PART 3: REACHING OUT -----> Chapter 2

At about 12:30 am that night, I received a call from her.

“Anna, don’t worry. I haven’t told anybody about Biwi.” she said.

I was horrified. Biwi? How did she know that?

“Padma!” I called out her name before suddenly realizing that my parents were asleep.

“Relax Anna. Where’s your notepad?”

Notepad? My notepad had gone missing. Maybe I had left it at ‘Vishnu Nivas’. And that very notepad could be resting in her hands as she spoke. Oh no! What had I written about Radha in that? I couldn’t remember.

“So you’ve read my notepad,” I concluded.

“No,” Padma replied. “I’m not that kind of a person.”

“Oh! Really?” I asked in contempt.

“Relax…relax,” she continued to play on my nerves. “I was just testing you, Anna. All that’s written in your notepad about Radha is this ‘Biwi = Radha Jayadevan’. And nothing else.”

“You’re lying,” I argued. “How did you know that Radha was at Bangalore?”

“I…okay, you’re going to yell at me…I cracked the password of your mail id.”
“You did what?!”

“I read your mail and also her reply to it.”

There was a prolonged silence.

“Tell me Anna, is that your girlfriend? If you don’t tell me the truth, then I’ll have to tell your parents.” She began to black-mail me over an e-mail.

“What are you going to tell them?” I asked her trying to hide my frustration. I didn’t want to play into her hands. “That I had sent an e-mail to her? That I had written her name in my notepad? Go on. Do what you want. Don’t call me at this time of the night again. Go to sleep.”

Padma was too mischievous. I was fed up with her. Now I couldn’t even keep a personal mail-id.

***

The following morning, I decided to concentrate on the project. I resolved not to take up assignments from new clients.

I began to evaluate the product concept of pineapple jam. It wasn’t a breakthrough concept—just a tried and tested one. But its objective was different—to reduce the rural-urban divide.

I believed that consumers all over India preferred pineapple jam to other fruit jams. I had to conduct a marketing research to confirm this belief. But I was still sure that pineapple jam tasted better than other jams on any given day. So no matter how much pineapple jam was produced, I was confident that there would definitely be a market for it. Besides, focusing on pineapple jams alone would enable us to produce them at lower costs.

Achan encouraged me to go forward with the idea as long as I was confident about it. Amma was positive that I would do well. She would be happy as long as her only child didn’t migrate to another state, and stay away from her.

At night, I was working on the details I needed from the marketing research, when I was distracted by the ring of my cell phone.

It was Radha.

“What a surprise!” I said.

“Surprise?” said Radha. “Definitely smaller than the one you gave me. I decided to compensate for not being able to talk to you yesterday,” she said.

“No problem.” I said. “How’s your job going? Engineering Process Outsourcing, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Actually, it’s another branch of BPO.”

“Must definitely be a challenging experience,” I said.

“The work is challenging,” she said. “But that goes without saying. In fact, there’s another challenge for everybody working in a BPO.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“There’s a general impression that people working in this field are spendthrifts,” she elucidated. “They indulge in too much of wasteful expenditure. They are often criticized for not caring for their family back home.

“My challenge is to make sure that I’m not placed in that category. I’ve had to make up my mind about the classification of expenses into two categories: necessary expenses and those we can do without. And right now my parents are employed. At the moment they don’t feel the need to be taken care of. But I am still looking after them in my own way. I constantly remind them to check their blood pressure levels regularly, ask them their readings, remind them about their diets…I hope I’m doing reasonably well in both these departments.”

On listening to this, I felt like pinching her hand, mischievously like a child. Forgetting myself, I visualized it in my mind and imagined her reaction for a moment. It made me laugh.

“What happened?”

I paused for a moment thinking what I should tell her in response.

“I just thought of something weird,” I finally said.

There was a long pause.

“You really are weird,” she said, breaking the silence.

I smiled sheepishly realizing that I got what I deserved from her.

“What about your parents’ search for a suitable boy?”

“Well they found out one guy from the US. I spoke to him on the phone. He’s a rich guy who is running a business quite successfully over there. He said he wanted to marry me. And I asked him why. He said that I was so beautiful.”

“So he’s the sort of guy who appreciates beauty…especially your beauty, isn’t it?”
“Abhinav, how does he know that I’m beautiful? He knows nothing about my character. On talking to him further, I got to know the fellow’s attitude. You know what? Shashi Tharoor, in a work of his, says that for some NRIs, the acronym could stand for ‘Not Really Indian’. And I think this suitor belongs to the same category. He seems to be suffering from the ‘India-hating NRI Syndrome’. I think he looks down on poor people in India. He never wants to come here except for our marriage and said many similar things. On hearing this, I knew that we were not compatible for each other. And that was it.”

“Then, what sort of a person would you be looking for?” I asked her.

“Well, I really don’t know. But I wouldn’t want a guy who’s not patriotic. That’s for sure. My love for my country is a central part of my character. And a guy who’s unpatriotic can never understand me, nor can I ever understand him. I’m not saying that he should be flag-waving though. Abhinav, do you understand what I mean?”

Before I could reply, a bolt of lightning struck outside my house. A roaring thunder followed. We had to hastily hang up the phone. I couldn’t get further details of what sort of a guy she would like to marry. But things like that didn’t matter. I recalled a few classmates who ended up marrying people who possessed exactly the same qualities they had hated. Perhaps God was teaching them a lesson to be happy with what they get.

***

I reached ‘Vishnu Nivas’, which had been my abode for sometime, on Thursday morning. There were a few aspects I wanted to cover during my stay here.

After downing a cup of tea prepared by Nandi aunty, I promised her that we would be back for her special lunch. Padma was at Thiruvananthapuram. Lok uncle and I headed for Lakshmi Industries.

