Dork

In April 2006 Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese, a stupendously NAÏVE but academically gifted young MAN (he was ranked 41st in his class), graduates from one of India’s best business schools with a Day-Zero job at the Mumbai office of Dufresne Partners, a mediocre mid-market management consulting firm largely run by complete morons. Varghese finds that he fits into the culture remarkably well. Or does he?

Through a stunning series of blunders, mishaps and inadvertent errors, Robin begins to make his superiors rue the day they were driven by desperation into hiring him. To make matters worse, Robin realizes that his mad, passionate, steamy one-sided relationship with B-school batchmate Gouri Kalbag might be over before it even started. With things going spectacularly wrong, will he manage to achieve his short-term goal of being promoted to Associate in under a year, and beat the record set by Boris Nguyen at Dufresne’s Vietnam office? Will love conquer all? Will Gouri walk with him through Dadar Department store with her hand in the rear pocket of his jeans?

DORK: THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN ‘EINSTEIN’ VARGHESE is the hilarious story of Robin Varghese, super-dork and unlikely corporate hero, for all those who’ve ever sat depressed in cubicles… and wanted to kill themselves with office stationery. Especially that letter opener thing.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:

‘A stunning new voice in Indian literature! In Dork Vadukut has written the book l’ve always wanted to write’
-William Dalrymple’s
biggest fan’s youngest sister

‘I read this book and instantly knew that Robin Varghese in the role of a lifetime. Inshallah I will be a part of the movies when it’s made’
-Shah Rukh Khan’s
dentist’s accountant

‘I love this book. I love its voice. I love the author. He’s like a delicate crème brûlēe’
-Padma Laxmi’s
ex-husband’s hairdresser

A novel about office culture, romance, ball bearings and two YouTube videos that will change your life. (Not significantly.)
It will make you laugh like you’ve never laughed before! (Conditions apply.)

Join Robin as he navigates his first insane year at Dufresne Partners in this first volume of the Dork trilogy.

Cover illustration and design by Ka Designs

PENGUIN BOOKS
DORK

Sidin Vadukut is a journalist, columnist and blogger. He has an engineering degree from NIT Trichy and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. In a career spanning around a decade he has made automotive parts, developed online trading platforms, almost set up a retailing company and had a sizeable portion of a tree fall on his head. He is currently an editor with the business newspaper Mint.

Sidin lives in New Delhi with his wife, two PlayStations, four laptops and a desktop computer. He blogs at http://www.whatay.com.

DORK

The Incredible Adventures of
Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese

Sidin Vadukut

PENGUIN BOOKS

UK | Canada | Ireland | Australia
New Zealand | India | South Africa

Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

This collection published 2010

Copyright © Sidin Vadukut 2010

The moral right of the author has been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-143-06711-5

This digital edition published in 2016.

e-ISBN: 978-8-184-75016-4

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This book is dedicated to the Vadukuts and the Kapoors.
But most of all to K.
God only knows how you cope.

Contents

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Acknowledgments

1. DISCOVERY

Under the Sink

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Any resemblance between the characters in this book and people you, the reader, may know in real life are absolutely NOT purely coincidental. In fact such similarities are entirely plausible.

That is because somewhere out there is the real Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese. One day, perhaps soon perhaps later perhaps already, Varghese will pick up this book in a bookstore, or from a footpath vendor or will be gifted it by an adequately unclose friend from the office or housing complex. The room will immediately begin to spin around him. And then Varghese will wonder how in God’s name I got access to his diaries.

And my answer to him is this: Bloody fool!

Followed by: Never hide your uber-personal diaries, written in Microsoft Word and burnt on to compact discs, under the kitchen sink!

Now they are mine. My precious compact discs.

A few months ago, while I was still struggling to come up with an idea for a book to impress the people at Penguin India with, I moved into a new apartment in Delhi. While commencing on a thorough examination of the premises I found an old Domino’s Pizza box, quite beaten up, wedged under the kitchen sink inside the wooden cabinet. It had been tightly stuffed into the space behind the mouldy green drainpipe.

