life, travel, cultures, cuisines and then I shall decide what gives me peace. One of the reason that such answer is not acceptable is – that all these experiences require money. According to the rule book, the next step after studies is earning money – being happy is secondary. That again you have to find reasons or create reasons in your job to be happy.

Then we run towards finding peace and happiness through yoga, meditation, yogic diet, Buddhism as a way of life and so on. What people tend to forget is that Buddha and his disciples never did a job for living, yet they were the most satisfied souls. They were happy spreading, preaching, practising peace of life within without seeking validation from others. And today Buddhist philosophy is practised at a global level.

Lets just find peace within ourselves without seeking validation from others that we are peaceful with whatever we have. The day we achieve this at our soul level and not physical level, we will be able to break the vicious cycle of validation.

Aaj Bhi....Yeh jo hai zindagi

Thanx to the lockdown, people are reinventing themselves with cooking, sketching, writing, stitching, etc. I reinvented my binge watching. Sure there are many series which we all missed watching on OTT platforms and swore it that we would finish the series in 3 – 5 days. Spoilt for choices and the haste to finish the series made me give up on online entertainment. And it was about reinventing, watching series is common right?

So I switched  on to our trusted, pioneer, age old rock solid source doordarshan.  Why I say trusted is because you can be 200% sure that whatever you watch on this channel will never be violent, ugly, vulgar, obscene or derogatory. While watching the serials – ya they were called serials back then, I felt they were quite ahead of its time and very progressive. The serials reflected the progressive India of late 80’s and 90’s. The shows were never of child marriage, saas-bahu sagas, heroines turning to snakes, main leads marrying zillion times and the likes. Even for comedy, the 80’s clan never took to insulting people, profession, double meaning dialogues, obscene poses, etc. It was a common man comedy.

Talking of comedy, I am loving the sitcoms of that era and thats my new addiction. Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi directed by Kundan Shah, ManjuI Sinha and Raman Kumar is a classic guide of clean, progressive, relatable yet routine comedy. In one of the episode the couple Renu and Raja enjoy the new sofa and want to show it off to their guests. How much ever you find it stupid, but we all have done something similar in our life for Sofa, rugs, curtains, paintings, crockery, etc. Infact people do order furniture on rent for special occasions and events at home. Now it is a business, back then it was just a funny thought. But that was the modern khuddar India, which took pride in doing whatever they are doing- even if it is for buying sofa. In another episode Raja (Shafi Inamdar) teases his wife Renu (Swaroop Sampat) that how he enjoys the attention of sales girl coming to his office to sell products. Now if it was today’s modern drama, the wife would sob and either leave or do some ‘shadyantra’ and create a ruckus in everyone’s life. If it was comedy series, the wife would  punish her husband in funny was or make him jealous by showing a fake affair. I was surprised to see that Renu was shown as a bank employee unlike current bahus who keep battling mother in law and other female relatives of the house. And to add on it, Renu takes this idea to her office and convinces her boss that she should be in sales because men tend to buy everything a women sells. She wants a double promotion by achieving sales targets. And what better place than her husbands office to sell.

Now that was a strong confident woman of India in 80’s. Where is the insecurity, jealousy, fear of losing husband. She is confident that her husband is supportive of her progress, she can rely on him and manage to achieve promotion too. That was the chemistry of couples, thats what needs to be shown today – the chemistry we see in our parents, the chemistry millenials should aspire with their partners. That is what will bring a smile on your face when you watch it after a stressful day of work.

The direction was also bang on in executing the thoughts penned down by writer Sharad Joshi. Renu goes to office wearing a one piece dress, without making it short, revealing and grabbing attention to physical parts. If the same scene was to shot today it would have numerous angles of heels, toes, eyelashes, other body parts with orgasmic background score and office staff ogling at her during her entry. But that was not the thought process of India that time. Though the series is of 1980’s, apart from fashion, interiors and currency nothing is old in that. Everything is as fresh and relatable as if it is meant for today. We need to learn a lot from the pioneers. Am not talking more about the comic timing because that is not to be read here, that is to be watched and experienced.

I would urge milllenials who missed the original series to watch the re-runs on Doordarshan. It is a fresh air of sensible entertainment. There are more such if one doesn’t want to watch Husband Wife comedy, there is Dekh Bhai Dekh, Shrimaan Shrimati, etc. No blood baths, no double meaning jokes, no dark psycho thrillers...just plain relaxing comedy.

