O’ Ramaswamy, where art thou?

O’ Ramaswamy, where art thou?

An article by Prakash Subbarao (Prakash@3xus.com)

Due to various reasons I had decided to leave Vikrant Tyres, where I was an Area Sales Manager. Why did I want to quit? Something had happened. Something had gone wrong between me and the Marketing Director of the company. Though we were on the best of terms, he made a promise to me that he did not deliver on. It was a pretty robust promise. Based on that ‘gentleman’s word’ I took some career steps much against my wish. He went back on his promise. Almost immediately. After I had done my bit, as he had asked. That left a dirty taste in my mouth. I wasn’t willing to trust him with my career and hence thoughts of quitting.

What does one do when one plans to quit? One starts looking around and sending his (or her) CV to various consultants. I did the same. Nothing very original there!

I had worked closely with the well known consulting firm of A.F. Fergusons, so I sent my CV to contacts there. I also started searching for jobs in the various newspapers.

One day I saw an ad that proclaimed a Product Manager’s vacancy at the well known T.I. Cycles in Madras. The recruitment was being handled by ABC Consultants.

I applied.

Since I was applying to quite a few jobs, I soon forgot about this application.

My job saw me visiting some extremely inhospitable and inaccessible areas of North Karnataka (known as the Upper Krishna Project Area, or the UKP area).

I had finished a particularly difficult tour of the area. The worst part of the journey is almost every part of it! There is no suitable lodging, no proper food and water facilities etc. One stays in an Inspection Bungalows (a erstwhile ‘dak’ bungalow) where one frequently shares the bedroom and bathroom with bats and various types of creatures including, on some occasions, snakes.

The water is filthy. It is safer to drink beer which, very strangely, is abundantly available. One need to be very choosy what one eats. A vegetarian diet is best. Following these precautions, one can pull through with some success and live to tell the tale.

I was really glad when my trip to this filthy area was over. I washed the grime from my body in a Hyderabad Hotel and feeling wonderfully clean and cheerful, drink in hand, called my wife. “When are you returning?” was her first question. “Tomorrow” I replied. “On the evening flight. Why?”

“You have an interview tomorrow evening at 7 pm” she said. “It’s at the Windsor Manor Hotel”.

My Indian Airlines flight (there were no other competing airlines in those days so one had no choice of airlines and itineraries) was scheduled to land in Bangalore at 6 pm. I stayed in Indiranagar, in those days. I could be home by 7 pm and at Windsor Manor by 8 p.m., I calculated.

“Call the interviewer up and ask for a postponement to 8 p.m.” I told her.

She rescheduled the interview without any problem.

The next day, when I checked in, I learnt at the counter that the flight was delayed by several hours! I called my wife and asked her to try and reschedule the interview to the next day.

When I reached home at 10 p.m. that night, my first question was “Have you been able to reschedule the interview?”

“No” my wife said. The person is leaving at 8 am to Bombay and he said that he won’t be able to interview you tomorrow.

On an impulse I called Hotel Windsor Manor and asked to speak with him. In spite of the lateness of the hour, he was still up and came on the line almost immediately.

“I am sorry, Prakash” he said “I am leaving very early, on an 8 a.m. flight to Bombay. I check in at 7 a.m. I won’t be able to interview you”.

“Which company is this interview for?” I asked.

“It’s for the Product Manager position for T.I.” he said.

My heart sank. This was a good company and I had hoped to be able to attend the interview.

“I am very keen to attend this interview” I told him. “May I come and see you at the airport tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure…….” He said reluctantly. “I have finished the interviews and, frankly, have already short listed three people for the position. To be brutally honest, it will be a waste of your time” he said.

“Please!” I pleaded “just let me meet you and we can discuss this over a quick cup of coffee”.

“OK” he said. “6.30 am sharp, in front of the Indian Airlines enquiry counter. I will check in at 7 a.m.”

“Thank you!” I said, vastly relieved.

I was there at 6.30 a.m. and there he was, smartly dressed in a suit and a tie. I had gone there dressed casually, considering that it was such an unearthly hour.

