Part 4 – Cheeku Maharaj

 

 

“B******”

Pehalwan and Baba looked at each other for a second and then burst out laughing. Baccha seldom uttered curses and he never cursed in Hindi. Not until now at least.

It was 9pm and Baccha was still annoyed after his 40 minute end of the day one-on-one meeting with Cheeku Maharaj back at the Empty Men office.

Earlier that day, when Baccha walked into the office of the ‘Big Daddy’ of the 5^th Floor, he first closed the door. He knew he was going to get yelled at. After all Cheeku followed a round-robin-schedule policy for selecting and abusing people on the floor and it had been a few months since Baccha had his turn.

Cheeku started off asking questions on the work Baccha was doing. There were no complaints from the customers but there were delays (as usual) and Cheeku needed a reason to show Baccha his rightful place and so he screamed for the last 20 minutes.

Cheeku screamed that Baccha was too ‘buddy-buddy’ with Guddu and his Bermuda team.

“You go drink or dance and be ‘buddy-buddy’ with them. I don’t care. But keep your personal and professional relations apart”

“You should have sent 2 warning letters after they didn’t meet their committed date and should have sent 10 escalations to their CEO”

“You are to blame for these delays. You have done this intentionally to cover them”

“They are using you”

And so it went on for the rest of the session. Baccha just nodded on.

He was fantasising about the various ways by which murder could be committed without getting caught. Strangling wasn’t easy, paying a truck driver for a fatal accident might raise suspicions, guns were too noisy and trying to procure and use poison was risky. Maybe tripping a guy from the rooftop would be less suspicious and of relatively less risk.

When Baccha walked out of that office, his ears were still ringing from the piercing agony it was subject to for forty minutes. There has to be some way of getting even.

Cheeku was not liked much on the 5^th floor.

Ok, let’s be honest, Cheeku was the least loved man on the 5^th floor.  He terrorised partners, ridiculed subordinates, disrespected everybody in sight and made the Grinch (Yes, that green monster who was played by Jim Carrey in the movie of that same name) look like Santa Claus in comparison.

Cheeku also had the unique distinction of being the only known human specimen in existence who was an exception to the universal rule of ‘the enemy of an enemy being a friend’. The enemies of Cheeku’s enemies were his enemies too! For example, Cheeku was hated by Bakwasbola, Bakwasbola was hated by Baba and yet Cheeku was hated by Baba too!  And this week the unhappy family on the 5^th floor had all the more reason to hate Cheeku.

It was appraisal time for the team (headed by our anti-hero).  They were being appraised by the various internal teams to whom they provide service and given that the previous year they scored a not so encouraging 5/10, the heat was on them to have a better score this time around.

Cheeku had decided to make a change this year to get better numbers.

“Guys, we need to improve on our score this year” he said to the 10 participants he had selected to create the internal task force for the feedback survey.

“But before we start I want you to know that participation in this task force is completely voluntary and you can walk out if you don’t want to be part of it and there will be no hard feelings”

Everybody looked at each other. The unfortunate participants who were selected included Guddu (‘the one guy who has the spark’, as per Cheeku), Baba Om, Baccha, Motesepatla (Another partner manager on the 5^th floor), Lucky (the soft spoken local man who spent 12 years of his life at Empty Men) and some others.

Nobody dared to get up from their seat.

Cheeku was not giving an option, this was a threat. What he actually meant was “Let’s see who dares to get up and walk from this room”

Guddu thought of his poor Bermuda men. If he walked out, they’d have to work 26 hours each weekend. He passed the opportunity.

Baccha thought of the projects delayed. If he walked he’d be first be skinned by Cheeku (for everything he did wrong in the past 7 months) and then skinned by Bakwasbola and PPTwala for not having client focus. He too passed the opportunity.

One after the other, everybody thought of the consequences of walking out, swallowed their pride and stayed in their seats, putting up fake smiles and falsified looks of determination.

Baba Om said he was willing to be part of the task force as long as he was around (his plan was to leave Empty Men forever within a week).

At the end of the meeting that was scheduled for 30 minutes ( but lasted half a day), there was a charter made with 80 actions to be carried out in the next three weeks with everybody getting a slice of the cake.

Guddu, ‘the man with the spark’ (as Cheeku once described), got the biggest slice of the cake (as he had the ‘spark’ of course). He went to his boss and cried a bucketful (Why me?). Guddu’s boss protested (How dare Cheeku do this without asking me?) but didn’t have the nerve to go question Cheeku. This was one cat who wasn’t going to be belled soon.

All wasn’t well and the days didn’t end well as the men on the 5^th floor survived to fight another day.