Two months thereafter

Vinish was settling into routine now.

His interactions with the sales teams were bringing about good results.

Apart from Chandmal no one was giving him too much trouble.

Chandmal was a tiny thorn that could easily be bent or broken-or so he thought now.

Mark had often advised Vinish to tranfer Chandmal to inventory. Looks like he would have to act upon that advice soon!

Anyways he was late for the fortnightly sales -R&D get together. He was not too bothered about being late. During the initial meetings he had been there ten minutes in advance, making sure that the seating and refreshment arrangements were all taken care of perfecty. Mark repeatedly chided him for his useless intrusiveness -yet this was one of his pioneer projects since becoming CEO, so he wanted no loose strings. It was good he had been there before time

-his presence had been sorely required to break the ice. And a big chunk of ice it had been!

Chandmal and Murthy couldn't see eye to eye. Initially no one said anything -so Vinish had taken up the talking. After 10 minutes of speech he realized that he must probe. So Vinish directed some open ended questions at Chandmal- only to recieve a non-committal reply.

So he directed his next question bluntly at Murthy- why do you think imaze3 does not sell well? Murthy was polite at first according defects in development as well as pointing out holes in the sales strategy.

When Chandmal retorted hotly to Murthy's observations on sales strategy, Vinish had to step in to get the temperature down. The debate had continued from there with ,Chandmal's second -in command the level-headed Parthiv chipping in quitely yet assertively. That first get-together had lasted 90 minutes.

As he entered the conference room and tendered apologies, he was pleased to see that the discussion on R&D representatives for sales roadtrip was already underway. He stayed on for the rest of the 50 mins and higly enjoyed the atmosphere of healthy respect between Sales and R&D. When he was about to leave he saw Chandmal hovering in the background waiting to talk to him. "Vinish -there were some concerns I wanted to put forward."

"There goes the coffee break!" thought Vinish.

" Sure! Shall we go to my office?" he asked.

Chandmal seemed ready to accompany him when Parthiv walked towards them with the roadtrip calender in hand.

"Sorry Vinish! I just remembered an urgent phone call I have to make. I'll check up with Abhishek about your calender and set a meeting" Chandmal said abruptly and left.

"Vinish here is a copy of the calender for your reference" Parthiv said handing over the well-done calender to him.

When Vinish reached his cabin, his desk phone was ringing. Just as he was about to pick it up his cell phone started ringing too.

Seeing Deepti's number he immediately answered his cell phone.

" Amma wants you to come home early" she said. Before he had time to protest she had handed the receiver to his mom. " Vinish aaj Shiv Mandir jaana hain. 6 baje tak aa jana. Seema Chachi aur unki bahu bhi aa rahi hain. Ok bye beta -see you then." As usual his mother hardly gave him any chance to respond.

When he finally picked up his desk phone, the caller had disconnected.

An Evening in Paradise - CEO Story continues

"They are organising a celebration in the Sunset Lounge at Hotel Paradise.
Vishnu, David and Mark are all coming with family. Suman and Chitra will also be there."
"Ok." She barely looked up from her task. She was arranging the dried mangoes like the world depended on it.
"You coming?" And he knew the answer before it was out. He hadn't phrased it correctly.
"No!".
He was like a fly drawn to the fire. "Why?". He knew the answer to that one too- but was looking for her version. Perverse Pleasure.
"I've got to make Aaam-ka-achar".
"And that can't wait till tomorrow?"

"You go na!.Have I ever stopped you? Anyways all you do is have parties. Tum log kaam bhi karte ho kya?!"

The bile rose within him.The nasty, selfish, egotistic thoughts crossed his mind once again. He felt anger and despair compete for supremacy in his head. He just nodded his head and left.

As he drove to the venue he struggled to balance his frame of mind.He almost forgot to pick up Rajesh on the way. Rajesh and he had formed a steady bond since their first assignment together.

What was worse -Rajesh could read his mind in a Jiffy.

"Kya hua Vinish?!" He asked as soon as he got into the car.

"Nothing! Just tired" Rajesh didn't buy that and Vinish knew it, but Rajesh was busy reanalysing his relationship with Vinish, after the new announcements, to probe any furthur.
They chit-chatted on the changes in Manufacturing. By the time they reached Paradise hotel Vinish had almost regained his mental composure.

They made a big deal of his entrance. But he was expecting it.

