Cover

SIDIN VADUKUT

God Save the Dork

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

GOD SAVE THE DORK

Sidin Vadukut’s bestselling debut novel Dork: The Incredible Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese was published in January 2010.

Born in a small town near Irinjalakuda in Kerala, Sidin spent most of his growing years in Abu Dhabi eating falafals. Once even with sambar. He is an engineer from NIT Trichy and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. Over the last decade he has made auto parts, developed online trading platforms, worked as a consultant and once had a sizeable portion of a tree fall on him. Sidin is currently a columnist and editor with the business newspaper Mint, a cricket columnist for www.cricinfo.com, occasional contributor to the New York Times and a full-time freelance Twitterer.

He lives in London with his remarkably patient wife, a plethora of Apple products and a growing collection of Buddha statues. He blogs at http://www.whatay.com and tweets with the handle @sidin.

Dedication

This book is, once again,
dedicated to the Vadukuts and the Kapoors.

But most of all to K.
Who is still coping.
What is wrong with you woman??!

BOOK ONE

PER DIEM

11 March 2007

8 p.m.

Bloody nonsense.

I just wasted an entire day of my life. Completely. I will never get this day back. If one night I die suddenly and painlessly in my sleep, just the night before I can finish some important thing like accept an award for a book, a film script or excellence in management consulting, then I will blame this day for not giving me enough time.

24 hours of my life … gone …

For weeks Gouri has been asking me to use my weekends here in London to see some museums, art galleries or other famous local places.

It is not that I don’t like art, Diary. I love art and history and philosophy and all. But there should be something interesting about it, no? Otherwise it is so boring. It will become like that stupid book Atlas Shrugged. Oh my god. Since engineering college I have been trying to finish it. But it just goes and on and on and on and on and then somehow I finish 150 pages. And then there is some exam or something.

Two months later I have to start from the beginning again because I have forgotten everything. It has been like this with Atlas Shrugged since bloody 1998.

But Gouri loves the author and knows the whole book by heart. We will be sitting at Lilavathi Barista on Saturday making weekend entertainment plans … when suddenly she will say some dialogue from Atlas Shrugged.

When I say some super Mohanlal line from His Highness Abdullah or Kilukkam she will ignore. But if she says some stupid nonsense like ‘But in fact there is NO spoon and fork Robin’ I am supposed to appreciate and participate.

So now I carry a small printout of the Atlas Shrugged Wikipedia entry in my pocket. Whenever she has that ‘literature look’ on her face I go to the toilet and do reference.

Anyway. At least here in London nobody asks me about stupid bloody Atlas fucking Shrugged.

So this morning I made my weekly call and immediately, without even waiting for me to speak, she insisted that I go to London Eye or the British Museum.

London Eye has unbelievably expensive tickets Diary. 30 pounds or something. Deivame. For the price of one ticket I can have two dozen beers at Bogdan’s, an authentic Bulgarian pub near my apartment.

The British Museum is free, but I have to take a bus or an underground train and go. Why waste ticket money to see dead bodies of Egyptians? In any case I have made plans to go to the British Museum whenever I have to go to the Russell Square Lederman branch. Then I can put the taxi charge in expenses.

So I decided to solve the problem using what I know best: the considerable database analysis skills that I have developed over the last few years of MBA and management consulting.

I went on the Internet and downloaded a list of all the museums in London. After sanitizing the data—Diary this means ‘clean and remove spelling mistakes’ in consulting—I inputted the list into a spreadsheet and then used a sorting algorithm on the Post Code to arrange them in increasing order of distance from my apartment’s location. Then I used colour coding to highlight the museums that were fully or partially free. After this I was able to generate a list of the nearest free museums, divided by category, opening times and online user ratings. This took three and a half hours of hard but very satisfying work in Visual Basic.

Unfortunately, I suddenly realized that it was by now 10.15 a.m. The buffet breakfast downstairs closes at 10.30 a.m. By the time I ran into the breakfast room the scrambled eggs were already over (these serviced apartments have no concept of supply–demand matching, kanban, kaizen or any other Japanese logistics methodologies) and only 6 or 7 sausages were left. This was a disapointment. As usual there was no shortage of porridge.

I was fed up of the breakfast fiasco when I went back to the room and lost all enthusiasm for the spreadsheet. Diary, once you lose your mood for Visual Basic, it takes a long time to get it back. So I just looked at the list and mentally calculated the three nearest museums: Durmondson’s Memorial, the Wellingtonian Museum and the Royal Museum of Environmental Engineering and Science. Of course I did some background checks on the Internet. All the museums had good websites with excellent photographs.

