The new girl at work

‘Humein koee gham nahin tha, Gham-e-aashiqui se pehle

Na thi dushmani kisi se, Teri dosti se pehle’

   Famous couplet from a Faiyaz Hashmi Ghazal sung by Mehdi Hassan

‘Change is constant’, and in a very literal sense that adage is true and has been applicable for my workplace.

The office of our big boss had been established for a little over a year now, and in this period his Secretary’s cabin has seen many faces come and go. In the past, at least six South East Asian aunts with varying high heels and bum sways have walked in, but just within less than two months of their appointment, have walked out of that cabin and their job.

Another change that has been taking place in my workplace has been the progressive increase in the number of Indian men on my project. By end of December last year, we had touched around one thirds of the overall team, and that typical crazy Indianism was all over the place.

One could spot them rubbing bellies, swaying and shaking heads as they discussed world politics in main corridor, next to the common printer or sharing lunchboxes in the meeting room or humming Bollywood numbers at the urinal and at times even ogling at the passing bum sways, gauging the thrust on the breasts and sharing a raunchy comment or two on the subject matter. So much was their ubiquitousness, that the group had collectively earned the moniker ‘Indian Mafia’. They were everywhere, and their swaying heads were into everything! They were from different parts of India, they had different accents and different food preferences, but they were a team. They were cohesive, united, close knit and connected to each other. They were a mafia with no proclaimed leader, where everyone was equal.  Where everyone was a part, and together they were one.

Then, the next change happened.

During one of those dull post lunch sessions when men at work are usually struggling to keep themselves awake after their usual heavy lunch, a tall pretty woman in a pink Anarkali and flat Kolhapuri’s with a familiar head sway, kohl lined eyes, a flowery herbal scent, a nervous lower lip, and a thick north Indian accent walked into the Boss’s cabin for an interview. Suddenly there was a fluttery of activity in our workplace. Forty year and plus old men scurried around like teenagers. And within half an hour, that is the time that she was in the cabin getting interviewed, the team fished out all possible information about her with an alacrity that could put Mossad and ISI to shame.

The Mafia now knew her name; they had browsed through her Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin profiles; they knew her husband’s name, her friend’s names, details about her siblings, the age of her kids, the name of her school, the courses she took, the movies she watched, the fact that she hadn’t read much, the places she had visited, the places where she had worked before, they even established contact with one of her old known colleagues and extracted out some more crucial information. And finally, as she walked out of the boss’s cabin, from the missing twitch in her smile, they found out that she had also got the job.

For the next two days, the Mafia went about with its usual activity. While on the workstation, they kept following her movements, browsing her various profiles on social networking sites tracking her like a Satellite tracks a plane in motion. During lunchtime, they discussed their new findings, joined the dots and kept developing its future strategy. Some Mafiosi even thanked God for the prospect of finally having an Indian patakha in the office, someone who would bring phulkas and homemade north Indian subzis for sharing. Someone with whom they could share Santa/Banta jokes on their WhatsApp Group chat. Someone, by talking about whom, they could make their wife jealous. While in the washroom, on the potty seat, some of them even secretly prayed. Prayed that she would join their gang, and that once joined she would stay there until the end and inject life into their otherwise dull and lifeless afternoons.

Two days later, it was the weekend. The Mafiosi dispersed back to their individual lives. Some went back to their families and its associated weekend chores, the others to the solitary confinement of their single room apartment along with their laptop computer and external hard drives loaded with 250GB of unmentionable downloads for refuge. 

When the new workweek commenced, the next obvious change had taken place. The Indian lasso was there in the office, occupying the revolving chair in the little cabin outside the big boss’s and next to the common printer.

The menfolk, who had walked in lazily and half asleep, as they normally did on the first day of each work week, found themselves suddenly charged up with some kind of invisible electrical source. They had suddenly been transformed into some kind of an electron. They were all supercharged now.

In the days that followed, one could spot them running from one end of the office to the other crossing by the big bosses cabin, collecting printouts, and in the process repelling any other particle with a negative charge (read, fellow Mafiosi) and sending out an attractive force and signal to the proton (read, new secretary) on the way.

Each one was creating his own unique magnetic field and devising new ways to attract the subject in the cabin. Whist the slowest one practiced an introduction in front of the mirror inside the Wash Room, which he could never deliver, another one dyed his facial hair and went ahead and got himself introduced, but failed to impress her. A third one offered HR to help guide her about the company’s systems and procedures, but, was curtly rejected. A fourth one offered pick up and drop services, just to find out that she had her own car and loved to drive. A fifth one donated his lunch and went hungry as she had not got her own box. She thanked him not knowing that the Chicken Curry  that he offered her was actually cooked in Coconut oil, to which she was allergic. Few others who were at loss of means and modes kept perambulating across her cabin pretending to take printouts that they had not sent. They even gave her their side glances and twitchy romantic smiles, but with minimal effect.

