Jake goes to office

Jake Karlman slammed shut the door of his grey 1997 Toyota Corolla in the parking space marked 'employees' and began walking toward the bright Boston office building where he had been working for the last one and a half month. Born in 1978 as Jaikumar Kalyanaraman in Thiruvallur, a small town near the south Indian city of Madras, his father Sri Kalyanraman Raghuvendraswamy Aiyyer, a State Bank of India employee, had distributed sweets in the entire locality at his birth.

Jake was a short stodgy man with a brushy mustache and a decent little burgeoning pot belly that led the way wherever he went. Due in part to this belly and in part to his typical south Indian upbringing, Jake preferred wearing a 'lungi' to the tight official clothes he had to wear to office. Presently, he was clad in a brown shirt (purchased in a sale at the local Arrow shirts store in Vellore, where his parents now lived) and dark brown trousers that were just tight enough to leave his belly jiggling left and right when he walked. His appearance made him look at least ten years older than he really was.

Past the front desk, Jake waved a hello to Michelle, the Human Resouces head of the software firm. It was she who had devised the name 'Jake Karlman'. It was meant to be his Ameican name. Jake's work cubicle was located near the meeting point of two perpendicular corridors, one of which led to the main entrance and the other to the boss' office. He was usually one of the earliest to arrive and to stress this point to the Boss he liked to take a longer route to his cabin so he could just about flash his presence in front of the glass door to the Boss' office. Having done this, he finally reached his cubicle and took a deep breath. As he put down the polythene bag that contained his 'tiffin' (namely, curd rice with mango pickle) he smiled to himself. 'It was going to be a good day' he thought to himself and wobbled his head about his neck, indicating satisfaction.


(to be continued..)

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