We had a cup of coffee together in the coffee shop.

I could see that he was disinterested. I gave him my CV. He took it half heartedly. He had the decency though to tell me that although my CV was a ‘good’ one he had already filled the slot by scheduling three people and it was unlikely that he would be able to process the papers for T.I.

“Maybe for some other company” he said.

“OK” I agreed. There seemed no other choice.

When the bill came, he offered a Rs. 100 note. The waiter soon returned saying that they had just opened the restaurant and did not have change.

“I’ll pay” I told him. I could see that he felt uncomfortable about this but he nodded. There was no other option.

We stood up. He picked up his brief case. We started down the stairs.

I have always been one for small talk. It’s something that I learned early on in my marketing career. It breaks the ice.

“Your name is A. Ramaswamy” I said. “Where are you from?”

“From Karnataka” he replied.

“Really?” I said, surprised. He hadn’t struck me as a Kannadiga. “From where?”

“From Arkalgud. That’s what the ‘A’ in my name stands for” he said.

“Arkalgud!” I replied, astonished. “I have a close friend who is from Arkalgud! His name is A. Subbarao…………….Arkalgud Subbarao. We have been family friends in Calcutta for years!”

He came to a sudden halt. “You know A. Subbarao?” he asked, somewhat foolishly.

“Yes” I said. “We know his entire family very well”.

“A. Subbarao is my brother!” he said.

There was a stunned silence.

In the few minutes that I had left I told him, as quickly as I could, just how close we were to his brother and how well I knew the entire family.

“This is amazing!” he said.

“Look Prakash, you are in!” he said. “Wait for T.I. to contact you. I have short listed you as of now”.

“Thank you” I responded.

He left to catch the flight and I left the airport, homewards. I didn’t know it then, but I would never see him again.

Ten days later my wife called me excitedly to say that I had received a telegram from T.I.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“INTERVIEW RE PRODUCT MANAGER POSITION WITH PALANIKUMAR, DIRECTOR T.I. CYCLES, AMBATTUR, ON STOP RETURN AIR FARE WILL BE REIMBURSED” she read out.

In the few days that I had before the interview I spent as much time as I could learning everything about T.I. Cycles that I could. When I went there, I did so armed with facts and figures and possible business strategies.

The interview went off very well. I left with the feeling that I had a very strong chance.

A week later I received the letter of offer. It wasn’t for T.I. Cycles. It was for a position with T.I. Diamond Chain Limited as Regional Manager – South India.

The salary offered seemed very low and not worth considering. However, there was a chit attached by the Personnel Manager. It said “Call me on telephone number xxxxxx so that I can discuss the salient features of this offer”.

I called him and introduced myself. “The salary is ridiculous!” I told him. “I don’t think I will accept”.

“Look Prakash, that’s what we put down on paper but our offer is much better than that! Come to Madras again, we will pay the airfare and for the hotel stay, and I will tell you about the hidden perks that we have”.

“OK” I said. I had nothing to lose.

I flew down to Madras a few days later at met him at the corporate office. What he was offering was a pretty good package. There were hazaar allowances so that one could save substantially on income tax – lunch allowance, car cleaning allowance, driver’s allowance (though you would drive yourself), gardener’s allowance………….you name it, there was an allowance for it.

“Is this OK” he finally asked.

“Yes” I said. “It is satisfactory”.

He had the papers drawn up and I signed with a flourish. I had, in effect, agreed to join T.I. Diamond Chain Limited as Regional Manager within a month. I was happy to leave Vikrant and the association of the Marketing Director who had cheated me.

I flew back to Bangalore and the very next day submitted my resignation.

From Bangalore, I called the office of ABC Consultants, Madras. A. Ramaswamy was on his annual leave, I was told. H would be back after a month.

“I’ll speak to him when I get to Madras” I told myself.

Soon I had joined T.I. as Regional Manager. My office was in Tiam House, First Line Beach. That’s how I found myself in the position described in the article “TRAVAILS OF A MARRIED MAN”.

