Epilogue

To all of you who have worked with Bakshi in London or have known him through a victim of his would surely appreciate the fact that there is no single incident in this blog that is an exaggeration and that it doesn't have any form of added flavour. Everything in this blog are incidents that have either occurred to me or have happened immediately around me. There might be quite a few other incidents that I have missed. I will keep adding them here as and when I remember.

A couple of guys who have never got this big exposure in such an environment asked me if I am being a sadist to convolute the incidents or too obtuse to grasp the actual implications of Bakshi's behaviour. To answer that, I would say neither because the people who asked me that question haven't met Bakshi yet. I will pray for them to get a chance to work with him.

To those of you who do not know Bakshi, he is a mistery and would remain so. I have no plans to reveal his identity. I hope that justifies it all. Rest of it was just for reading, hopefully a stress buster.

"As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me... a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal."

    - Bram Stoker, Chapter 2, Dracula

It's 11:58 PM in London;  too late to be in the office. You're in front of your computer struggling to meet a deadline. You can see through your window that the river Thames is unusually calm. The crescent of the moon is eaten up by fast approaching waves of clouds. A faded darkness falls across the London Bridge. And you have this horrible feeling that HE is still out there, a wanderer outside the darkness, thirsty to stitch up any associate. You are worried if this time it could be you; your hands tremble; you're restless; you're unable to look at the monitor and...

A man, short and stout, and fairly gloating gets up from his desk; picks up a pack of pan parag from the chest draw. He tears it open as a savage beast and he walks across the floor in search of an associate. The background music plays...

(I'm gonna thrill ya tonight)
Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'alls neighborhood
                                     [extract from The Thriller - MJ]

Haaaahaahaahahaha... Haahahahahaha...
Haaahahaahahaha... Haaaahaahaahahaha...
Haaaahaahaahahaha... Haahahahahaha...
Haaahahaahahaha... Haaahahaahahaha...
Haaaahaahaahahaha... Haahahahahaha...
Haaahahaahahaha... Cough cough cough... cough coh co co!!!  Heee heee heeeeeee...
Cough cough ough cough cough... cough coh co co!!!  Heee heee heeeeeee... Cough co co

:-)

Conclusion

As I conclude this blog, I would like tell you that I am pretty happy for not being a part of WRSC anymore. A few of the characters you may have read about like Venky, Ritesh etc are still with WRSC but are now working for other accounts. I'm sure it's not a Bakshi to whom they're reporting to. I used to ring them up occasionally and sometimes meet up for a drink or two.

A few guys who raised their voice against Bakshi and fought back were 'kicked out'. They lived happily ever after.

A few of them were still with the same account working for Bakshi when I left. I have no clue what has happened to them. Bakshi used to fuck them then and he should still be fucking them.

I am not a philosopher but these are some of my findings in so many years -

• Assholes do live for ever. They get a rating of 5 every time. No point being jealous about it. They're rated only for being an asshole.
• It's all about setting expectations. If you say 'Don't fuck with me' at the first instance, it remains that way all the time. The moment you allow anyone to fuck you, they will fuck you, your mother, your grandmother and your great grand mother. And eventually you would get used to it.
• Every dog who wags his tail for a promotion, a better rating or an onsite assignment, will have to keep wagging his tail all the time. If you stop wagging anytime, the master will strike down upon you with great vengeance and furious anger. You may loose everything you have gained wagging till date. You better be ready to have a healthy tail.
• If you are working with a WRSC moulding yourself to suit the best interests of that company for more than 2 years, remember, you are institutionalized and you're good for nothing else.
• Don't waste your time writing big essays on any online survey which claims to take actions as per the feedback from the employees. They don't even go to the recycle bin.
• Stop complaining. If you don't like something, make a plan to get out of it. There is no room for complaint boxes.
• 'The man who do not spend time with his family is not a man.' a quote from the movie Godfather. Work for a living do not live for working. It's not a bad idea to miss a promotion or a rating to spend time with your family or booze with a long lost friend.
• Invest in relationships. You may not know who would be willing to call 999 (or 911) when you get mugged. Make friends with all your associates, other vendors and third party resources. Keep in touch with all of them.
• Politricks (Politcal Tricks) is a part of the corporate world but vengeance and politricks do not go very well together. Do not waste your energy screwing up someone. You can always use your time, money and effort to buy a drink for the best mate in the account.
• Patience is something that you always need. Do not strike back in anger. It would do more harm to yourself than any good. Make a plan, churn it, execute and come out clean.
• Be in good terms with the bad company but don't get associated with them. People would hesitate to help you in a crisis not because they don't like you. They wouldn't want to get into trouble helping you because you're associated with the bad guys.

That's all my friends. Thank you very much for reading my blog. One last thing. Not all managers are like our Bakshi; most of them have brains. Please do not buckle up to screw your manager right away.

---------------------------X---------------------------X---------------------------

For people who're a little curious about what happened to me, Mr. 'Alex' - I am still in London. I have found another interesting job.

Recently, I was having a nice time with a few friends at an All Bar One at Canary Wharf. Clare, who knew me since the time I'd been in London, pulled me closer to her by my suit and whispered into my ear, 'I just remembered this quote from the movie Catch Me If You Can -
Two little mice fell into a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned, but the second mouse, he struggled so hard that he eventually churned that cream into butter and he walked out. '
'And I'm that second mouse?' I smiled with a frown of contempt.
'Yes!' She smiled and gave me a hug.

The Thames Keeps Flowing

Amir, a handsome, young bloke with a good personality, decided to get married. But he had a pretty weak backbone to stand against Bakshi's atrocities. Bakshi was generous enough to bless the wedding with two weeks of holidays. But when Amir left to India for his marriage, he was assigned the task to carry a bag weighing about 25 Kgs to India and leave it at Bakshi's ancestral home. The total weight allocated on Amir's international flight was 27Kgs. He only had 2Kgs of space left to carry anything from London for his wedding.

Arora, in the middle of all the late night and weekend works, managed to get his wife pregnant. But when she was in labour pain, Arora was working from home on his laptop attending conference calls. Bakshi was happily charging the client for his time. I'm not sure if he charged Arora's wife's time as well.

When Kunal came to London, he had the dreams to have a better life with his beautiful wife and his new born baby. But unfortunately, when he starts to office in the morning, his baby would be sleeping. When he reaches home, his baby would've already slept. He works on the weekends as well to contibute towards Bakshi's fund. Hence his baby hardly ever saw him. So one day, after a few months, he reached home early and met his kid at the door. The kid runs to his mom screaming 'Mummy! Mummy! There is somebody at the door ...looks like the garbage man.'

