As you can see, the office is in trouble, not because the coffee machine was broken or Big Sneeze was angry (both of which happened), but because the whole office would be screwed if we didn’t cook up a plausible story.
‘What if we just hide this info from the media?’ suggested one.
‘C’mon bro, we are dealing with the Indian media, they are more nosier than your aunties.’
There was this thing with the media, if they didn’t get a story, they would cook one up. And in a country where thousands of companies were hoisted at the blink of an eye, this was their key to survival. Reporters often used news to favour a political or personal agenda. Let me give you an example.
‘So today we stand in front of ISRO. The latest information says that they have encountered an alien on their probe, which communicated to them that as long as the current government runs India, the world is in safe hands.’ One reporter could go on. ‘it also said more people to listen to Akashdarshan radio, 88.1 FM.’
And fun part, there were Indians who would buy this story (not in the financial sense, because all Indians are misers.)
There were people typing crazy over the keyboard, so fast that you think their fingers might go right through it. Some lazed around, or searched for stories that Big Sneeze would buy (again not financially, cause B.G is an Indian too).
Well I was doing what every hard working Indian would; sipping coffee and criticising everyone I could.
‘That’s not how you should type that phrase!’
‘Are you sure that’s the right program?’
‘How did you get the alien’s picture.’ I asked one fidgeting on the phone.
‘Excuse me!’ he replied ‘ that’s my mom’
‘I guess now I know where you get your looks from. No offense.’ He started glaring at me.
‘Well’ I began to advice him. ‘didn’t your mom ever say to you that staring is rude.’ He wasn’t in the mood for advice, cause next thing I knew, I was limping away with my hands covering my groin. Bastard, he doesn’t have a sense of humor
Nithika came running. She was one happy employee. For her getting into the ISRO was easy, because her cousin from NASA had tutored her. She was a person who everyone loved to talk to, but I found her a traitor. I would tell her not to speak with Hari or Catherine or any of my rivals, but that exactly what she would do. Maybe I am fated to stay friendless.
Now anxiety and excitement played on her rosy face.
‘What is it?’ the whole office turned towards her.
‘It's my cousin from NASA. They were doing the whole transit thing...'
Transit is a system used by astrophysicists to find the size of planets that circle a particular star. Imagine a torchlight is being shot at you from a distance of fifty meters. A person walking between you and the light would obviously block it.
In the same way physicists observe a particular star. And any heavenly body that moves in between, blocks the light. The physicists determine the body's size based on the light it had blocked.
‘...yesterday they saw this bizarre transit. The projectile was too thin and regular to be called a body. They waived it. But today they heard of our dilemma and they think that transit and our problem is somehow connected.’
‘Stop beating around the bush Nithika.’
The excitement betrayed once more on her face. ‘They think it was a UFO'
The whole firm looked at each other in disbelief.
Then they roared in laughter. Nithika's excitement drooped.
‘Americans!’
‘Yeah. President dies, they go illuminati is real. Radio jams for a second they go ‘‘hell aliens are intercepting us.’’ They see their own selfies and go ‘well aliens do exist.’ ’
I couldn’t help but agree to that last line.
‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’ Big Sneeze had appeared out of his lair. The whole office raced to their seats. Mine was too far, so I had to seek cover under a colleague’s seat. 'I am safe. He won't come here.' I told myself. But something worse happened.
Unfortunately, the colleague whose table I had been shielded with, was the son of the mom I had insulted earlier. He saw me and grinned. I think he knew since B.G. is around, I would never make a sound, because now my whole body was paining.
B.G returned to his room, and the whole office breathed out in relief. There was one problem though; many of them hadn't brushed.
One guy whose hands flew from one key to another now halted all of a sudden. He looked at the screen, frozen. (I guess he saw my colleague's mom)
‘Guys, I think Nithika's right.’
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