He was sure he wanted to confront the question which his anger kept alive and kicking. He looked at his watch and it was 7 pm. In the balcony of his flat where he lived alone, he could feel the evening’s youthfulness entering his breathe and he was ready to move to the next step of his plan.
Mayank’s call at 7 pm had made him understand that he would have to cancel his next morning’s meeting. Whenever Mayank wanted him for a talk, it would start late evening and end by the break of dawn. He agreed on the phone that he would head home straight away. Curious as usual, he had asked Mayank what was the occasion for celebration and he had replied, ‘I am quitting my job next morning and whole night we will celebrate’. He had no choice but to rush home. Before starting his car he called Utkarsh but he was out of town. Utkarsh, he and Mayank were school friends and formed a trio complementing each other so well for the last 24 years. He desperately wanted Utkarsh to be with him now and was sure that Mayank too would love to have him with them. Mayank had indeed called Utkarsh to tell him to join them and knowing that he was out of town, he had briefed him about his decision to quit his job.
Ashish Sinha, Deputy General Manager, Marketing, Tantra Tele Services. His business card would read. On his profile, on a social networking site, he had uploaded long paragraphs about him which he could not understand as Mayank had written them for him to attract single girls. Being a friend of a person like Mayank was not very easy but it came as a package. Mayank would do a lot of things for him, which he would flaunt as his own and this somehow compensated the trouble his friendship with Mayank created for him. Five companies, four ex-girl friends and a journey from assistant manager in an FMCG company to Deputy General Manager in a telecom company in ten years was not a bad CV for Ashish.
“So, angry young man! Finally you have found the villain of your life and you want your anger to sustain so that you could battle it out with him. But how can your resignation do any harm to your editor”, Ashish asked, picking up the conversation as he finished his first glass of whisky.
“Who said the editor is my villain and I’m quitting to harm him?”
“No, I mean what I perceive is that you are angry that the editor did not own the crisis and instead of protecting his reporter he took action against him. I presume this is double standards...stark hypocrisy.”
“I would rather say my editor is not a habitual hypocrite. Usually, he is very true to what he is; a single personality at most times.”
“Oh, hypocrisy is out, then what?”
“No, it is not out. I am not trivializing the issue by confining it to an individual. I am talking about the broad-based system of hypocrisy that has percolated deep down in the thought processes and even general work culture of media in particular and all organized human endeavors in general.”
Ashish knew it was best for him to listen as Mayank unfolded his heart and all he could do is to pick up any inconsistency and contradiction in his view point.
“You know, hypocrisy no doubt is the greatest malaise of humanity. I mean, people of all mental levels know well what is good, ideal and godly. It is in fact such a huge benefit for humanity that universal goodness and ideals are so simple to see and understand that even an illiterate can know them. The learning processes devised by humans and all acquired knowledge actually facilitate avenues to circumvent and obfuscate the practice of good. Most men and women would speak of good and ideal of life but they would not put them into action. As a broad rule, more learned and academically attained a person, more skilled he will be in practicing hypocrisy”.
“Good then; the larger picture you have sketched, leaves nothing very concrete for people like you and me to do to make a difference”.
Ashish regretted having said that. Thank God, Utkarsh was not there for he had time and again advised him not to throw blanket statements aiming to kill a conversation when someone, especially Mayank would be making a point. He remembered Utkarsh telling him one evening, ‘When an in-form batsman is scoring runs, the batsman on the other end should just concentrate on running hard on his call so that the in-form batsman retains most of the strike and does not get run out before he hits a century’. Little was lost as Mayank probably did not listen to Ashish as he continued.
“I can say with lots of confidence that hypocrisy is the mother of most ills of our society. It is hypocrisy that breeds crisis of faith among men and women. It is this huge gap between what we say and what we actually do that creates the first seed of mistrust. The seed of mistrust bears the fruit of anger, rivalry, jealousy and a spectrum of negative feelings. It is a vicious cycle; anger and rivalry in turn feed the mistrust and growing mistrust forces people to become greater and smarter hypocrites. I am not blaming anyone. My generation is bigger hypocrites than previous generation because they bequeathed us greater mistrust than what they inherited from their previous generations.”
Ashish made second glass of whisky for himself as part of his resolve to be a supportive non-striking batsman and keeping quiet, he kept his eyes fixed on Mayank’s face.
