*An excerpt from Chaos Down Under. To read the entire story, click here.
This is about the week my life was rocked by a series of major scandals.
No, I am not talking about the time the Russian brunette sent me the message: ‘Can you meet me for a sex?’ on my chat window. That message was understandable; at some abstract level, probably exciting too.
I will come back to the brunette and her message later. There were a handful of events that had unsettled me before this pleasant digression came forth in the form of her message.
It had been nearly a month at the client’s office, and the experience had not been pretty. The uncomfortable equation we shared with Lex had come to the fore with an increased frequency of arguments over the alleged triviality of defects we had been raising in their system only to get the client’s undue admiration and also some extra bills. I had taken major exception to this attack on my integrity and had asked Pat and Mike to stop behaving like cry babies just because we were giving them a tough time for handing the client a phony product. After a flurry of unpleasant emails, Pat had signed off with a cryptic warning that talked about a ‘Bytesphere sunset’. Too much Godfather influence, maybe. Later that evening, Pat ambled over to my desk and winked, ‘Your move, genius!’ The duffer expected me to play into his scheming hands and send an irrational response to his diatribe. I knew better and decided to sleep over this disturbing thought and come up with a well-calculated response.
The next morning I woke up early, upbeat, vengeful and in reasonably good health. I breakfasted sumptuously on a three-egg omelet at Hungry Jack’s and then began strolling comfortably towards office, taking in the serene beauty of the Yarra river. The clock had not yet struck eight and the roads were largely devoid of the morning traffic. It was a perfect start to the morning. All of a sudden, I thought I felt a treble in the distance. It died down in seconds, then rose again with more intensity. The treble grew stronger—a prominent sound of something very heavy drumming against the tar roads with a sense of purpose. And then I felt a dark shadow loom over me. In seconds, a shrill sound that pierced my senses.
NEIGHHHHH!
I turned around, petrified, to find a black horse rise on its rear limbs, raising its intimidating hoofs at me. I cowered. Someone’s voice asked me to calm down. I looked through my trembling palms that had covered my eyes—Jerry was mounted on the beast, taming it with the kind of compassion he never showed us humans at work. I sat cowered, submissive, before my master. Jerry took in the moment with pleasure until the horse held his, well, horses.
‘Meet Velvet,’ he said, proudly fondling the animal’s furry back that smelled of leather. ‘Come, let me give you a ride to work.’
I will admit my resilience against unexpected surprises had risen considerably in recent months. But this was pushing it too far. I had never seen a suited, senior executive ride a horse to work. Hell, I had never seen ANYONE ride a horse to work. What’s more, I was never faced with the uncomfortable situation of being OFFERED a ride on a horse to work. I obviously declined the offer very politely, but Jerry began trotting Velvet alongside me as he persisted, saying it would be an experience I would never forget; what was my problem, was Velvet not good enough for me? When onlookers began sniggering at the proceedings, I finally gave up and agreed. It took me a grand total of ten minutes to be able to mount the stallion. When I had settled down, Jerry asked me to make sure I held on.
‘To what?’ I asked.
‘DUH!’ He shook his head, patting the sides of his waist.
WAS THIS MAN FUCKING KIDDING ME?
Of course he was not. So after a brief debate, I held Jerry by the waist and asked for Velvet to ride us to work in as little time as possible so the ordeal could end for all three of us. For the first few minutes, Velvet walked peacefully. This was the moment I was actually beginning to enjoy the ride. I took in the same view of the Yarra from a good elevation. I felt princely. I could even have considered doing this more often. Only, just then, Jerry shouted, ‘Trot, Velvet! Trot!’
And Velvet began prancing around like a fool, trotting violently along the cobblestone walkway. To another person, this could have looked like fun—like sailing on a magic carpet, or sitting on a nice massage chair, maybe. But I bet anyone on that road a hundred bucks to have tried sitting on that bugger with his two legs apart, subjecting oneself to such violent trotting turbulence. At first I wanted to howl in pain. But gradually, the pain moved upward along my body, travelled through my gut, right into my voice box. Before I knew it, I had lost my voice to protest or to beg to be let off. Then came a reprieve. Jerry’s instruction changed to, ‘Gallop, Velvet! Gallop!’