Common sense told me that the box was perhaps used to hold the pipe straight. But then a smaller voice in my head said there may be free pizza or some such involved. So I pulled it out and out fell seven compact discs (Moser Baer, non-rewritable). The discs were slightly scratched, but not unusable. There were no markings at all on any of the CDs to identify the data within.

My heart leapt for joy. Putting this discovery together with the fact that I knew some MBA type had lived in the flat before me, I instantly knew what was on those CDs.

Alas only three of the seven CDs had porn on them and all from the Numb Nuts Big Butts collection. (Which I already own on DVD, iPod Video and audio—only for flights.) This was a letdown. Then one CD had 300 MB worth of data on ball bearings, another had entire saved Wikipedia pages and the second last one had hundreds of pictures of dogs downloaded from the Internet.

And then I saw the last CD. Which helped me make sense of all the CDs before.

The last CD had three years of diary entries, typed in several MS Word documents. They were the funniest things I’d ever read in my life.

I immediately ran with the samples to the Penguin India office. They were apprehensive. My previous book proposals—a comedy novel, The Kungpao Tiger, which comprises letters and legal notices sent by the Chinese premier to a domestic help in India asking him to cease and desist from writing to him, and a horror thriller erotic novel set in a branch of Saravana Bhavan, Pongal ‘O’ Pon-Girl—had not gone down well. But they instantly knew we had a winner with the diaries on CD no. 7.

But while the feeling of becoming an author was awesome, I was also concerned for the privacy of the protagonist, not to mention potential legal hassles. Therefore at the advice of the wise people at Penguin, I have changed all the names of the characters in these diary entries. However most of the plot and biographical data has been left untouched. And none of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese’s unique approach to life has been tampered with at all.

Varghese, I hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed cutting and pasting the text and changing the font to Georgia. (Comic Sans? Really?) Also Varghese, remember that a good book is seldom about the royalties or the rights to the story, but about the story itself. The joy of storytelling is what is paramount.

Still if you do have any issues at all, all legal proceedings will be subject to the jurisdiction of Delhi Courts.

I welcome all other readers to enjoy this book. While many people have helped to make this book a reality, remember that the responsibility for any error, oversight or omission anywhere is entirely Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese’s.

20 November 2009

Sidin Vadukut

2. DUFRESNE

Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese’s
Diary

2 April 2006

4 p.m.

I HAVE DONE IT! I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD! THE UNIVERSE EVEN!

Bow to me, Diary! I am now officially a Business Process Analyst—Trainee.

Who knew, three months ago, when I got a C minus in advanced business strategy that I would join the elite international strategy consulting firm of Dufresne Partners one day? The world mocked me when I sent my résumés to consulting firms and investment banks. Rahul Gupta’s exact words were: ‘Einstein, you are a complete idiot!’

IN YOUR FACE, RAHUL GUPTA! PODA PATTI!

Bastard. Just because you topped the batch does NOT mean you can screw around with Einstein.

Phew. Wow. I need to hold my breath. This is a big moment—my first job. And that too a Day Zero job. Wow.

I called Dad on his cell three times but he cut the call each time. He’s started taking tantric yoga classes in the evenings. Perhaps I caught him during his ‘Sensory Deprivation Kriya’.

Okay, now let me describe everything that happened after I updated you last week and told you I’d been shortlisted for interviews by Goldman Sachs, McKinsey & Co., JP Morgan and Dufresne Partners. I know I haven’t written entries since then, but you know how it is with placements and the pressure to get a job on Day Zero.

Oh! My fingertips tingle with earnestness.

At the time, I may have told everyone that I was all set to join Goldman Sachs, the greatest bank in the world. I may also have suggested that Dufresne Partners was my ‘safety application’ and I had no intention of joining a ‘second-grade consulting firm of questionable pedigree’.