I called ABC Consultants and asked to speak with A. Ramaswamy. He was back from his leave and came on the line immediately. “Hi Prakash!” he said with genuine pleasure “have you joined?”

“Yes!” I replied. “And I want to thank you for everything you have done for me. Can we have dinner together? How about this weekend?”

“I’d love to but I am a ‘bachelor’ right now” he said. “My wife is in Bangalore and is returning only after a week. Let’s meet after she comes”.

I agreed. I promised that I would call him ‘soonest’.

‘Soonest’ stretched into days, and then weeks and then months. I was extremely busy in my new job. I was traveling extensively. I was trying very hard to get a handle on things. I completely forgot about A. Ramaswamy.

One day, with a start, I realized that six months had passed!

Feeling very guilty, wondering what I would say to him, I called the number of ABC Consultants and asked for him.

“Who is calling?” the telephone operator at ABC asked curiously.

“Prakash Subbarao, from the TI Group” I told her, somewhat officiously.

“But Mr. Ramswamy is no longer with us” she said.

I was stunned. “No longer with you? Where did he go? Where can I contact him?” I demanded to know.

“One minute” she said, and put me on hold.

A few seconds later a person came on the phone. “I am the new head of ABC Consultants, Madras” he told me. “Did you want to speak to Ramaswamy on an official basis or personally?”

“Personally” I told him.

“Well, I am sorry to tell you that that won’t be possible. Ramaswamy was killed in an accident four months ago”.

I went cold hearing this. I mechanically signed off with him and put the phone down. My meeting with him at the airport, seeing him at the airline counter, having coffee with him, asking him what his initial ‘A’ stood for, our amazement that A. Subbarao was his brother………………………all these flashed in my brain. I felt a sense of real desolation, of great sadness.

I hadn’t even had the decency to call him over for a meal to thank him for what he had done for me.

Now he was no more.

Now I would never be able to thank him.

Don’t let this happen to you. If you have to do something nice to someone, do it now! You never know where you will be tomorrow. Or where that person will be the day after.

Author’s note: Sadly, this is a true story.

Bartender Trainees

Bartender Trainees with a battery company

By Prakash Subbarao (Prakash@3xus.com)

As you may have gathered by now, I was a management trainee at Chloride India Limited in 1976. Chloride was a British Multinational that made the incredible profit of Rs 4 crores on a turnover of Rs 24 crores in those days. That made it the bluest of blue chip companies, possibly ahead of most other MNCs of that day.

The Managing Director of Chloride in those days was Johar Sengupta, widely rated as a financial wizard. He was a legendary figure in Calcutta. And the Calcutta of the 1970’s ruled the Indian management roost, being the cynosure of all corporate eyes. Brooke Bond, ITC, ICI, Union Carbide, Metal Box……………we at Chloride rubbed shoulders with all of them.

Johar Sengupta (or JS, as he was known in Chloride circles) was a legend.

Picture a tall (maybe around 5 foot 10 ins.) slender man of wheatish complexion, wearing glasses. He’s clean shaven and looks remarkably relaxed at all times. He is invariably formally dressed in a suit and tie, except on Saturdays when he comes to the office in designer jeans. He speaks with a trace of a British accent mixed with a Bengali one.

Rumour has it that he has never missed a Wimbledon.

People whisper that he dislikes Sati Kuckreja, the head of marketing. By extension, that puts all of us marketing guys in the enemy camp, so to speak. We are clearly aware of the finance-marketing divide and that the marketing clout is pretty poor in Chloride. Maybe it’s our karma, we tell ourselves.

We management trainees went about secure in the knowledge that the great man didn’t know we existed. That gave us confidence. If it came to war we wouldn’t get shot at; we were ghosts; invisible for the time being. If, in the distant future, we were thrust up the corporate ladder our ugly mugs would be duly memorized by the enemy but for the time being all was well. We were invisible.

Or so we thought.

Imagine my great shock when one day I am busy doing my own thing in the marketing services department when I get a call from his secretary. “JS wants to see you” she blandly informs me. “Why?” I ask. “I don’t know” she says. “When?” I ask. “Right now” she says. Panic sets in.

