I woke up this morning around 8 a.m., a full hour behind schedule, and found myself lying on the floor of the living room with my lungi in considerable disarray, red wine all over the place! And then, just as I sat up and began to gather my bearings, Sachin walked out of his room and, as he went over to the kitchen, he asked me how I knew Gouri.

Suddenly it all fell into place. And it ripped my heart out.

That was how I knew the voice last night. It was my Gouri’s voice. From my roommate’s room. At three in the morning. And the Gypsy Kings!!!

I sat there, desperately trying to prevent all kinds of evil images from popping up in my head. And failed miserably. I saw Gouri and Sachin engaged in all kinds of evil, sexual acts. A short film of heart-breaking pornographic scenes flashed in front of my eyes.

And then a second realization hit me. She had probably woken up early and seen me sprawled on the living room floor, drool dripping out of my mouth, wine everywhere. And my lungi covering most of my left foot.

FAAAACK!

Sachin confirmed my dreaded suspicions nonchalantly. Gouri had seen me, chuckled at my situation and then left an hour or so before I woke up.

As you will understand, Diary, I reached office in a very, very foul mood. At one point I decided that my relationship with Gouri was going nowhere. It had reached a point from where it could never be salvaged. It was a very depressing thought but I had enough work in the office to distract me somewhat.

We received emails from Santanam in the morning itself saying that we would meet the team from Tantra at the Taj hotel in Bandra after lunch. He asked Tony, Yetch and Rajni to meet him for lunch with Jerry at Riceboat in Andheri. I was to stay back and prepare all the printed material and back-ups of the presentations for the meeting.

Santanam also asked me to book two cars for the day. One would pick them up after lunch and the other would pick me. We would meet directly at the Taj for the meeting.

I immediately asked Rosita, the new receptionist, to book the cars with our travel agents. Unfortunately, the entire Gouri-lungi incident had clouded my attention to detail and I made a slight error in my email to her. I got the locations mixed up and told her that Santanam and the others were to be picked up from office and I from Riceboat.

Of course in the normal course of events this should not have mattered. Ever since we got that excellent long note—‘Costs: You Control, We Celebrate’—from the global HR division, everyone books Tata Indigos by default to go everywhere. (Just my bad luck! The note came in recently. They used to order Optras and Astras for all trips till the new batch joined. Still if it saves the company money … which can only go to one place! Bonus pool!)