“You know, sundry hypocrisy that many people often practice because of sheer foolishness is not dangerous. What I am angry about is the street-smart cunningness of people, especially those who are authoritatively positioned in society. It is tragic that most people practice hypocrisy on the name of being practical and in the name of practicality become cunning and justify their wrong actions. It angers me no end when people boast of being practical and use it as a license to unleash a series of wrong against humanity and society in general.”
“And the bigger trouble is that such people often land at top positions in society and even the society makes them its idol”, Ashish added making a philosophical face in an attempt to match the countenance of Mayank and continued, “Most often, such people become your bosses; my boss, the general manager is also one such big cunning fox. The amount of intentional lies he has told in his career so far should be more than the GDP of USA.”
Mayank could not resist a smile and quipped, “What about you?”
“Lo..! What about me! And what can I do? You know it’s a lateral stupidity. I mean, it’s like driving on an expressway and you have to drive to the prescribed high speed. You stop and your ass-bone is splintered into smithereens. It’s a war out there and you make a killing for surviving and not for fun. You said it yourself that it is a vicious cycle; why blame me?”
“Ashu, I’m not blaming. I understand we all need to be practical. However, just open up to my humble request that please be alive and alert to each compromise we do. It is practical to make a compromise out of compulsion but often, people make compromises out of sheer convenience. And this people make a smart habit and try to sound virtuous, the society very willingly tailing up to stamp its seal of approval. I firmly believe, if we prune them on the basis of sound moral auditing points, half of the compromises we make will be found as being made as sheer out of convenience and not compulsion. If we do away with it, much of the lost faith will be restored. All we need to do is stop being self-possessed and be open to questions that others have for you.”
There wasn’t much for Ashish to say as he knew it well that Mayank was right. He felt uneasiness at his heart. This was not unusual as being with Mayank often unleashed such feelings as he would instill a conflict in him. He wished Mayank would end the conversation or at least change the topic. That was not to be as Mayank was preparing to deliver more.
“You know Ashu; hypocrisy hits hard the sanity of the system. In the media, we have a crisis at hand. Why media, all corporations are facing it. Media faces it the most. We are besieged with the shortage of good human resource. There are few good hands who know their work well and they are assets. But they keep moving. Rival houses lure them with better salaries. So, we have serious sessions on building what they call institutional loyalty. Sermons are issued and workshops are conducted on enhancing loyalty of human resource towards the company. And on the other hand, high ups treat them as disposable syringes. Worse off, talent and work commitment has become cheaper than loyalty. Personal loyalties start getting preferences over institutional one. And still workshops on loyalty building and enhancing human resource quality go on. This hypocrisy is so manifest, so crudely and cruelly practiced that all employees can understand it and that is why they work in complete mistrust. The faith over goodness, especially at the work places has been lost ages back. Worst still is that there is a reactionary reluctance among the leadership to the admittance that this trend is annihilating the basic premise of human resource and sanity of institutionalized work processes.”
Ashish could not resist himself, “You know Monku, I cannot express myself well but I actually understand this trend better than you. Actually, economics is far greater congregation of idiots than politics or society. Someone had told me that wherever eight economists would gather, there will be nine opinions. And if these economists were Indians, you never know; worse off it they were Americans. I can tell you with conviction because I am also part of the idiosyncrasies of economics.”
Mayank knew that after three glasses of whisky Ashish would start talking nineteen to the dozen. As he would start calling him Monk or Monku, it was sure sign of his inhibitions waning away. He was usually all ears to him on such occasions as he would say things others may label as trash but Mayank knew, he talked straight out of his heart. He encouraged him to take the crease and was pleased to see him bat from the non-striker’s end.
“Monk dear, you are a journalist but you are a good man. I am not, I am a beast. I have to be. I have to see things differently. You have to see things only this way in corporate jungle to survive. You know, when I see a beautiful woman, I fix my target. I approach her, make all right investments on her; may be, use a bit of tricks and manly pranks on her and I am not even ashamed to admit that some of them may not be morally as correct as a man like you could approve of. But, my target is to take her to the bed as early as possible. And, I am not bothered about whether I can do that or not. I can do that and that’s why I am in the business since all these years. I’ve done that often. However, my success rating depends on how much time I save reaching the target. This is naked economics. Do it whatever way it takes, but do it fast. You must have heard, in economics they say, all realities exist in short run only as in the long run we are all dead.”
Mayank wanted Ashish to play some more swashbuckling strokes and continue his joy at the non-striking end of the batting pitch.
“Ashu, you are jumping your lines. Are you okay? Take a break. Take some fresh air.”
“No, I’m fine…I am fine”.