My plan was to first go to Durmondson’s Memorial where I would spend between twenty and thirty minutes. After this I would quickly proceed to the Wellingtonian in time to catch a guided tour (free, donations welcome, as if) at 11.00 a.m. The website said that there was a limit of 15 people per tour group. After this I would leisurely spend the rest of the evening at the Royal Museum enjoying environmental engineering and science.

As I left the apartment on my walking trip, Diary, I was feeling excited and motivated. Even though I was going because of Gouri’s emotional blackmail, I was fully expecting to enjoy myself. Also, as you may be aware, one of my personal mottoes is: To never focus only on professional and personal interests but also to develop a well-rounded personality through exposure to history, culture and art forms such as film, song, sculpture and dance but not theatre, which is a useless art form for arrogant people who get upset just because you forgot your lines during the Christmas play and said ‘I come to honour the instant Jesus, the son of the surgeon Mary’ by mistake.

After walking for one hour I reached a big stone rectangular block on a small piece of grass by the Thames, near Tower Bridge. There was a security guard there. (Very rude fellow. Perhaps illegal immigrant.) I asked him the way to Durmondson’s Memorial. He pointed at the block and told me that this was Durmondson’s Memorial. I was confused. I told him that the website showed a painting of a great battle. Durmondson sat on a huge brown horse and around him there were big cannons and several dead and live soldiers. Where are all those things?

He told me very rudely that all those things were probably in Afghanistan where Durmondson fought during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Here at the memorial there was only this tomb. Durmondson’s body was inside this stupid stone block. He said there was a small copper plate outside with his brief life history.

BLOODY FOOL DURMONDSON. THIS IS CALLED A MEMORIAL? PANDAARAM ADANGAAN! THEY SHOULD CALL IT DURMONDSON’S STUPID STONE BOX. No wonder the Afghans killed him. Anyway, since I had wasted time walking all the way here I went to read the copper plate. Half of it was covered by some dirty fungus. I was going to clean it when the security fellow stopped me. Apparently visitors were not allowed to touch the stone block.

Diary, you can imagine how upset I was. As a sign of protest, just before leaving, I opened the visitors’ feedback book for the memorial and drew sex organs on it.

Already I was very very late for the Wellingtonian Museum guided tour. Five minutes before 11.00 I reached, covered in sweat, and gasping for air. I had to run through a park and then across a railway bridge.

When I reached, there was me and one other person. It was an old woman who looked like every other old woman in London. (Short hair, long skirt, smell of pillowcases. Like Kanjany ammamma but with modern fashion.)

I asked her if she was also there for the tour. She told me she was the guide and that she was waiting for more people. And then we just stood there smiling at each other. By 11.15 there was still nobody else. So Karen decided to start the tour anyway and not wait for the others to come.

AYYO DIARY!!! AYYO!!!!

When you hear the name you think that the Wellingtonian Museum is some five-star hotel type place with Roman statues and Mughal swords and World War gas chambers. The website, of course, looked very high class and gave some long history of the Wellington family of explorers and travellers.

Mother fuckers all of them. The whole family should have been sent to Afghanistan with Durmondson.

The entire museum is dedicated to the toys, dolls and other household stuff that were used by the family. Kitchen items, curtains, pillows, furniture, spoons, forks and other useless things. If I had come on my own I would have immediately left in five minutes after looking at the ladies clothing section.

But I was on the stupid tour. Unfortunately my guide was very very enthusiastic. We entered one room with 30 or 40 shirts and coats hanging on stands. And she explained the history of each one. Each and every FUCKING bloody stupid shirt. This was worn by Alexander Wellington in France. That was worn in Paris during the French Revolution. That is a bullet hole from the First World War. That is a bullet hole from the Second World War.

Bullet is ok. But bullet hole? Nonsense.

If there were other people on the tour I would have definitely escaped. But nobody was there in the entire museum besides both of us. Not one other person. Not even security.

After two hours she told me we were finished with the ground floor and could now start on the main collection—Domestic, Family Goods, Furnishings and Art—on the first floor. She asked me if I wanted to go to the bathroom first for a brief break. I said ok, went in the general direction of the bathroom, and then ran back through the shirt room and escaped through the gift shop entrance out of the museum and into the main road.

Now I had enough stupid culture for the next two or three months. Also I know many many things about shirts, socks, spoons and children’s clothing. So I cancelled plans for the Royal Museum and came back home.

What a waste of time. Like Atlas Shrugged only.

So I sat and saw some TV and then did some Dufresne work.

So far the London trip has been a little boring.

But at least I am saving a lot of money. For Gouri and me. Mostly me.

17 March 2007

8.20 p.m.

I give up. Goddammit. Enough. Finished. Surrender.

I don’t know how to talk to that Gouri woman any more.

