I wrote in my last mail about the silent publicity movie produced by our CPPD team with RC wielding the megaphone. That brings to my mind memories of a similar kind – the still more famous, critically acclaimed and widely screened, hour long documentary on CPPD projects.
RC was once coming back from his regular daily visits to CO and was fast climbing up the staircase as he always used to do. True, CO is a few buildings away from Khivraj Mansions, the home of CPPD . But RC made it a point to visit the sacred place for the mandatory lunch and may be a couple of times during the day on ‘receiving the call ‘.
And the moments of ‘Return of RC’ precisely turned out to be keenly watched moments for the whole CPPD, deciding the entire mood of 25 plus odd (or 25 odd as the case may be) people, AGM PA Anu, Daftry Veera and even the Anglo-Indian sweeper Don, for the rest of the day. Oh yes, we had one AI sweeper, a cheerful fourth generation goanese-tamil mixed origin lad called Don in our rolls, who spoke really good English, as good as that of any of us, if not better.
And this Goan Don was succeeded by the ever melancholic looking Madhavan Nair as the official sweeper. NSR made an interesting discovery one evening when he emerged out of delving deep into the mysteries of the sea or rather C. He, if i remember correct, was on a R&D mission on the use of cursors to draw user friendly screens in Unix, all for Forex dealing room backup operations with Unify Database.
‘Look, there comes Shakespeare strolling’, NSR solemnly announced and waved in the opposite direction. I turned to have a face to face encounter with the bard. It was Madhavan Nair leaving for home! And he did look like Shakespeare caught in a profile shot (he still is in my memory like that – the poor man passed away 15 years ago; RIP Shakespeare).
God, there is a limit to rambling and I am one who trespasses that constantly. My sincere apologies gentlemen and ladies. Let me return to the main track and promise no more distractions till I sign off.
I left you waiting for RC to return from his routine CO visit. From the colour of RC’s countenance after such visits, we could immediately judge what transpired between him and the gods-to-be at CO. If RC came back with a crimson flush on his face with eyes kept fixed in a stare, it indeed was a bad omen. ‘They don’t understand’ would be his usual standard refrain, repeated in all tonal frequencies. Many of CPPD’s innovative projects had to subjected to a cruel and silent idea-infanticide at the conception stage or at the design board, as ‘the CO God’s nod’ is not forthcoming.
Any project review for ongoing projects conducted by RC thereafter during the day may not begin, proceed or end well. His anger was always of the moral variety and was much strong in its under expression and dissipation through sustained subordinate interaction.
Alternately there were days when RC returned from CO feeling light at heart and with a glint in his eyes- you can detect it from his charming smile with which he greeted you while climbing the stairs. Coming to his smiles, I have to admit that our lady colleagues or at least one of them firmly believed RC had Ben Kingsley looks and he smiled exactly like Gandhi-Kingsley. Of course, you cannot afford to have both a Shakespeare and Gandhi at a still fidgeting CPPD.
Will return after the commercial break. Stay tuned and pray don’t go for channel surfing!