Roller Coaster on April Fool's day

Manish was on the lookout, he knew what happened last year on April 1, a couple of his colleagues pulled a pretty elaborate prank on him that won the cake and the award as the most gullible man at his workplace. From the moment he woke up today ‘April 1 2009’ he mumbled under his breath ‘History won’t repeat’, they wont get to me, they cant get to me, I am not going to be fooled by anything that happens today.

Manish hits the shower, gets out of bath and to the breakfast table he goes, his wife Mini had prepared a calorie conscious breakfast, as he munched it and had the orange juice, his wife muttered ‘Don’t forget, there is a whole list of items that you need to get, my parents are coming this weekend’, Manish half-acknowledged it with a dismissive nod of his head giving the impression that CNN was more interesting right now.

Sonal, his 8 year old daughter, suddenly recalled, ‘arey mei tho bool gayi daddy’… ‘Your manager called when you were in the shower, he asked you to come in 1 hour earlier today, as there is an important meeting’. Manish queried ‘He wants me in by 8’ Sonal ‘that’s what he said’ Manish ‘great.. why don’t you tell me this when its 8:15, I got 20 minutes to get to work now’.

Manish hit the pedal on his brand new Hyundai Santro and without much regard for the traffic lights he sped through, finally on reaching the work location, he realizes his manager is not in, feeling weird he settled into his cube and awaited his manager. About 15 minutes into the waiting ordeal his manager walks in, ‘Oh great, Manish… you are in already.. I wanted to call you …’ ‘You are welcome Boss, Sonal told me you called’.. ‘Oh I didn’t call your home, I actually forgot… anyways’. The manager went on ‘Well, I have some news for you, you are going to pad up some new roles, we are giving you a promotion for the great work you did last year’ Manish ‘thanks Boss, that’s great news, I will work hard and prove you right’. Boss ‘I am sure you will Manish, you will be getting a hefty bonus as well.. so have fun young man’.

Manish walked out of the boss’s office with a smile as wide as the Sahara, unable to bottle his enthusiasm, he felt compelled to talk to everyone who he encountered on his way to the cube, everyone but Kajal his teammate who he doesn’t converse with after a falling out in one of their prior team meetings. Finally, when enough people knew about his promotion it was ‘Party… pretty please… time’. A slew of his colleagues – who didn’t need much of an excuse to have a free slice of pizza, pasta and a masala chai at the nearest joint – were treated to some high calorie, high cost stuff. When the restaurateur rang up the bill, Manish heard a pop inside of him, he assumed a couple of his arteries just burst. Treating 35 folks to a mildly costly joint would do that to you. He slid his credit card, card didn’t go through – invalid card. Manish was stunned, he was sure there were enough funds and the card was valid, he had paid the bills online last night.. then, he remembered, the plastic he was holding in his hand had an expired date, he cursed himself…. ‘I should have cut this into two, the active card is at home.. it should have been Sonal who did this, she was playing with my wallet’. Feeling embarrassed, he pulled over his closest friend and explained the situation, his friend obliged and paid the bill.

Manish, was happy, but that didn’t mean his buddy was going to keep this all quiet, his buddy dispensed to the ‘munching colleagues’… ‘Don’t ever go out with him on a treat guys. He made me pay for it!!’. It was of course a friendly ribbing and jabbing, Manish felt compelled to explain his situation and apologized, the friends will have none of it and until their masala chais went through their digestive tracts, they were not interested in moving their butts off the chairs or the topic off discussion.

As the chit-chat was proceeding, the cell rang, it was the manager, ‘Manish, come here to my office immediately, we have a problem’. Manish and friends wrapped up their session at the restaurant and Manish headed straight to the boss’s office. Sweat pouring all over his body from the midday sun, he was a ragged appearance when he walked in to meet the manager, his face blue with embarrassment with the credit card incident and with the manager now assembling him in. His boss ‘Manish, we have a problem… I believe we have to put your promotion on hold’ Manish felt a huge thud, like the ceiling just dropped on his head, the day’s events were happening too fast.

Boss: We have a sexual harassment complaint against you and we can’t promote you with that pending.