On the one hand here I am in London working my ass off so that I can save my daily allowance and take some sterling pounds home. So that when that stupid woman says ‘I want to have brunch in Bandra’ or ‘I want to go to Salt Water Grill’ I don’t have to ACT as if I have the cash and it is not at all a problem.

And it’s not like she orders the regular coffee. No no. She is hi-fi no!

She wants hazelnut cappuccino with decaffeination. WHAT IS THE POINT THEN BLOODY WOMAN??? THAT IS LIKE ASKING FOR TIGER BALM WITHOUT THE TI …

YOU GET MY POINT NO?

And then what makes it worse is the fact I have to pay for everything always. ALWAYS. What the heck??!!!

When she wants to wear that short spaghetti strap top, designed by the Devil to create widespread sexual assault, then ‘Robin you have to be modern’. But when I tell her that she should pay sometimes because she also gets salary (even if it is less than mine by 27% even without my bonus) then ‘you are just not gallant. I will explain at home later, don’t create scene’.

It took me three months before Boris agreed to let me come to London on secondment with Lederman Bank. I had to beg and plead and put extra animations and 3D lettering in so many of his presentations before Boris finally approved my request.

Boris, as you know, is from Vietnam. No wonder the Americans couldn’t defeat them in World War 2. So stubborn.

And also insecure, no doubt. He is 11 years older than me. And that gap is only going to get wider day by day.

But I understand his apprehension about the London transfer to some extent. Secondments are very very rare at Dufresne. And after that Arindam scandal with that Sri Lankan bank I think I am the first they have approved in the last three years.

Till Arindam spoilt everything for everybody, secondments were an awesome way to save some money. If a consultant did well then the client would ask Dufresne to let the consultant join them full-time for a period of a few months or up to a year.

The most awesome thing about this is that during the secondment period you get paid both in India AND ABROAD! Secondment salary abroad is not very big (smaller than banks, more than Infosys) but it is a good little added bonus. And it is very very easy to confuse Mohan Kumar in Dufresne Mumbai accounts section. Send him an email with long words in English and two or three spreadsheets, and he will completely forget to calculate income tax on both incomes.

It is exactly like Boris sometimes says about projects which are too easy to execute: ‘It is like going to the client’s office, taking money from his petty cash box and going home. The more time you spend in the client’s office, the more time you get alone with the petty cash box.’

(He is being humorous Diary! Of course we do this only after delivering high-value strategic business advice. Except in the case of Vinci Electronics. But that was a complete misunderstanding. I thought the petty cash box was the ‘Quality Management Revolution 2007 Feedback Repository’ and took it home for analysis. Then in the whole rush of making final presentations, client dinners and closure meetings I forgot to give it back. After two or three months it would look suspicious if I suddenly one day turned up with the missing petty cash box. So I kept it.)

And then Arindam Ganguly destroyed the secondment opportunity for all of us. Traitorous bastard.

Arindam was an associate in the Mumbai office when he went on a secondment to the Colombo office of a Colombo-based bank called Colombo BankTrust Bank of Colombo.

CB and TBC had just finished merging and Arindam went for a post-merger integration project. Like everyone else he should have quietly gone there and tried to make us as much money as possible, and scored criminal points on his corporate American Express Card without compromising on his deliverables.

Instead he performed so well that CBTBC decided to hire him full-time. Which is fine. (Bad career move.) But they also wanted him to poach all the Dufresne finance experts as well. Over a period of six months Arindam kept making trips to Mumbai and slowly convinced seven of Dufresne’s best consultants and the hottest babe in marketing (7.3/10 in office attire on the Varghese scale) to move with him to Colombo.

This immediately became a global Dufresne scandal. (Not as big as the Varghese Voicemail of 2006. Very very small in comparison.)

Informally the company banned all secondments.

So you can imagine, Diary, how much I had to fight to get my secondment approved. I had to use every ounce of my ‘youngest business management guru’ reputation and media exposure to get Boris to agree.

Finally he let me go on the condition that I did not use voicemail, YouTube or advice Lederman on purchasing policy or logistics while I was in London.

Also I was supposed to send a copy of any email to him before sending it to anyone else at Lederman.

Basically he was trying to control every single element of my trip and make it almost impossible for me to deliver any independent value to the client. Still Lederman was offering me 3000 pounds a week, so I was ok with the compromise.

So I did not object to him too much.

I was so happy and you should have seen Gouri’s face when I told her about it. She immediately organized dinner at Zenzi. (I secretly ate three chicken frankies before dinner and saved money at the restaurant.)

Now you know that I am normally not the stingy type. If you earn it then you should spend it lavishly up to a ceiling of 35% of your total income on disposables but not exceeding 100% of your expenditure on house rent, this is without taking into account Sodexho vouchers, is one of my most important personal finance mottoes as you are already aware.

