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.