Manish: Sexual Harassment Complaint against me?

Boss: Yes !! by your teammate Kajal.

Manish: Stunned by the gravity of the accusation and the implication to his work, reputation and career ‘That’s preposterous!! I have never misbehaved with anyone in this office’

Boss: ‘We take this seriously and until we find the truth you are on suspension, leave your id card here’.

Manish, realizing he has been framed by Kajal, left the office in stunned silence, he didn’t have the guts to look up and see what his just returned colleagues were doing, he took a look at Kajal as he passed her aisle, cursed her loud, he made a big racket and the whole office was eyeing Manish, feeling embarrassed he headed straight to the exit.

Back home, Manish got a hold of Sonal and slapped her twice ‘ Stop playing with my wallet, if you ever come near my stuff again I will starve your for 5 days and why did you lie to me today morning that my boss called‘. Sonal was crushed with tears swelling in her eyes, she was too afraid to look her daddy in the eye, she ran to her room. Mini, looked at her husband perplexed, in their 10 years of marriage she had never seen him lose his cool, leave alone slap their only daughter. Filled with anger Mini left the room without speaking a word to tend to their sobbing child. Manish felt awful, he had let the anger get the better part of him, he was not ready to tell Mini all the events of the day, so in a way he liked being alone. He wanted everything to be a prank, his daughter, his wallet, his boss, the complaint…. It was April 1 afterall… he felt awful, when suddenly a splash of water hit his face, ‘Wakeup, its 730 and your boss just called, he wants you in early for a meeting’… dazed and confused he realized it was all just a dream. He will take this dream over the April pranks and the pranks over the reality. He hugged and kissed the two women that mattered to him and got ready for a busy April Fool’s day.

The accent.. big deal

"Its a big deal... if they dont get what you say... you are really not saying anything... if you dont talk American accent.. you are not one among them..." one of my buddies chimed in as part of an avalanche of rigmarole that i was inundated with when i let a few people know that i was traveling to the land of dreams. I even imbibed a few of their insightful ideas, ideals and definitions of what it is that i need to survive in a land where i cant claim to be a citizen. We have all gone through this one, when traveling to a different country -- well, my fellow Indians will acknowledge it happens to them when they cross state borders in the Indian countryside -- we are inundated with a bunch of outdated concerns that ends up unsettling us.

One of the things that we are always in a race with is where does our accent stack up compared to the land that we are traveling to. People are psyched about accent and for good reason, they are worried what would happen if they mispronounce something... it might be something subtle, it might be something common but what are the repurcussions of the adressed not understanding us.

This becomes more of a frightful scenario if we are going to a different country for some extended periods of time to work, there we are forced into a situation where we are obligated to both understand the foreigners and make them understand what we are spouting. Each has its own variety and severity of difficulty in its execution. I think the biggest flaw that anyone can commit -- and this from experience -- is that we try to speak a non-native language like its one, we try to think its just our back of the hand and we can flip it on whenever we suppose and it will work just fine.

Unforntunately we often find out that its not the case, in most cases we are even humbled a bit by how our most basic pronounciations are incongruent and even grating to someone who has never listened to our vocals before. With a bit of humiliation and a stomach full of humble pie we try to ape them.. we in lieu of a'pe try aa'pp'e .. in lieu hel'loo' try whazz'upp'... like oil and water, like black and white somethings just arent meant to mix. We are what we are and whoever we maybe... an American cant speak like a Srilankan, an Indian cant speak like a French.. we all have our own styles and sometime styles align but they never are parallel....

I found that the perfect equilibrium after quite a few humble pies, i realized a) i cant talk like a man who was born there talks and b) it would be better if i talk slowly so people have a chance.

Most people never realise that they have an accent, its like snoring.. almost everyone does it but they cant know it, the accent is very similar. Its not a shame to have an accent, but if we do a few things right we can all be communicate better. Ultimately its the content not the style, but a little effort to be presentable is required and really its alright to have an accent. We would be robotic without it. Imagine for a moment what would a world sound like when everyone talks the same wavelength, my i can think of quite a few professions that will be thrown to the attic... be proud of what you are... and accent should be the least of your concerns.