Disastrous

For now we have the 30-year old Anita Shroff, jet setting across the world, tipped off to be the youngest vice president in 200 year old Marwari financial institution. Everything seems to be going good...or is it?

 

 

 

"Another disastrous date,"!! thought Anita, as she inserted the keys into her sixth floor apartment at Versova. ”Why do I land with morons like this?” she winced even as she groped in the hallway to turn on the light. As the room suddenly came into focus,her features relaxed. There the 800 sq ft hall looked every bit a paradise designed by Ms Shroff herself. Like it or not, somehow her French great grandma's sensibilities found their way into the Gujarati Shroff gene pool.  And Anita had made good use of it.

 

The room had long French windows that overlooked the here now, gone again -Mithi. The room had an elegant L-shaped sofa, all of 18-metres in mahogany kind of finish. The coffee table was supposed to Thai, and what Anita liked about it was that she had enough space below to fit an aquarium that was now crowded with Guppis and Clown fish. For a while, Anita sat near the table watching the brightly coloured orange clown fish playing with each other. She sat back and stared at her neatly arranged library, her 42 inch Plasma television and mahogany wooden cabinet that now held several priced collections of cutlery and glasses cleverly hiding a bottle of wine

 

“Is something wrong with me?," thought Anita as she surveyed herself in the full length mirror that was placed to her left. Anita liked lot of mirrors and more than that looking at herself but she couldnt tell this to the world, so as a part of design, she had the workers installed the almost 6 feet high mirror which showed off her 5 feet 6 inches pefectly. “I am 30, with a Body Mass Index (BMI) a healthy 23, a vital stats that read 34-28-34 and weigh 60 kgs,” she thought. Numbers, they always fascinated her, as far as she could remember. There was the Math Olympiad in school and several others in college later, Anita graduated with top marks from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Now having joined the renowned Choraria’s, the 200 year old stock broking house where female were just receptionists, Anita was poised to be the first woman and the youngest vice president- equity research in that hallowed firm. "So, where do I go wrong?," she asked herself again.

 

 

 Her thoughts went back to later in the evening, where she finally agreed to meet Vikas Mehra, the chief operating officer of a popular TV channel. With his channel churning out maximum women serials, Anita hoped that Vikas knew what women really want. " Yes, they want more Saas, and bahus, what can we do?" he asked quite smugly. " Has it occured to you, that a majority of women like me  would like to see some Indianised version of Friends or at least Sex and the City?," I asked remembering all those dollars spent in buying all seasons of these two comedies. " Ho! Ho! Ms SHroff," thundered Vikas, "tell me really, when was the last time you saw  Hindi general entertainment channel?" " These saas bahu women watch our channels,and drive our TV ratings, I dont think I willl ever replace them with your choices, in fact I suggest you watch them yourself to atleast know what an Indian woman should be like." he laughed like his own private joke. " Thats it,no more Vikas and his saas-bahus," Anita decided firmly.

" Do I intimidate men?" Anita asked herself and again made a mental count of all yhe boys/men that she went on a date with and which usually never lasted beyond the second. In most cases, they said, they felt she was too arrogant and they werent really sure she was interested in actually having a relationship. And thats how most of them ended.

  

 

Intimidate.That would be worth 14 points on Scrabble. Another favourite hobby of Ms Shroff. She had recently taken to playing Scrabuolous on facebook and was already one of the top 5 scorers in the multiplayer format.Intimidate, complex, superior were just some of the words that Anita's mind conjured before she resigned herself for a dreamless sleep one more night.