When he came to London, Dev rented a house in Illford to live with his family. When Bakshi came to know about this, he striked upon him in great fury. Bakshi harassed Dev to the core until Dev broke the lease and transferred the agreement to another associate of Bakshi's interest. Bakshi's point was that Dev will have to go back to India soon. If so, breaking rental agreement will have to be compensated and as per the protocol, WRSC will have to pay for the difference in the amount. This would have a negligible effect in Bakshi's target which he couldn't even think about tolerating. Dev, his wife and his kid lived in a shit-hole for the rest of their life in London.

Bakshi brought only two chappattis for lunch but he ate five. How? Because he ate his lunch with a few other associates. I avoided going anywhere near the dining area until Bakshi had left. If I had to eat peacefully I had to be more cautious than a tiger who protects his catch from vultures.

Bakshi called most of his associates with a snap of his fingers followed by a 'to n fro motion' of his forefinger 'Oye Ritesh! Idhar aaa (Hey Ritesh! Come here)'. Some clients started learning this technique because it was very effective with a couple of Bakshi's pindams.

Prem, a fresher who got a chance to work in London, shivers and looks very troubled when Bakshi walks into the floor. He was not able to concentrate on his work if Bakshi was around. The only mistake Prem did was that one day he didn't notice when Bakshi walked into the floor and missed to greet him. Bakshi claims that Prem showed him his ass when Bakshi looked at him. Bakshi started his usual harassment techniques on this guy who was only half his age. Prem was later diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder and is living on anti-depressents.

A handful of guys who're technically very strong and professionally so good lives on Bakshi's blessings. Bakshi decides where they need to live, how they need to come to office and when they should take their wifes out for dinner. They don't know what they're missing because they're too blind to see what is life outside Bakshi's cocoon. One good thing is that they don't complain. Would you eventually get used to burning in hell forever?

There are many more troubled souls and their troubles never end. Let's hope all of them rest in peace. Please close your eyes for a moment. Let's pray for them and their families. Let the rain of happiness shower upon them and the clouds of darkness fade away from their lives.
Amen!!!

My Best Friend's Wedding

I used to walk around with an age-old cell phone that had a broken case and a pale display. I was against the idea of wasting money on flashy gadgets. But Bakshi proved me wrong; keep up with the times, don't stay in the dark. After all he used to remind me that he's my friend and sometimes I used to feel that he's my best friend.

I was fed up with him and I wanted some way to get out of it. I didn’t want to leave the project half-way through and quit WRSC. The Recession was at it's peak. The first thing that I had to do was to get some evidence that would help me prove Bakshi an asshole. I bought a flashy phone with a voice recording facility. It had a one-touch recording capability and was perfect for the requirement. Every time Bakshi opened his mouth I casually put a finger into my pocket as if to scratch my nipple.

I recorded dozens of conversations. I got all the words that I wanted – ‘chootiya, asshole, fucking disaster, biggest mistake, pain in the ass, lick his balls, mother fucker…‘and many many more. I walked around with this shit load of recordings in my pocket for about 6 months without knowing what to do with it.

One day an English lady, Julian, showed up in the client office. She said that she was the new HR manager for our account.  The previous HR, a sexy Indian female who used to sit inside Bakshi’s pocket, was now being replaced by Julian.

Julian was addressing the WRSC associates in a meeting room. She was discussing the problems of long working hours and the work pressure. She showed pity on us with a smile on her face. I found that smile similar to the one a butcher shows before he cuts the neck of a baby chicken.

‘The client puts across tough deadlines; there is a lot of work pressure; we’re working on it; hopefully the client will approve more resources next month... blah blah blah’ Bakshi’s voice faded away like the routine traffic honking n humming at the Outer Ring Road at Bangalore.

‘Anybody have any questions?’ Julian was concluding the meeting.
One hand was raised, only one from the entire crowd and that was mine.
‘I need to talk to you personally.’ I said. Everyone’s face turned towards me. All looked as if I have said something terribly wrong. Bakshi gave me a I-will-surely-fuck-you-if-you-screw-me kind of look.

I had a long chat with Julian in a closed meeting room about the issues we all were facing. Julian seemed to listen like a school teacher listening to a 5 year old kid. She was just doing her job and I soon got frustrated. Finally, I said, ‘Look Julian. Forget about whatever I have told you till now. Recession has affected everyone and we had to cling on to the last floating debris and that’s why I’m still in WRSC. I have something that you need to listen to. I’m not sure if it’s legal in The United Kingdom.’ I placed my phone on the table. ‘Listen to this and let me know your thoughts.’

Julian listened to the first record for about a minute before she stopped. Her face reddened. ‘Is this real?’
‘Yes, very much.’ I smiled.
‘What the hell?’ She was surprised at the words coming out of the phone.
‘That’s only one in a hundred conversations.’
‘Oh! My god!!! I can’t believe it.’
‘You have to. I don’t know what to do with these recordings. But I’m not planning to give it to you as of now.’ I said. I gave her a few minutes to think that there were quite a few options in front of me - senior management, media, court, employment tribunal etc.

‘I’m so sorry, Alex. I didn’t know that this is what is happening here. Leave it to me. I’ll take care of this.’ She assured me that she’s going to fix all our problems forever before she returned to her office.

The next day morning, I found Bakshi resting his mighty ass on my desk.
‘What is that you had to talk to Julian so personally?’ He stared into my eyes.
‘Nothing!!! I was enquiring about some HR stuff.’ I arranged my coat and made myself comfortable on the chair.
‘What HR stuff?’
‘It’s personal.’
‘Why is that only you have to go the HR to discuss your problems? In this account, you are the only person who has problems.’
‘Not really. I am the only person who has a backbone.’
‘What?’
‘Everyone in this account is afraid of you; I am not. They’re afraid because they know that you would screw up their ratings, promotion, appraisals or whatever they think is more important to them than their personal life. I didn’t take up this profession seeing WRSC as the only software company. So please stop wasting my time. I have some work to finish by end of day today. I’ll catch you sometime in the evening if you want to discuss.’
‘No’ Bakshi smiled and went back to his desk.

Bakshi was asked to report at the WRSC regional office in London that afternoon. The HR team had pulled out various other dormant cases of complaints that were reported against him. My best guess is that there was an enquiry. Julian called me in evening to assure that I wouldn’t face anymore issues from Bakshi.  Bombs were dropped into Bakshi’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war ended. I'm not aware of the extend of the damage it caused but Bakshi was now sane and normal.

He hardly talked to anyone for a few days but no dog’s tail would remain straight for ever. He made sure that he gave me enough respect and that I was always kept happy. He sometimes called me ‘beta (son)’ before he talked to me and occasionally I was reminded that I was his best friend. I lived the life of a prince for the remaining time I was with WRSC but everyone else in the account used to have a horror-story every day to put their kids to sleep.

Adam Never Jokes Again

One day, I was enlightened to find that it was not just WRSC associates who fall victim to Bakshi. Even the clients sometimes do.