The positive change brought about by the command was that Velvet had stopped trotting. The negative development was that Velvet had now gone completely cuckoo. He neighed a little at the instruction, shook his nape at a hapless cyclist right next to him, and took off like the wind, nearly toppling the cyclist over. You know how your entire life flashes before your eyes when you have a disturbing premonition? I swear, at that moment, I could even see flashes of my previous birth. I remembered I was a doe. I had had a good life then. I ate herbs and slept all my life and had died peacefully by a pond that had lent me its sweet water for yea…
Velvet was almost flying now. I was systematically crying now. Velvet rode us past the Yarra, right into the city centre where cars were now converging in healthy numbers at various traffic signals. Showing utter disregard for every colour of the traffic light, Velvet went about its purpose. Jerry’s waist was not good enough for me to hold on to now. Desperate to latch on to something, I found Velvet’s fat tail swinging wildly behind me.
‘Faster, Velvet! Faster!’ The idiot continued, tugging at Velvet’s reins. I put the third Newtonian law of motion to use and pulled hard at Velvet’s tail, hoping to offset the insane speed this creature had acquired. Frightened, Velvet galloped faster. Even more frightened, I tugged at his tail even harder. We must have been two hundred metres from the office car park when Velvet gave up and screeched to a grinding halt, sending its buttocks and me a few feet up in the air. I lost my balance, my body executed a perfect parabolic jump and went a few centimetres ahead of Jerry, who showed some presence of mind and held me mid-air, bringing me back down on Velvet. I settled down like a petrified hen, somewhere between Velvet’s nape and Jerry’s torso.
‘It is alright,’ Jerry tried comforting me. ‘We are almost there. Ok, Velvet, WALK!’
The phase from that moment until I was woken up by Dharmesh in the office dormitory two hours later is somewhat of a blur, so I do not remember much. When I stood up from the bed, I felt no bodily sensation waist below. I regained my composure, crawled back to my working bay, and felt a little better after I resumed tutoring the Russian brunette and after sharing a little laugh over the message she had sent me.
Coming back to the brunette and her message: ‘Can you meet me for a sex?’
This is about the week my life was rocked by a series of major scandals.
No, I am not talking about the time the Russian brunette sent me the message: ‘Can you meet me for a sex?’ on my chat window. That message was understandable; at some abstract level, probably exciting too.
I will come back to the brunette and her message later. There were a handful of events that had unsettled me before this pleasant digression came forth in the form of her message.
It had been nearly a month at the client’s office, and the experience had not been pretty. The uncomfortable equation we shared with Lex had come to the fore with an increased frequency of arguments over the alleged triviality of defects we had been raising in their system only to get the client’s undue admiration and also some extra bills. I had taken major exception to this attack on my integrity and had asked Pat and Mike to stop behaving like cry babies just because we were giving them a tough time for handing the client a phony product. After a flurry of unpleasant emails, Pat had signed off with a cryptic warning that talked about a ‘Bytesphere sunset’. Too much Godfather influence, maybe. Later that evening, Pat ambled over to my desk and winked, ‘Your move, genius!’ The duffer expected me to play into his scheming hands and send an irrational response to his diatribe. I knew better and decided to sleep over this disturbing thought and come up with a well-calculated response.
The next morning I woke up early, upbeat, vengeful and in reasonably good health. I breakfasted sumptuously on a three-egg omelet at Hungry Jack’s and then began strolling comfortably towards office, taking in the serene beauty of the Yarra river. The clock had not yet struck eight and the roads were largely devoid of the morning traffic. It was a perfect start to the morning. All of a sudden, I thought I felt a treble in the distance. It died down in seconds, then rose again with more intensity. The treble grew stronger—a prominent sound of something very heavy drumming against the tar roads with a sense of purpose. And then I felt a dark shadow loom over me. In seconds, a shrill sound that pierced my senses.
NEIGHHHHH!
I turned around, petrified, to find a black horse rise on its rear limbs, raising its intimidating hoofs at me. I cowered. Someone’s voice asked me to calm down. I looked through my trembling palms that had covered my eyes—Jerry was mounted on the beast, taming it with the kind of compassion he never showed us humans at work. I sat cowered, submissive, before my master. Jerry took in the moment with pleasure until the horse held his, well, horses.
