Love, Death and Vodka | A FEATURED STORY

Chapter 24

Tanvi went back to office cheerfully the next day. 

She was rejuvenated with her spa sessions. Deep down she knew Abhi was also a reason for it. She nearly forgot about him all these months. He was somewhere on her peripheral thoughts, that was all, but felt light after meeting him.

She knew he kept track of her whereabouts last night. She did not forget his words before he left her. It was as if some sort of heaviness was lifted from her. She felt like the old days and something was different too. 

Arjun was bubbly and cheerful but Abhi was serious and observant. For the first time since Arjun's death, she thought she could hope. She wanted to revive her friendship with him. She was nervous about it and decided to message instead of a call. 

Hi Abhi. Good Morning. I had a gr8 time last evening. It was nice catching up with you again. I do hope we revive our friendship. Have a gr8 day and tc... 

In a split of a second, she got a reply. 

Hi Tons. I hope you got up from the right side of the bed ;-P. I doubt if anyone will stop me from reviving our friendship (as you put it), even you! You too have a great day ahead, tc. 

She grinned like a lunatic as she went to her workstation. She found her lead, Vikram waiting for her and immediately sobered. 

"Good Morning Tanvi. I need to talk to you about something. Shall we head to the meeting room?"

"Sure Vikram." 

Tanvi was puzzled but kept her thoughts to herself. Vikram led her to a meeting room and closed the door behind her. He gestured her to sit down and he took a seat opposite her. 

"I see you are very jubilant today. That was by the way a friendly observation." 

He paused and became serious,"I want to know exactly what happened on our outing, with Ranvijay. The issue is blown out of proportion now." 

Tanvi tried to interrupt but he stalled her by rising a hand, "Let me finish Tanvi. I have observed your interactions with the team as well.You are a very competent resource. No doubt about that and I personally trust you there. Even if I'm away, I'm sure you'll be able to handle the project very competently and get things done after Ramana. But your team dynamics are not good. Because of that, when this issue came to light except for a couple of team members, no one was on your side. They all felt you provoked him to act that way. I want to hear your side of the story Tanvi." 

She knew this sentiment existed in the team. She was not a good team player because of her personal problems. But she wouldn't confess that now. She chose to control her emotions and spoke nonchalantly. 

"Vikram I know the team sentiment. I like to give 1000% to my work and I hate idle talk. I like to stay focused and get things done. If people misunderstand that then I can't help it. And about what happened on Tuesday, I consumed alcohol but moderately. I went to the washroom and there Ranvijay was lurking in the corner. I was wary of his presence but did not take it seriously. It was a public place. He assaulted me as soon as I was out of the washroom. He kissed me forcefully and I had to defend myself. I threw a punch and kicked him then ran away from that place. I bumped into Sanjay. I did not want to complicate the issue and bring all the focus on me. As it is you know how it is here." 

Vikram nodded his understanding and she continued, "That's precisely the reason why I never brought it up. Ranvijay was clever and he used that to his advantage and turned the tables. I have nothing more to add here." 

She said all this with so much conviction and honest look that Vikram had his doubts about the eye witnesses. 

"Tanvi, there were eyewitnesses from the team who claim that you made the first move on him and he reacted. Of course, nobody denies that he was loitering near the ladies washroom. What do you have to say about that?" 

"Vikram I'm not going to ask who the eyewitnesses were. There are lots of people who don't like me in this project, that could be the reason for their claim. Please tell me what's going to happen now." 

"You know this is a mess. I can give you benefit of doubt. I'll convey the same to the HR. It's in the HRs hands now. They'll conduct interviews and investigate then decide. I think they'll approach you and we'll see. For now, I was asked to move either of you to a different project. I think I'm going to move him to a different team. That should work for now. My personal advice to you Tanvi, please try to get a cordial working relationship with the team. Off you go now." 

"Thanks Vikram." 

She knew it was a close call and she escaped purely because of her work. There was nothing else to recommend her in this project. Vikram knew how valuable she was for the team and that was the only saving grace. 

She also had her guesses about the people who would talk for her and that would be Sanjay and his close friends. She should thank him the first thing now. She would probably engage him in her team building activities to improve her image. 

With these thoughts, she moved to her workstation. Everyone fell silent as soon as she reached her place. She sat down as if nothing had happened.

Soon Sanjay approached her,"So what happened? Everybody is in tenterhooks." 

"Tenterhooks? Seriously?Don't you think you are exaggerating?" 

Sanjay rolled his eyes, "You are changing the subject now. What did Vikram say?" 

"Nothing. He said the case is with HRs and they'll investigate and decide. For now, Ranvijay will go to a different project. I'll still be here." 

"Of course, you should be here. I don't want to comment about his behaviour. He did deserve it."

Tanvi was astonished to find him supporting her and she whispered,"Why? I'm as guilty as him, right?" 

Sanjay was exasperated with her,"You are not rotten like him from the inside. That's why. Now let's stop thinking about that asshole." 

She was touched by his words. She looked at him meaningfully,"This means a lot to me. Thanks." 

Sanjay cleared his throat, "I like you Tanvi, despite your dangerous drinking habit. Ok, now let's talk about project. You know those daily loads haven't started yet. I pinged the DataX-roads, that 3rd party network team. Looks like they haven't received those files from the Claims data warehouse. Once they get it, it'll be a matter of minutes for our accounts warehouse to get updated. What needs to be done immediately?" 

"What is the time now? So it'll be around 11.30pm EST. We have about two and half hrs for the SLA to breach. We'll wait till then. If the SLA is breached, then we should stop all the scheduled jobs and run those manually. I'll check the job list and let you know. I need to check the Abinitio graphs as well..." 

And thus the discussion went on about SLAs, timings, AbInitio graphs. It was a long day. The files did come and SLA was not breached. So the data loads were completed as scheduled. It was business as usual.

The whole of the evening was lined up with meetings. Her clients worked very early like 8AM EST so they always had overlap of their work timings and that helped. 

Tanvi usually worked till 7.30 pm IST and called it a night. Some of her male and female colleagues left promptly by 6 pm IST. There were days when Tanvi stayed back and worked till 11 pm too and had to come back by 9 am the next morning. 

It was all part and parcel of such a huge US based Insurance client. To some extent, she did not like it. She wanted to work on products side but landed in a services project. Whatever misgivings she had about the project, she kept it aside and worked diligently.  

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