Adam, a client manager who handles the data migration team, sits opposite to Bakshi. They both had shared the same phone for about a month until Adam threatened that he would resign his job if he is not assigned a separate phone. The reason was that Bakshi's phone was too dirty with pan (aka pan parag, supari, gutka, kaini) and it smelled like shit.

Adam got a new phone and was happy. Infact, he was too happy that he started cracking jokes every 10 minutes. Bakshi was initially not paying attention. He was busy reading the Tin Tin comics online. In between he had managed to stuff his lower lips with pan and was gigling at the Tin Tin comics every now and then.

Later Bakshi heard what Adam was joking about. I don't know what the joke was all about. The fact is I never want to. All I know was Bakshi laughed. He laughed the hell out of himself. The pan in Bakshi's mouth splashed across the desk. The red liquid, a mixure of fine grained pan, tobacco and saliva, was sprayed on to Adam's face.

There was laughter everywhere. I saw the red liquid dripping off Adam's nose. There were droplets on his light blue shirt, on his pants, on his suit, his keyboard, his table and of course his new phone as well.

'Sorry sorry sorry.... I am really sorry.' Bakshi ran across the table with a pack of tissues to comfort him. Bakshi and a couple of his WRSC tails* cleaned up everything in less than a minute. Adam didn't thank them; Adam didn't smile. Adam didn't even move a finger. He sat there contemplating. Bakshi even bent down on his knees to clean his shoes with a tissue. 'What a pity!! Shame for WRSC, shame for any Indian.' I thought.

Adam was not angry, I know what exactly went through his mind, 'That joke was damn good but I am the only guy who couldn't enjoy it.' Adam has never ever cracked any joke in office after that.

*A WRSC tail is an associate same as pindam. See the ‘Wetherspoon Speech.’

The Offer He Couldn't Refuse

The client location had a handful of vendors and WRSC held a major share as the contributor of manpower. But unlike WRSC, these vendors did host some parties and evening drinks and they did invite everyone including us.

WRSC do not usually host any such parties because there is hardly any fund allocated for it. But once, in my knowledge, there came a day when WRSC allocated £4.75 per person for team lunch. That meant only one drink per person.

Anyway, to utilize the fund, Bakshi got someone to order some doughnuts instead. As soon as the doughnuts reached the floor, Bakshi rushed across the workstations to grab one whole pack for himself. If I remember correctly, he stumbled over the chairs at least twice and almost pushed a young lad on to the floor before he got hold of the box.

Bakshi had a great appetite for free food and drinks but has never shown any pride in that. The stories are slightly different on other occasions. He usually crashes in without being invited, gets drunk and screws up the party royally. Client managers sometimes ask Bakshi's tails to make sure that Bakshi do not get drunk.

I remember this open-air party that was hosted near Barbican. It was late night and was pretty cold. Everyone cuddled on to their coats as they were having their drinks. But Bakshi decided to cuddle up a beautiful young sexy female consultant called Angela.

Bakshi was pushed away by two other girls before he ended up with her. She was pretty afraid to find a Frankenstein clinging on to her. 'Mr. Bakshi! I guess I need to go to the loo.' She stammered.

'You can be my friend but only on one condition.' Bakshi was making an offer.

'Yes Yes! But let me come back from the loo.'

'Yes, but don't you want to be my friend?' He replied without taking his hands that were wrapped around her.

'Of course, I do. But not right now.'

'Why not?'

'Coz I need to go to the loo.' She struggled to get his hands off her.

Bakshi didn't seem to have any plan to let her go. I was least interested to interfere and left him to hell with it. But this guy Nathan who was drinking with us took a step forward. He asked me to hold his drink.

'What are you going to do?' I was curious.

'I am going to fix him.'

'Don't create a scene. Don't forget that you need to see him again in the office tomorrow.' I said.

He gave me a naughty smile and walked across to Bakshi. We held our breaths as we watched him.

Nathan walked towards Bakshi with his hands in his pocket. Without taking them out he bent down and whispered a few words into Bakshi's ears. Bakshi didn't make a move for a few seconds. Then he took his hands off Angela and put them around Nathan and smiled. Nathan did smile as well. Angela took a deep breath to have some fresh air (without that stinking smell of pan (aka gutka, kaini, supari)) and rushed away into the toilet.

Nathan pushed Bakshi away and walked back to us. He took his drink back and took a big sip and gave me a frown of triumph.

'What did you tell him?' I asked.

'I gave him an offer he couldn't refuse.' He replied but never told me what.

Months later I came to know what Nathan's offer was. Nathan seems to have told Bakshi something like this. 'I will kick your balls up your head if you don't let her go. You will have to wear your underwear on your head like a hat to cover them up ever after.'

Don Corleone

Ritesh surprised me on a Saturday afternoon by paying a visit to my room. He discussed a few general official matters and a little casually about life in London before hitting the subject.

'Listen Alex, I need help.' He was making himself comfortable on the bed. 'I know, I don't talk to you much in office or haven't tried to befriend you.'

'What is it Ritesh?' I asked.

'You know what is happening in office these days. It's not just these days. It has been like that since I came onsite. I had big dreams when I came to London. But Bakshi shouts at me for every small move I make. He's not looking at who is around. He's not worried if he would embarrass me in front of them.'

'I know. It's the same story with every one, not just you.' I tried to calm him.

'No Alex. I have tried my best to keep him happy. I have been working late hours every day. For this delivery cycle, I have already done the documentation. I am trying to finish all regression testing well ahead of the schedule but there are quite a few P1 (critical) defects that stop my team from proceeding. If I raise any P1s or High priority defects, Bakshi would shout at me ...[Bakshi] says it would reflect the quality of our deliverables in the matrix graph and the clients would question it. If I do not raise them, the developers do not fix it. It's a kind of deadlock situation. And now the delivery is affected because of this. Bakshi blames me for that. I tried to explain but he don't want to listen.'

'No point wasting your energy on that.' I kept my laptop aside and stretched my legs.

'He acts like I have raped his wife. Now I am a fool in front of everyone. I look like an idiot. ...[Bakshi] says I'm an 34 year old kid [and] that I am not even worth the rating of 1.'

It didn't surprise me. Bakshi is an asshole and he would do what he says. WRSC has this scheme of rating an associate on a scale of 1 to 5 based on his performance. Associate's immediate supervisor judges his quality. Obviously, the associate can escalate it if he is not happy with the ratings but it is as good as barking up the wrong tree.

'I am lost. I have struggled all the time just to make sure that he would at least give me a rating of 3. ...so that I will have my job.' Ritesh continued

'I see.' I wanted to laugh at his foolishness but I pretended to be serious.

'See Alex, I have a family. I married the girl I loved although my parents were against it. If I get a rating of 1 or 2... it's Recession, I'll loose my job. I can't go back to my parents. They will spit on my face.'

