New broom, sweep clean!

  

It was early in the morning. I was in the toilet, trying to hurry morning rituals awaiting my Manager’s call. While in tension, nature’s call or telephone call – seldom comes on time.

 

We had an appointment for an important meeting today, which, as per my manager, would “change the face of the company.”  We were to meet someone who was to re confirm the meeting in the morning and I was supposed to be ready early and wait for my manager’s call since we had to be there within the next one hour… I woke up early, but the tension was not allowing me to finish off the routine!

Support Bollywood

On my recent vacation that just concluded, one of the main items in my agenda was to meet my cousin. She is happily married, has three kids; and her only complaint was that I did not go to her house in Mumbai the last seven years. It was true that I was flying via Mumbai most of the time, but the problem was managing time. Normally, I take the flight from the Gulf to Mumbai and my onward flight to Mangalore was four hours after reaching Mumbai. My cousin’s place was far off from the International airport and I needed minimum of five hours to visit her. Invariably I end up calling her from the Airport and not visiting her. While coming back, normally I traveled alone leaving my family behind to enjoy longer holidays in India and as any other relative, my cousin wanted me to visit her with my entire family!

Area that matters…

I was driving down the Sheikh Zayed Road, close to Shankar’s office and suddenly remembered I needed to meet him. I called him up.
“Shankar, are you still in office? I am just driving down just outside your office. I wanted to drop in if you don’t mind” “Yes. Come on. Even I have some work with you, just to clarify something” Shankar replied.
I took the left turn, drove for two minutes and parked my car in front of his office building.

Alternate Career Path… it’s here!

It was Friday. I was just out of bed. Normally I take about two minutes to drink the morning tea. Friday is an exception. I compensate for the hurry of weekly days by taking about thirty minutes. This is the time I do not mind junk TV programs. It is during this time last week; my TV host asked Amitabh Bachchan a silly question: “What you would have been doing if you had not taken up acting?”

“I would have been selling milk in roadside booth in Allahabad” replied Bachchan laughingly.

Its Payback Time!

 

People say there are certain stages in life. I agree. Education I had, employment I got and I married, and as a corollary had kids. Settled in life, to put in common parlance.The next stage is as people say, paying back to the society.I looked back –  I had taken so much help from many a people but did not help anybody so far! I thought this is time to help somebody. After all what is life? Help somebody; see the gratitude in their eyes. My mind was prepared but not so prepared was my pocket. So I thought I should help people in such a way that it does not create a dent in my purse and does not give an opportunity to my wife to grill me.

Balancing At The Top

 

My manager called me for a meeting early in the morning. Usually he does not call unless he gets some great idea (what he thinks great) and since his mind is always busy in routine matters, the great ideas rarely come to his mind. I felt something else is cooking up. Anyway first thing I thought I should do is to see that it is not something against me. I thought I should go immediately, before anybody else, so that I can have informal thoughts about the subject matter and dilute if it is something affecting me and think about what I should do if it is something else.

Hammering the Last Screw On the Balance Sheet

 

Ramphal Singh is one of my old friends. He is an interior decorator by profession and firmly believed that everything could be covered up by some good workmanship- including the financial statements. He was the one who suggested that the outer cover of the financials we give does not match with the white paper inside.He called me. “Our bankers are scheduled to meet me, give me some hints to explain my financial position. I am having some good jobs on hand this year and I need bank facilities to complete them” he said.

Red Flower On A Yellow T Shirt

I was a happy man driving back home from work. Not many a days I had this feeling. For once, today, my boss acknowledged that I work hard. He also gave me something to cheer up… two VIP tickets worth Dhs.1000 each, to a festival fund raising match!

We Indians are cricket fans. We might not know our bank balance as of date, but we know exactly how much runs Sachin has scored as of now. We know almost everything from ‘leg before’ to ‘super sub’ and majority of us know reasonably well that when we say ‘power play’ has ended it does not refer to the Dalmiya period, but to the fielding restrictions.

Such is our craze for cricket that we have ignored other games. Like for example, I felt all of a sudden uncomfortable when I looked at the tickets. The tickets were for a football match. I would have jumped in joy had it been for a game of cricket. Nevertheless, it is two tickets of Dhs.1000 each!

The Mega Barter

“Did Suma’s husband call you?” Asked my wife.

“No. what’s the matter?” I was sure there is something.

“May be he will call you tomorrow.” She said and kept quiet.

That is called the Bollywood style of creating suspense. My wife knows for sure he is going to call me, knows the subject matter, and still keeps it a suspense!

Wardrobe Malfunction

 

“My friend Sunitha called me. I was about to call you… then I remembered you had told me that you are busy the whole day” my wife was jiggling with joy.

“Which Sunitha?” I enquired as usual.

“You do not know her. We were great friends in college. Then she took up fashion designing. She is a professional fashion designer now. She was stitching all my clothes before my marriage” my wife was proud in telling this. I did not get why she has to be so proud!

“She is your friend and also your tailor…OK… what does she want now?”