2 States: The Story of My Marriage by Chetan Bhagat

Author:Chetan Bhagat
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Tags: Romance, Fantasy, Contemporary, Humour
ISBN: 9788129115300
Publisher: Rupa and Company
Published: 2009-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

DX @ www.desibbrg.com

26

‘I think it is a great idea,’ Bala said. We sat in our priority banking group team

meeting. Mumbai had proposed a ‘raise spirits’ dinner event for our private

clients across India. Despite the economic slowdown, they had approved, they

had approved a budget for all major centres. Chennai needed it most, given the

adventure banking we had subjected our clients to.

‘So, we need to brainstorm on which event will work best for Chennai

customers,’ Bala said.

‘An art exhibition,’ one executive said.

‘Again, we are selling something,’ another executive said. ‘The focus should

be on fun.’

‘A fashion show,’ said the earlier executive.

‘Too bold for our market,’ came the counter response.

The discussion continued for ten minutes. All ideas form movie-night to

inventing a Kollywood celebrity to calling a chef to prepare an exotic cuisine were

discussed.

However, for some reason, none of the ideas clicked. I felt quite useless

having nothing to say. But I didn’t know what would work for Chennai customers

apart from giving them their money back.

‘Krish, what do you think?’ Bala asked, breaking my daydream of walking

hand-in-hand with Ananya in a peacock blue sari.

‘Huh?’ I said, and realised everyone had turned to me.

‘Would you like to contribute?’ Bala said. Even though he had cut me slack, on

occasion the repressed boss in him came out.

‘Music, how about music? Say a musical night?’ I suggested.

Excited murmurs ran across the room. Finally, we had an idea without any

strong negative objection. However, within music there were a dozen ideas.

‘Kutcheri, let’s do a kutcheri,’ said one.

‘What’s that?’ I said, turning to Saraswati.

DX @ www.desibbrg.com

Saraswati was a conservative Tamilian agent who spoke only once a year and

never waxed her arms. (I admit the latter point is irrelevant but it is hard not to

notice these things.)

‘Kutcheri is a Carnatic music concert,’ Saraswati made her point and drifted

back to being part of the wall.

‘Hey, I thought we wanted the evening to be fun,’ I said.

‘Carnatic music can be fun,’ said Ravi, another supervisor.

Yes, as much fun as wailing babies in a crowded train, I wanted to say but

didn’t. Political correctness is a necessity in Chennai, especially when everyone

hates you for being an outsider anyway.

I turned to Bala. ‘We want to raise spirits. Isn’t Carnatic music too serious?

Why not have an evening of popular music. Good popular music.’

‘A.R. Rahman, can we get A.R. Rahman?’ said one person.

‘Or Ilaiyaraja,’ said another.

Bala shook his head and waved his arms to say ‘no’. ‘We can’t do such big

names. The budget is not that high. And these people attract the press. Last thing

you want is some customer telling the press about their losses and us wasting

money on such concerts. Mumbai will kill me.’

After two hours of further deliberation that took us to lunch break, we made a

few decisions about the event. The concert would be held in Fisherman’s Cove,

an upmarket resort on the city outskirts. We’d have three to five singers of

reasonable fame, provided we kept to the budget of two lakh.

‘All set then,’ Bala said as we ended the meeting at six in the evening. I

realised I had to leave.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.