A California Story, page 11
The HR woman gave him a checklist of formalities to complete. His network password was disabled already. Too shocked to say goodbye to anyone, he began gathering his personal items into two cardboard boxes. Just as Ravi was about to make a copy of his personal data on his laptop – his emails, documents, music, images – the HR woman arrived. ‘No,’ she said bluntly, ‘that’s not allowed; everything on this computer legally belongs to Omnicon.’
‘Nonsense!’ Ravi got pissed off. ‘Is this a reasonable way to treat people? What if I refuse to return this computer until I back up my personal data?’
‘Then I’m afraid I will have to call security,’ she said sternly. ‘I am sorry but I’m only doing my job.’ She took his laptop, hovered near him while he gathered his belongings, and escorted him out. He left the building fuming, promising to sue.
‘On my way out,’ Ravi adds, ‘I saw John with someone, laughing his executive laugh.’ Rumor has it that John recently attended a finishing school for executives, where he was coached on projecting power with the body, the art of interruption, and developing an ‘executive laugh’. ‘I wanted to push him down to the ground, and shove a rolling pin up his ass,’ hisses Ravi.
Another employee exits the building with cartons loaded on a dolly.
‘You must start your job search right away,’ Ved says. ‘I have some contacts you should consider using first.’
‘Thanks, but before that, I’m going to create a bonfire of all my Omnicon T-shirts. Then I’m going to talk to a lawyer and sue the bastards.’ His voice bristles with anger.
‘On what grounds?’
‘Discrimination! I was the only minority person in my team, and the only one sacked. John resents foreign workers. He thinks people like us hurt America. Somebody forwarded me one of his emails that should prove my point in any court of law. He is a bloody racist.’
Half of the natives, Ved recalls a recent poll, favor sending skilled foreign workers home. A good chunk of their colleagues too must share that view. Back in his office, Ved runs into Roger, his manager, who has lost two of the twelve people on his team. ‘I tried to get them reassigned,’ he shrugs. To Ved, Roger seems tailor-made for the corporate life: politically astute, optimistic, outgoing, a networker, and above all, a survivor. If Omnicon were a natural habitat, Roger would represent a creature that, in response to ecological shifts, would be able to rapidly grow gills, horns, scales, antennae, fins, wings, or whatever else was needed in order to survive.
In such a dog-eat-dog world, Ved reflects, he can’t trust anyone to guard his interests selflessly or reliably, except perhaps his own mother … his own mother. Random images of her appear in his mind: fiddling with her braid in the garden; heaping pooris on his plate; trying to keep up with Father on their morning walk. Without warning, and to his surprise, his eyes mist over, a small lump rises in his throat.
*
At the ‘All Hands’ meeting, Greg the CEO begins with a note of anguish: how much it hurts him personally to see his colleagues go through this ‘structural change’ and how this ‘reduction in force’ was rudely thrust upon them by the larger economic forces.
‘I, too, was made redundant once,’ he says in a raspy-penitent tone, ‘I know the rupture it causes in real lives.’ He keeps going, laying it on so thick that it became hard not to feel his pain.
‘But we shall overcome,’ he declares. ‘Our management team is world-class. Our Internet Games Online Division (iGOD) is doing great. Our upcoming dynamic intelligent machines with virtualized intrusion traps (DIMVITs) are transforming lives. Many other portfolios are strong. I have no doubt that Omnicon will rebound and again become the darling of Wall Street.’
Towards the end, Greg turns melancholy, ‘We live in hard times, in a world going crazy with war, fear, and uncertainty. The only takeaway nugget of wisdom I can offer is something very simple: Be human. Yes, be human first, before being an employee.’
The crowd responds with a hearty applause, a colleague next to Ved sneaks a tissue up to her eyes. A splendid performance, Ved thinks, worthy of a shrewd leader. The kind Ved knows he himself will never be, beset as he is with too much doubt and brooding – and not enough killer instinct and decisiveness, or unctuousness, for that matter. As in religion and politics, people also want business leaders who display an aura of strength and command, empathy and optimism. He is glad he did not join the knee-jerk applause for Greg.