“I appreciate your approach to the idea but you need to take one step at a time”.
“Yup Monku…I realize that. See, my point is; we are here for making profit and it’s a hugely competitive stuff out there. In economics, all realities are countable and we run our companies on the clear cut operative philosophy of counting it faster than others. We cannot afford long run aims and ambitions. That is where society and economy see differently. Human Resource idealism and institutional ethics etc are all long run things. But in the short run you have to ensure that you survive to remain alive in the long run.”
As Mayank did not interrupt him, Ashish felt encouraged to go ahead with his views.
“That was why I used this beautiful woman analogy. What society thinks as proper is that the father of the woman will find a suitable boy for her and he will spend unnecessary money on her dowry and marriage. And what the suitable boy will do is finally take the woman to the bed. Or, the woman would waste her youth days finding a lovable guy and struggling to get her family accept him and the vice versa. After big trouble the love will result in a marriage and even then the woman would land herself on the bed. Even the law admits that a marriage is de jure and complete only when it is consummated. The countable reality, the pragmatic exactness is; though it sounds offensive, that the beautiful woman has to be ultimately taken to the bed. Economics sees the countable end and does not waste time and energy on those processes which society prescribes as human and just. So, if you see from a different point of view, the hypocrisy has its origin and support in society. Economics does exactly what it thinks, sees and says. But then, within economics there is a small society and whatever hypocrisy is being associated with economics is actually because of this small society within. This human resource bullshit is actually a confused society within.”
Mayank did not wish to bat longer. He had already decided to declare the innings. He only wished Ashu could see the larger picture. But he understood that mindset issues were hard to trickle down fast on the perceptional platform.
Economy globally was facing new process benchmarks and operative principles. Liberalization changed everything fast. Survival in the open competitive environment was tough and often cruel. This toughness and cruelty percolated in the work environment within.
He remembered, when he had joined media, both technology and profits were in bad shape but the work environment was great. Within two-three years, investment made everything at par with global benchmark but then, the mood and work milieu in the newsroom worsened. The joy of work was squeezed out gradually even as sales and profits touched new heights. Ashish said it right. Economics found its short-term agenda and happily buried the long-term issues of human resource. Who cares! The girl after all had to land on the bed and it happened fast. Quite as what the operative prudence of economics prescribed!
**
CHAPTER 4
At 11.45 am the owner made two calls. He rang up the editor first and asked him whether Mayank was going to the rival newspaper? The editor as usual had not checked the mails in the morning and was rather taken aback. He could not answer the owner’s query.
“Editor Saheb, at least open the laptop sometimes when the company has invested on it”, a visibly irritated owner said adding, “see the mail first and report me in half an hour which newspaper Mayank is joining and what’s the package. Also send me an explanatory mail why your trusted Colonel left your army”.
The general manager smiled as the owner called him and asked to report him in all possible details whether the editor mishandled Mayank and what impact his resignation could have on the editorial team spirit as he was very popular among them.
The first thing both the editor and general manager did after receiving the owner’s call was to call Mayank but he would not respond. The editor was quick to perceive the seriousness of the situation. He was in for big trouble as the resignation issue would revive all dormant issues against him and his detractors within would leave little to embarrass him taking advantage of the situation. He hastened to read his mail to be in control of things.
The general manager checked that the deputy general manager, sales had arrived in his chamber and ordered two strong coffees. The deputy general manager, marketing had left his home and would be joining him soon.
“So early in the day you have invited me for coffee that means somebody’s ass has gone for a toss and shock me if it is not him”, the sales head blabbered, almost barging into general manager’s room.
“Genius...stupendously genius…such a gross wastage of talent here…if I were the owner of the newspaper I would have promoted you to vice-president for guessing it right.”
“How bad is the ground situation... is it out of control?”
“Not yet…but we will make it. Don’t have to do much this time.”
“Sir Ji, give me the whole lead story. You know we sales people are basically hawkers; only when I read the whole story I can decide which way to sell it.”
“Oh! The story is simple. A man was cuddling his dear baby boy in his lap. The boy was very happy to get his father’s attention. In sheer joy the baby kicked his limbs in the air to express his feelings. One of his kicks landed on the balls of his dad. As the dad screamed in pain, the terrified boy pissed in his lap. The story is as simple as this.”
The coffee arrived. A visibly happy general manager asked for some snacks and by the time the attendant could come up with it from the office canteen, general manager had narrated to the sales head the entire story from the resignation mail of Mayank to the owners phone calls.
