Homesick

I want to go home, remove all the sundried clothes from my bed, kick the laptop down, and sleep. The process will just take half an hour.
I want to go home now, and to that extent, though it does not seem manly, I am homesick.

Jet

My sister's arranged marriage negotiations have broken down because the boy found out that she gets to travel in Jet Airways at work, but his "MNC" (kya naam diya hai hum logonne-MNC) makes him fly only Spice.
MNC se yaad aaya, he works in Agarwal Natural Fibres but it has an office in Dubai and another in Bristol (some agency) so in the ad. it said "MNC."
My sister is crying so I have told Mummy to put "must travel only in Class A airlines" in advertisements. If all this affects us, why pretend, have them visit, buy sweets, new dress for her, what not. Let us elimiate or be eliminted before hand, before things turn this ugly.

Why are you reading this???

"Is it a legal question?" The New Associate asked, stroking her face with the black stub of a Natraj pencil.
"As opposed to an illegal question?" I asked, and she threw her head back expecting me to swivel her chair in a way that most closely mimics the aggression of porn. I didn't so she pretended she was leaning back due to a stiff back, and made a big show of the back ache by kicking the chairs, and applying Tiger Balm everywhere.
I wonder why I have an effect on women. This banker keeps calling, she has even started sending me SMS notes about what is the status of this and what is the status of that. I suddenly realized she was trying to get close to me when I remembered that some of the matters she wanted my status update on were NOT EVEN RELATING TO HER BANK LEAVE ALONE TO HER.
So I also message saying hey what's up? she writes long day, and in invisible ink i can read :come over, cook dinner and make me feel like a princess.
She can fuck off. I don't want to feel like prey, no thanks. I would rather be the hero who runs after the herione who keeps pushing him away but ultimately gets used to his persistence, and starts smiling. Not like this banker. Anyway she earns more than me.

The Latest

She sings to me, this new associate, "Arrrrey 8 is the latest I have ever left on a weekend."
Now I have become cunning like a cobra. See that sentence: 8 is the latest I have ever left AND THIS IS QUALIFIED BY "on a weekend." It does NOT reveal how many weekends she has worked.
So I asked her, while typing my due diligence report for a soap company very casually, "That's OK New Asspciate but how many weekends have you stayed back?" While I spoke, I could have been talking to the screen-I wanted to look casual.
And THEN right after dialouge-delivery, I turned back sharply to look at her, to catch her real expression.
I can tell you she looked spooked, and said sung as though it was a question, "Like, two for far?" Q.E.D. I am the King Cobra now, and no, spare me any sexual connotations especially relating to SHEDDING.
And this pin-striped New Associate (why do these girls dress like they are out of some Star TV episode? why so much copying? i have never seen suit-boot in india, why dress like that to be taken seriously? can they ever look as hot as anorexic blonds who have slept their way to top acting roles? kya tashan mana rahe hain yeh ladkiyan. professional IMAGE ke naam par)
Anyway she flirted with me afterwards because she suspected I had begun to realize she was political. At one point, the suit-piece covering her left breast almost hit my nose.
It's just not done, all-this in the office. I dislike unsolicited breast-attacks. All this should be in my control.
So to stop her I had to say in the evening, yeah-yeah, two weekends is a lot. Otherwise the right breast will be rubbed into my face soon.

Ma'am

I think Boss' wife reads this mail and leaves anon comments.
Ma'am, if you are reading this please let Sir know that I have done all the research on SEBI's DIP guidelines for underwriters' agreements and then reviewed our current template in accordance with the DIP Guidelines.
My co-workers will pass it off as their own if they meet you in a corridor ("Ma'am, I am busy doing under-..") Stop them after the "under" so it's a suspense if they were saying underwear, underwater, underwhatever, and ask them the year of the SEBI Guidelines that pertain to underwriters. They won't know.
I won't say the year here, in case they are reading, why tip them off.
I am truly busy even though I blog.
Thank You.
Your Faithfully,
Happy Associate

Sushi

Where do you go for sushi? He finally asked. I was dreading this question from Mr. London-Return because I had overheard him trying to impress a female senior with this sushi-sashmi talk.
The question is- what IS sushi? But instead I said in a macho way patting him on the back in a way that's just extra-hard enough for the receipient to understand without others in the group thinking anything much. And then I asked in front of the whole group which was talking about the Argentina team before this idiot decided to interview me of all people about sushi:
"Hey K-, where do you go for your porn?"
He shrugged his shoulders in a way that meant what is this dehati humour, but by then all were laughing because each lawyer in the group thought they were the only one who didn't know about the insider joke so why not laugh and cover up.
There are a hundred ways to skin a cat, as they say, and next time he asks me this I will answer this way, there are a hundred ways to skin a cat, and smile ironically. This will confuse him, and he will smile for he is too scared to say that's fucking random, all he is secure about is sushi and his tie from some Burberry(Blueberry) company that's anyway coming to India and I am working on the franchise agreement and not marking him on any mails.