*
All of Monday, the global media is awash with the news from Omnicon. Ved’s parents call and worriedly ask about his job. ‘I knew it!’ Mother exclaims, voice bubbling with pride. ‘I told your father they don’t fire intelligent people.’
‘Ma, nobody got fired. This was a layoff – a reduction in force.’ There, he is using that euphemism himself. Before too long he will be using ‘collateral damage’ in casual conversation. ‘Some projects were dropped for business reasons. It had little to do with my intelligence.’
She remains skeptical. In her world, a stigma surrounds anyone who loses a job, and it must somehow relate to the employee’s intellect or conduct.
Their visit is only three weeks away and they sound excited. They’re shopping for things they imagine he misses in America. ‘Just bring yourselves. I get everything here now. You’ll be amazed.’ Since their last visit, many more Indian software engineers had come to fuel the Silicon Valley boom of the late nineties. Along with them came the trappings a wealthy diaspora needs to feel at home: desi grocery stores, restaurants, movie theatres, temples, dating clubs, and more.
He boils a pack of frozen spinach tortellini for dinner and adds a garlic-basil pasta sauce, pickled olives, and garam masala. At bedtime, he hears a bed creaking in the apartment above. A young couple has recently moved in. The round-faced woman with perky breasts and tattoos on both arms is from Orange County and came to introduce herself the other day. He has seen her man too: tall, muscular, and full of youthful swagger. Now the two are fucking their brains out.
He starts to masturbate on his bed, placed directly beneath theirs. Eerie, he thinks. How many eons of nature’s toil fashion these silly acts? The creaking gets more frantic. Through the wood ceiling, he can hear her muffled cries of ‘harder, sweetie, harder’. Her final orgasmic cry echoes in his mind long after, as he lies face down, spent, thinking how much of his life is dream and appetite, punctuated by moments of alertness.
Ved suddenly bursts out laughing. What if he had a fatal cardiac arrest while masturbating? They would find him in this state: hand on dick, cotton rag beneath. They would snap pictures of him in that state. Super embarrassing. But he would be dead, right? Part of the great oblivion. Why does it bother him what people might think of him after his death?
*
Ravi calls the next day, ‘I blew it man, blew it.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Randy called, Omnicon’s Director of HR. The bastard. He started off real friendly, with this fake intimate tone. He tells me he “regrets” that my final interaction with his colleague was “less than cordial”. And that he “cares deeply” about this stuff – about how people experience their workplaces and some bullshit about “dignity” and “human capital.” I was totally fuckin’ spooked! Then he got to the point.’
Randy said that network monitoring and file-system analysis of Ravi’s computer had revealed that someone had used it repeatedly to access and download pornographic content, violating Omnicon’s corporate policies. ‘In light of my long and unique contributions, the fucker said, he had decided to call and alert me to this finding,’ Ravi said.
‘Why?’ Ved asks.
‘Because the HR female who escorted me out had told Randy about my threat to sue Omnicon. He was calling to warn me against it,’ Ravi fumed. ‘He mentioned that Omnicon’s lawyers might need to cite their findings in court if forced to defend Omnicon against an unfair dismissal allegation. Under California law, he said, such findings are adequate grounds for dismissal.’
Ravi continued, ‘I was totally stunned, man. My lawsuit idea went up in smoke. Then suddenly Randy softens up and says, “Hey, man, I get it that some of these policies are pretty hard-ass. I get that what we call a “violation” is just a harmless diversion – we’re all grown-ups here, aren’t we? So why don’t we resolve this matter the way grown-up men ought to, as a win-win?” Then the mother-fucker says he has a solution I would “surely appreciate”.’
Randy offered an additional two months of severance pay to Ravi. In return, Ravi would simply need to sign a release form stating that he won’t litigate against Omnicon. Randy has put the form in the mail already. The offer is valid for a week.
‘So what do you think?’ Ved asks.
‘Fuckin’ savages, man!’