'Huh?'

'You know, Alex? My wife was 7 months pregnant when I came here. I haven't even seen the face of my baby yet. It's been 9 months now. I have been working like hell for this asshole who is not even ready to listen to me. I thought to suicide yesterday night. But I didn't know how. I drank a lot and I kept drinking and then I dozed off.' I could see the tears crawling down his cheeks. I knew I was not dealing with a regular friend's regular problem now.

'But today morning when I woke up, I thought, why should I die?' Ritesh now sounded angry. 'Why should my family suffer? Why should my wife live a widow supporting my kid all through her life? My own people would definitely spit on my face. I would look like a real fool in my home town.' He cried... he cried like a kid. I stood up and hugged him. For a moment, I felt like I was dealing with a 5-year-old kid. I felt uncomfortable when Ritesh's moustache rubbed against my naked tummy. I waited until the sobbing stopped. I went back and sat down in my chair.

'I need help, Alex.' He wiped his tears and looked at me.

'What is it that I can do for you?'

'I understand that you have made some good friends here in London. Probably, one of them could help me out.'

'Good friends? In what way?' I was surprised.

He stood up and walked to my desk and whispered in my ears 'I trust you Alex, with all my senses. I don't have a choice. I want Bakshi dead. I would love to do it myself but I want my job, I want my family. He's not worth living in this beautiful world.' He went back to the bed and made himself comfortable leaving me to deal with my shock. I blinked at him from where I sat. The first thing that came to my mind was to throw him out of my house.

'Are you crazy? You have any clue what you're talking about?' I screamed.

'Yes, I do.' He gave me a firm but calm reply ’Tell me yes or no. I would expect a yes, because this is not something I can go and ask everyone I know in London.'

'You are talking about assassinating a WRSC manager and that too here in London.'

'I know. I thought of getting it done in India which would be much more easier for me. But this fucker is not going back there in the near future. By the time he decides to go on a vacation, my fate would have already been written.' He stared at me; a stubborn dark masculine figure. He almost looked like an assassin.

He has gone out of his mind, I thought. There was no reason I could give to persuade him out of this because, as a matter of fact, Bakshi was as good as a crocodile; very cunning and dangerous. I felt like Don Corleone listening to people's problems and fixing it for them. I had to take care of this very carefully. I sat there blinking at him for a few minutes.

'It's true, my friend,' I started, 'that I know a few guys who can do dodgy things. But I'm not sure if they would be ready to take up this job.' I struggled not to shiver my voice.

'Listen Alex, Mahesh and I together can pay them a big cut from our savings.'
Wow!! It's is not just one associate who wants him killed, I thought.

'There is one guy I know. You need to give me some time to check with him. It's not something I can ring up and ask, you understand?' I said.

'Agreed!!! Let me know the price.' He stood up.

'But you still have your job, your family. Wouldn't it be too early to take a fair decision now?'

'I don't care. I can't take a chance. There is no point taking a chance with a guy of his character.' He waved good-bye and walked out.

After he had left, I ran down to the kitchen to drink some water. 'What the fuck', I thought. 'Bloody Bakshi!!! He doesn't even know what he's doing.'

In the next few months, Ritesh reminded me about the "Job" a couple of times but luckily the ratings came out a little earlier than expected. Bakshi had given him a rating of 3.77 and that meant Ritesh had his job and probably Bakshi, his life.

Hide and Seek

I was the first WRSC associate to start from the office everyday evening. I usually walk out by 6:30PM, one and half hours after the normal business hours. I was looking forward to break the unwritten rule that all WRSC associates should rest their ass in the chair until it starts rotting. You're very lucky if Bakshi goes home a little earlier.

Bakshi and a couple of lead tails were always unhappy about it because, to them, working meant to sit in office for long hours. It didn't matter if you do not spend a quality time while you're in office. You may watch youtube or play poker. The more time you spend in office, the more you contribute to the company. If you sleep in office that might be considered as a behaviour above average. If you shit, take bath and brush your teeth in there, that might probably be marked as excellent.

Once I got a call on my cellphone from Bakshi while I was near West Ham. I was on the tube (London Underground). It was almost 8:00PM.
'Where are you?' Bakshi barked into the phone
'On the way home.' I replied.
'What the hell? Do you think all the guys who're sitting in office are donkeys?'
'I don't know about that. What's up?'
'Mark wants to have an update on the credit check module.'

Mark was a senior manager at our client company and Bakshi would pee in his pants if Mark gave a slight hint that he is upset about anything. If you get a chance to watch Bakshi talking to Mark you would be confused whether Bakshi was representing WRSC or if he is Mark's pet dog. To me Mark was a client and to Bakshi he was God.

'I had had a chat with Mark before I started from office. I will give him a call right away.' I replied.
'No no no... You need to come back to office.' Bakshi was adamant.
'Why?'
'Don't ask stupid questions. Get back in office right now.' He kept the phone.

I went all the way back to office to check with him. I found Bakshi at his desk and Arora crouching next to him.

'Hi Bakshi!! What's up? What went wrong?' I pretended to be surprised although I knew that it was simply a game. Nothing was so critical that could break to create havoc.
'You need to make your acts clear, Alex.' He shouted.
'Don't shout please.' I corrected him politely.
'You are a WRSC associate and you are not like any other contractor working on this floor.' Bakshi was angry at my blunt reply.
'Yes, I know that.'
'I know you have few good friends with the rival vendors but don't forget the fact that you are one among us. You should follow the WRSC work culture. We're one family.' Bakshi was bullshitting.

The 'WRSC work culture' was to make every associate stay back in office so that Bakshi could charge the client for the extra working hours and eat the free pizzas that come along with it. The only person who benefits out of that was he himself. Also, he never approves any overtime benefits for the associates who work late or on the weekends because that would carve a few pounds out of his quarterly targets. And that obviously made the associates look like donkeys.

'Did I do anything wrong?' I smiled at Bakshi's red face.
'When Mark called, you were not here.'
'I can call him and talk.'
'No you don't talk. Sit with Arora and find out what is wrong. And I don't want you to be missing from office when Mark calls next time. Mark is closely monitoring the progress of the project.'
'I can't live in the office waiting for Mark's call. If he wants he will call me on my cell.' I turned to Arora to check the details but I could sense Bakshi was fuming with anger. As directed by Bakshi, Arora pretended to be busy with something else and made me wait for about an hour.

Later that night he typed a decent, polite, professional email with all details copied and pasted from some documents to support his argument. He checked with me if all were correct. I nodded a yes before he pressed the 'send' button. Arora picked up his bag and left. He could've sent this bloody email without bringing me back to office, I thought. I stretched myself on the chair and looked across the tables. I was all alone. Bakshi and his pindams had left long time back.

