Tony was looking very pissed by then.

We arrived at the restaurant to discover that both Yetch and Rajni had reserved tables beforehand—fighters both of them …

We sat down at a six-seater near a window. Yetch and Rajni sat on opposite sides and didn’t speak a word while fiddling with their cellphones. I left Tony with them and went to the restroom. They had pretty Chinese-looking waitresses there. Must go again sometime when I am wearing trendy casuals.

On the way back to the table I spotted a short waiter in a suit approaching and asked him if he could get me a glass of water with a lemon wedge in it. (Dad’s old digestion secret.)

He merely looked at me for a few seconds. So I reminded him again that I just wanted a glass of water with some lemon because it helped me digest heavy meals better. I told him, jokingly of course, that it was an office lunch, someone else paid and I didn’t need to know the price.

He still said nothing.

That’s when Tony walked up, pointed at the short man and introduced me to Santanam. Who was not a waiter at all. FUCK. I need to stop making these stupid mistakes.

I spent all lunch apologizing to him profusely. It was soooooo fucking embarrassing. Yetch and Rajni couldn’t stop laughing when they heard what had happened.

Food-wise lunch was most disappointing. Santanam ordered sandwiches for everyone and we were done eating in twenty minutes. No dessert either. Instead he wanted to immediately discuss Panchatantra.

He said the sec deck was fine but we could do so much more to ‘flesh it out.’ Santanam said that I had done okay for my first project deck but I would have to improve a lot before I was as good as the others on the team. Yetch immediately told Santanam that he would be more than happy to take me under his wing as a mentor and train me properly during Panchatantra. Santanam thought it was a great idea. He added that it was better than Tony mentoring me. Everyone laughed and I joined them, but I had no idea why.

I made a mental note to ask Tony about it later.

After that Santanam gave us an hour-and-a-half-long briefing on the client, the project and our deliverables.

Panchatantra was the brainchild of the famous industrialist and politician R.K. Mishra. Mishra has interests in sugar, cement, steel and ERP software—Mishratech. Now the multi-millionaire wanted to set up a huge university.

He had the money and he wanted Dufresne(!!!) to tell him how, where and when to spend it.

Santanam said that this was one of those rare ‘Blue Sky’ projects where we really got a chance to make a huge impression on the client. In terms of deliverables we had offered to present them with three documents:

1. A university road map that would have a timeline and order of activities from today till the first batch joined it

2. A business plan that would explain how much money would be needed at what stage

3. A university vision document that would explain how the institution would function and grow and become world famous over time