N says goodbye!
The last few days have been intense and exhausting. And all because N decided to leave the organisation, and leave me and A in the lurch. We hate her for it... we have made our feelings clear. But since we also love her, we are extremely happy that she has a senior profile and a better salary at her new place, and has moved up a rung on the career ladder. The newsroom, with all its politics and vindictiveness and petty-minded people, has a way of sucking out your soul. I'm not saying that N's new office will be glorious and heavenly...but at least she will be out of hell for a while.
So, we threw her a birthday-cum-farewell lunch yesterday. Early bird Barbeque Nation lunch. All of the people we most like and trust in office. Lovely. Me, A, A, K, V, P and R made up the guest list, apart from Nitya, the guest of honour. There were a few more, who fell out at the last moment due to unforeseen exigencies. For instance, K, whose mother came down with the dreaded chikungunya. So lunch was stuffing ourselves with food and drinks, especially Kapil and I who had our own food show-down to see who could eat the most while the others sat back and watched. I am proud to say I put up a brave fight, K finally found a person who could match up to his ginormous appetite in office, and we decided to call it a tie. Burp!
There were multiple rounds of prawns and seekh kebabs and fish and chicken tikkas and grilled pineapple and masala corn and baby potatoes and what-nots. Then there was basil chicken soup and chicken dum biryani for the main course, followed by dessert, the best part of the meal. Phirni and coconut rice cakes and brownies drenched in Hershey's and vanilla ice cream and bebinca and little cups of light, fluffy mango mousse. Of course, kulfi was to be had as well, and not just one, three! I am proud to say that even as my stomach exploded, I still managed to down three kulfis with all the works! A lot of cake was had, courtesy the wonderful staff at BBQ and then later in office again, when the Page 1 team got N a chocolate truffle cake from Wenger's. Marvellous!
We barely made it to office. It was a group of stuffed, groaning human bodies promising to never indulge in such epicurean fantasies. We were on a sugar high, our brains could barely process any morsel of information, our bodies even less so. Work was done, long meetings were wrapped up, bad day was had, people were yelled at, before we, as a collective (nation and page 1) worked to our best, put the paper to bed by 11.15 pm (as early as one could imagine!), and then rushed off for a drinks party in N's honour.
I'm proud and happy to say that I did not get inebriated, as was the case the night before. I stayed in my senses pretty much throughout, except for towards the end of the night after speech-time. I remember vividly -- N was standing beside me, she had her left arm around my shoulder, we were leaning against the banister, and all of glorious CP stretched out below us in a beautiful orange post-midnight haze. The Charles Correa-designed new and iconic LIC Building to our left, the tall Tricolour fluttering like crazy ahead of us (it was a windy night), Boney M playing on the speakers, and party-goers walking on the roads below us. N said how much she would miss me, and that I should join her in Film City. I choked and told her how much I would miss her, that she was a proper support system for me in the newsroom, and if A ended up leaving after her, I would be absolutely devastated. I swear we had tears in our eyes. Of course, this was much after N's exit interview, our style, was done, and she had answered a lot of odd questions, to say the least. We sat and nursed our drinks as a beautiful cool breeze blew, it was fabulous weather. N and R had whiskey, P had Old Monk, N a Cosmopolitan, while B, A, D and I our good old Hoegaarden with slices of lime. Older N gave us gyaan from having learned at the feet of older editors like Chandan Mitra, MJ Akbar, Aroon Poorie, etc., while we lamented how the newer breed of editors could not be idolised and had nothing to do with journalism.
Came home in a daze of drunkenness and lecturing A on giving a guy his space and then telling both A and N how much I miss them, Lovely day outside office, bad day at work, so pretty much everyday minus the socialising.
Song of the Day: Ditmas (Mumford and Sons)
So, we threw her a birthday-cum-farewell lunch yesterday. Early bird Barbeque Nation lunch. All of the people we most like and trust in office. Lovely. Me, A, A, K, V, P and R made up the guest list, apart from Nitya, the guest of honour. There were a few more, who fell out at the last moment due to unforeseen exigencies. For instance, K, whose mother came down with the dreaded chikungunya. So lunch was stuffing ourselves with food and drinks, especially Kapil and I who had our own food show-down to see who could eat the most while the others sat back and watched. I am proud to say I put up a brave fight, K finally found a person who could match up to his ginormous appetite in office, and we decided to call it a tie. Burp!
There were multiple rounds of prawns and seekh kebabs and fish and chicken tikkas and grilled pineapple and masala corn and baby potatoes and what-nots. Then there was basil chicken soup and chicken dum biryani for the main course, followed by dessert, the best part of the meal. Phirni and coconut rice cakes and brownies drenched in Hershey's and vanilla ice cream and bebinca and little cups of light, fluffy mango mousse. Of course, kulfi was to be had as well, and not just one, three! I am proud to say that even as my stomach exploded, I still managed to down three kulfis with all the works! A lot of cake was had, courtesy the wonderful staff at BBQ and then later in office again, when the Page 1 team got N a chocolate truffle cake from Wenger's. Marvellous!
We barely made it to office. It was a group of stuffed, groaning human bodies promising to never indulge in such epicurean fantasies. We were on a sugar high, our brains could barely process any morsel of information, our bodies even less so. Work was done, long meetings were wrapped up, bad day was had, people were yelled at, before we, as a collective (nation and page 1) worked to our best, put the paper to bed by 11.15 pm (as early as one could imagine!), and then rushed off for a drinks party in N's honour.
I'm proud and happy to say that I did not get inebriated, as was the case the night before. I stayed in my senses pretty much throughout, except for towards the end of the night after speech-time. I remember vividly -- N was standing beside me, she had her left arm around my shoulder, we were leaning against the banister, and all of glorious CP stretched out below us in a beautiful orange post-midnight haze. The Charles Correa-designed new and iconic LIC Building to our left, the tall Tricolour fluttering like crazy ahead of us (it was a windy night), Boney M playing on the speakers, and party-goers walking on the roads below us. N said how much she would miss me, and that I should join her in Film City. I choked and told her how much I would miss her, that she was a proper support system for me in the newsroom, and if A ended up leaving after her, I would be absolutely devastated. I swear we had tears in our eyes. Of course, this was much after N's exit interview, our style, was done, and she had answered a lot of odd questions, to say the least. We sat and nursed our drinks as a beautiful cool breeze blew, it was fabulous weather. N and R had whiskey, P had Old Monk, N a Cosmopolitan, while B, A, D and I our good old Hoegaarden with slices of lime. Older N gave us gyaan from having learned at the feet of older editors like Chandan Mitra, MJ Akbar, Aroon Poorie, etc., while we lamented how the newer breed of editors could not be idolised and had nothing to do with journalism.
Came home in a daze of drunkenness and lecturing A on giving a guy his space and then telling both A and N how much I miss them, Lovely day outside office, bad day at work, so pretty much everyday minus the socialising.
Song of the Day: Ditmas (Mumford and Sons)
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