He joined in the wisecracks and general foolishness associated with the family parties!

Oft he had detested being the sole provider of entertainment and the milling coterie.

But today was his Day! He did not care a toothpick for the gossip mongers and he knew each and every one of them. Hadn't he upped them at their own game!
After the chat with David and downing a couple of beers he had fully regained his positive frame of mind.

When they called on him for the prize giving ceremony and a "few words" he felt like 'King of the World'!

And then the ground gave way beneath his feet.

He saw Manisha enter with Vaibhav.And Boy! had she taken care to dress up!

Each and every head at the bar counter had turned to wards the entrance.

Something about the way she was standing-her fingers resting lightly on Vaibhav's shirt sleeve - sent a scorching pain through Vinish's entire frame! It was so sudden he almost stumbled on the stage and his mind numbed out for a second. He had once in college -had to chew Avil-(the motion sickness medicine) for lack of water and immediate effect. He tasted the Avil in his mouth now...

As he spoke to Vishnu and got endlessly ribbed by his wife on the his non-existent cullinary skills, he could barely keep himself from just walking up to where Manisha and Vaibhav had settled in a cozy corner. Manisha had never looked more beautiful and apart from a few careless

glances at him- she had focussed all her attention on Vaibhav.

An hour and half later after the hired rock band had all but abandoned the stage to the over-drunk

'Michaels and Maddonas', Manisha sauntered towards where he was standing.

"Congratulations Vinish!" He felt the hairs on his neck stand upright.

"Hey! Thank You Manisha" he said. "So how is the new car doing?"

"Oh! I wouldn't know. I haven't started driving it around yet. I am so lazy you know.

Whenever I need a drive I just give Vaibhav a call. He has promised to teach me as an

engagement gift.

I guess Congratulations are due to me too! " She said smiling sweetly.

"Vaibhav has asked me to marry him and I have accepted . Engagement is next month."

The rest of the evening was a numb haze to him.

That night Vinish was so silent and yet so restless that even Deepti looked at him with concern. He pressed the earphones to his ears and listened to the soothing music, instead of the usual inane chatter by twenty-somethings, that by some mercy of God was being dished out on the radio station that night.He must have drifted off at around 4 am.
Can the best day in a person's life also be the worst?

Day One as CEO- continuation from previous post

He could make out Chitra and Rajesh from the people who had gathered in the auditorium. Vaibhav had chosen to stay away... It irked him but he quickly wiped away that feeling. He was brimming with positive energy. He had given the final touches to his speech the previous evening. It had taken a whole of two days to prepare it. He didn't want it to be like the endless drones he had sat through on his way to the top. Each of those killer bores had only firmed his resolution on speeches. So he had spent those two days on a speech that wasn't to be more than half an hour.

Now has he faced them he felt really confident and happy. They were all looking very smart and really sincere. As he went through his plans for the Engineering dept., his heart lifted as he saw David nod in appreciation. Manufacturing and Finance too looked mighty pleased with his organisation announcement. It was not like these were bolts from the blue. He had made sure that itsy bits of the changes to come had been appropriately leaked. It was his ploy to test the waters before deploying policies full fledged. After the vote of thanks - the Marketing team sans Manisha came upto him and congratulated him.

After the speech and everybody's personal greetings he walked to his cabin. He had to speak to Abhishek and ask him to clean out his old cabin and transfer some of his old stationery to the new cabin.Then there were all the graphs to look into generated by their own market research. He had data collected from six of the market reviews posted by three independent telco-watchdog/news commitees . Then there was the culture survey results from Sales dept.He knew he had to hit the ground running. They handed the plum post to him not because they thought it was cakewalk - oh! it would never have gone to the youngest executive in senior management, if it had been a cake walk-no they had a standard dialogue for the high-paying cakewalk jobs- "you know efficiency is important but you have to have someone with experience!"

Oh yes Sir! They-(board of directors) needed all his energy and dynamism and had they
wooed him or what! He had played hard to get- but only after making sure he was their only choice. Oh the mean mean tricks he had played-He had killed a little of the old Vinish. But this was not the time to think about that!

As he scanned the email about curbing bottomline that Mark had sent a week back, he noticed why Mark had told him his assesment of coach travel not being added to the final draft had been wrong. It was not right in your eyes-but it was there - a subtler message than Vinish would have preferred. But Mark sometimes took the "Easy way out".After all it's easier to admonish thousands of employees you never come face-to face with than those you have lunch with.