In a few minutes, my phone started ringing; it was Mark.
'Alex, what's all this?' Mark read Arora's email from his Blackberry.
'Sorry, I don't know. I thought you had asked Bakshi for an update on the credit check module.'
'No no... That's not what I told him. Bloody Hell!!! I was joking that my credit-check failed while trying to buy an iPhone.'

In this country, you would need a clean credit history with your bank transactions and other details if you need to get into a contract (similar to post-paid connection in India). It doesn't matter if you have a lot of money in your account or a good salary being credited to your account. Sometimes your credit-check fails due to system error and Mark was joking the same with Bakshi. Stupid Bakshi thought he was asking for an update on the credit-check module.

'Wonderful!!! No worries... Please ignore that email. I will update Bakshi.' I told Mark.
'Cool. Thank you very much. Good night.'
'Good night. Mark.'

I looked at my watch, it was 10:30PM. I took a deep breath and stood up. In a minute, the security guard walked-in to do the regular checks.
'What are you doing in office?'
'Why?' His question surprised me.
'I saw you leave. I have never seen you sitting here so late.' He smiled.
'I came back to play hide and seek with you, Joe.'
'What?'
'Do you know how to play hide and seek?'
'I don't understand.'
'Alright! No worries. I'll catch you tomorrow. Goodnight!!!'
'Nnn... hiiide... Hmmm. Goodnight!'
I took my jacket and walked towards the door leaving Joe to continue with his work.

The Spittoon

According to Wikipedia a spittoon (or spitoon) is a receptacle made for spitting into, especially by users of chewing and dipping tobacco. But there are people who are pretty intelligent to have their own simplest improvised versions of spittoons. Bakshi is one among them and for him sometimes it is a coffee mug.

In the office, there is a kitchen in every floor with coffee making equipments and a rack of mugs for you to use. You can make your own coffee/tea to have them at your desk and leave the empty ones in the sink for the cleaner to wash them at night.

Most of us love to sip some strong coffee while working but we are least bothered whether the mugs get cleaned thoroughly. But we assume they are clean every time you pull one out of the rack.

Having pan (aka tobacco, pan parag, kaini, gutka) in the client office is a regular habit for Bakshi. Although he is the highest paid unskilled junk resource in that WRSC account, he can't afford to buy a spittoon.

The clients did not take using a coffee mug as a spittoon so easily. He was warned a dozen times but a dog's tail goes bent again as soon as you take your hands off.

Initially he used disposable plastic cups, but spitting in them didn't look so professional to him. So he chose to use the coffee mugs again. Slowly the guys in that floor stopped drinking coffee. No matter how dizzy you are, nobody drinks coffee in that floor anymore. Some guys bought coffee from Costa and Starbucks.

One day, this pindam* (a tail, favorite associate) of Bakshi, who sits next to him bought a tall size "Chai Latte" from Starbucks. Although he paid £2.60 (~ Rs. 180/-), it was worth having something that tasted similar to "bombay cut chai" (a chai that is a little spicy and tasted of cardamom).

He took the first sip out of it and kept it next to his keyboard. That's when the program director (pretty big position with the client) walked into the floor. He walked straight towards Bakshi and looked like he wanted to discuss something important.

There was no coffee mug at Bakshi's desk. There was nothing he could spit into to clear his mouth and be ready for a conversation. He looked around and saw the Starbucks mug. 'Oye!! Mein ye le raha hoon.(I am taking this.)' Bakshi whispered to the associate, took the mug and spit his pan into it. The tail associate was helpless watching the red liquid (a mixture of tobacco, pan and saliva) fell into his new hot Chai. I guess he almost cried.

*Pindam - Please see the entry Wetherspoon Speech

Wetherspoon Speech

After having a round of drinks with Vijay at the Wetherspoon pub, I went to the counter to get another one. I was about to pay when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. It was Bakshi. The worst thing that should never happen to me in a pub has just happened.
'What is that you're buying for me?' Bakshi stared into my eyes.
'What do you want?' I asked.
'I will have beer, Kronenbourg.'
Ohh!!! That's not what I meant. I should've asked him, 'What the fuck do you want?' But having started to learn to be patient, I said, 'Okay, fine.' There was a pindam* (aka a tail, favourite associate) as well with him. There were a few associates like him who always walked around Bakshi like the flies on a cut-open jackfruit.

We sat at the table with Vijay who looked surprised to find that I have brought Bakshi from nowhere to drink with us. In fact, Vijay and I were just discussing the atrocities of Bakshi who had poured down his vengeance on Vijay the day before yesterday for letting a client manager go cross with Bakshi.

In brief, the story was that Vijay and Kumar were handling the testing of an application at onsite and they had a few fellow testers back in India. The test manager Katherine, an English lady, was in the black list of Bakshi because 1) she was a lady and 2) she had questioned him many times about the efficiency of the offshore team.

An email that contained some low rated comments about Katherine sent by Bakshi to Vijay, Kumar and the offshore testing team leaked out and Katherine got a chance to see it. Bakshi had to struggle a lot to clean his ass out of it. Bakshi thinks that it was Vijay who was behind the leak.

As soon as Bakshi finished his first round, he was close to get kicked by Vijay.  'Katherine is a pain in my ass and you are the fucking oil behind it.' Bakshi shouted. Vijay’s eyes thanked me for getting him into trouble.

‘I am warning you; I am really warning you. Stop doing this to me. I will fuck you. You think she is your mother? When she leaves this account, there wouldn't be anyone to support you. If any of you try to mess with me I will screw you. I will screw you left-right-centre. Get your acts clear Vijay.' He then turned to me 'Alex, tell your friend not to mess with me.' Bakshi didn't mention that it's because of his fucking email that he got himself into trouble.

‘I have always tried to protect you, educate you. Katherine is a gora (white) and I'm a desi (Indian); if you become a pain in my ass, I will chop you off.’ He continued.

He drank quite a lot that day because all of it was free. He never got up to buy a drink for any of us. In fact he has never ever done that on any occasion. We bought him drinks with our money to get abused by him. The speech went for about two hours, 5 rounds of free beer for him.

‘Don’t tell her. I have a plan to get her out of this project just like that.’ Bakshi snapped his fingers. We imagined Katherine flying out of the office with the sound of the snap.

‘No, you go and tell it to her, because it's already calculated.' The pindam said something that didn’t make any sense.

‘What did I do Bakshi?’ Vijay asked apologetically.

‘I will fuck you mother fucker, you bloody get out of the way. Being a WRSC boy, I will make you rot in offshore. Fuck you, don't ask funny questions. You are my boy. You work for me. You do like what I say. Don't think you're working for her. She is just a test manager. Don't be an asshole.' Bakshi seems to have forgotten that we all work for WRSC and not for him. And then Bakshi’s attention turned to me. ‘I don't tell about myself that often. Since I'm a friend of yours I'm telling you I can make my client eat from my hands, my clients swear by me.’

