Raju: I couldn’t call you to tell about the summons from my zonal office. There was no way anyway. You know how a call from our zonal manager sends us into jitters. Oh, the way he hauls us over the coals right in front of our subordinates! What a nasty fellow!

Rajiv: Don’t we all know that its man’s frustration at home giving vent to itself at the workplace.

Raju: Seems so from what is rumoured about his wife. More to the point, even as he let me go after a good dressing down, my wife took over on my way here. Why, this damned cell phone could be the brainchild of a nagging wife. But as the Hyderabadi road sense is no less scary, self-driving is not a sensible option either.

Rajiv: Isn’t the bumper-to-bumper on the road as unending as the red tape in your bank. Won’t my year-old application for term loan prove that?

Raju: You know I’m only a clog in an inertial wheel.

[Enter: Rangaiah with elachi chaifor them.]

Rajiv: Why not get a little momentum now.

[They both begin to sip the beverage.]

Raju: Wah Taj!

Rangaiah: Saab, its Ramyabeti’srecipe as you know.

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Raju [to Rajiv]: So, Ramya is a good teacher as well.

Rajiv: Besides being a strict wife that is.

Raju: Without wife for a jockey, a man can’t run life’s course. That’s for sure. Is she not at home now?

Rajiv: She went out with Divya for some shopping. What a compelling attraction shopping has for women, more so, window shopping.

Raju: Why a window-shopping wife is any day better than a nagging one.

[Rangaiah collects the tea cups and goes backstage.]

Rajiv: But why all this dodging. You know I’m dying to ground my project. You promised to get back to me by this evening, didn’t you?

Raju: To make the long story short, your pipes project might remain your pipedream forever.

Rajiv: But why?

Raju: They feel it’s like facilitating the delivery of a white elephant for my nursing.

Rajiv: Someone must be mad over there.

Raju: Well, to borrow from cricketer Mohinder Amarnath, they are a bunch of jokers anyway. Leave alone the mega term-loan for your proposed venture; they are dodgy about measly working capital to a profit-making unit!

Rajiv: How would that help me anyway?

Raju: Eureka! Why not I borrow from the prodding of the courts for out-of-court settlements?

Rajiv: Enough of borrowing my friend as the topic is about lending.




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