In that glass-walled conference room, three pairs of eyes were riveted to the large monitor on the wall. There was another pair of eyes, carefully scrutinizing the other three. As the video began to play, this young man, Anay Ghosh, wheeled his swivel chair back by a few inches. His intention was to get to a suitable vantage point to observe the others. And as each frame of the clip played, that was exactly what he did. Observe.
The older man in the group seemed to be enthusiastic. He was Mr Sen, the client who had to be impressed for the deal. The signs were positive. Sen peered at the faces of the characters in the video with narrowed eyes; always a good indication of engrossment.
His younger colleague did not seem so impressed, though. He watched with the disapproving glare of a hawk, eager to point out a mistake. He took silent notes. His mental cogwheels seemed to turn so furiously that it caused some worry in the observer. But then the observer knew an important dynamic—the younger disapproving colleague was a junior. All his diligence in nitpicking flaws in the clip weren't aimed at any quest for creative analysis. They were only to earn brownie points with his boss.
Anay brushed the younger associate aside. He did not matter.
The third pair of eyes was Anay's boss, Salil Jani, the creative director of the company. He, of course, mattered. Prospective clients like Sen would come and go, but the boss had to be kept happy always. And he seemed to be! Anay did a little jig in his mind when his boss swayed his head in tune with the final jingle.
"Excellent work, if I say so myself," said Salil, practically beaming at his protégé. "Didn't I tell you, Mr Sen, that our Anay is the best?"
Anay purred like a well-fed kitten. For him, the stakes were higher than anyone else in the room.
Sen's associate, the super eager junior, leaned forward. "Yes, no doubt it's a brilliant ad for our cat food product, but I think there are not enough cats in the ad. Did you not think so too, sir?"
Sen frowned. It was the beginning of a thought, implanted in his head by his junior. An associate who wasn't supposed to matter. As Anay held his breath, Sen made a slight nod. "Come to think of it, there should be more cats. It's a cat food commercial, after all!"
Salil's face lost color. His smug smile vanished. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could see the client closing this meeting too without arriving at a decision. He could see another week of harrowing brainstorming and then the work that would follow—rewriting the script, getting the actors, reshooting the ad. He balked at the further expense that would entail; they had already overshot the development fee. "Of course, Mr Sen. If that's your concern, it must be addressed," he said. "What do you say to that, Anay?"
Anay, who had his arms folded until now, unfolded them and assumed the stance of a person who had a confident reply to a puzzling conundrum. "I agree, Salil sir, that is a justified question!" he said with the smile intact on his face. "It is kind of Milind to point it out, for it gives me a chance to explain my position." It was a calculated trick. Address the junior by his first name so that he feels important. Concur with him so that he feels validated and can go back and brag to his colleagues about his valuable contribution to the meeting. But don't append his name with 'sir' to show that he's just an equal. "So, you see, we arrived at this decision to have only three cats in the ad after much thought. We focused on the owners of the cats rather than the cats themselves. The ad follows the issues of the cat-owners and addresses them in a funny way, as you might have observed. The worry when there's no cat food in the house, the cat food is not nutritious enough, where to go to get it... all these are common pet-owner questions. And that is what our ad answers instead of showing cutesy cats in every frame, which every mediocre ad-maker will do, because that's the first thought that pops in the head."
"But I think..." Milind began.
"No, it's fine!" Sen cut in. "I buy this young man's explanation. It's right. We have been showing cute cat faces in all our ads so far. Our customers are bored of those ads. We wanted a new approach and hence we came to Changemakers. Well, it's done. I am convinced. Salil, you can go ahead and draft your agreement. You have our business."
Salil could not contain his happiness. He stood up as Sen and his junior stood and shook hands with him with the most profuse of curtsies. Anay stood up too, and he ensured to nod and smile at the junior when shaking hands with him. In this business, one could not afford any hard feelings.
When the clients left, Salil turned to Anay. "Well, you did it!" He patted Anay on the back, a tad too hard. "And now, since you have proven yourself, let's see what I can do about giving you the Senior Creative Team Leader position."
Anay had no words. For once, the eloquent speaker and convincer in him was speechless. He followed his boss out of the conference room with a spring in his step.
When he reached outside, he was stopped by a peon in the blue company uniform. He had an empty tray in his hand, and came up to Anay, full of purpose. "Is the meeting over, Anay sir?" he asked.
Anay nodded.
"You look happy, sir! Good news?"
"Yes, Sudhir, the deal is ours! Wait for Salil sir to announce a party!"
The peon cracked a smile. "Well, that's nice. Let me clean up the conference room. Next time, I will arrange the bigger conference room so that all five of you can sit comfortably."
Anay grunted an assent. And then that word caught his attention. "Five? There were only four of us."
The peon frowned. He thought a bit and then shook his head. "Why are you joking, sir? I saw five of you. Two suits from that cat company, Salil sir, you, and that man standing behind you."