Yes, he was my best friend in London but who wants to eat from his hands, I thought; not even his kid I guess, because not only his hands but his shirt, jacket, everything smells like shit. My best guess is that he takes bath only once in a month and is against the idea of washing clothes.

Bakshi took a sip from his free drink bought by Vijay and turned back to him.‘Fuck you, that bitch had the tenacity of asking me what is the productivity of my offshore team. You want to be onsite huh? I will make you rot at offshore for years.’ He turned back to Vijay again. ‘I know you have great love for Katherine. But she's not going to keep you onsite for long. I'm being nice to you because I am giving you only this warning. Otherwise I would've given you a fucking rating and got you out of WRSC. Your job is yours and not mine.’

'How much ever long it is, it's that longer.' The pindam added.

Vijay's eyes were swollen. A hefty masculine figure had tears in his eye.
'Don't cry now. The client screwed me. Ek desi kahawat hai (There is an Indian proverb.) Gand mein chatha dalke khol doonga. (...will put an umbrella into your ass and open it.) Consider client as a client. Don't think he's your father.’

And the pindam repeated the proverb and smiled. He should’ve imagined it, I'm sure.

I looked at Vijay. I couldn't read the expressions on his face. I felt like he would pull Bakshi by his neck and smash his face on the table. I wanted to take Bakshi's "free" beer bottle and smash it on his head. The question was who was going to do it first.

I decided I would. I kept my glass aside as I didn't want to spill my drink. I took a deep breath and pushed my chair back a little. The bartender came to our table and announced that bar is closing. Bakshi stood up, took a bottoms-up of his drink, left the bottle at the counter and left the place with the pindam on his tail.

*A Pindam [pin-dəm] in Malayalam, actually known as anapindam but referred to as pindam in short, is the elephant dung. In the wilderness, you have to be afraid of the elephant as well as the dung because if the dung is hot, it means the elephant is near. In the corporate world, it can match a tail of the big boss, an associate who walks around him all the time to earn favours. He may do from his manager’s excel sheet to carry his laptop bag. There are slight variations though. Sometimes, you may need to respect this associate as well.

The Iron Pipe

One of the backend integration projects in which I was involved went live. In the initial phase there were quite a few issues reported and we were troubleshooting the entire flow of data section by section. The conference call to sort this out was going on for a couple of hours and we had the Accounts Team, Client managers, Technical Team, a few business analysts and consultants dialed-in on the call.

The data flow is business-critical and as every hour passes through the client was losing a significant amount business. Everyone were putting their best effort to get it fixed as soon as possible.  Ron, who was the technical lead for a section, was discussing details of an incorrect XML encoding with me. I was explaining him the probable cause and everyone on the call were listening carefully.

And that is when I felt a pair of hands fall heavily on my shoulders interrupting the conversation.
'Kya chal raha hai? (What's going on?)' Bakshi cleaned his pan soaked hands on my pale blue shirt.
I got up to pull his hands and throw him on to the floor far away from me.
'Nahi Nahi!! Baitke batao. (No no!! Sit and talk.)' He pushed me down on my shoulders back into the chair. Shameful, I thought, the asshole thinks I tried to stand up to show him my respect.
'There are some issues with the integration. Ron and I are trying to figure out the cause.' I replied and put the reciever back onto my left ear.

Bakshi pulled the phone towards him and switched the speaker on. He yelled 'See guys, if you have trouble with any of the integration work it's none of our business. We have nothing to do with it as everything has been delivered as per the requirements and Alex cannot waste anymore of his time on it.' That was just the beginnning. Bakshi was explaining his resource allocation problem to everyone on the call and there were people shouting back in the call to calm him down.

'Alex! Alex! Are you there?' One of the client managers shouted.
'Yes, I am here.' I shouted back into the phone.
'We have delivered whatever we have been supposed to deliver. Whatever comes after that is your problem. We cannot take up any responsibilities as everything has been specced and designed by some one else and that has nothing to do with us.' Bakshi's sound overcame all the noise on the call.

A chat window of Ron poped-up on my screen.
'Who the fuck is this guy? Who is shouting on the call?'
'He is my WRSC manager.' I typed back.
'Ask him to shut the fuck up. This is very critical. We need to sort it it as soon as possible.'
'Why should only I suffer always? It's now time for you guys to enjoy.' I replied to Ron.
'Tell him now, or I'm gonna rip him apart the next time I come to your London Bridge office.'
'I would buy you a bottle of Blue Label if you would do that. Please!!!'

'WHO IS THIS?' A heavy male voice on the call silenced everyone yelling on the phone.
'This is Bakshi, Resource manager from WRSC.'
'Mr. Bakshi, this is James Lambert, Accounts Manager for UK Division. I understand your concern but this is not the forum to address it. We have a critical issue and we're losing business. Please drop me an email with the details and I will get back to you.'
'Thank you James. I will send the email right away.' Bakshi winked at me 'See this is how you deal with things.' and walked out through the door.
'Alex! Are you there?'
'Yes, James.'
'Could you please continue?'
'Yes James, Thank you. Ron are you there?... Ron!! Ron???'
'Yeah Yeah!! I found an iron pipe and I was heating it up.' Ron was shouting at the phone from a distance.
'What?'
'Alex, I thought I had to come down to London Bridge to fix your manager.'

Everyone in the call burst into laughter.

The Learning Curve

Once Bakshi wanted me to go back to offshore delivery centre and continue working for the same account from there. (For administrative reasons, I can't tell you to which city in India, precisely.) I made it clear that I don't mind going back to India but I would appreciate if I was sent to my base branch, Bangalore and that meant I would have to be released from the project/account. He was so furious and jumped up and down as if I had squeezed his balls.

A few weeks down the line, I was in a meeting with Tony, an architect who was working for the client through another non-WRSC vendor. Bakshi showed up at the door without even knocking. 'Oye Saale... idhar aa. (Come here) ' He called me.
'I will finish this meeting and catch you soon.' I replied
'Forget about him.' He pointed at Tony. 'Come with me, now.'
I apologized with Tony, took permission and followed Bakshi.

'You are the biggest mistake in WRSC.' Bakshi started as we walked to the next meeting room. 'You will never grow.'

I was confused. What does WRSC has to do with my growth? Nobody usually grows after the age of 21. It's a fact. I was 5 feet 11 and Bakshi was way shorter than me. He stood only a couple of inches shorter below my breast.