The sales head was about to say something when the deputy general manager, marketing entered the room, as usual in a disturbed state of affairs.
“The condom ad is missing today as you had instructed us not to negotiate beyond 45 per cent discount and the rival stooped far below to lick their ass”, he shot before he settled on the chair.
“To hell with the ad…do you regret about the ‘missing condoms’ even when you are in the bed with your wife? Anyway, this news is stale. I knew about the deal late evening itself. I had called you for different reason. Have your coffee first.”
The sales head smiled in the side chair. He said to himself, ‘is this man really as stupid as he presents himself to be or he does it purposely to counter the devilish mechanisms of the general manager?’ He put his bet on the latter. The sales head enjoyed his snacks as the general manager enquired about what the latest development in government advertisement case was and whether there was any change of mind.
“How long this will go? You know Boss asks me the same question and you do not seem to have any answer as yet”, general manager said annoyingly.
“Sir Ji, the problem is, the chief minister does not want to talk anything on this issue. His personal secretary has told me that chief minister is very upset. And I think his point is justified. He says chief minister also knew there was something wrong with the medical exam results and he had been thinking of setting up a probe when we hit the headlines. The chief minister is angry that even when he has now announced enquiry into the matter, it is just because we chose to run the story that the opposition has gained upper hand. The opposition is now making a hue and cry and misleading the people by saying that the enquiry is a cover up exercise”.
“Yeah…I know this too but tell me what is the way out? I am going to tell the Boss that from next time, it should be made mandatory for the editorial team to consult the management before going ahead with such stories. Bloody who will feed these wide mouthed beggars if we don’t earn for them. Right now, we have to make right moves to ensure that the ban on government ads is lifted as soon as possible.”
“Sir, if you could accept my humble suggestion, I would say that this is beyond us. The officials have clearly said they could not help as the chief minister has himself ordered the ban. Only he can lift it. The problem is we cannot even go to the chief minister. Only the editorial people can save the day, as chief minister would meet only them. And why not they, after all they have landed us in this trouble?”
“My dear brother, first time in so many years I am not regretting that I made you the deputy general manager. Genius…stupendous genius; you have prescribed the winning formula. Why should we lose our sleeps, those who have brought the Tsunami should also foot the bill of rehabilitation, ain’t it?”
The general manager looked at the sales head for support and confirmation. He smiled as usual and offered him a cigarette which the general manager took and gave it to the marketing head who kept it in his shirt pocket as if it was a trophy of victory.
As the marketing head moved out of the room, the general manager worked out his strategies and assigned the sales head his little part in his game plan.
“You can use the services of my personal secretary; her English is as beautiful as she is. Ask her to draft a mail to the Boss. In the mail, you only express your concern that newspaper looked weak in the last one week and though the sales were not down yet but the unsold percentage had gone up on account of poor cash sale. Do not mention anything about editorial and shoot the mail within half an hour so that it should sound to the Boss that you are still unaware about the resignation of Mayank”.
As the sales head moved out of his room, the general manager picked up the phone to call the chief reporter.
“General Manager here... got the news? What news? Lo… a journalist asks me what news. Your dear friend Mayank has been fired and you don’t know yet.”
“Fired…? But he has resigned! Editor Saheb had phoned me half an hour back and he told me Mayank resigned citing personal reasons. He even asked me to go to his place and ask him to talk to Editor Saheb as he was not picking up the call”, the chief reporter replied to the general manager in utter confusion.
“What else the poor man could do? He was demoralized so much. And what was his fault? What a simple and honest man like Mayank can do but tender his resignation when you push him that hard against the wall? I know the inside thing; there were efforts to influence the Boss against Mayank and all sorts of wrong information were being fed to the Boss so that he fired Mayank. He took the right decision and well in time to save his career. And I tell you, you may be next in line as you are being publicized as a man of Mayank’s lobby. But do not worry; I am the general manager here. Mayank should have come to me but he trusted someone who did him in. Bad choices always make people pay for it. I hope you understand”.
Satisfied that he had made best use of his resources to attain what he wanted, the general manager started writing the mail to the owner.
Dear Sir,
I’m writing to you in utmost confidentiality.
It is truly unfortunate chain of events that we find ourselves into. No doubt, there is an immense need of caution and care in handling the situation. Prima facie it seems that somewhere, this important point has been missed.
As Mayank is not responding to anyone right now, we have reasons to believe that he looks hurt and down. What I have gathered from editorial team is that he had not taken things too kindly and had some sort of run down with Editor Saheb (Details awaited).
