It is so strange how some people change just by a little tweaking of the geographic coordinates. Ye, ye you would say that also means earnings pegged in another currency, a better life and all that trash and that the ageing sarcy me has no business commenting on that. But yes, they change and how.
So here is our man, fresh from there where the sun never sets (albeit keeps behind the stiff grey sky mostly). Everything back home seems "how this country manages"! He's here to get hitched. The fiancée's been waiting for over half a year. Any more & wait our dude would've been rendered as collateral damage. So he's come back on a seconded leave.
For a week now he has to work from the awful Indian office, crowded across the floor and where people are still sentimental about their jobs (bloody desi losers). But hello, he's their nri colleague and all that he has to do is throw some duty free alms at them and they would come wagging their mongrel selves. Ok that ain't gonna be as bad. He would be treated like a "client" from the onshore world and be drapped in red carpet (the paled ass could be licked too)
So here he comes, our brown sahib of this century, wagging his "phoren" i-card and with the swag of a true blue blood. But hold hold hold, sir kahan jaa rahe ho, access card toh dikhao. Well, enough to put him out of slumber. The guard at the entrance wouldn't listen to any of the nri shit and our dude finally had to request a local access card. The next rude shock was at the work floor. He's not really a client and was not treated thus. No cellophaned cookies, no Evian bottles, nothing! A seat near the window is the best and the most! Interestingly, the few friends he thought he has had also moved on and he didn't really matter to them anymore. Not in a bad way really. He stuck with his €/£/$ dreams, they held just held on to where their passion lay.
The first couple of days passed with him all by himself. There were some ass lickers ofcourse who were awed at his tales of the salad bar and the antiseptic office interiors. But by the middle of the week he was thoroughly bored. The ones who came to listen to him didn't matter and the ones who (perhaps) mattered had no time.
The dude's only rescue was his one time mentor. She who'd groomed him through nights of difficult projects and through moments of damage control. Had stood by him and helped his career grow. She'd felt insulted, had bled and given up when he chose the nri status over anything else and worst still failed to see any reason (who does once the visa is stamped eh). He didn't care then and she doesn't care now. It was a chapter of the past. The damage done, amputated and gone.
Anyways the bit of emotional insanity in her (was that insanity or glow, anyways) made them speak again. He swallowed the Benson smoke and more of his pride and confessed a few things.
Well, what do you think happened then? The mentor mentee worked on projects happily ever after?? NO. This story of redemption doesn't end in such rosy notes. It ends with him expecting support and she making it clear that's its long over. In the real world stories often end on such dry notes. K-Jo sorry couldn't give you a script idea...better attend the nri dude's wedding perhaps!!