Suddenly the daily 9.6hrs at work seemed too short. Time was flying away at supersonic speed, and before one could plan and organize the next surprise encounter at the common printer or the kitchen or outside the women’s washroom, it was five days up. The first week had already passed.

And so passed the second and third weeks.

Slowly failure and rejection had started creeping under their skin, and the Mafiosi began directing their energies from wooing to accusing, derogating and damaging the other team member’s (read contender’s) reputation. The guns, were now, trained at each other. The group, in her presence, started having fun cracking jokes and creating stories out of the weaknesses and specific traits of the one absent. So much that she had now began enjoying it. By now, she knew each Mafiosi’s handicaps and weaknesses. Albeit, she never joined the mafia for their customary lunch sharing sessions, their WhatsApp chat group or any other such rituals, she kept receiving the attention that she sought and yet managed to keep unwanted attention at bay. That’s a shrewd desi lass!

Four weeks into her arrival, the mafia was showing signs of breaking up. Each Mafiosi began building walls around and across each other. The frequency of forwarded jokes on the WhatsApp group reduced. There were no more group discussions, no more analysis of the bum sways, and no more explicit ogling in the corridor. Cracks started appearing in the team and as it looked, death of the group seemed imminent.

Then one day, with just a day remaining to spring equinox, as I sat slouched into my office chair, pondering over the fate of my mafia, woolgathering, these famous words by a great imaginary philosopher and poet of a time bygone struck me. These words that were never said, these words that were never ever heard before: 

“A few frivolous moments and a woman are enough to break, what it took many men, ages to build”. 

I slouched a bit further. It was just another lazy sleepy afternoon.

Then, the next biggest change happened!

I heard footsteps ‘tick tock tick tock’ coming from the other end of the corridor. As it neared me, I smelled the scent of Euphoria by Calvin Klein followed by a fresh whiff of air on my face, flower petals started raining from the ceiling, an iktara played in the background.

I rushed to the entrance of my cubicle, and stood there stunned, mesmerized, and suddenly everything was slow-mo. The gaps between the tick and the tock increased. A four feet plus something tall South East Asian Chic, on a 8 inch high stiletto. Her cheeks and eyelids painted in Coral Goddess by Lancome, Revlon lashes on the eyes; lips inviting, pouted and laden with Maybelline’s Russian Red, a confident smile; giving side glances to all the Mafiosi lined up agape on both sides of the corridor, like a vista and falling off one after the other as she crossed. Her shoulder high hair let loose and bouncy; dressed in a crisp black suit on a knee high skirt covering her near perfect Barbie like measurements; a few jewelry here and there, sparkling, and yet struggling to keep up with the twinkle in the eye walked in, in to the boss’s cabin.

As she crossed me, with that ‘let’s get naughty smile’, like my other desi colleagues, I too fell flat in the corridor, on my back into the bed of roses below.

I lied down there, in the corridor, dazed, smiling, enthralled and stupefied. At the other end of the corridor,  the big boss’s Secretary stood outside her cabin, next to the common printer, in her green and pink combination salwar kameez with her left hand on her forehead, the right left akimbo, looking at us with that typical disgusted Indian Aunt look on her face, and murmuring north Indian expletives. She also heard three distinct sounds. Firstly, the sound of my HR Officer shutting the door of my boss’s cabin, then, as my podgy boss fell off his chair, a loud earth shattering sound, which shook our temporary office building and knocked us back into our right senses, and finally my HR Officer’s hyena like laughter.

In no time, the men stood up, huddled into a group, just like the Indian Cricket Team does before a crucial match, after which the office witnessed a similar scene from the past:

Suddenly there was a fluttery of activity in our workplace. Forty year and plus old men scurried around like teenagers, and within half an hour, that is the time that she was in the cabin getting introduced to my boss as the new Document Controller on the project, the team fished out all possible information about her with an alacrity that could put Mossad and ISI to shame.

On Spring Equinox, the new Document Controller joined the project. The office blushed with the sweet scent of flowers. Sunday mornings were no more drowsy, and afternoons were no more lazy. The mafia buzzed around the office like bees, especially into and around the Document Control Room, looking for old bygone letters and stationery items that they didn’t need.

They were back together, working as a team. They had no major expectations from her. They did not expect her to join them on their lunch table, and be party to their other rituals. All they wanted from her, was a smile, a hi, a hello, a handshake, a side-glance, a touch here, a flirty comment there, and they were getting plenty of it.

And then, on a lively afternoon, as I sat, easing myself on my favorite potty seat in the fourth cubicle from the washroom door, I heard these famous words from my great imaginary philosopher and poet of a time long gone by, words that were never said, words that were never heard before: 

“What one woman breaks, another woman joins together”.