‘Meet Velvet,’ he said, proudly fondling the animal’s furry back that smelled of leather. ‘Come, let me give you a ride to work.’
I will admit my resilience against unexpected surprises had risen considerably in recent months. But this was pushing it too far. I had never seen a suited, senior executive ride a horse to work. Hell, I had never seen ANYONE ride a horse to work. What’s more, I was never faced with the uncomfortable situation of being OFFERED a ride on a horse to work. I obviously declined the offer very politely, but Jerry began trotting Velvet alongside me as he persisted, saying it would be an experience I would never forget; what was my problem, was Velvet not good enough for me? When onlookers began sniggering at the proceedings, I finally gave up and agreed. It took me a grand total of ten minutes to be able to mount the stallion. When I had settled down, Jerry asked me to make sure I held on.
‘To what?’ I asked.
‘DUH!’ He shook his head, patting the sides of his waist.
WAS THIS MAN FUCKING KIDDING ME?
Of course he was not. So after a brief debate, I held Jerry by the waist and asked for Velvet to ride us to work in as little time as possible so the ordeal could end for all three of us. For the first few minutes, Velvet walked peacefully. This was the moment I was actually beginning to enjoy the ride. I took in the same view of the Yarra from a good elevation. I felt princely. I could even have considered doing this more often. Only, just then, Jerry shouted, ‘Trot, Velvet! Trot!’
And Velvet began prancing around like a fool, trotting violently along the cobblestone walkway. To another person, this could have looked like fun—like sailing on a magic carpet, or sitting on a nice massage chair, maybe. But I bet anyone on that road a hundred bucks to have tried sitting on that bugger with his two legs apart, subjecting oneself to such violent trotting turbulence. At first I wanted to howl in pain. But gradually, the pain moved upward along my body, travelled through my gut, right into my voice box. Before I knew it, I had lost my voice to protest or to beg to be let off. Then came a reprieve. Jerry’s instruction changed to, ‘Gallop, Velvet! Gallop!’
The positive change brought about by the command was that Velvet had stopped trotting. The negative development was that Velvet had now gone completely cuckoo. He neighed a little at the instruction, shook his nape at a hapless cyclist right next to him, and took off like the wind, nearly toppling the cyclist over. You know how your entire life flashes before your eyes when you have a disturbing premonition? I swear, at that moment, I could even see flashes of my previous birth. I remembered I was a doe. I had had a good life then. I ate herbs and slept all my life and had died peacefully by a pond that had lent me its sweet water for yea…
Velvet was almost flying now. I was systematically crying now. Velvet rode us past the Yarra, right into the city centre where cars were now converging in healthy numbers at various traffic signals. Showing utter disregard for every colour of the traffic light, Velvet went about its purpose. Jerry’s waist was not good enough for me to hold on to now. Desperate to latch on to something, I found Velvet’s fat tail swinging wildly behind me.
‘Faster, Velvet! Faster!’ The idiot continued, tugging at Velvet’s reins. I put the third Newtonian law of motion to use and pulled hard at Velvet’s tail, hoping to offset the insane speed this creature had acquired. Frightened, Velvet galloped faster. Even more frightened, I tugged at his tail even harder. We must have been two hundred metres from the office car park when Velvet gave up and screeched to a grinding halt, sending its buttocks and me a few feet up in the air. I lost my balance, my body executed a perfect parabolic jump and went a few centimetres ahead of Jerry, who showed some presence of mind and held me mid-air, bringing me back down on Velvet. I settled down like a petrified hen, somewhere between Velvet’s nape and Jerry’s torso.
‘It is alright,’ Jerry tried comforting me. ‘We are almost there. Ok, Velvet, WALK!’
The phase from that moment until I was woken up by Dharmesh in the office dormitory two hours later is somewhat of a blur, so I do not remember much. When I stood up from the bed, I felt no bodily sensation waist below. I regained my composure, crawled back to my working bay, and felt a little better after I resumed tutoring the Russian brunette and after sharing a little laugh over the message she had sent me.
Coming back to the brunette and her message: ‘Can you meet me for a sex?’