My palms instantly start sweating. I do a quick check list on any goof ups that I have left exposed. As far as I can recall, I have covered my tracks quite well and dusted all mishaps and misadventures under the rug. And yet here is the great JS bypassing protocol………….bypassing my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss and asking to see me in the flesh. I wonder what he wants, I think to myself. I get up and head for the big man’s office on the second floor of Chloride House.

When I get there I see an equally flustered Ashoke Dutt waiting in the ante room. Ashoke, as you know by now, is also a fellow management trainee.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him.

“JS wants to see me” he tersely replies. “F*&k! I wonder what I did wrong!”

I feel exactly the same way.

I tell him that I am in the same boat as he is. It is comforting to know that one won’t be stood against a wall and shot alone; that one will have company.

Ten minutes later, with our pulses racing and our hearts in our mouth we are ushered into the great man’s office. It’s the first time that I have been there. It’s enormous!

He is sitting a good thirty feet away and I am acutely conscious of his gaze on us as we walk towards him. Huge plate glass windows give one a terrific view of Chowringhee and the Calcutta Club opposite but we are in no mood to enjoy the view.

He is on the phone. Talking in Bengali! My perception of a MD, especially the MD of an organization as blue chip as Chloride, is one who would be snooty as hell and talk in clipped British accents and be a hypocrite to boot. And yet here is JS sitting back and comfortably conversing in Bengali!

He waves us to a seat and we nervously perch ourselves on the edge wishing he’d get off that damn phone and shoot us between the eyes post haste. The wait is worse than death!

Finally after what seems to be eternity he puts the phone down. He looks at us and smiles. “So how are you boys doing?” he asks. “OK” we mumble. It’s best to keep all conversation to monosyllables, we reason.

He tries to draw us into conversation but we know that we are part of the enemy camp, the marketing department. If nothing else, we will keep our mouths shut and not betray our bosses. That’s our position.

After a few minutes he gives up and we are relieved. He’s getting to the point.

“My secretary has an assignment for you guys” he says. “Ask her on your way out”.

“Yes sir!” we say and rush out of his office. It’s along walk to the door but we half walk, half run. “Phew!” Ashoke and I say simultaneously after we are out.

His secretary is looking at us and smiling. “So how did your meeting with JS go?” she asks. “Fine” we both mumble.

“JS is throwing a party this evening at his place in Alipur: she tells us. He will be serving very expensive liquor. He doesn’t want the caterers, Trinca’s, marowing the stuff. You understand?”

We nod.

“So he wants the two of you to stand behind the bar and keep an eye on things – especially the expensive liquor. Can you do that?” she asks.

Ashoke and I look at each other. “Yes ma’am! We can do it” we tell her.

Suddenly we feel lighter. We have had a fresh lease of life. We aren’t to be exterminated, after all!

That evening at 7 p.m. sharp we are at the MD’s residence. We look at his place in awe. It’s like a palace! There is a massive gate, which is open. There’s no moat, but obviously this isn’t a castle.

Lovely lights adorn the gates. Two latest model Chevrolet cars stand in the drive way. There is a huge lawn, beautifully landscaped. The grapevine has told us that the MD is divorced but lives with his girlfriend. That’s why there are two Chevy’s. One for him, one for her, they say. We agree to look out discretely for the “other lady”. But never set eyes on her.

We ring the bell.

An old fashioned butler opens the door. It’s all very British.

“I will tell Sahib that you are here” he tells us and floats away. We look around. We are in a hall full of antiques and artifacts. We are amazed; we are at a loss for words.

The great man comes to see in after about ten minutes. “Hi boys!” he breezily greets us.

“Good evening, sir!” we say, with fresh enthusiasm. JS is by now an old friend. I suddenly realize with a start that I have stopped thinking of him as an enemy.

“Keep an eye on the liquor consumption” he warns us. I am serving Napoleon VVSOP, Royal Salute and stuff like that and I don’t want the caterers knocking it off.”

“Yes sir!” we tell him. We almost salute.