'What do you mean?' I opened the door of the meeting room for him.
'You can never be a designer. You will always be a programmer. You will end up coding all your life, you can never design a project yourself.'  My manager was motivating and appreciating my work as he made his ass comfortable in one of the chairs.
'Why do you think so?' I closed the door behind me.
'You see, I have brought this new guy, Kunal, onsite.'
'Yes I know. What's up with him?'
'I asked him to review your code. He says you've been doing procedural programming using an Object oriented language, Java.'
'I see. He reviewed my code.' I repeated

Kunal is smart, I thought. He knew what his manager wants to hear. He has started rubbing salt into my wounds the moment he stepped out of the London Heathrow airport. But, on a sad not, he paid the price for it himself. I didn't have to play any politricks.

'Alex, you're the biggest disaster to WRSC. I have no clue about who would’ve interviewed you. The person who interviewed you into WRSC should also be an idiot just like you.' He waited me to respond but I didn't. 'Idiots like you cannot stay onsite at the client location.'
'If you think I am a disaster, an idiot, release me from this account and send me to Bangalore. I will find another account.' I stood up and walked out.

Two days later Bakshi again found me at the smoking area with Ritesh. 'Kya chal raha hai?' He looked very angry.
'Nothing, just smoking.' Ritesh replied.
'Alex!! I am telling you... learn from Kunal. He is a pretty good chap in Java. Lick his balls if you want to. It would be a good learning curve.'

It was obvious from the way Bakshi dealt with issues that he has learned a great deal licking someone else's balls. No way without that a guy like him could've made until here on the corporate ladder. I doubted if he used to give blowjobs as well.

Somebody ushered him away from the smoking area. That day if Bakshi had uttered one more word, I would've crushed his balls under my feet and no guy without a backbone who followed me to London would've ever got a chance to lick them.

My Party Wear

I was drinking water from the cooler at the kitchen. Two client managers, Jack and Rob were standing next to me discussing the next delivery cycle. Bakshi who had just finished giving class to some WRSC associate was curious to know what these guys were discussing.

Before he walked into the kitchen, Bakshi took a pack of supari (aka pan, pan parag, gutka, kaini) from his pocket, tore it open and knocked the powder into the palm of his left hand. He picked the big pieces of pan with his right hand and dropped them on the carpet on the floor. He mixed the rest of it within his fingers to blend it well. Then he took one pinch of it at a time and pushed them into his mouth under his lower lips. He repeated this until the whole cavity behind his lower lip was filled with supari. He dropped the rest of the powder from his hands by clapping them off and walked towards the managers. The carpet behind him looked as if a rat had just chewed down pieces of the ceiling.

'Heyyo Yyack!! Lyong time no sfee?' Bakshi extended his right hand to shake Jack's as he struggled for clarity in his words through the stuff in his mouth on top of his stupid Anglicized Indian accent.
'Hello, Mr. Bakshi! I was working from the Wimbledon office for the last couple of weeks.' Jack avoided shaking the hand drenched in pan.
'Ah I sfsfeeee (see)' Two drops of red liquid came as if fired out from a cannon out of Bakshi's mouth missing Jack's pale blue shirt by a few centimetres.
Jack and Rob sprinted out of the kitchen.

That's when Bakshi saw me standing at the cooler with a tumbler in my hand.
'Oye saale!! Kya kar rahe ho (Idiot! What're you doing)?' Three drops of red liquid rushed towards me. I'm not Neo and this is not Matrix. I took the bullets on my chest.
'Paani pee raha hun (Drinking water).' I replied as I searched for a knife to tear open his mouth.
'Kuch kaam nahi hai kya (Don't you have any work)?'
'Kaam hai, lekin abhi environment down hai (Yes I do, but the environment is down).' I found a fork instead of a knife.
'If the environment is down, are you going to stand here like a joker till the end of the day?'
'No!! They're restarting the server. It will be up in 10 minutes.'
'Agar tere paas kuch kaam nahi hai to mere paas aaja. Mein tujhe mera kaam deta hun.(If you don't have any work, come to me. I will give you some of mine.)' He shouted. Now that was a joke because you can't give anyone something that you don't have.
'Now stop blinking like a fool and go to your desk.' He finished and walked away before I could grab the fork.

In a few moments, Sarah walked into the kitchen to find me standing there with the tumbler in one hand and fork in another.
'What's all that shit on your shirt?' She asked
I looked down to my white shirt. Hundreds of red spots; some of them were still wet.
'Nothing, just had a chat with that bloody Bakshi.' I replied
'Looks like a good party wear. Take it to The Harrods. They may pay you for the design.' She laughed at my helplessness.

The Terminator

An email with the subject 'Work allocation for the weekend' popped up in my inbox one Friday evening. I found my name in the list and it said that I was required in office on both Saturday and Sunday. Bakshi hasn't even shown the courtesy to ask me if I am available over the weekend. My plan to take Cindy, a beautiful young Latino, for a lunch and then a movie was close to getting ruined. My blood boiled. The email was copied to everyone including a few client managers.

I asked the WRSC associate who was sitting next to me 'Dude!! Did you see this email?' I turned my screen towards him.
'Yeah!! What's up with it?' He looked curious.
'Bakshi haven't even asked me if I am available this weekend.'
'He never does. You're new this project, Huh?' He smiled.
'So you guys are always ready to be called over the weekends? Don't you have better things to do on a Saturday or a Sunday?'
'Yes, we plan some things but we keep them all tentative. We expect Bakshi to call us any time.'
'He calls you to office whenever he wants? There is no project plan?'
'Yes, there is. But it's as good as not having one. We get calls late night as well.'
'Jesus!!! What is this? Some kind of paramilitary troops ready to be mobilized any time during a crisis?' My question raised an eyebrow of my friend. He looked at me as if I have commented something terribly bad about his ethnic origin. I was talking to the wrong guy.

I turned my monitor back and sat straight. As I stared at the screen and imagined walking with Cindy, hand in hand, along the river Thames.

I clicked on the 'Reply to all' button and typed 'Hi Bakshi, I am not available this weekend. Please plan accordingly.' and pressed 'send'. Within 1 minute 20 seconds Bakshi was at my desk. I looked up at him. He was in great agony, in great anger. He was standing very close to me. Him being very short, his face was only a few inches away from mine. I could feel the power of his anger on my hair, as they got disturbed every time he exhaled.

'Do you think you are a genius, very intelligent?' Bakshi shouted.
'What's up?'
'Then why do you send such stupid emails?'
'What's so stupid about it?’
'Do you think I am fool?'
'What?'
'Why are you not available on the weekend?'
'I have some things planned.'
'What plan?'
'It's something personal.'
'What personal?'
'IT IS PERSONAL!!!'
'Yeah! What's so personal?'
'I can't tell you.'
'What is so personal with you that you can't tell me?'

This guy is really dumb, I thought. He was angry because he wouldn't be able to charge the client for my time for this weekend. That means he is going to make a fucking negligible loss for WRSC this quarter, which means a little less on the peanut target of his.

