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Fortunately the taxi driver was an kind elderly man who called me beti and kept chatting with me till we reached office. Though it was just a twenty minutes trip to office my chat with him proved to me that I could deal nonchalantly with people in my new avatar as Sanjana. He also offered to take me back from office in the evening.

 

As I approached the Security desk in the foyer, Ramlal said "Good morning, Madam," and handed me the keys to my office.

 

"When will Baskar sir come back now." he enquired casually as I signed the register without hesitation as Sanjana.

 

"I really dont know Ramlal. Maybe in one year." I spoke clearly as Sanjana.

 

"He is a very intelligent young man. But still he is so respectful towards all of us. Shows he is from a good family.''

 

I smiled at him for his words. It is rarely that you get to hear firsthand what people speak about you behind your back.

 

As I entered the reception area Mallika smiled at me said," Boss is already in and wants to see you as soon as you come in."

 

I don’t know if it was the effect of her words or the contact of my high heels with the smooth tiled floor; I faltered a little, but managed to steady myself without damage. Since I had to walk into Arun’s cabin immediately I decided to make a short trip to the Ladies before going to my office.

 

As I placed my bag on the side table next to my PC, I saw the note from Arun asking me to see him on arrrival. I drank a little water and walked up to the connecting door, knocked twice and walked into his ofice.

 

"Come come Sanjana! Sit down"

 

I smoothened the back of my kurta and slid into the chair in front of him. He was busy with his emails for a few minutes. That gave my pounding heart the time to return to normal.

"Well you are looking good as usual. Now you know that we have a board meeting today. Make sure things are in place at the conference hall. I want you to participate, contribute, as well as keep the minutes. I have told IS to issue you a laptop immediately- a small steel gray stuff suitable for a delicate lady! They will also provide you a remote access. By the end of the day let us discuss what else we can do so that you can manage your additional load caused by Baskar's going away. Now get out and let us see some action. We meet at 10 am… Ok?.By the way speak to mommy at home, she wanted some things attended to.. I don’t want to know what. Just make sure we are not exceeding my house-maintenance budget. "

 

"Yes Arun!" I whispered. He looked up from his machine and said, "Why are you whispering. Is something not ok?"

 

This time spoke clearly, "No Arun! Nothing is wrong. I will attend to everything. Just tell me whether Mr. Dubey is coming for the meeting."

 

"Yes he is coming" Arun said without looking up from his e-mail.

 

My audience with him was over and I returned to my office.

 

Murgan was already at my table with the new gleaming laptop. "Hi Sanju, put in your password on this deskie so that I can transfer your user files and take away this machine." I did as told and proceeded to the conference hall to check out things. On the way some wished me and I wished some and I generally smiled a lot, but my attention was totally on the task on hand. At this moment it made little difference that I had become a lovely lady and eyes were following me as I walked around the office making tik-tok sounds because of my heels.

 

"We are in the business of curing disease and not in the business of making people beautiful." Mr. Dubey was shouting at no one in particular. "As a financial officer of this company I will not permit the use of our resources for some hare brained ideas."

 

"So you think me and my team are hare brained" Dr. Tandon asked in his cool and calm manner and went on to narrate the achievements of his unit and the international awards won by his scientists and the number of papers published by them. Dr. Tandon spoke non-stop for fifteen minutes.

 

At last Arun had to put up his hand asking Dr. Tandon to stop and turned to the others around the table for their opinion. While the other five took neutral positions for the next half hour, I used my LAN connection to access a lot of figures about the level of revenues and operating profits in lifestyle business vis a vis healthcare business and showed it Arun.

 

Arun winked at me and addressed the group. "While we have been discussing this issue, Sanjana here has been doing some number crunching. So Sanjana, why don't you tell us what your findings are..."

 

I had not expected this. I could see Dubey looking at the ceiling skeptically. His message was clear: 'Now are we going to ask our secretaries to run our business'? But I was not going to let down Arun. I connected my new laptop to the projector and explained complex data for the next half an hour. Most of it, I addressed to Dr. Tandon, who was smiling at me encouragingly as the presentation progressed. There was spontaneous applause as soon as I sat down after my presentation.