Saying Hi to the New Guy

Some new associate has joined today. He sits behind me. I don't know how to break the ice. Maybe I should swivel my chair and say a loud hi-not too softly, it looks flirtatious and he's a dude.
I saw the partner's wife floating in an orange sari. So to show my team-spirit since I knew she was spying on me, I typed furiously-so loud the keyboard almost broke-and then rapidly slide my wheeled-chair close to him and whispered in his ear, hi what's up, i hope i am not disturbing you hi i am happy associate welcome here... He looked stunned, and I caught him sending a sms soon after. Must be about me. Fuck. The partner's wife had left by then anyway and by some bad luck noone else was there on the floor and I am trying desparately to get this song out of my head
Hum Tum
Ek Kamare Mein Band Ho
Aur Chabhi Kho Jai
(You and Me
Locked in a room
And say the key gets lost)
-Bobby, Bollywood.

House Party

Today I have been invited to a house-party. This is the foreign-returned lawyer's style of saying "come to my house, and bring your own food and drink-i have taken the initiative and called all the women." The cost of getting some expensive wine and some Khan Market-type firang food is much more than getting into a normal pub, and doing my own thing, that too anonymously.
Here, although it's a different firm-crowd but still, I can't even talk to a woman without thinking what if she has slept with some other guy under this safe roof, coz they all know each other. And that makes me feel a little odd, I don't know why. Also I feel my moves are being tracked, and any time I try some thing and a woman doesn't respond, some other dude is smiling at me and playing other dehati mind games which involve boy not getting girl, and which magnify small failures into what is call loss of face.
Oh fuck, and there will be some pseudo talk of wines, South African wine is this, peach wine is that, fortified wine, dark beer. Everyone will pretend to know everything, and noone dare contradict coz u don't know how much the other person actually knows. Fuck I can make a card game on this, teen patti or something.

The Client Meeting

This client-meeting with semi-senior is the pits, man. He talks about samosas, Neemrana resorts, some new cell-phone he bought for his wife. The client then gets competetive, and so he talks about better samosas in Calcutta, the best Neemrana (implying Dunstin has checked in at all of them), and that the Best Phones are in Sweden.
Finally, they close the meeting, and I begin to pack the laptop like the bell has run after school, and walk out. Through the glass door, I see Semi-Senior hug the client, and if this was a movie in 1988, they camera would swing around a hundred times like a dizzy mind.
I pass by a mirror- I am carrying the file close to my chest, less like a LL.B., and more like a college girl in UP-Bihar, who uses the file as an opaque dupatta or something, to sort of block the breast-area. They even wear a fake mangalsutra to keep eveteasers away but anyway don't ask how I know all-this.
Anyway I adjust in front of this mirror, and I'm like what the fuck, thank God I saw myself, this idiot is making me a chakka. And I stuff the file in the laptop bag, open the second button of my shirt for extra air, and walk out like a busy man shaking my shoulder in angular directions.

The Semi-Senior

Dude, you need to get a life, some semi-senior said tapping me on the shoulder while I was typing a mail to my mother about the maid. Maybe I imagined it, but I think his paws stuck on my shoulder for longer than normal.
I turned back and that is the sort of question you don't have an immediate answer to. I wish social talk at work was like opinions for clients. I could then say, I will get back to you and think about a cool answer in a few minutes and tell him.
So all I said was yeah man, what to do.
He said, it's about what you want, and he grasped my shoulder, and his one finger touched that part of the below-neck area that is not covered, you know, like above the first button.
I felt shy, but that was a confused moment, I am so angry I could break his face now.

Client Call

A client called.
Unfortunately, it was on my cell phone and my boss was watching me from a distance.
He would have assumed I am talking to a old college buddy, or girlfriend.
Next time a client calls on the cell, and I am in office, I will ask him to hang up and call on the landline because I am getting weak reception.
Come to think of it, I have no college buddy and no girlfriend. That is even more depressing.
Dude, you need to get a life, some semi-senior said tapping me on the shoulder while I was typing a mail to my mother about the maid. Maybe I imagined it, but I think his paws stuck on my shoulder for longer than normal.