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Mr. Ram Kapoor picked up his extension and called Smriti to his cabin. A few minutes later he heard a knock on his door.
“Come in,” Kapoor said in a loud booming voice. He was a man in his late-fifties, slightly overweight but with a discernible paunch. The high tension life in corporate law had ensured that he exercised less and ate mindlessly.
Kapoor was dressed formally, in a black suit with matching tie.
“Ah, Smriti, come take a seat. I had called you to prepare for this rather important meeting coming up next week. There are a lot of issues that we need to discuss with this company and the merchant bankers,” said Kapoor.
Smriti nodded and made a note about the meeting in her pad.
“By the way I want Amit to attend that meeting as well. He has really been involved in this matter and highlighted a lot of issues. Plus he is very presentable, dresses formally, speaks well and is over all quite charming,” said Kapoor with a smile.
There was no mention of the file throwing incident of yesterday, which was obviously less to show anger, and more to establish authority.
Smriti paused for a moment.
“But Sir, do you really think he can manage all this? He is too inexperienced and not so responsible,” said Smriti.
“Really? What did he do exactly that makes you doubt his usefulness?” asked a curious Kapoor.
“Sir.... I really don’t know how to begin. I’m quite uncomfortable to say such things about juniors but...”
“What do you want to say? I don’t get it,” Kapoor was getting a little impatient now.
“Sir, as you know, this company’s office is located in a residential area,” said Smriti.
“Yah, so what?” said Kapoor.
“So I had asked Amit to do some research, on whether that violated any local laws, and if yes, then the penalties that would be attracted,” continued Smriti.
“So what happened?” asked Kapoor.
“I had also told him that the matter was urgent and that I needed that information before the last meeting,” she said.
“Then?” asked Kapoor.
“He told me that he didn’t have time to research the issue right before the meeting was to start. As a result, I couldn’t discuss the topic with the company last week. I had no time to research the issue myself,” said Smriti.
Kapoor took a sip of the steaming milky tea lying on his desk and then asked, “Oh come on, Smriti. It is just a small issue. Why don’t you bring up this issue in the next meeting where we can ask the company’s secretary to clarify?”
Smriti didn’t say anything.
“The topic may have slipped from his mind. But he has been spotting a lot of other serious issues in this IPO matter,” added Kapoor.
“Honestly, I would be concerned more about those other issues. The company has a few cases pending against it in various courts where the damages could exceed 4-5 million rupees. If the company loses those cases, they could seriously impact its business plans, including the IPO,” explained Kapoor.
“What is worse is that the company, being a cement manufacturer, was required to take the mandatory environmental clearances from the pollution control board which they didn’t. You know with all these climate change and pollution level debates in the media, how dangerous can these issues be for the company if they are caught?” said Kapoor.
Smriti nodded in agreement.
“And I’m grateful to Amit for highlighting all these tricky issues to us. I know this was done by Amit as I have read his report,” said Kapoor.
Smriti wasn’t liking the talk one bit but had no choice but to keep a straight face.
“Honestly I have a very low tolerance threshold for mistakes. I throw files and pens at people even if I catch a single typo in a document. I am that moody,” added Kapoor with a smile.
“But this guy hasn’t given me a reason to be angry after that last incident where I threw a file at him in actually deep frustration about some other issue. But Amit quietly picked up all the paper one by one and left my cabin with a calm apology. After that I have not seen him making any mistake, not even a tiny one. Whatever work he has submitted has been absolutely spot on. I’m amazed.”
“I have never seen a guy like Amit in the last 35 years of my career. Usually people keep committing one mistake after another till they reach a certain level of maturity. Then only the probability of repeating such mistakes reduces significantly, and with that my blood pressure. But till then I am forced to throw pens, paper and whatever comes my way.”
“And look at how this guy writes his reports. They are amazing. They are always so easy to read and to the point. This guy doesn’t beat around the bush nor hides his ignorance in literary flourishes as many other lawyers do. And now his reports are well proofed too, without any word, sentence or grammar mistakes. He is almost flawless.” Kapoor was almost going lyrical.
“Sir, for that, you will have to give some credit to me.”
Smriti was changing tracks fast.
“I’m his mentor after all. I have taught him what exactly to look for in documents. It is very important to give good directions to juniors,” said Smriti with a smile.
“There is no doubt about that, Smriti. He is part of your team, and you are the team leader. So do continue guiding him well. But take him with you for the next meeting, to train him further. He knows a lot and we will need to rely on his findings. So make sure he is there with you,” said Kapoor concluding the meeting.
Smriti rose and left for her seat. On the way, her mind was wandering. She was aghast that her boss was praising Amit like this, so effusively. She had been with the firm for the past 5 years but Mr. Kapoor had never, ever said anything like that for her. She had slogged and worked her butt off, but her boss didn’t seem to even notice that.
She saw others joining the firm after her and being promoted to higher levels soon thereafter whereas she continued to remain where she was. Every year she waited for her turn to be promoted, but she was always disappointed.
But then, all those who were promoted were men. This was the other thing she found extremely irritating about her boss. He was easily charmed by well-dressed, smart-alec men, like Amit. The fact that those men had no real talent mattered less to him.
Amit had joined the firm hardly a month back. He was raw even now in her opinion. She remembered how she had to teach him even the basic etiquette of writing an e-mail. He wrote Mr as Mr., used commas inappropriately, used stars instead of numbers as pointers and so on. But her boss was going gaga about him as if he had fallen in love with Amit!
What was so great about Amit, she wondered. He was handsome alright, in the conventional sense of the term. He did wear stylish tweeds to office. He did have a firm handshake and supposedly spoke courteously.
But apart from all that, deep beneath, Amit was just a rich brat with zero work experience. Ok, his parents had enough money to send him to London for his fancy law degree, but what did he know of the real life on the streets? He was born in a blessed family, had a comfortable life and knew of no misery. He didn’t need to look after his sick mother. Nor did he need to pay off his father’s debts like she was doing.
Why was fate so cruel to her? She involuntarily kicked a piece of paper lying on the ground. Had her mother not been so ill for the past few years, she could have devoted more time to office. She could have led her juniors with more confidence.
She would have proved to her male-chauvinist boss that women too could deliver, that they weren’t necessarily home-makers and nurturers, as her boss supposedly thought, and that women could be as “committed” and “loyal” to the firm as men. But sadly luck was not favouring her.
The irritating thing was that Mr. Kapoor never spoke a word about his preference for men in front of her. But she knew that deep inside he had a positive bias towards men. She knew that Amit had caught the imagination of her boss. If she didn’t do anything, a time would come, when Amit too would be promoted and she would be left behind as had happened so many times in the past. That would be too much to bear.
Smriti could imagine Amit leading whole teams of men and women to glory with his quiet confidence and phony smile. And how he would nicely put up his gentlemanly mask and pretend how competent he was to everyone around. Others too would be forced to say how great he was, just to be in his good books.
Smriti’s boss was already willing to hand over more responsibility to Amit. That was not a good sign. More responsibility for Amit meant less and less responsibility for her till she became absolutely insignificant. It was already December and the next appraisal was due in March. If she didn’t do anything, her sixth year in that goddamn firm too would slip by, fruitlessly again.
She couldn’t let that happen. At any cost...