In my next blog I would review another hit series of the 80’s and more on Doordarshan. Even these shows should get their due share of reviews and ratings.

Show : Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi

Channel : Doordarshan

Timings : Everyday 7.30 p.m.

The Mess multiplies....contd

My superboss’ cabin is about 25 steps away. The minute I step out of my cubicle I wish that there should be a landslide exactly on the pathway of my desk to cabin or Pakistan realizes that my AVP is their long lost brother, they suddenly conquer AVP’s cabin area under its territory and puts a LoC exactly outside his cabin door. If not all this then atleast the fire alarm!! That’s the easiest and the most possible thing to happen. False hi sahi but atleast fire drill or something. But sadly when you want any of these things to happen only then God opens the account of your bad debts. L I think god opened the accounts of the time when I copied in exams and hence punishing me today for copying the wrong attachment. I entered the cabin and as expected my immediate reporting boss – 3G (as the whole team calls him for his loyalty towards our boss just like the dog has for his master in the 3G ad of mobile network) was already present in the cabin like a soldier on LoC waiting for orders from his colonel. To open fire at me.

Generally, when I am bored of his stupid accusations, plans, targets, I just give him a stern look. A look which says I-know-what-you-did-last-summer or even better i-knw-what-you-browse-in-office-hrs. and he would be dumbstruck. I just love doing that even if its my mistake. Poor guy could not do anything but end the meeting thinking I am a lost case. But today I really was a LOST CASE.

All my imaginations did not come true and I reach AVP’s cabin without any bruise on my arm. Atleast that should have happened, the copier could be very fatal if it would fall on me while I was walking pass it. My boss saw me coming from the glass wall and before I could say “can I come in” he already opened the door. ‘So Ms. Sanjana looks like FICI has ventured into new business segment’. I don’t know what you are talking about was written all over my face. But before I could open my mouth, my boss cut me. ‘Are we in the business of human trafficking and promoting guys. Are we taking bids for this guy who worked with us?'

Now that was really funny, I was amazed by his sense of humor. Even in such wrath state, he does not forget the rules of proving to be at AVP level. The only way to do so is to forget names of your team members. And Gaurav was past he could forget his designation also. This old man knew whose photo is that and that he worked under him but here he is proving to be AVP.

‘Am sorry sir, that was by mistake’ I know sending pdf instead of excel sheet is acceptable, sending wrong plans without approval, sending excel sheets without calculations, sending research ppt as your own without deleting original author’s name is still acceptable. But sending your love interest’s photo instead of product launch plan is so not acceptable.

‘I know that’s a mistake but why that mistake? Why are you checking out the ex-employee photographs. Is that what this co. pays you for?’

‘Actually Sir, the HR dept. wanted some of our conclave photos from our off-site trip. I was just browsing for the best one….

‘And you thought this is the best one?’

(Actually yes he looks quite smart in that white and blue checked shirt, this must be surely one of his best pic.)

‘No sir, my laptop hanged while I was attaching and all the draft mails crashed. Some technical problem sir.’ I don’t know what to say. Its not making an iota of sense but I need to keep talking something otherwise these two will start. I look around the room for some help, hoping the photo would come up alive and explain its existence. Still looking- there’s magazine, tea coaster, envelopes, post it tags, laptop, switchboard, LAN cable, files. LAN- ‘Sir the LANnn…Ah.. I …mm..mean the server….the server was down and….

‘Stop it!! Please go to your desk, restart your system and concentrate on your work. If you need any help take IT support guy’s assistance and fix your problem. Also I want a pending job list from you by EOD.’

He kept looking at me which meant I had to leave. ‘Yes sir. Sure sir. I’ll mail it to you by six’. I exit the cabin leaving my boss who by now has made a complete list of errors I did in these 3 yrs be it punching the documents on the wrong side or not wishing him ‘good morning’. Am impressed by his skills of making excel sheets mentally for all the unproductive work.   

I reach my desk and before I could start my sytem, phone rang.

Extn: 1426       Name : Priyanka mathur

‘Yes Piyu…?’