Soon the party gets under way. It’s on the lawns. The caterers have set up camp at one end and created a makeshift bar there. Ashoke and I position ourselves ten feet behind the bar where our steely gaze will miss nothing.

The “Who’s Who” of Calcutta is there. From Sir Bhaskar Mitter to Mudaliar of ICI to Desmond Doig of The Statesman. There’s no one of a ranking less than a managing director or a chairman here, we marvel.

As the party lightens up, Ashoke and I venture to have a drink. I have always wanted to enjoy a good brandy, so I opt for a Napoleon VVSOP. Ashoke prefers a whisky so he plonks for a Royal Salute. All the while we are partaking of the snacks that are continuously being served – chicken tikka kabab, cheese and pineapple sticks and so on.

After our second drink I suggest to Ashoke that we try the cigars. There are Cuban cigars lying around. I have, so far, been smoking the India Kings cigarettes that the waiters have been offering. “Good idea!” says Ashoke, and we retreat a strategic ten feet into the shadows to avoid scrutiny, all the while puffing on our Romeo y Julietta Cuban cigars.

A little later a flushed JS comes to us. “Here boys! Keep these keys safe for me!” he commands us and hands over a heavy key chain. “Give it to me after the party!” We are thrilled. It’s the first sign of intimacy with the great man! Clearly we are zooming up the corporate ladder this evening, albeit as bartenders!

A little later JS comes up to us. He is weaving an unsteady step. “Hey boys! What are you doing behind the bar? Come and join the party!” and saying that he literally drags Ashoke and me to the party. I find it extremely embarrassing to tell people, who politely ask me what I am doing, that I am a management trainee.” Of Ashoke, there is no sign. He’s freaking out somewhere.

The party ends at 3 a.m.

The guests have left.

We hand JS his key bunch.

“Take tomorrow off, guys!” he tells us.

That’s the best news we have heard in a long time!

Apparently we handled ourselves well because JS always insisted that we be behind the bar at his parties. We attended several such events. I loved each and every one of them. JS showed himself to be a warm-hearted guy and there was no hierarchy in place.

It all came to an end when I was transferred to Madras.

Shortly thereafter I left Chloride.

I never saw JS again.

But the warmth that he showed us management trainees warmed the cockles of my heart.

Thank you Johar, wherever you are!

Prakash's note: Ashoke Dutt left Chloride shortly thereafter and went to the US to study. He returned to India to Citibank and grew to become Country Manager of Citibank India. I never met him again after I was transferred to Madras..

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.

The Corporate Condom

The Corporate Condom

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

It was sometime in1998. I had just joined a computer company in Dubai.

The head of the organization was an Arab named Mohammed.

One of the nicest guys I have known.

Imagine a very fair person, of medium height. Good looking, with a squarish face. With a cropped beard and moustache that is formed by not having shaved for several weeks. Well rounded all over, with a fairly large paunch hidden by the flowing khandura that Arabs wear. Hair cropped very short. Eyes that don’t need much persuasion to twinkle. Very soft spoken. Earnest. That’s Mohammed. Mr. Nice Guy personified.

He was all of 28 years then, having completed his Electronics Engineering degree course from the Etisalat College of Engineering in Sharjah a few years back.

Mohammed worked for DEWA – the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority. He had a middle management position there.

Work at DEWA began at 7 am and by 3-ish in the afternoon, the work day ended.

Like most Arabs, he had started his own company – a computer company, as I mentioned earlier. The company had just been formed. He wasn’t even sure what it would do. He was looking for business avenues to explore. And that’s where I came in. I had experience of starting and running an internet company successfully in India and the travel bug had bitten me. I had wanted to expand into the Middle East. And there, in Dubai, was Mohammed, waiting to team up with me.

How we met is, in itself, a very interesting tale but it’s a tale that must be told in another story, on another day.

Mohammed had taken a fairly spacious office in the Al Safiya Building, a new office block just off the Galadari roundabout. He had done a pretty neat job of having it decorated. Though there weren’t many employees as yet (there was just another Indian guy called Balu) he had made provisions for about six tables and chairs.