In the past too, I had pleaded with Editor Saheb to go easy with his penchant for office time booze bouts as often it affects his judgment and handling. This new development may unsettle many in editorial but I will see to it that nothing untoward happens.
Sincerely yours.
General Manager.
PS: I’ll call as and when I get to talk to Mayank.
Prakash Pandey, the sales head had to take a tough decision. He smiled at his own predicament. The choice between the devil and deep sea! He was himself a living predicament. A man of high academic credentials but he was onto a profession which demanded street smart levels of hawking and at times, extents of cunningness which his heart would not approve of. He hated the autocratic and closed door mannerisms of the editor and was equally at war with the ‘me-only’ attitude of the general manager who technically was his boss. The editor would make serious efforts to boss around him but with little success. The editorial and sales war was always on.
The sales head had amazing gift of putting self-made quotations in the mouth of historical figures and he would do it with such seriousness and aplomb that it would be impossible to disbelieve. This he would do intentionally to embarrass his rivals. Once in the chamber of the editor, he had said to Mayank, ‘Winston Churchill had told Roosevelt in 1943 that the chief curse of humanity was that superior intelligence was always ruled over by inferior intelligence and that was because God Almighty believed in the theory of balance of power’. Mayank had understood his jibe and had prodded him to add more by asking, ‘how do you know of this historical fact’ to which he had said, ‘Joseph Stalin has written the full account of the conversation between Churchill and Roosevelt in his autobiography’. Mayank had a hearty laugh as he knew it too well that to whom it was directed. The editor had neither doubted the story nor did he understand and had continued watching live cricket on his desktop computer.
This was however unusual, as often, the sales head would credit Marco Polo and his accounts to most of the quotes he would muster up. He would say it with a dead face, ‘I admire Marco Polo as he was an obedient husband like me and had left home on the advice of his wife to find and write about all those living people on earth who were superior stupid than him. I will too do the same someday.’
The sales head weighed his options on the basis of long-term mileage and arrived at a decision on the basis of the old corporate wisdom of balance of power. He rubbed his hands in sheer joy to visualize the end result of his game plan.
The editor was almost done with the morning meeting with the reporters when the sales head entered his room. He gestured him to have a seat.
“So, what’s the bad news from your side this morning”, the editor initiated the talk.
“Why bad one…I think it is a usual day of business!”
“Pandey Ji, it suggests you do not seem to know the full story. Everyone today is interested in grabbing a slice of my precious ass. But they don’t know that like a lizard, I can grow my ass as many times they chop it off.”
The sales head laughed heartily correcting him that lizards were more fortunate than humans as God had chosen not to trouble them by giving them a protruded ass and instead gave them a tail. He then told him in a manner of earnest inquisitiveness, “Yeah…morning birds were talking about a rebellion in your army.”
“Rebellion…! And in my army! You need to see it differently. This is battleground of life. This is men’s war. Do we invite these pigeon-hearted boys to join the battle? We don’t. We face the enemies upfront. Losing or winning is part of the game but your destined part is to fight like a man…a true warrior with a lion-heart. Sad it is that at times, some soldiers join the ranks whose best place to breathe is in their mothers’ lap. These cowards are deserters when the first shot of enemies’ artillery rends the air in the battleground. For the general and the army, it is often a good riddance. The general is saved of the unnecessary burden of footing the bill of their coffins.”
“I presume; this is an overreaction and circumstantial assessment of reality.”
“So be it.”
“It should not be it. All wars are not won in the battleground and all enemies need not be taken to war to win against them. Some gentleman said somewhere at sometime that more muscles, more hurdles in peace and that’s why brain has the least of both.”
The editor calmed a bit and threw a circumspect gaze towards the sales head. His instinct warned him against it but he felt he was getting inclined to listen to what the sales head was saying. He didn’t trust him, no doubt about it but the way the sales head sat relaxed and spoke with authoritative composure, making constant eye contacts with him, he thought it was not bad actually to pay heed to what he was attempting to hint at. The sales head realized that his words had succeeded in doing what they were intended to and he quickly changed the tack.
“Editor Saheb, Marco Polo once visited our town after his long journey to China. Outside the town gate he saw a man with a sword walking impatiently, looking every now and then towards the path, sitting hesitatingly and within seconds start walking again. Marco Polo thought he was a robber and he might even kill him. But, as he approached him, it was clear that the man with the sword was least interested in him. Marco Polo could not resist his curios