Dil mein mere, khwaab tere…tasveer jaise ho deewar pe…err…tasveer jaise ho mail per…main lut gaya, maan ke kehna tera…main kahi ka na raha…gulaabi aankhen jo teri dekhi…sings Piyu stressing on word tasveer each time she repeats the line

‘Shut up!!’ And we both started giggling. ‘Acha bata what did the budhao say? and I’ll tell you what others were speculating when you were inside. Lets go de-stressing today?’

‘Ya plz, I need a dark chocolate shake desperately.’ As I finish this sentence, I can see Mahesh Jain- sr. brand manager of the team is called up to budhao’s cabin.

“Shut up, you need dark rum today”.

‘Anyways your boss is in budhao’s cabin…next in line is you. I don’t understand why doesn’t he call all of you at once and finish it at one go.’

‘Maybe he needs to learn mass mailing techniques from you. Don’t worry I’ll tell him when my turn comes’

‘Ok whatever, right now I’ve to mail job-list to budhao and ofcourse the controversial product launch plan to everyone.’

‘Hey listen, this time send my pic. I also want to get famous, send my black dress wala pic. I look slim in it' 

'SHUT UP. BYE.'

I unlock my laptop and again Gaurav’s photo is there to haunt me. I quietly close all the windows and restart my system thinking…Gaurav you’ve given me enough pain when we were together atleast now stop creating problems.

I surely need a drink today.

 

The mess just multiplies....

I come back to my desk with my diary which is half filled by my stupid drawings/doodling and rest with plans and to do lists. The funny part is in my every to-do list, my first point is always fixed- pay attention in the meeting. But in the course of time I’ve realized that there is world of difference in the plans made on paper and the plans actually executed. So my not paying attention in the meeting is justified.

I take a seat in front of my first generation laptop and check my mail box. No new mails. My phone- No new message. My landline-No missed calls. I am dreading the day when God himself would come to me and say- No guy for you. Stop expecting.  But till that day comes let me combat my luck. I’ll continue call back on unknown number, I’ll continue wearing stilettos, I’ll continue staring at new joinees and I’ll continue believing in movies like DDLJ and Jab we met.

But right now I need to continue with my minutes of the meeting. I pour myself a glass of water and take a deep breath. My neighbor is about to fire questions about excel and flaunt the answers for the same but I tell him ‘I am in middle of something important’ and shoo him away. There must be some discussion in the meeting which I can recollect. Scrolling my mails up and down in the quest of answer after some attempts…… I found it. I found the clue!!! It was from my boss, the subject line read : Agenda for agency meeting. At times I love working in corporate. For a single task to be done there have to be exchange of atleast 10-12 mails. First 2 on introducing the task, taking opinions…next 2, 3 on taking approvals explaining it to other team members, next 2-3 on the PLAN, next 4-5 about the proceeding of the plan and lastly more 3-4 mails on how the task is done or it needs to be redone from the start…and the cycle continues. Its just like daily television soaps if you miss few episodes, it hardly matters. Things move here at a snails pace, you can catch up anytime. I open the mail and find about 13 points that needs to be discussed in the meeting. Of which 5 are actionable and rest are just to be reviewed if the first 5 gets executed. I remember, of these 5 only 3 are agreed upon and 2 are discarded in the meeting. I felt good that I used my brain in right manner and saved some of being exhausted in the meeting. I had to forward the pdf brochure of Gold ETF, our new product that needs to be launched in the market.

Thankfully it was saved on the desktop itself since further modification was done to it, thanx to continuous inflow of opinions and suggestion. It was renamed as Gold. I quickly wrote few discussion points and attached the file which was last open on my laptop before I went for the meeting. There are certain guidelines for sending mails in a corporate office. Before sending its always necessary to check the ids in to : list and the cc: list. It was wieldy for me as I had to just do a ‘reply all’ thing since last mail was sent by my boss. Given a chance, he would mail about his project to External Affair Minister and request him to get funding for it from neighboring countries. I was sure that I am not gonna miss any stakeholder in the mailing list, infact the mail would go to people who are even remotely bothered about the project. Won’t be surprised if the canteen department was also updated about it, after all they would be the one to provide tea and coffee for the next meeting.