At Lakshmi I was quite surprised myself by the way things had changed. There was a lot more professionalism in the way things were being conducted. I felt more relieved than pleased. Anto and Srinivas updated me with the way things were being handled. The suppliers were working closely with Srinivas and Lok uncle, so that storage costs were always kept to the minimum. Anto had succeeded to a certain extent in creating one-to-one relationships with the team members. But he was not too optimistic about making further inroads in this particular aspect. Anto had the drive to create results. He only needed freedom to carry out his work. At times, like in the past, he feared he would be made a scapegoat for any failure. I told him that over a period of time, he would certainly become successful. Everybody had to be patient and the results would come.

By noon, the visitor arrived. Lok uncle and I talked to him at the office.

Right from the outset, the man tried to hardsell himself. He said that he would implement the Six Sigma to achieve consistency in key operations. But I learned that he was an MBA graduate who had specialized in HR and that his basic degree was BA Philosophy. The man was also a fresher.

The Six Sigma was a quality improvement programme which improved efficiency in operations. It was an area which required expert knowledge, and I wasn’t sure whether this guy had that expertise. I knew that this fellow was not the man we were looking for. And that was the end of him. I told uncle to be optimistic. I knew we would find a proper fellow.

While having lunch at his home, uncle told me that the financial troubles were over and that he had repaid those loans. That was really good news. I told him that he could eye the land adjacent to his factory for expansion. I also suggested that he link the wages of the team members to their productivity. Uncle replied that he felt the unions had weakened a bit, but it was too early to comment on that. I then explained the Balanced Scorecard Approach to him which I had promised I would and how it could be used in his business.

***

In the evening, I paid a trip to the orphanage where Radha had taken me. This time I went there alone, in my second hand Tata Indica.

Though I had been sending bank drafts periodically from Cochin, they just carried my signatures, and not my photo. So I wondered whether the manager would recognize me. But he did. He recalled me visiting the place along with Radha and permitted me to meet the children.

On reaching the playground, I found them playing football there. I felt history repeating itself. It reminded me of the last time I had met them. As soon as they saw me, some of them started walking towards me saying, “Abhi Anna?” Then they all ran towards me. I sat on the steps and talked to each one of them.

Just then, the manager came to me, smiling.

“Abhinav, these children are waiting for Radha to come. They want to ask her a few questions, in person.”

He then turned to the youngsters and said, “Radha Chechi may not come soon from her place of work. Why don’t you ask Abhi Anna what you want to know? Radha Chechi had told you that he has a lot of knowledge, no?”

The children responded to the manager’s advice. They began to discuss with each other who should ask the first question. One child, who stood seemingly disinterested, suddenly asked me the first question.

“Abhi Anna, when we go to school, our friends tell us how they watched the whole cricket matches involving India. They tell us how they prayed and cheered for India. But some times India loses and at other times, India wins. My question is: ‘what difference does it make to the eleven players on the ground whether we cheer for them in our homes or not? What benefit does it give to us?’ ”

I was stupefied. I had to think for a while before coming up with an answer. Maybe the boy was also frustrated that he couldn’t watch the matches.

“There’s nothing wrong in cheering for your team, no matter what sport it is,” I explained. “Prayers do help. The benefit we get depends upon what we take. If India wins, it means that the team members carried out their roles perfectly. So we should take inspiration from that victory and carry out our roles well. If India loses, then we should draw the inspiration to do better and play our roles in a better way. Spending too much time watching cricket is also not good. We ought to focus on those things which we can directly change for the better.”

On hearing my reply, one of them said to the other, “See, what did I tell you? I was right.”

“What’s the biggest problem of India’s youth today?” another child asked me.

Again, I had to take my time before answering the question.

“I think the majority of our youth of today have no sense of direction. They don’t know what they want to become. Each person should decide what his ambition is. He should then set out to achieve it.”

“Did you do that?” the child asked me.

This was a perfect inswinging yorker. But I had grown adept to handling yorkers.

“Well I had an ambition. And I set out to achieve that. But midway, I realized that I was meant to be something else. So I’ve changed my ambition and now, I’m moving towards that. What I mean to say is that nothing is possible without effort. In order to be inspired to put in effort, you must have a goal to start with. It doesn’t matter if it changes halfway.”

And then it was time for the final question from the youngest of the lot.

“Anna, Radha Chechi told us that you are going to remove poverty from the rural areas. Do you think you can do it? Do you think India will become developed before the year 2020?”

My heart melted on hearing the little boy’s question. Radha had told them about my dream. I was left speechless.

“Radha writes letters individually to each one of them,” the manager explained.

“My friend ,” I called out to the youngest child, “it’s not a question of whether one man can do it. We all have a role to play in this. When all of us play our parts to perfection, the Indian flag will flutter sky-high. Then my ambition will come true. Then India will become developed.”

I was lucky he didn’t ask me whether that would happen, because I didn’t know the answer to that myself. But I was amazed at their attitude. It showed the extent of influence Radha exerted on them. The questions they asked had left me bewildered.

When I got up to leave the playground, they all shouted, “Chalo. Perfect.”

I said the same to them. The manager then told me about a new entrant who was orthopaedically handicapped. His walking stick had broken which had made him immobile. He was in his room.

I went to meet him. The boy greeted me without tears in his eyes. I sat on his bed and talked to him about his interests and what he had wanted to be. He told me that he wanted to become a college lecturer. I congratulated him and told him the things we had discussed in his absence at the playground. I promised to get him a new walking stick as soon as possible so that he wouldn’t miss out on the action at the playground again. I then took my leave.

I had fixed up an appointment to meet Capt. Shahnawaz the next day at Kollam.

***