Free Sorting Out Sid by Yashodra Lal

the minor point that Sid has mentioned, I think this is indeed brilliant!’ The agency faces lit up with happy, relieved smiles as he continued, ‘It is attention grabbing! It has glamour! It has a story! Brilliant! Let’s create the storyboard and put it into research quickly!’
    He got up to shake Murali’s hand. The meeting was concluded amidst happy laughter and jubilation all around. Sid sat glued to his chair, numb with shock. His team looked confused and disappointed, with one notable exception – young, enthusiastic Ravi who continued to take what appeared to be copious notes, pausing every now and then to shoot gleeful looks around the room.
    The agency left shortly thereafter. Sid presumed they planned to take the rest of the day off getting drunk. He bade them farewell, his fake work-smile pasted on his face. The room emptied and Sid was the last to leave. He sighed as he went back to his desk with heavy steps, and a thought entered his mind – would it be premature to resign before finding alternative employment?
    He quashed the thought almost immediately. This was only a minor setback. In the overall scheme of things, his career was progressing well here. And besides, the script would never go through to become a film. It could never hope to clear anyconsumer research. Thankfully, there were enough checks in the company’s systems to avoid such mistakes. Of course, he thought a tad bitterly that the system had clearly and utterly failed when Akash managed to sidle in – secret sports quota or no secret sports quota.
    Back at his desk, Sid found himself staring at his laptop blankly. It was already well past noon and he was yet to even begin putting together some sort of a priority list of tasks for the day. This had hardly ever happened to him before. He sighed – the unpleasant situation at home was probably weighing him down.
    His cell phone rang – it was from his home landline number. Ah yes, Mandira was working from home today. He had just been thinking about her. What timing! Maybe this was a sign that it was time to finally make up, maybe they would be able to sort things out and then everything would get back to normal. He picked up and said in a warm, friendly tone, ‘Hellooo…’ Maybe his day was finally about to turn around.
    ‘You fucking asshole!’ Mandira’s screech reverberated in his ears so loudly that he instinctively ducked, and then looked around to see if anyone else had heard.
    Then again, maybe his day wouldn’t be turning around just yet.

8
    Sid and Brownie

    S id lay sprawled on his favourite beanbag, legs spread out wide, clutching a bottle of Kingfisher. The beer was ice cold – he could feel it through his shirt against his belly. He had four more bottles on the floor, within arm’s reach of him. He did not intend to get up from his beanbag, not even for a smoke. He knew the beer would warm up as the evening progressed and so he had set the air conditioner at 17 degrees. Of course, at 17 degrees he would want to pee more than usual. But he had emptied his bladder just before settling down and that would help take care of the urge for a while. Sometimes you just had to prepare yourself and hope for the best.
    He took another sip of beer, savouring it as it ran down his throat, sloshing about a bit before settling down in his empty stomach. No dinner tonight. Dinner arguments had been the worst of late. But tonight Mandira was out for an office party and he was home alone with no need for the formality of dinner. Home alone! Just the way he liked it. He lovingly patted his beanbag, which he fondly called Brownie when no one else was around.
    Mandira never seemed to understand why Sid valued his time alone so much. Being alone meant no pressure to perform or pretend, no need to be funny and entertain the crowd. He had never been able to explain it to her properly. He knew his natural tendency to perform was the reason she noticed him in college, choosing to go out with