But ever since ‘Salt Water Girl’ has made me shift to Bandra from Wadala, money has been a little tight. I hardly have any left over for my PS2 fund.

Now 3000 pounds a week is solid money in London. I could have lived anywhere in the city, bathed in Guinness beer and had caviar dosa for dinner. All this while my Dufresne India salary beautifully credited into my salary account each week.

How beautiful. Like a symphony of money. A symphmoney. Ha ha. Ayyo.

But then tragedy happened. Just one week into my secondment and Boris decided that getting paid from two employers at the same time was unethical. Bastard then asked HR to hold my Dufresne salary as long as I was on secondment.

This was embarrassing. I had already casually told our friends, updated my Orkut, and emailed to the institute alumni list that I was now the highest paid graduate (Indian salary) in our batch. (Which is true Diary, after converting pounds to rupees.)

That lasted for just one week. Now I am only 17th or so. Not that I keep track of these things.

On top of all this financial back-stabbing, Gouri now wants me to go and take a photo with the Shah Rukh Khan statue at the wax museum. At first I thought this was a good idea. I am not exactly a big fan of SRK. But a photo with a statue is better and cheaper than buying her clothes or handbags from Benetton or Marks and Spencer.

So I went there today after work. I had my camera ready and had a coffee in advance from the Lederman canteen so I would not be tempted by the UK’s highly overpriced museum cafes. I stood in line for half an hour. And then the lady at the counter told me that I had to pay 25 pounds for a ticket.

25 POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!

I told her I did not want to take any of the statues home. (With a 50% joke look on my face.)

She told me that was the cheapest ticket available.

So I immediately used a Lederman company telephone calling card to tell Gouri that the photo with Shah Rukh Khan was not happening.

She then gave me a 45-minute lecture on how I was being very cheap by not spending even 25 pounds for her. I asked her when was the last time she checked Indian Rupee—Sterling Pound exchange rate. She cut the phone. I also quickly cut to avoid any unnecessary billing.

I was very upset but then ran back to the hotel for the complimentary evening tea. (Free with room. Otherwise 15 pounds.)

I had four croissants.

How do I make Gouri understand my problem?

If I don’t sort this out, this wax nonsense might have serious implications for our relationship. In my opinion our relationship has reached a very high level of trust and understanding. But is it high enough to handle this wax statue problem?

Anyways.

I have a presentation tomorrow. And then I have to take my weekly business strategy lecture for some new Lederman recruits here.

The bank is still highly excited about my management guru reputation.

Rightly so.

Bye.

8.32 p.m.

Brainwave. I may have a solution for this wax museum issue.

More after I give it a shot tomorrow.

18 March 2007

10.23 p.m.

Everything was going according to plan. It was a brilliant plan. Brilliant I tell you Diary.

And then a machine defeated me.

A fucking machine.

(Not a fucking machine. Not in that sense.)

(OFF TO DINNER.)

Back from dinner. They had some horrible steak for main course. Rubbery meat, bitter sauce and cold potatoes.

Could only eat two plates. Now I feel sick.

Later.

19 March 2007

8.34 p.m.

Diary, I decided to not take any chances today. I’ve been to the toilet at least 15 times today. Yesterday’s steak was a terrible mistake.

The seventh trip to the toilet in the office (eleventh one overall for the day) was unbelievably embarrassing.

So around four in the evening HR asked me if I could take a short session on corporate strategy for a batch of Lederman summer interns. Apparently they are going through orientation and the guy who was supposed to speak to them forgot to bring his slides.

I assured her that I was experienced in both slide-ful and slide-free presentations. And in any case, I told her, corporate strategy is not a subject you have to prepare for or revise. Corporate strategy is something you live everyday. She told me I was exactly the sort of young leader the interns had to meet.

The presentation, as usual, started very well. I opened with a few classic jokes on corporate strategy. And then smoothly moved into my usual sequences of talking points on ‘Strategy and You’, ‘Strategy: From the Heart’, ‘Strategy: From the Soul’, ‘Strategy: From the Gut’ and ‘Strategy Is More than Just Jargon: Brainstorming for a Deliverable-Critical Priority Framework’.

Usually this sequence only takes me 15 to 20 minutes. But unfortunately just as I started my From the Heart section, my stomach started to rumble horribly. I could hear it make noises.

At first I tried to ignore it and carry on.

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

Enjoyed this preview? ❤️ Do not stop here!

Read the complete book free online → 🔗

Continue reading now on BooksBarbecue and discover every page!

Love reading? Bookmark BooksBarbecue.com for more amazing books!

Happy Reading!