After Mark's email he went through the Culture Survey results and noted the following.

1. Sales was definetly not on a roll

2. "Innovation" was just an empty buzzword to most of the sales team.
-hmmm tough one to crack!

3. "Freedom to quote within a flexible range" was what most of them were asking for-
Negotiate with marketing

4. At least two days advance notice on road trips- Road trip Calender

5. They all hated the marketing department and thought that R&D was filled with "idiots"
-sales R&D interaction meet

6. Compensation-Keep paying them as before, they like it

He had just about completed his note taking when Vaibhav came in. Boss! we're going out to celebrate - The Lounge- Mark and Vishnu are waiting in the lawn - Shall we join them? Vinish wondered that he could address him without a grimace. He skipped the oppurtunity to reprimand him on his absence at the "General Address".It was thoughtless enough for the board to have asked Vaibhav to arrange for the celebration party. "Sometimes you just wince at the cruelty your enemies have to suffer for your success!"

A day begins in the life of the New Indian CEO

The alarm crowed. A lusty king of the farmyard cock-a-doodle-do. He shut the mobile up. One hour and five minutes was all he had before his day began. He would steal five minutes from that. Look the other way, he told that frowning creature in his soul. I do it all the time. A little corruption. A little bribery. I negotiate with the world 24 /7.So why not an extra 5 minutes of sleep? he told himself and buried his head under the pillow. And so began another day in the life of an Indian.

His wife was already up and about washing clothes and cleaning her cupboard.She wouldn't venture into the kitchen today! Not with his parents in the house. His mom who was so superstitious with definite ideas about what her daughter-in-law could or couldn't do on five days of every month. His dad who was kind and amiable and tried to make the best out of every situation.

Alas! He had to awake once thoughts filled up his half-asleep head it was no use tryingto go back to sleep. He's tried a zillion times before. He would just toss and turn. That would only wear him out. And he couldn't afford that. He had to be his freshest self today!

Today was his first day as a CEO. CEO - he rolled the word around in his tongue.Just to savour the taste of it. It had come to mean so much to him. The TOP spot. That is what he had wanted -nothing less. While he was mechanically going through themotions of freshhening up for the day, his mind went into flash-back.

His first day at "Motor", just out of college. Fresh with no ideas about what to expect and what to deliver. His main concern then had been not to make a fool of himself.Wow! He had looked up to everybody working in 'Motor" then. He felt blessed to bea part of that organisation. Stepping into a world of air-conditioned offices, dapper-looking your men and smart dressed women, had been like stepping into a whole new world!

At first it felt a bit awkward - calling somebody who was definetly elder to "Randeep Bhaiyya" by their first name! It was no longer Bhaiyya or Didi like in college where even a year of difference counted. Here decades melted away in Suman, Rajesh, Chitra and Vaibhav. Just first names.No salutations and no deference of age!

He attended his first meeting the very first day.He got to know his team.
Suman- she was the "Opinion girl". She had an opinion on each and every subject under the sun.
Rajesh -He was the "questioner". Just when you thought that everyone agreed to a decision he'd say "But what I want to know is....".
Chitra- There was a tacit understanding in the groupabout her. She is wise.
Then there was Vaibhav - he was the lead - his job was to balance it all out.

Vinish had taken many more meetings, personal interactions and gruelling work to understand them and many more others.And today he would be their leader, their vision,their negotiator to the rest of the world.
Then he thought of Manisha. "Ouch!" The razor had slipped a notch and now there was a reddening line on his right cheek above his jaw-line. Deepti had come into the bathroom and he wasjolted out of that train of thought.
"Finished the cupboard?" He asked Deepti. She just nodded , took her perfume bottle and left. "That's nncommunication for you" Vinish thought.
It had taken a lot of heartache too and now he had reached!
An hour later he stood ready to address his expectant employees.

Amshu and Ammu pics

Amshu in Mumbai at home -Ammu on the Swing in Chokki Dhanni

Can I write a story?

Can I write a story?
A story that will sell
It's not an art I have inherent
I don't make up stories so well
But there is a lot of music
Inside my whole being
So much that every fibre
Will dance to tunes with feeling
Poetry is what I think in
It comes naturally to me
But can I write a story?
That's what's left to see!