Papa’s Love
My friend Ram Mohan works as a senior project manager in an Indian multi-national IT company. He lives in Bangalore for the last 10 years or so. He was my colleague in my previous company, a UK multi-national software firm, and that is how I knew him. We worked together at their Bangalore office. A few years back he quit and joined his present company while I quit and started my own start up venture. We still meet occasionally and catch up over a beer or coffee. Some of our common friends also would join us once in a while. These are the occasions where we share stories from our work places as well as on our new harmless adventures. This is one such story Ram Mohan shared when we met last week.
We were generally discussing about our busy schedules and how we many times miss important events in the life of our loved ones. Travel, late night calls, important deliveries, the list goes on and on. All of us had pretty much same common reasons and excuses for missing birthdays, anniversaries, school events, parent teacher meetings, kid’s convocations, mom’s 84th birthday, onam, diwali or pongal like festivities; you name it, we have it in our list.
“Talking about busy schedules and late working? Guys, listen to this. This incident in fact really touched me a bit”, Ram Mohan suddenly announced the preface for his story. His voice was a little louder than his usual. He suddenly sounded a little emotional too. I thought he probably finished his second bottle a little too soon while we were still working on our first!
‘Suresh, you remember how we used to tell our team not to stay in office after 7? Well, that has all become old golden lines now yaar. These days I myself never get to leave before 10. Project delivery is always behind the schedule. Most of the team members also pretty much stay till late evening with me”
‘Yeah’, I nodded. I remember him in team meetings suggesting the team should not stay late. Ram Mohan is a good task master, in fact better than me in extracting work from the team members. I usually consider myself pretty good in working with team. But Ram Mohan had impressed me with his style of dealing with the teams. He is strict with the deliverables, but still never supported people having to work till late in the night. He would always advise his team to have a life outside office too. And, I never had seen him missing any project deadlines. Both of us had this line pasted in our cabins;
“Don’t take your girl friend home, your wife wont like her”. Of course the girl friend is the ‘work’.
So, when he says he is dealing with missing project timelines I could imagine the situation he must be in.
“This is about one of my team leads. In fact, I should say I am also responsible for it in a way”. Ram Mohan got into his story.
“This guy Sanjay is one of my team leads. Quite a smart and hard working guy. That is why in fact I made him the lead for our new US project”.
“This guy has two kids, Twin boys. I know his wife also. She works as a school teacher. Actually they were without kids for long after their marriage. They were trying for a child for more than some 10 or 12 years, before they finally had the babies. There wasn’t anything that they had not tried. Doctors, temples, poojas, all that…” Ram Mohan paused for a while as if he was empathizing with the couple on their past agony.
All of us by now had become curious. All our eyes and ears were on Ram Mohan! That is him. He is a very good story teller. He got a special knack of making anything dramatic and interesting.
“So, couple of weeks back Sanjay asked me for a day’s leave, I think for Wednesday or Thursday. The day was his kid’s fifth birthday. He was planning to celebrate calling all of us and so wanted to take leave. Unfortunately I could not allow that. First of all our director was here from the US and he was to leave on Friday. We were all frantically trying to release the beta version and demo it to him before he leaves. I was concerned about not only his absence, but I was also concerned about the rest of the team going for the party. If he keeps the celebration on a working day, I was sure at least half a day would be gone for the entire team as well, as they all would have to attend the party. So, I suggested him to move the birthday celebration to the weekend”.
“Sanjay agreed. I am not sure, if he was ok with it or he did because he didn’t have any option”. Ram Mohan glanced at all of us. May be he was expecting an approval nod from us, I wasn’t sure.
“Well, what option he would have had anyway, Ram?”, Anil’s comment was perhaps what we all wanted to tell too.
“I thought I was a bit harsh on him, you know. Told him he shouldn’t forget about his responsibilities at office. He didn’t say anything when I refused him leave on a working day. Well, what can I do? I didn’t want to favour anyone. Others also will then start asking for the same, especially not when those US guys are around”
“So, Sanjay moved the party is it?”
“yeah, he kept the party on Saturday. We all went; our entire team. The party was at his new house. In fact party for his new house also was pending. I guess he combined both, the birthday and house treats. He has a nice flat, you know. Nice complex and a big flat. I am sure it might have cost him at least some 80-85 lakhs”
“Man!! That is a big EMI nightmare for him for the next 20 years at least!” Exclaimed Vivek. Vivek is our group’s EMI calculator. For anyone taking any loans, first consultant is Vivek.
“We were there at his party that day, the whole team from the office. And you know his kids are very smart. Very cute and jolly kids; Suman and Sohan”. Nothing distracted Ram though from continuing with his story.
“And, you know, I just called Sohan near me and asked him who is papa’s kid, he or Suman. Whom does dad love more, I asked.”
‘Neither me nor Sohan, uncle’. Came the reply from Suman who was standing next by, that too quite loud.
‘Oh, I know. He loves your mom more huh?’
“Suddenly both the kids laughed so loud as if I did ask something stupid, you know”.
‘No, uncle, not mom. I will show you who papa loves the most’. Suman went running and Sohan followed him.
“We all were quite curious by now. I became a bit tensed also. What if the kid brings in some neighbor aunty! That would be really embarrassing for Sanjay, I thought”.
By then both the kids came to the hall, as if making a grand appearance in style.
‘Here is papa’s lover!’ Sohan made the announcement and in his hands was Sanjay’s office laptop!
“I was sort of relieved. Rest all had a loud and hearty laugh. Sohan stood in the middle smiling victoriously and lifting the laptop over his head”.
“Sanjay was obviously embarrassed and hurriedly grabbed the laptop and went to his room to keep it safe. Within minutes everything was back to usual”
Ram Mohan paused. He started sipping from his glass and sat quiet. We all felt a little awkward. May be everybody suddenly had fallen into an introspective mood.
“Forget man, this is nothing new. Don’t be so sensitive. C’mon, have one more”. Manu, who was sitting next to Ram, broke the silence first. He filled Ram’s glass. Suddenly we all busted into loud laugher while Ram Mohan joined us with a cheers lifting his full glass.
Papa's Love: Story by Suresh Kodoor