"Man standing behind me? There was no one standing behind me."
The peon laughed. "Nice joke, sir. Then whom did I bring the fifth tea for? A ghost?"
Anay looked back into the conference room. There were indeed five cups. Surely it was some kind of confusion.
Or even a practical joke.
"Very funny, Sudhir! Go easy on those specially hand-rolled cigarettes and you'll be fine!" Anay laughed and left.
***
The Bandana was the local watering hole, the hippest place in town for young nightcrawlers. It was but understood that Anay would hang out there, for he was—at least at Changemakers—the flavor of the season. The place, with its retro music so loud that you could not do anything but drink and lip-read the people with you, was currently in the throes of a wild Friday night. The lights had been dimmed more than usual and strange neon glows adorned the walls that sported portraits of Oscar and Grammy-winning cult pop icons of the 80s and 90s. It was the place to be!
Anay was with his usual coterie. It included Kautuk and Vishwa from commercials and Renee from HR. They had all met at Changemakers, their common bond being that they had all been recruited in the same financial year three years ago, albeit in different departments. Anay's was, of course, creative. Presently, Vishwa was busy hitting on Renee—a routine that everyone was fast getting sick of, for Renee was either blind or loved the process of being hit on rather than the person who did the hitting on—while Kautuk, as usual, was looking for life's little philosophies in his tall tumbler of lager.
"Just like this froth," Kautuk said with a hiccup, "our lives, I mean, just like the froth on this beer. If you don't glug it down soon, you won't enjoy any of it."
"What did you say?" Anay screamed over the Duran Duran song. But, of course, he had heard him loud and clear. This was only his way to ward off any further exposition of Kautuk's philosophy for the evening.
"I said—"
"But didn't Anay set the conference room on fire today!" Renee chimed in, almost flirtatiously. "I should have been there. I heard you gave some kind of brilliant monologue to convince the client. It would have been such fun to see Salil having a near orgasm..."
"Baby, you say such things and make me so hot!" Vishwa said with a moaning sound and put his arm around her.
"You need to cool down then," Renee retorted. "Why don't you focus on your beer?"
Anay stopped the waiter and ordered another round of chicken pops. He didn't need to ask the others before placing the order. They had been coming here for six months now, every weekend, and this evening he was footing the bill anyway. He leaned forward and said, "So anyway thanks, Renee, for setting me up in that apartment. It's a nice one. Good view of the sea."
"My plez, buddy!" Renee said, absentmindedly (or consciously?) strumming her fingers on Vishwa's arm. "Dad just had to talk to his real estate agent buddy and you got the house. It isn't easy for singles to get apartments in Mumbai otherwise, whether boys or girls. And you've got it in this prime building in happening Versova."
"Yeah, I tell you, it could not have been better."
"Why did you never fix me up in an apartment, sweets?" Vishwa asked.
"Because I like where you stay!"
"I share a room with my brothers in my parents' house."
"Isn't that great?"
Vishwa took a large sip of the beer trying to understand what that meant.
Kautuk shook things up with another of his nuggets, "An apartment is just a shell that we create around ourselves."
"Fucking shit, buddy!" Vishwa retorted. "Where do you stay then?"
"In an apartment. That's what I am saying. It's our compulsion. We humans cannot not stay in a house, can we?"
Anay pushed the chair back and stood up. Gesturing at the others, he made a beeline to the far end of the pub. He entered the men's room, which was surprisingly empty for this time on a Friday evening.
The music cut off as soon as the door swung close, and he welcomed that silent pause. Walking up to a stall, he looked up at the ceiling and unzipped. As the hastily drowned beer coursed out of his aching bladder, he had a deep sense of comfort that culminated in a sigh.
The deed done, he walked to the sink and let the water do its job on his hands, while he checked himself out in the swanky mirror. Despite those sunken work-worn eyes and the dazed pub expression, he was pleased with himself. Everything was right about his face; he had always known that. That broad forehead with the deep-set wide eyes, the long straight nose with its sharp tip, the square jaw that made cover-page models out of mere men, and the well-groomed stubble on his narrow chin—he had always been grateful for his looks. Even that skin of his face, which had never seen a single freckle in his teenage was still supple. There was so much he had to thank!
He stooped and splashed water on his precious face. The coolness of it transported him into a divine place, and he splashed more of it. This time he winced a bit, for some of the water went into his eyes.
Blinking, he tried to reach the paper towels on the wall.
He was still blinking away the prickling water in his eyes when he saw a figure standing behind him in the mirror—a black shadowy figure with many arm-like projections waving all around it, the head covered with a conical hood. In that brief flash, which was no longer than a subliminal frame inserted in a movie clip, the thing looked like some kind of giant octopus.
What the fuck was that? Was it something he had seen in a movie suddenly playing on his mind?
All of a sudden, he felt colder than on the peak of a wintry night. Quickly, he turned. But only the polished white tiles of the restroom shone back at him.
***
And the ride begins!