Ten
Ved and Liz attend a house concert that she had booked weeks ago in her neighborhood. A trio plays traditional folk songs from Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Afterwards, though still early for dinner, they walk to an Italian restaurant. Liz looks a bit aloof and distracted.
‘Amazing performance!’ Ved says. ‘It made me imagine a bygone era of music: traveling bands, uncluttered sound, simple instruments, songs rooted in place.’ Liz agrees with a feeble smile. Once they settle down, he asks, ‘What’s on your mind, Liz?’
‘You know what’s on my mind.’
‘Well then, let’s talk about it?’
She sighs deeply. ‘Ved, about your offer last Sunday, I am sorry but it seems like a classic hedge to me. You want to keep a foot out the door.’
‘I’m sorry you see it that way. I see it as living each day as it comes, in tune with the impermanence of the universe. Let me ask you, Liz, is it not more reasonable to be with someone based on the principle of …’
‘Sweetheart,’ she cuts him off sharply, ‘I’m not looking for some “reasonable deal,” nor an arrangement based on dry principles – your principles. I don’t want this to be on your terms entirely. What about what I want?’
He is floored by the intensity of her response. ‘Well, tell me. What do you want?’
‘To be loved, to be in love. I want my partner and me to be significant anchors and a daily presence in each other’s lives. I want to grow old with him. I said that even before we met. Otherwise, what’s the point? I might as well be alone.’
‘In other words, you prefer the rent-to-own model to the lease-as-you-please model.’
‘This is no time for flippancy, Ved. We are not discussing furniture for god’s sake. But if you must put it that way, the answer is – yes. Unlike you, I neither wish to make any societal statements nor forsake the “trappings of traditional unions”.’
‘You want commitment, assurances, a roadmap for the relationship?’
‘Yes. At this point in my life, I deserve it. I got burned with Peter. I lived by his terms and ended up with nothing. I don’t want to repeat that mistake. I’m in no hurry to work out every detail upfront, but I want my life-partner to take a leap of faith with me, one that seeks to erase borders between us. I don’t get the sense you are ready for it. Are you? Please be honest, Ved.’
He does not like this talk. ‘True. I’m not ready for leaps of faith, or erasing borders.’
She stares out the window for a few seconds, then says in a sad, hurtful voice, ‘I am not surprised you say that. You probably don’t even know what it means. That’s because, like most men, you are not in touch with your feelings.’
The rebuke annoys him but he tries not to show it. ‘Thanks for the insight, but I know my feelings well enough. If men and women differ, it may be because they have different problem-solving techniques – the problem of being in the world – and which likely has its roots in the Pleistocene –’
She cuts him off. ‘That may be true in conceptual terms, something you have a special flair for, but you really need to look within yourself, Ved. You’re so much like a fortress. You don’t reveal your heart to anyone. You don’t make yourself vulnerable, show no weaknesses. Do you ever cry? You’ve got this … this hard shell around you that shuts out everyone else. You don’t surrender your –’
‘I don’t need a lecture on my deficiencies.’
But there is no stopping her. ‘You just love your high perch, don’t you?’ She says ‘love’ mockingly. ‘From up there, you observe and study your fellow humans, who invariably fail to live up to your standards. You don’t ever reveal your worries, Ved. I don’t mean your worries about the fate of humanity, which you talk plenty about, but private worries, related to your life. You surely have some, I know you do.’
‘I don’t like to burden others with my little worries. That’s just my nature.’
‘You don’t get it, do you? What if your life partner joyfully wants to share your burden? The way you are,’ she shakes her head in exasperation, ‘how can you ever fall in love? Do you even recognize the feeling of being in love? Love, this all-encompassing –’
‘Stop it! We all have different ways of feeling and expressing love. I have my own.’
‘But in my experience, I find you stingy with love and affection. You are obsessed with being measured and reasonable, too stoic, suspicious of your feelings and emotions. You expect others to live up to your standards, or you withhold your respect and write them off as people unworthy of –’
‘Shhh!’ he raises a finger to his lips. ‘Lower your voice, this is a public place.’