Paramount part of the list was done. I minimized my mail box. The moment it went down and the previous file was open My eyes widened n stuck to the screen as if I had seen Ambani’s bank account. I was dumbstruck, could not digest what I saw. I want to bury myself in the drawer, this cannot be true. Gaurav’s photo was smiling at me from the screen. Last file opened on my laptop was not Gold it was Gaurav. I opened my mail box and checked the sent items. The damn server works fine only when we want it down. It felt like all the glass doors n walls are crashing over me. Please someone call for an ambulance. What was I thinking…what was I doing…where was I looking….God why am I existing.

Just when I was trying to come to terms of the calamity that has happened…Got a reply on the mail : whats this attachment??

 From : Krishnashetty@fici.com (AVP Mktg- my superboss)

 To: sanjana.patil@fici.com.

CC : jatinsen@fici.com (My boss). Thankfully the revert was not a reply to all. But my mortification was surely in front of all. My desk phone was ringing. Caller : Krishna Shetty…………


To be contd...

Corporate Drama...contd

Actually the meeting room is not boring. The architect has tried his level best to make the meetings as interesting as possible from his end; probably he knew the purpose of the room and the people who would be using it. The huge meeting room has good texture painted walls with yellow and blue lights. In the middle of the wall there is a huge circle engraved and is written our mission statement Think Money. Think FICI. Now if any person had money and he/she is sane then FICI should be the last thing to think of-we have highest brokerage in the market, we have more number of inactive customers than the active ones, don’t want to spend on customers but still want new customers and the best part is we are like damads of the family don’t want to take any responsibility but still want to enjoy the royal treatment and take credit of anything good happening (which is a rare case in my company).

I take a seat in the meeting and the meeting begins. No. I am not the guest of honour, nor it is that without me the meeting should not start or that I will give some valuable inputs. Its just that they were waiting that the conference room door should be shut before the meeting begins and its an unsaid rule of corporate-if you are invited to the meeting last minute then you have to contribute by acts like- shut the door, make arrangement of tea in the meeting, jump off from the seat the minute projector stops working, etc. The lower your designation more times you jump off your seat in the meetings for different reasons.

The meeting is pretty boring as its an agency –client meeting. There is this agency who has come up with an idea of a high profile event for our esteemed customers. Poor guys don’t know what they have landed in- its like asking a zamindar who has made his living looting farmers to invest in mall property. Its difficult to get money from my firm especially for an event like charity fashion show. I actually started imagining my boss acting like zamindar sitting in verandah on bed made of wood and nylon strings holding a hukka and just not listening to the party who has come up with a decent proposal. The scene is same only difference is we are in AC rooms, instead of bed there are huge chairs with wheels, there is tea replacing hukka…cigarette would have been the replacement but I think again the architect foresighted this and put smoke detectors.

As the modern day zamindar- peasant exploitation is going on, I am interrupted by vibration of my cell phone and I realize its not me the whole meeting is interrupted by it. Although its on vibration still it makes a drilling sound…damn these glass top tables. Earlier I knew without seeing the msg that who it would be but now I just grab the cell and open the msg. I should’ve known –someone is offering me flat 56% discount on LED TV’s. Atleast they are trying to make me happy from their end J

Now that I am disturbed from my imagination, let me concentrate on the meeting. There should be something I can learn from it. I’ve seen my boss giving attitude to outsiders- he says if we are firm on what we say and talk about numbers it adds weight and there are less chances of getting bluffed. And its always fun to act serious and authoritative as if you are the only decision maker for this 300 crore multinational company. I want to contribute to the discussion but I don’t know what stage these formal wearing, English speaking peasants n zamindars have reached. I should take that tonic which mom always wanted to give me for better concentration. I start listening to whats the discussion about. Thankfully its still at the stage where my boss is explaining the business model of our organization…I think he started with background of the company right from the history of the stone fixed at the entrance which has the company establishment date engraved on it. I share jokes on this with my friend who is not part of the team. She msgs “ Tell him that brand team was not in place that time otherwise they would have rejected the stone for the font being non-compliant” I was about to laugh on the same but I realized I was in meeting and I am trying to concentrate. At one point of time I was scared that my boss don’t disclose the appraisal system of the company but to my horror he started telling the story of how he got promotion this year. For a moment  the 2 guys from agency and me, all 3 had same expression : we-are-not-marrying-our-daughter-to-u-lets-stick-to-business.

