May I have your attention please? This is Webchutney Mumbai News Bulletin, reporting on the happenings in these parts of our hallowed organization, not necessarily live, but exclusive nevertheless.
Ever since King Iqbal left his dominion to pursue higher things at Delhi, many people here have had a reason to rejoice. First and foremost, the highly restrictive no smoking edict was revoked by means of a spirited uprising. Smokers at the Chutneyplex, tired with being ill-treated all this while, ferociously staked their claim to a room which, since then, has been designated as the official smoking zone. This meant an end to furtively smoking cigarettes on the stairs or huddling in the Kitchen like pre-independence Harijans (those are the words of the CEO himself). Cigarettes can now be smoked in a relaxed manner in the aforementioned area, in between intermittent bouts of what masquerades as “work” at the Chutneyplex.
Creation of the smoking zone, of course, involved the movement of the non-smoking populace of the room in question to another one exclusively meant for their kind. Since all of the smokers here are male and most of the non-smokers otherwise, the great smoker vs non-smoker divide has become a synonym for the eternal one: Mars vs Venus. It didn’t take much time for two rival camps on the basis of gender to emerge, and since then they have been constantly in a state of a cold war of sorts. Of course, there is a third camp as well: people who are largely indifferent about this whole business, but they don’t really count (If you don’t feel strongly about anything, nobody is going to take you seriously anyway).
Tempers flared up this Tuesday, when the cold war ceased to be cold, and blossomed into a full blown conflict. The sequence of events goes something like this: Members of the mild mannered male faction were minding their own business, and doing what they usually do at 11:00 am - smoke cigarettes - when a messenger from the neutral zone entered and drew their attention to the salvo which had been fired from the female camp. The offending object was a highly provocative message which had been furtively stuck onto the door of their fortress, attempting to imply, quite needlessly and much to the male faction’s chagrin, that there was something distinctly porcine about them.
The members of the male faction then decided to get their act together after finishing their cigarettes and launch a blitzkrieg campaign. A twelve point execution plan was formulated after referring to the requisite Sun Tzu manuals, and the responsibility its execution was delegated to three sub-teams:
Red Team : Creative
Blue Team : Espionage
Black Team : Logistics (Includes refreshments, cigarettes, etc)
The Red Team, with its trusty GoogleTM Image Search and witty copy made the war hammer which would strike deep into the heart of the enemy. Likewise, the Blue team’s job was to distract the enemy and engage them at a different location, reminiscent of allied invasion of Normandy. Most importantly, the Black Team was basically running back and forth with supplies like paper, scissors, adhesive tape and cigarettes.
Twenty minutes of intense effort by the male faction led to the eventual achievement of the objective, and what they hoped was the annihilation of the enemy spirit. In retaliation to being compared with pigs, they had succeeded in posting a message at the enemy’s doorstep which suggested an absence of intelligence on the female faction’s part.
The latter of course, did not take this lying down, and an open confrontation broke out subsequently. Reliable witnesses aver that there was lot of shouting and hullabaloo, the collective productivity of the Chutneyplex being seriously hampered for a while. Eventually, a truce was brokered. Both sides were allowed to savagely destroy the messages posted onto the entry-points of their respective fortresses, and peace was restored.
The atmosphere is still tense at the Chutneyplex, and the current state of things can’t be exactly described as normal. Both sides are in a state of readiness, each constantly having an eye out for what the other might be up to.
The cauldron still simmers: for now, a wait and watch policy has been adopted. Fear not, dear reader, for the Webchutney Mumbai News Bulletein shall keep you updated on latest, as it happens.
– With inputs from Mustafa Syed, Saket Vaidya for the Webchutney News Bulletein