'Listen Bakshi!! I can’t work on this weekend. Please understand! ' I said.
'So you won’t work.' He flared through his nostrils. 'You will be terminated from WRSC.'
'What?'
'Yes, if you can't work, there is no point keeping you in WRSC. You will be terminated.'
He was talking as if WRSC was his dad's company and that we were his slaves. Bloody Terminator!!! I imagined him wearing a leather jacket and black sunglasses holding a double barrel gun in his hands walking with jerky movements across the floor and say 'I'll be back' with pan (aka kaini, supari, gutka or kaini) in his mouth. It looked pretty funny for a man of his height and would've made a perfect replacement for Arnold but the only problem was Terminator would've been a comedy movie. I almost laughed. Bakshi was shivering with fury when he sprinted back to his desk.

'Man!! You're great.' My colleague asked me as I turned back to my computer.
'Why so?'
'How can you talk to him like that? What are you going to lose if you work on a weekend?'
'The weekend billing of a regular programmer like me is nothing for WRSC and the WRSC share prices are not going to crash when the quarter results come out. If he needs my time to meet his next to useless target, he needs to be at least a little polite with me. He can't expect me to available round the clock and shout at me like that.'
'But still, you would end up in trouble man.' He advised me.
'Why don't you go and wash his ass every time he goes to the toilet? Trust me, you would be pretty good at it.' I replied and he was enlightened because he now had answers to all his questions.

The BnB Question

There was a kid among the WRSC associates called Venkateshwarulu. We used to call him Venkat or Venky in short. He was brought up in one of those simple Brahmin families in India and was not used to the metropolitan ways.

One day he went up to Mr Arora, his team lead.

'Hi Arora. Can I ask you one thing?'

'Yes, my dear boy. How can I help you?' Arora was happy to see him.

'You remember the place you lived in Hounslow before? The BnB (Bed and Breakfast, similar to a hotel room) run by a guy called Nav?'

'Yes, I do.'

'I had been living there since I came to London and I want to move out; I can't afford it. Nav was angry when I told him about my plans and says he had given me the room for a lower rate because he had a deal with you.'

'With me? What deal?' Arora was surprised.

'A deal that any WRSC associate living in his BnB was supposed to live there until he went back to India. And that's the reason he was giving it for a lower rate. He says you had promised him on that.'

'Haha!! What a joke. He's playing business with you. Don't fall for it kiddo.'

'Hmmm… That’s what I thought.'

Mr. Bakshi who was curious to find out what the guys were discussing ran down from his desk to interfere.

'Oye!! Kya chal raha hai (What is happening)?' He massaged Arora's shoulders as he looked over at Venky.

'Nothing, just asking about a BnB issue.' Venky replied.

'What BnB issue?'

'Ohh nothing...'

'Are, bolo yaar. Ham pardes mein hai. Ek doosre ka madad to karna hai na. (C’mon, tell me dear. We’re in an alien land. We may need to help each other.)'

Venky repeated the story all over again.

'Ye log kamine hote hai (These guys are morons). We have nothing to do with it. Do you think we have made any such deal with that bloody BnB guy? Humein kya choothiya samajhke rakha hai kya (Do you think we’re assholes)? ' Bakshi stopped massaging Arora’s shoulders.

Both Venky and Arora looked confused.

'You guys are brought here to work for the client. That's all WRSC is concerned about. Everything outside that is immaterial to the company.' Bakshi's voice was rising. 'Do you think we're running a BnB business taking commission from any such dirty scum bag at Hounslow? If you guys get into trouble it's your problem. None of my fucking business yaar.' Bakshi was now shouting at the top of his voice.

It was late in the evening and as usual only WRSC associates were in the office. There was no single white guy in the office to laugh at the nonsense. No desi (aka Indian) lifted his head above his monitor. Everyone pretended to be too busy. I was sitting opposite to Arora listening to the whole conversation. I had already selected the best paperweight and was ready to throw it at Bakshi's head. But Venky was standing a few feet behind him and I didn't want to miss Bakshi and hit him.

Arora ushered Bakshi away into the kitchen to explain. 'Are... ye chootiya salon ko kaam pe dhyaan dene ko bolo yaar...(Tell these bloody assholes to concentrate on their work.)' Bakshi voice faded away. I was disappointed. I looked across the office. Nobody showed any signs of trouble. All associates were still busy. Amazing concentration, I thought.

Buying the Toilets

On the first day of my assignment, my WRSC manager, Mr. Bakshi*, greeted me at the reception of a big building near London Bridge. He took me to a meeting room to brief me about the assignment.

'How long do you think you would be required onsite?' Mr Bakshi asked.
'Sorry, I have no clue. I guess 6 months, probably?' I blinked.
'No. It might be less than 3 months. Is that OK with you?'
'Yeah! Not a problem. That's fine.' I smiled.
'I don't give a damn about it even if you're not OK with it.'

Briefing was over. I was left with a group of non-WRSC vendors to contribute to the project.

On the third day, I found myself in a meeting room with my WRSC colleagues, a set of well dressed gentlemen in dark suits with tie as advised by Bakshi because that's the way he wanted his team to be. The ties didn't match the shirts and some guys looked so odd because in their part of the world a suit was tailored only for a stationmaster at the railway station.

The client manager who was addressing the meeting was unhappy because somebody was using the toilets improperly. It was obvious that someone was too lazy to lift the toilet seat before he pulled his dick out and was urinating all over it. The client manager didn't say that somebody from WRSC did it but he was giving a heads up.

'Thanks Rob! Do you mind? I need to talk to these guys for a minute.' Bakshi ushered the client manager out of the room. He locked the door behind him and turned back to us. 'What the fuck is wrong with you bloody assholes?' He was addressing a group of 30 associates. 'Don't act like monkeys or animals. I can't tolerate this.' He screamed as if the "criminal" had urinated on his head. 'If you don't know how to pee, don't pee. Go to the London bridge tube station, pay 20 pence and pee. I don't want any of you to use the toilets in this office.' He sounded like he had bought the toilets for himself. There were quite a few senior programmers, Business Analysts, Test Managers, Technical Leads and other associates. Everyone blinked at each other. Nobody even moved a finger. Pin drop silence. 'Bloody idiots!!!' He concluded.

I wanted to grab him by his blue tie and pull him on to the table, crash my fist into his jaw and screw the red white board marker up his asshole. By the time I was prepared to do so, the meeting was over and I saw everyone including Bakshi walking out to his respective desks. They looked as if they had just finished discussing the documentation for the next iteration.

And that was just the beginning...

*Bakshi - a name that I stole from the book "One Night @ the Call Center" written by Chetan Bhagat. I am a great fan of Mr. Bhagat. His character Bakshi was probably the most suitable match to describe my WRSC manager. If anyone by any chance has any discomfort with me using this name 'Bakshi', you know whom to blame.