I again got bored and started studying the meeting room. Think Money. Think FICI. Seriously if anyone had money, why would they think of us- they can think of shopping, holidaying in Bangkok, lavish weddings. If people want to make money they should be thinking of KBC, winning a lottery, aspire to marry kids of mallya, ambani’s, etc. In any case they should not think of us, the only person who thought of us and got money is the copywriter of the creative agency who got this line for us. In the process of getting that look of concentration I start concentrating on the brown n yellow wall opposite me. I see some shoe stamps on the lower side and for the first time I see it so keenly that I discovered its not texture painting. Its bloody wallpaper. It’s a wallpaper. I want my name on the company website for this discovery, if not that atleast I want to share it with my friends. With excitement I pick up my phone to msg them and before I could unlock it and type, I hear those 3 haunting words- MINUTES OF MEETING.

Blank. My mind is blank. I don’t know if I heard –“Sanjana will mail minutes of the meeting” but I am sure this occurred just when I discovered the wallpaper. I looked around the room and I realized yes it has to be me, I was the junior most person. The unsaid rule again- the lower your designation, the more intellectual looks u give, the more good looking you are(if you are a female)- the crappiest work you are assigned-write minutes of the meeting. But I don’t know what was discussed in the meeting, we are not allowed to give inputs then how can they expect that we hear everything. I shout in my mind- you cannot trap me like this. We get up and shake hands- wait, please someone tell me what was discussed.

In return what I get is -Bye. Hope to hear from you soon. I hate wallpapers L

Corporate drama

Its March month, month of heat…month of exams…month of appraisals, financial year end. As a kid march to me signified only the beginning of heat, when I grew up little older it was exams month and now when I am working- it’s the appraisal month (combination of heat and exams)

There’s a different wave in office in the month of march and april, people tend to change their habits. Right from being punctual to wearing short skirts, punching documents which doesn’t even require filing to getting facials done. No stone should be left unturned rather no file should be left unsubmitted. You never know what would click for your promotion or a good salary hike, hence a corporate employee would never take a chance in the month of march. In my office there is no different story. Infact few employees undergo a personality makeover, overnight they become leader, philosopher, strategist, mentor…even if it is to mentor an office boy, mentoring is a must. If professional and personal traits lack, for few employees biological rhythm comes to rescue- these species set their biological clock according to their boss’. They are hungry only when their boss is at lunch, are in tension and need a puff only when boss is at a sutta break, attend nature’s call when your boss rejects all your official calls. Given a chance such employees would get a plastic surgery done to look like their boss in order to prove their loyalty towards them. Thank God, there’s no corporate discount on such surgeries.

I also tried to explore my acting skills in this corporate daily soap but failed miserably. Every time I tried to follow my boss’ instructions - I was asked to use my brains, I tried to praise him for some work- I was scolded for crossing my limits. So I happily opted out (was thrown out ) of this virtual ‘I am the future of this company’ race. Amidst of all this me and my small group of friends have managed to maintain our sanity and are surviving like gold chains on Bappi Lahiri, each one having high market value but stuck in a wrong place.

Today I am late and my boss is yet to ruin the day- he hasn’t reached. If the regular politics was not enough, today there is a special performance as I have a client meeting. My desk phone rang, I picked up with as usual, 90% excitement hoping it would be him,10% I-know-he-wont-call feeling. As expected I royally failed for 108 millionth time. It was none other than - my only loyal fan in office…my much glorified and acclaimed….meri kabil dost- my front desk receptionist who called to inform about client’s arrival. I am waiting for the day when she would call and tell me : Mam, there’s someone named gaurav on the line for you. Should I transfer the call?  But I know this day won’t come because A) I know, he won’t call. His ego hasn’t given up. B) If he has to, he has my direct extension he would never call on boardline number and c) this receptionist doesn’t have much patience, as soon as she’ll come to know a guy has called for me, without permission she will transfer the call. So the day Mam, there’s someone named gaurav on the line for you. Should I transfer the call?  Will never come.

But that’s ok if Rakhee can hope that her dead sons will come alive in the same life with same physique n heroic looks, I am just expecting a call from an already alive guy. Only difference is that was a movie and this is my real life. But then Karan Arjun was a hit film, Rakhee’s dedication paid off somehow, so should mine. Let the calls come.

I entered the boring meeting room……