Chapter 5 - Did you hear?

“Did you hear it, Mr. Sen?” said Mr. Naik as he poured out some coffee from the vending machine. Taken by surprise, the vending machine coughed out some coffee powder before covering it up with some frothy milk. Mr. Sen, who was eyeing the ‘new girl in pink’, merely raised his eyebrows and muttered a lazy “What?” as an afterthought. The girl in pink perhaps felt his eyes on her and became pinker. She smiled coyly and bypassed Mr. Sen to the coffee machine.

Mr. Naik smelt his coffee and rubbed his fleshy nose. “About Maan”, he said and sipped his coffee.
“That he quit? I knew it for sometime”, said Mr. Sen his eyes still focused on her.
“Really? How did you know?”
“I know, I know”, replied Mr. Sen, and by now he had undressed the new girl and was imagining himself alone with her in his favorite beach.

Just then, Abhijit walked in with his hair standing up (propped up by a new hair gel), clean-shaven face and a goofy smile. He had his fingers around his belt and felt his nascent tummy. His tummy had popped out like sponge cake the day after his marriage or so he imagined. He arched backward and addressed everyone, “Dada how have you been? Hi Mr. Naik. Oh helloooo Anamika”.
Anamika, with her well fed coffee mug moved away from Mr. Sen’s sun-tanned gaze and said, “Hi Abhijit, how are you today?”
“Lets see now – the stock market, as you are well aware, has crashed, and the Mrs., influenced by some different, or should I say indifferent, market forces, went on a shopping spree. There you go, laugh at me some more. But it’s a great day, isn’t it? Have a nice day, Anamika”.

Anamika smiled and walked away swiftly. Mr. Sen breathed easy and looked around, and Mr. Naik repeated his, “Did you hear?” to Abhijit.
Abhijit stared at him with big eyes and Mr. Naik asked with redoubled eagerness, “What’s up with your friend, Abhijit?”
Abhijit burst out laughing. Mr. Sen looked amused and Mr. Naik positively blushed.
“Oh Mr. Naik, what questions you ask me! You are the grapevine – you tell me what’s up with him? By the way, how’s your little boy doing? Is it true that they have interviews to get into kindergarten?”
“Not kindergarten. Its primary school!” corrected Naik, sounding exasperated.
Abhijit laughed some more and said to Mr. Sen, “Just imagine, Dada, interviews for primary school”. And he made a caricature of their ‘big boss’, “Show me your CV little boy. Looks like you have only 3 years experience in kindergarten. Not good, not good!”

All that laughing in the office pantry raised a few heads in the nearby cubicles. It felt like a host of scuba divers popping their heads up above the surface of water, after a good long session underwater. They all knew Abhijit’s voice – and it was probably time for a break. Some of them got up to go to the Pantry – Abhijit always drew crowds!

In one of the cubicles, Maan stared at his computer screen and saw nothing. He heard the ‘big boss’ say, “No, you can’t do this. You have a brilliant career ahead of you” Where was it that Maan had heard that before. “In a movie, or was it a book? So trite!” And he smiled at the computer screen. The screen smiled back at him and began to look rather like the big boss.
”Take a month off, my boy. Come back and then talk to me. Ok?”
Maan heard the ruckus in the pantry, but didn’t catch a word of what they were saying. He was probably underwater doing some serious scuba diving and thinking to himself – what next?
“I am not so sure, Mr. Batliwala. I am not so sure.”