Sector 8

Salt and sawdust couldn't roughen the sleek, unctuous hair combed back neatly across the wide globe that was his head. A head that big had to have had a brain of equal proportion, one would think. One that would conjure formulae and spark theories or at least ideate like those fools at IBM who crave to be accepted in the cooler part of society. They never will. Just like he'd never play Pocket Tanks. Or eat fruit. Or do anything the cooler crowd in the Office would do. Yes, he'd much rather stare with his gimlety black eyes, highly magnified through thick rimless glasses, teetering at the bridge of his nose and scratch his sideburns. The irony is that he had none. Truth be told, he made me nervous.

He had me looking right, left then right again like a twitchy ostrich bent on crossing the road before I could summon the good sense to ask,

-'Yes?'
-'Hello. What are you doing on this seat?'

I had decided. He was weird. His checked flannel shirt and the propinquity of expression to that of Mikhael Silvestre confirmed it.

-'Oh, I can see why you're confused. I'm the new trainee.'
-'Oh hello!'

This time with gusto. You can always tell a man's nature from his verbal dexterity and his adherence to broadly defined social protocol. It was obvious then, that he was a genius.

-'So you're from Jadavpur?' he asked, intrigued.
-'No, from Vit. Vellore.'

I always specified. I hate the blank expression on people's faces otherwise. It's almost as if a college called Vit couldn't possibly exist. Even if it is in a dingy little town called Vellore. I also hate the engineers from Jadavpur. Perpetually on time, never enabling my whim to play Pacman on their computer, submitting reports on time, they are the role model of what the Indian youth should strive to become, sans the unhealthy attachment to their mothers.

-'Really?' he sounded disappointed. 'Whom have you been assigned to?'
-'Sudipta da. He's the flabby, bald guy over there' I pointed.
-'I know who Sudipta da is'

Sometimes, I feel I specify too much.

-'So what work has he given you?'
-'Oh I don't work for him'
-'But you just said you were assigned to him'
-'Yes, but he gives me too much work'
-'I see.'
-'So I work for Gaurav da.'
-'You just chose to work for him, just like that?'
-'Oh no, he gives me a ton of work to do anyway, So I'm practically working for him'
-'How much of it have you completed?'
-'None.'

The plastic creaked as he swayed in a slight arc in his seat, a look of marked cogitation on his face. His head, which had earlier seemed like just a run-of-the-mill bloated head, seemed now to have grown, resembling one of those blimps that haunt the sky during the IPL matches. The machinations under way in the hot air inside were, as yet, unintelligible.

-'You know you could be fired for this, right?' he ventured.
-'Oh no, I'm not employed here. I'm just a trainee.'
-'So you're basing your job on a technicality?'
-'Oh no, it's not a job. I'm here to learn.'
-'What have you learnt so far?'
-'Mainly Office politics.'

I chuckled with my tongue slightly lolling out the way the smileys on messengers do. It's cute. It's endearing. He didn't seem to think so.

-'Let me get this straight, every time you're given work, you avoid it and pretend to work for someone else?'
-'If that ain't ingenuity, I don't know what is!'

I would have prodded him in the ribs with my elbow to break the tension but he didn't seem like the laugh-at-the-company's-expense kind of man. Also evidently there's a B-grade bengali movie called 'Elbow diye Thelbo' and I was skeptical of conveying something in action while altogether unaware of the underlying connotations of the act itself. What if he strangled me in return? Worse yet, what if he chose 'Garder diye Murder' as a suitable gestural response?

-'You still haven't told me what you're doing here.'
-'You mean, in this seat?'
-'Yes.'
-'I've been assigned to this other guy now, let me check-'

I fumbled in my pocket for the piece of paper I was given to keep safely, and having found it, gingerly unwrapped the crumpled ball and read out.

-'Here it is, SND'
-'Ah. What is your name then?'
-'My name is Anoorag. Anoorag Biswas.'

It doesn't quite produce the outright awe that 'Bond, James Bond' would, but never has it not been accompanied by mild curiosity or slightly elevated levels of self-importance. If this were a movie, there'd be an orchestra pounding out the high notes that precede the climax, but the silence that follows is one that we can relate with. If one could bore through the eyes of the listener and decipher the signals of the brain, he could almost see the thoughts come to life. "Oh wow. No wait, what? That's not a cool name.." Ah, often I wonder if the real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.

-'And what's yours?' I smiled as I extended my hand. A man with such a strong affinity for social politeness would surely shake hands when names are exchanged.
-'Surendra Nath Das' he said, as the smile ran away from my face. When that happens you know that you could be a movie star if only you could get out of this place.
-'Now go bring me some coffee.'
-'Yes, sir.'