I got settled in and got down to work. I hardly saw Mohammed. He would waddle in at around six pm, go to his desk and do whatever he did called work. Being a computer enthusiast, he was most of the time at his machine, online. He frequently chatted with others. Mostly females with names such as “naughty_but_nice”. Though married, with a little one year old son, he often indulged in the deliciously naughty pastime of flirting with women online.

We fell into a very comfortable relationship. He was, as I have said earlier, one of the nicest people that I have met.

I had a key to the office and could come and go whenever I pleased.

One weekend (Friday is their equivalent to our Sunday – it is a day of prayer and rest in the middle east), I decided at about six pm to visit the office and check my mail.

The building was deserted, and silent.

I walked into my office and started doing some work.

Something on a table at the far end of the room caught my eye. Curious to see what it was, I walked up to the table.

I was astounded to see a used condom lying on the table!

After I got over my initial shock, I decided that the distasteful task of removing it had fallen on me – it was too controversial an object to be left lying around. I wasn’t sure what Mohammed’s reaction to it would be. Using ample tissue, I removed the condom from the table top and threw it in the waste bin. I later left, after completing my work.

The next day, Saturday, Mohammed came in as usual at about 6 pm. After wishing me (I normally said “Salaam Aaley Khum! He normally just said “Hi, Barakash!”) he went directly to his computer and started chatting. After about an hour, I sensed an opportunity to talk to him and strolled over to his desk.

“Mohammed” I told him after a while “there was a used condom on that table over there yesterday. I removed it. I thought you should know”.

Mohammed smiled. “Yes, I saw it when I came into the office yesterday after the noon prayers” he said. “I thought it was you”.

I was astounded.

“It wasn’t me, Mohammed” I retorted. “I promise you that it wasn’t me. I would never do something like that”.

“Then who could it be?” he mused, a far away look in his eyes. He was talking to himself softly as he went over the options. “It can’t be my partner, Sharif. Though he has a key to this office, he is much too Islamic to do anything like that. Could it be my friend Abu Baker? He has a key”.

He picked up the phone and spoke rapidly in Arabic to Abu Baker. After about ten minutes he put down the receiver and looked at me. “No, it’s not Abu Baker either” he said.

“Then who could it be?” I asked. Who else has a key?

A startled look came into his eyes. “My brother Abdul! He took a key from me a few days ago saying that he had some stuff that he wanted to print out!”

I knew Abdul Rao of. I had met him a few times. A very suave, oily Arab; Mohammed’s elder brother. The black sheep of his family, Mohammed used to say.

“Ask him” I urged Mohammed.

After much persuasion, Mohammed haltingly dialed his brother’s cell phone. “Barakash has found a condom on a table in the office” he told him. “I wonder whether you know anything about it”.

Mohammed’s scowl was all that I needed to see to figure out that Abdul was the guilty party.

They spoke in Arabic for a few minutes and then Mohammed hung up. “It was Abdul” he said. “Apparently he had no place to take this girl that he had picked up at a bar and he brought her here since he had a key to the place”.

The next day the locks were changed to prevent a recurrence.

Several weeks later, my wife Saroj and I were about to take the lift to the office when Abu Baker ran in, just in time to catch the lift. “Hi!” he greeted me. Then he realized that I was with a woman. He didn’t know that it was my wife. There was a very strange gleam in his eye when we bid each other goodbye.

Later that evening I collared Mohammed as he waddled into the office at 6 pm. “Did you tell Abu Baker that the culprit in the condom case was your brother Abdul?” I demanded to know. “No. I never got the opportunity” he said. “Why do you ask?”.

I told him about Saroj and I having come to the office and about Abu Baker having possibly jumped to the wrong conclusion. Mohammed roared with laughter, his eyes watering profusely with mirth. Just then his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID number. “It’s Abu Baker” he chucked as he lifted the receiver.

I went on to become good friends with Abdul in due course. I saw many a coup that he pulled off. In his own way he was a genius with a crooked brain. But enough! More about him in a different story!

Author’s note: This is a true story. All other names have been changed to protect the identity of the people involved.