 

As the appalause subsided, I could hear Mr. Dubey clear his throat, "The data just shown does prove that we could enter life style business. But we need to check what our shareholders would feel about it and whether it will affect our credit worthiness. Anyway Ms. Sharma, that was a nice spontaneous presentation." Knowing Dubey his appreciation was like getting the Nobel prize.

 

Arun concluded by saying that he would appoint a Project Team to consider the proposal in depth. For the rest of the meeting, some routine issues were discussed.

 

By afternoon the whole office knew that I had managed to convince Dubey for a difficult project. Arun called me to his office and complimented me.

 

"Sanjana! I never knew you could research over the internet so well and make such an impactful presentation."

 

"You are right Arun! Three months ago I could not have done what I did today. Actually Baskar has been teaching me a lot of things. I must admit I did not like it when you recruited him. But with time I have learnt to appreciate him and recently I started learning from him..."

 

"Good! If you continue to contribute as you did today, then we can make better plans for you. In the meanwhile what are your suggestions for reducing your workload so that you function more as an assistant to me and less as a secretary? I do not want you to keep long hours. I am looking for smart working rather than long hours."

 

I knew that Arun himself never missed his golf sessions or socialising. He also spent enough time with his mother. So I said, "Yes arun! I have two or three thoughts. Now that we have automatic dialling of extentions for outside callers, our receptionist Mallika can screen calls coming to your direct line and schedule your appointments. As for official correspondence we could use the secretaries of other directors in rotation. Anyway much of the confidential stuff goes by e-mail. You can call up Adminstration with your arrival departure needs for travel and they can create an electronic requisition for your approval."

 

"Umm"! Arun smiled,"You have practically eliminated your earlier job and would like to do what Baskar was doing."

 

I smiled and kept quiet. Arun sensed I had something else to ask him.

 

"Ok ! what else". He raised his eyebrows.

 

"Can I get a comapny car with a driver. That way I can work on my laptop while I travel."

Arun laughed, "That was a good try. I tell you what. You get hold of a regular taxi fellow. Buy him a pager if need be and call him whenever you need. I will give you a monthly limit of taxi claims and you manage within that."

 

"Ok boss!" I too laughed, "Anyway. I must tell you that I have moved into Baskar's paying guest accomodation."

 

"Now, that is great. I could drop you or pick you up at times. It is on the way to my place."

Just then my mobile rang. I excused myself and returned to my office.

 

It was the taxi driver. He asked me if he could come over. As it was 4.30 pm, I asked him to come over within an hour and call me from our security cabin. While I was talking to the driver, my extension rang. I concluded my talk and picked up the extension absent-mindedly and said, "Sanjana here."

 

"Hi Sanju! Glory here! Today you are not announcing yourself formally... What happened?"

I had clean forgotten that I had promised to call Glory.

 

"Sorry Glory! I forgot to call you."

 

"You are confused Sanju! You are announcing yourself informally and calling me by name instead of saying dear. What is wrong? Has that boss of yours proposed to you finally."

 

"Hey shut up. He might walk and catch the drift of our conversation" I said as I thought about my earlier guess that Sanju was after Arun.

 

"Ok he hasn't. But why have you run away from the hostel."

 

I had to think fast and give her a convincing answer. "Hey tell you what... Come to my office. I will leave by 5.30. We can talk on the way. That way you will also see my new place."

 

"Alright.. It means extra travel for me but I am dying to hear your story". Glory said.

 

Over the next few days, I organised my life into a nice routine. I made light breakfast for myself in the morning, went to office in Panditji's taxi, did a lot of research and presentations for Arun and reallocated the work which Sanju used to do, to others. I had told Glory that I had moved to Baskar's room because it was on the way to Arun’s house. I told her about Arun wanting to drop me off and pick me up from there. I giggled as I told her that I saw possibilities now.