‘I don’t care Ved,’ her voice is loud as ever. ‘The truth is that in our relationship – you might as well know this; it might help you in the future – I often feel like I am not quite real in your mind, rather a curiosity, a human specimen, to be studied and managed. I think you’re a smart and decent man, but you’re cold and aloof. Women are not endeared by such qualities.’
He feels the urge to bluntly point out that perhaps what gets in the way of warmth is all her ranting, her million resentments at the world. He too is not endeared by the mushy, carping, chic quality of her complaints at the world, which spill over to impair her capacity for joy and serenity. And what’s up with that soppy spirituality, the fake nobility she sees in tradition, the reverence for ancient wisdom? She is a Luddite at heart. But he does not say it. Confronting her now with her own flaws would be messy and unkind. He lets her talk and responds only in brief, general terms. Dinner is marked by long silences. They eat little.
After he settles the bill, they walk back to her place. ‘Let me ask you something, Ved. About that leap of faith I mentioned, is it just me you’re not prepared to make that leap with? Please be honest.’
Not a question he wants to answer but he finds himself saying, ‘Well, I think that is partly true, yes. The other, bigger part is more complex. Perhaps I am just not ready to make a leap of faith – with anyone.’
She bursts into tears on the poorly lit sidewalk. They arrive at her apartment complex. She slumps heavily on the staircase to her floor. Across the parking lot, a family of raccoons forages the trash bins. He hears a distant ambulance, a night of emergency for someone.
She sobs into a napkin and speaks in fits and starts, ‘Why is life so awful? I’m almost forty-one, stuck in a low-wage job. I still have debts, a mother showing signs of Alzheimer’s. I’m no longer young or beautiful … and I won’t look even half as good in a few years. If I don’t find a man soon, I never will. Why is it so hard for me? I had such high hopes this time.’
He struggles to figure out what to say. He moves closer and sits next to her. Her sobbing has nearly stopped. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Liz. I’m sorry for disappointing you. I began with an open mind. But better now than later, when the pain and disruption would’ve been more. Along the way, I hope we both learned a few things about ourselves. I know I did.’
‘I wish I could say that,’ her tone is full of bitter disdain. Save for the faint roar of the highway, it is very quiet.
So this is it, the end of their relationship. What more is left to be said? He rises and stands facing her in an implicit gesture of leave-taking. She, too, knows that the moment has come, and rises to give him a final hug.
Against his better instincts, he says, ‘Let’s keep in touch. We have so much in common.’
‘That rarely works out, but we can try.’ Is that a faint smile, or is she about to cry again?
Before turning away, he looks at her: a thickset middle-aged woman, soulful and intelligent, who briefly came into his life, now slumped on the stairs of an apartment complex, swaddled in ill-fitting clothes, puffy eyes, sticky hair, crumpled napkin in hand, feeling sorry for herself and angry at him. He feels sorry for her too. He knows this image will stay with him for a long time. Her mood rubs off on him. Walking to his car, he too is depressed, drained to the core.
It was an enriching affair for sure. But didn’t he suspect there was no future in it from the moment he first saw her over two months ago? That’s how it turned out, and now he is back to square one. Like soft rolling thunder, the dread of loneliness courses through him.
Why do her words rankle so much? They feel like a judgment and a sentence combined: thou art too guarded, aloof, stingy with love, miserly with affection, not vulnerable, lacking in warmth, with walls around to exclude others from thine inner sanctum.
Pooja too, he suspects, would have agreed. Though raised in the US, she was close enough to Indian culture to know him in ways Liz never could. In fact, Liz was in love with an idea of India that he could barely relate to. It would’ve been hard for Liz to understand so much that was a part of him, without his choosing – how his old-world culture had shaped his tastes, habits, and sense of displacement. What Liz had to offer was different and not quite enough.
His mind swims. If shared culture is so strong a force, what does it mean to be a citizen of the world? If he could imagine a perfect woman with the skill of a literary master and breathe life into her, would they have a perfect relationship? He doubts it. There is still so much within him to prevent that from happening – his own ghosts that he does not yet well understand.
