It
was around 11 in the morning. Arjun had just woken up. He had returned to the
institute early morning that day after his summer training at the end of the
first year. He had taken an overnight train back from Tridevpur. He had been to
Tridevpur for two days after his summer training to meet his old friends;
especially Rohini. By the time he woke up it was too late for the breakfast at
the mess. Therefore Arjun walked towards Auntie’s tea shop which was at the
boundary of the campus.
“Arjun”
Arjun
turned back when he heard the familiar voice of Udhi from behind.
He
stopped and waited for Udhi to join. Both of them continued their walk towards
Auntie’s teashop
“When
did you come” Arjun asked
“I
just landed up” Udhi replied
“I
reached early morning. It was an overnight journey. I crashed out till now. I
have not had my breakfast. Now the only thing left is Auntie’s tea and bun.
They
reached the tea shop
“Hello
Auntie, give us two teas” Arjun asked in an amiable voice. “We really missed
your tea for three months”
“Get
a packet of “Wills Flake King size” Udhi added his bit
“Oh
have you changed your brand?” Arjun asked
“Now
we that are second year MBA students at IMI, we will live life king size” Udhi
replied in his half joking half serious manner
Both
of them lit their cigarettes and sat on the stools outside the tea shop. Though
it was sunny, there was a nip in the air. Auntie served them their tea and bun
“Tell
me Arjun. How was your summer training at P&G” Udhi asked after taking a
deep drag of his cigarette
Arjun
paused for few seconds to swallow the bite of bun he had already taken.
“Quite
interesting and hectic. I ended up doing two projects. One in Marketing and one
in Systems”
“How
did you end up doing that” Udhi asked
“I
was doing my Marketing Project under Ravi Chaturvedi. One day I walked into the
room of Arun Mehra the marketing controller. The idea was only to get to know
him” Arjun replied
“And
may be to try to impress him.” Udhi commented
“OK
take it that way.” Arjun retorted
“Continue”
Udhi egged on
“Arun
asked if I could develop software program to help him do some market analysis.
It also meant I had to enter the data pertaining to the market trends for
couple of years and also develop the master that contains all the 110 products
from 40 odd brands. I told him that I would try”
“The
workaholic eager beaver” Udhi commented
“I
used to work on the marketing project till evening and work on the software six
in the evening till twelve at night.”
“How
is the computer facilities at P&G?” Udhi asked
“There have quite a few PCs that use floppy drives.
They also had two XT 286 machines.”
“Did
they allow you to use those” Udhi asked
“Oh
they did after the office hours” Arjun replied
“I
have not done any programming since I completed my FORTRAN course during the
final year engineering. I have not run much testing of any of these programs as
getting computer time at our college was a difficult task” Arjun said.
“What
were you using for programming?” Udhi asked
“Oh
I was developing the program in Dbase 3. I got a AshtenTate manual and
struggled with it. Our batch mate Jayakumar who was also doing summer at
P&G taught me database schema and the fundamentals of software design. I
developed a modular design which helped me to develop each category of analysis
as a separate module. I developed each of them independently, test them and
then integrate the whole under a master menu”
“That
is a very healthy design. I am impressed that you got the idea in your first
project. Normally the beginners end up developing complex intertwined software
that make debugging and enhancing absolutely painful” Udhi commented
“That
exactly was my guiding principle. I wanted it to be simple and modular to make
my life easy”
“Did
you end up impressing Arun” Udhi asked
“That
was the funniest part” Arjun replied
“What
was funny about making software?”
“I
slogged for two months. Got the data model ready, developed the software, and
entered past data. Arun used to drop in on and off to the room where we worked.
That is because it was the same room which Ravi also used. I would catch his
attention to show him the progress and
he would say Hmm”
“Almost
at the end when I had nearly finished all the core work, I spent some time
adding some bells and whistles to the software. Some blinking stars and some
collapsing squires with borders”
“That
is really the cheap stuff” Udhi commented
“One
day Arun as usual dropped into the room and I showed him the bells and
whistles. Then he spent some more time on what this software could do. He was
really impressed.”
“The
moral of the story is that it is packaging that counts. It doesn’t matter what
shit you are peddling so long as you know how to package it” Udhi summarised
“What
they don’t teach you at IMI. But what I developed was not shit OK” Arjun
quipped
“What
did you do after your late night programming” Udhi asked
“Oh
We used to go and sit at the beach for an hour or so. There were other guys
from various IMI’s doing their summer in the town who would also join.”
“There
was this funny guy called Gurvinder who was doing his summer with me. His
favourite past time when we sat at the beach was to rate the cheap whores who
frequented the beach” Arjun continued
“What?”
Udhi jumped up.
“Not
what you think” Arjun replied
“Then”
“These
whores used to hang out at the beach awaiting customers and they generally sat so
far from where we used to sit. Then the customers came over, picked up a bitch,
went behind a rock structure and returned after 10 mts or so. Gurvinder tagged
each of the regular bitches and maintained a table of how many customers each
of the regulars got and how long the session lasted. He then developed a ‘Bitch
Rating’ for each of them.”
“One
day Gurvinder walked over to these and asked them their rate. Then he walked
away saying that he can’t afford it” Arjun was laughing
“Then
using the ‘Bitch rating’ and the session rate he got from them, he estimated
their income per month” Arjun continued
“That
was a good summer project” Udhi commented
“Gurvinder
claimed that he was going to do more research on this and make a term paper. He
believes that this study can in some way help in developing some social
security schemes for these sex workers” Arjun said
“That
is quite an interesting take” Udhi replied
“What
else did you do to have some fun?” Udhi asked
“Wait
let me finish my tea and bun. I am famished. You won’t let me finish my breakfast”
Arjun snapped but not seriously
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