| Monday: It's mid-March and I'm stapling together medical bills. And the thought crosses my head, that if I'd actually swallowed all the pills I'm being re-imbursed for, I couldn't have done much work! In the previous job, we used to be re-imbursed for "minor repairs". We wrote out plain paper bills for one another and sought the help of the peons when we wanted them in the vernacular. It wasn't easy to come up with ideas and so our kitchen sinks were being mended every three months and electrical fittings being replaced at a frequency that was quite alarming. The bills for "soft furnishing" weren't so difficult: only we spent disproportionately large portions of our salaries on cushion covers and table cloths. |
| Wednesday: It's would have been fun to be out there in the Caribbean. But even going to Bangalore is better than being in office. Spent the day fruitfully at the Titan headquarters, making sure I had time to have a quick lunch with a couple of colleagues at Bheema's on Church Street. I'm impressed that Titan employs so many underprivileged women and also handicapped people at its factories as part of its social responsibilities and doesn't talk about it. There are CEOs who wax eloquent on the subject as though it's their core competency. |
| I'm convinced that the airlines' bucket fare system needs to be more flexible. They need to be able to sell empty seats at a discounted fare if there's, say, just twenty minutes to go for a flight. Despite there being half a dozen seats going abegging, I had to use all my persuasive skills to convince the manager at the Kingfisher counter that he was getting an opportunity to fill an empty seat and also have another seat to sell on the next flight, even if he let me fly at the same fare at which I had bought the ticket. He refused to give in but relented only because the next flight had been delayed. |
| Thursday: The volatility in the markets is making investors skittish. Obviously, the paper needs to have a debate on whether the party's over. So there I am chatting up some fund managers cajoling them into writing for us. Of course, no one wants to say that the India story's finished. I finally persuade someone into saying "the story's marginally compromised". |
| The mood on the Street may not be upbeat, but the sense of humour remains. Sample this: "The government's war against inflation is working at least in one area; shares are becoming cheaper by the day." |
| Saturday: I am shocked to learn that the municipality has pulled down the makeshift stalls at Bandra's local market where I buy my vegetables and fish. They tell me the officers are not even accepting the weekly hafta. "Very soon you'll see a mall here madam, because there will be no stalls and therefore no shoppers." My heart goes out to the vendors. Let them pay taxes, which they're doing in any case, but let them stay. |
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