The Alpha Female

The Alpha Female

A true story by Prakash Subbarao (Prakash@3xus.com)

This is a true story. It actually happened the way I have written it. The names are the same too. I don’t think there’s anything offensive in the story and therefore I expect no one to take umbrage at mentioning their true name. Sadly, many of the people named may be no more. When I look back at those days, we all appear to be strange fictional characters. But that’s life. Those were the days my friend, I thought they’d never end……….those strange, wonderful days with those strange, wonderful people…………

This story is set in the year 1976. A lot of you dudes reading it were in your previous lives or avatars then. Some of you were around, possible as toddlers. I was definitely around, having just joined Chloride India Limited, a British multinational in those days, as a management trainee (MT).

We management trainees all had “offices” on the first floor - we sat in a large hall along with many others.

As one entered the hall, there was Hickman sitting on the right, in the corner. Marcel Hickman was an Anglo-Indian; a very fair skinned, small built man with a bristling moustache. Though Hickman had decidedly female characteristics (he giggled, he simpered, he sat sideways, like a female would on the pillion of my motorcycle) he was a staunch ally of us management trainees. He was the guy who always had a ready smile when we saw him in the morning, who looked us with deep empathy and TLC whenever we received a scolding or worse from our bosses, and, even though he wasn’t our typist, the guy who readily agreed to sit back and burn the midnight oil with us whenever we had some urgent stuff to get typed. There were no computers back then. Just the clackety-clack of typewriters and people like Hickman behind them. Hickman was typist for Mr. Gupta, the area manager during office hours. He was our typist after office hours in times of emergency.

Opposite Hickman, along the wall, sat one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She was the type of looker who could stop a person dead in his tracks. Althea Mukherjee was also an anglo, married to a Bengali. She was very aloof, reserved and dignified and we hot blooded lads left her alone. She had that kind of sobering effect on all of us.

Opposite Hickman, across the aisle, sat N.C. Som. Som must have been close to retirement at that time. A loyalist, he had put in thirty odd years with the company and had now been put out to pasture. Som wasn’t expected to do any work, and he hardly did. However, he was our guru and showed us the ropes, explaining the intricacies of office politics to us. He was also our friend, philosopher and guide; we sobbed on his shoulder in the toilet, out of sight of prying eye, when we got especially badly chewed out by our bosses. Som’s words soothed; healed. We would leave the toilet feeling much better and motivated.

Next to Som, across the aisle from the beautiful Althea, sat yours truly.

To my left sat a fellow management trainee (MT) the cat eyed, fair skinned, Ashok Mitra. Another very fair, Bengali of medium height he had a background in statistics. He always had a ready smile and we traded yarns every now and then. I asked him once, just after his wedding, how his wedding night had been. I remember his answer very clearly. “There we were, in Darjeeling, in bed. I was making love to her passionately, and all the while she was talking to me about the marriage and why this person hadn’t attended and so on. It was unnerving” he told me.

To Mitra’s left sat Vinod Bhakru, a quiet withdrawn MT. To his left sat Ashoke Dutt, another MT. Ashoke was a tall, lanky, competent lad with a half smile always playing on his lips. He went on to become the country manager India of Citibank. Behind the lot of us were the typists, clerical staff etc. They sat behind rows and rows of Remington typewriters. They were the politicians of the first floor, carrying tales, watching, whispering, almost never working. (remember that I am describing a Calcutta in the particularly bad days of the Naxalite movement, with communism rampant and work-to-rule a mantra).

Into this setting came the alpha female.

She was an MBA from XLRI, she said. She had been personally selected by Johar Sengupta, (JS) the managing director of Chloride (a.k.a “God” to us MTs) she said. “He trusts me and relies on my judgement” she said. “He has asked me to get this info from you” she regularly said. She soon became a pain in the butt.

We strongly suspected that she was using us guys to do her dirty work and churn out the figures which she would present to the MD and pass it off as “her work”.

“This has to end” we MTs muttered amongst ourselves. But how? No solution was in sight.

One day, it came to us, in a flash. The solution was simple; it was breathtaking.

We eagerly waited for the lady to visit us to set our plan in motion.

Her schedule was pretty predictable. Office started at 9.30 a.m.; it took her an hour to settle in and have her tea; around 10.30 a.m. she would come down to our office from the second floor. She walked down the stairs and we could hear her high heels well before we could see her.

That fateful day, we were waiting like hawks for her.

Right on schedule, at around 10.30 a.m. clickety-click, clickety-click came those steps. Soon she came into view.

If you’d like to put a name to that face, it's Debjani. Short (5 ft 2 ins.), wheaty complexion, already leaning towards obesity, curly hair, a snooty expression on her face, she clicked along in her high heels towards us.

“Hi Debjani” we greeted her cheerfully. It was a ploy. “Hi!” she distantly replied, nose in the air.

“Debjani, have you studied maths? There is a maths problem that is baffling us” one of us said.

“Of course” she bristled “I was the maths topper in my class!”.

We looked at each other out of the corner of our eyes and smiled. The lady was accepting the bait.

“What is this?” I asked her. “The symbol baffles me”. I laid out a sheet of paper in front of her on which in large bold letters were written:

άQ b cos u r sec C

“Ha!” she sneered “this is easy. That’s alpha Q b cos u r sec C”.

“What?” we chorused.

“alpha Q b cos u r sec C” she repeated louder.

“What?” we again chorused.

“What’s wrong with you guys! alpha Q b cos u r sec C” she shouted.

By now, all work in the hall had come too a sudden standstill. Hickman was looking at her in wonder and amazement. His first urge was to rush to her rescue. I frowned at him and nodded my hand as if to say “don’t intervene!”.

Althea was looking at her open mouthed.

The stenos behind us started standing up to get a better view of the events unfolding in front of them.

Suddenly it hit her. Alpha Q! Oh my God!

She went pale and then an instant later a beetroot red. She turned and fled as fast as her high heels could take her.

From that day onwards Debjani never came to the first floor. All of us MT dudes ruled the roost in peace.

The alpha female had left for good.