FIRST JOB ( chap-1)
I reached the International airport of Mumbai in time.This was the first time I came there to pickup my friend's daughter, Pallabi.
Pallabi was coming back home after four years after finishing EMBA from the Columbia Business School. Pritha, Pallabi's mother had been sick from last five days; Pallabi was not informed of her mother's sickness. Pritha had been too weak to walk.
Pallabi was surprised to see me alone. After embracing me she asked worriedly "what happened to my mother? I answered jokingly, "perhaps She preferred to make delicious dishes ready for you !"But after getting down from the car along with luggage I disclosed the truth in front of the entrance door.
Mother and daughter embraced each other with the emotion of joy and tears! Then Pallabi; screamed 'Ah!- the delicious smell of shrimp -malai curry; but why did you take so much trouble to cook, ma? You look so thin ' in an emotional voice, and surveyed her two arms softly with her palms! "
Pritha replied, " Me? what trouble? It's a joy for me !"
After the lunch, Pallabi emptied the suitcase and heaped lot of gifts she brought for all of us. Pritha asked, 'What is the joining date of your first job?'
"It's Monday, day after tomorrow ."
" My office is just in walking distance, behind the Inorbit Mall.
Pritha: "Well, today is Saturday; We will go to the Goregaon temple of Kalimata before joining the first job for blessings of Godess."
" OK, ma. "
I invited to take dinner in my apartment which is just opposite to theirs, before leaving.
She got the job in this Investment bank in campus interview. She gave her choice to join in India. But the Main office was in London and America.
The first day of the first job was full of excitement. Pallabi was amazed to see the elegant architecture of her office and its ultra-modern sophistication of security and other arrangements of the office! Her office was on the fourth floor: ‘Strategy and Research’.
She joined directly as junior VP; Arjun Shah, the VP, showed the full floor and her office.
Pallavi noticed many heads raised like a crane above the glass cubicle with curious eyes, to have a glance at her.
Arjun came with the Research team in the cafeteria at lunchtime and introduced her with the group of the team who were present there. All girls and boys were young, and unmarried, the first job for most of them. The company also launched the Mumbai branch newly, less than two years.
The groups bonded with friendship very quickly. Gourmet food and drinks in expensive restaurants, the late-night show on Friday or taking a tour at the weekend, was the common bond to hook them together.
They often sang merrily with claps on their way to celebrate on Friday,
'Food, fashion, Friday / eat, drink, be happy and gay/
hey hey hey!'
Keeping pace with the age of mobile SMS, they called each other with the curtailed name, full names were only in the nameplates of each one's cubicle. Thus Sanjoy became Sanju, Saptarsee as Risi,, Bhargab as Argo, Subhendu as Ben, Pallabi as Poly, Priyanka Gupta as PG, Konkona as Coco, Simmi remained as Simmi, Randeep Paranjape as RP, Jitendra Singh as Jitu.
As Pallabi and Subhendu both were Bengali and good singers the team sitting on the beach with a bottle of drinks teased them sometimes
"BenBong Poly-Bong /please stir us
some sexy songs!
charge us to 'swing-dance'
with dangling bottles in hands.'
Jitu tried to stand for dance and it became perfectly a natural 'swing dance' and the bottle with liquor spilt over the sand from his uncontrolled dangling hand No sooner Jitu also thudded on the ground with the mouth on the liquor-soaked sand..
Argo throw in indistinct voice, 'you the bugger, drunkard, can't even stand on feet and want to 'dance'! then he stretched hands to overturn a bottle on his open mouth but it was empty; he threw it towards the sea; then the second bottle; that too was empty; he threw it more violently with a 'slang' word, looking to others;
… 'these hungry gluttonies didn't spare even a drop!'
But first few months of joining Pallavi remained reserved and maintained a distance with this group.
Partly because of her work presser; secondly, she was a comparatively little conservative to accept that fast life; especially she stays far from alcohol. She used to avoid them with some excuse. She enjoyed going everywhere with her mother, Pritha . It was Coco who always insisted on her to join.
Coco was Punjabi from Delhi;; but she studied from London School of Economics. She was attractive. Her dress, feature, English accent, frequent smoking of cigarette, the habit of drinking wine gave an impression of a snobbish European lady. When she strutted with her tight outfits and pencil heeled shoes through the corridor, whether male or female, young or old obviously threw a cryptic look to her. Coco was aware of that through her photochromic glasses. But there was always an aurora of 'stay away from me' around her.
From the beginning, Coco liked Pallavi. She would come several times to her desk to divulge her all grievances against her boss and others. All the guys had a curiosity about Coco but not courage; They became friendly with Pallavi to get chance to be in touch with Coco.