Diary, I was deeply mistaken. Little did I know that Dufresne Partners, despite the lower revenues, lower profile, and near global bankruptcy in 2001, stood shoulders and head above the others when you considered the job in a holistic fashion. Especially with that exciting and sensible ‘performance and global marketplace dependent variable bonus payout scheme’ that was introduced earlier this year.

My impression of firms was corrupted by the likes of Rahul Gupta. By the way, that pig made it into Goldman Sachs. His work—life balance is so screwed. Does he even know how many more hours bankers have to put in compared to consultants? In a way I feel sorry for him, my arch-nemesis. I look forward to hearing from him soon with a request to refer him for a vacancy at Dufresne. I will first promise to help him. Assure him that I hold no grudge.

And then I will ignore him and dash his hopes. Awesome.

Now, onward I go with my tales of triumphant employment.

My first interview for the day was with JP Morgan.

I had sat up all night watching CNBC in the common room, trying to keep myself up to date with the bleeding edge of news and information from the global financial markets. Unfortunately I fell asleep on the wooden bench in front of the TV and woke up only at nine after Shashank from the placement office rolled me off the bench on to the floor and kicked me in the underbelly.

Apparently JPM had started interviews at 8 a.m. as scheduled and if I didn’t get my first interview started in ten minutes they would skip me entirely for the second round. I tried to calm Shashank down by telling him that this was part of my optimal interview preparation programme whereby I reduce my metabolism to impossible lows just before peak performance. He walked away shaking his head in disbelief at my nerves of solid steel.

I had approximately eight minutes to be interview ready. Which meant I had to prioritize: Brush teeth? bathe? shave? loo?

I decided to go to the loo, brush and change into my suit. My hair had been crushed into the armrests of the stupid bench and pressed into a reverse Mohawk: nothing in the middle, nice stiff peaks on both sides. It was embarrassing.

BUT I HAD NO TIME FOR A BLOW DRY!

With one minute left in my deadline I ran to the classroom block with my tie flapping around my neck and the twin peaks of my hair rock-solid.

I was gasping for breath when I reached the student pool, but once I entered the room I acted nonchalant and relaxed. This was a little psychological warfare to weaken the morale of the competition. Most guys get nervous when they see people like me take it so cool.

The atmosphere in the pool was sombre. People were beginning to get eliminated. A cold shiver passed down my spine. Shashank stood in the centre of the pool screaming out instructions. And then he saw me, looked at my head and went completely silent.

He came up to me and said I had ten minutes to get my hair straightened out. Or they would debar me from campus placements under the ‘Potential cause of institutional ill-repute’ clause.

I ran to the water cooler outside in the hallway and stood in line behind Bardan, Suddu and a somewhat short, skinny girl in a suit. I figured she must be one of those first-year kids who were hanging around to help us seniors. I made a mental note to seek her out later and chat her up Einstein-style.

When it was my turn I took the cup, filled it with water and then tried to splash a little with my palm into my hair. I managed to get the back of my suit wet and ticklishly cold. So I walked over to the girl in the suit and asked her if she could tip the glass of water gently over my head so I could pat my hair down.

She was taken aback and looked a little lost in the way women do when they’ve been asked to do something and hope that someone else will do it for them. (Remember carpentry practicals in engineering college?) But I grabbed her hand, gave her the glass and bent over. She dutifully poured the water while I patted my hair down. It took a few minutes but I finally managed to get my mop into some sort of order.

I thanked her profusely but she walked away without a word. I think I felt a certain spark of chemistry …

Just then I heard Shashank call my name and I ran into the pool without delay.

He immediately sent one of his minions to take me to the JP Morgan interview room. There was no one outside the room except Pathak, the student coordinator, who wished me best of luck (not necessary) and then turned away quickly with a magazine over his face. Bad breath?

I walked into a particularly cold and harshly lit room. That and the water in my shirt made me shiver a little. But I took a couple of deep breaths and focussed all my energy in my kundalini point on the tip of my nose.