Doha,his second home after India. He came to Doha almost 7 years back. Even after marriage, he left his family back home and continued to live as a bachelor in Doha. For some reason, he decided to live alone in Doha.

Few months back his friend took him to Al Bustan Health Club. He got a good massage done, used the steam rooms and jaccuzi in the health club. The feeling after the massage was really good and exciting. After that he frequented the Health Club in Le Meridien.

Co-incidentally, his massage therapist had been the same person. The first time inside the massage room, he felt a lot shy to even talk to her or look at her. Next visits he was quite comfortable.

Nim, was her name. Born in Bali. 25 years. 11 Hours from Doha. Goes to Bali once in 18 months.

He kind of liked Nim and her massage.

He said, “Frankly Nim. I like to be with you.” Nim was silent. Nim started the therapy and did not speak through out. But, he felt that it was the best he ever got from Nim. He took another appointment 3 days later for Nim. Nim too liked his company.

He called her one day morning and asked her to take off and come with him to a special place. He drove her up to the southern mountain range. They kept talking about various things about their life in Doha and at that time, Nim got a call from someone. He felt uncomfortable.

But the cloud cleared instantly, when started talking again. Nim was impressed by the desert mountains.

He stopped his car near a camping site and climbed few meters up the mountain and found a spot to sit with Nim. The sunset from that mountain was brilliant. He sat close to Nim. Tried to hold her hand. Nim was reluctant, but did not resist. He did not care.

He was driving back. Nim was silent. He said “Nim, we will live together here. I feel that I should stay close to you all the time.”

Nim said, “I will think” when she was getting down at her apartment. Few days later, Nim shifted to his apartment.

He liked her company. He almost got a family here in Doha. He took care of Nim very well and let her save the money she earned. After some 6 months with all the Nim in his life, he decided to go to India to meet his family.

Nim at the same point thought she would also take a vacation. The booked same day flights.

Jakarta International Airport: The next day. Nim landed and her eyes searched the crowd for someone. Came running a boy. Probably aged 5. Behind the boy, was a guy waving his hand.

Nim said “hey… honey.. how are you?”

The boy replied “I am so happy to see you mummy”.

I did not feel like going home…

5 years after marriage and 2 kids.. now life is sore. I continued to chat on the messenger with the chat friend. Talking to this new friend who is a girl kept me happy. I haven’t seen her, nor spoken to her. All we did is chat.

After 3 months of chatting with her, I expressed that I would like to be with her forever.

I typed “Can we get into a long term relation? May be marriage.”
I expected a reply for her on the screen.

The screen was not doing anything. The cursor was blinking. Suddenly it said, she signed out…

I made a mistake, it was too early. I signed out and went home. She opened the door. I asked “have the kids slept?”.

“Yes…”. I asked “did you have dinner?” She said “Yes. Food for you is on the table.” She went to sleep. For some reason the relationship between my wife and me is not going well.

I went to bed and thought about my chat friend. I was eager to go next day to office and go online to chat with her.

It is around 9 PM now, she hasn’t come online yet. I decided to go home, suddenly she came online. I buzzed her on her ID (lonelyplanet).

I typed “Hi.”. No Reply.

I typed “Hello. Are you there?”. No Reply.

I typed “Sorry, I overstepped last night and asked you the question.” No Reply.

I was impatient. Suddenly the screen lit up with my eyes

She replied “Hi..”

She continued “I am not sure if this would work.”

I typed “We can make it work. Even I need to finish something before we start.”

I typed “We need to see each other. I am eager to see you and meet you.”

She replied “Ok. But one condition.”

I typed “Ok. I agree before listening to it. But, we need to meet.”

She replied “Tomorrow 4 PM. City Centre. I will be wearing a Yello Salwar and waiting at Gloria Jeans Coffee.”

I typed “Great! I will see you at four.”

I was happy today. Finally something interesting in my life. I went up the stairs and all 7 floors.

I rang the bell. The door opened. I looked at my wife. She was getting tired. She turned and went to the bedroom. While going I heard her “Food is on the table.”

I just fell on the couch to sleep. No sleep. Clock was too slow. It had more than 12 hours to get to 4 PM.

Time was 1 PM. I went to my team members and announced that I had something important to do. I left to City Centre. I ran up to the Gloria Jeans Coffee.

Time now was 10 PM. The sea was getting rough. I decided to go home. I parked my car way far from house and walked.

I rang the bell. I saw my wife’s face. It looked tired. She was walking to the bedroom when I heard her say “Food is on the table.”

I ate the food. I went into the bed room. I went and sat near my son and looked up the wall. I saw his photo and the marriage photo. Next to it was hanging on the hangar was “The Yellow Salwar”.

I was standing in the Consul General India, Dubai to apply for a passport for my daughter (Rithi). After 2 Horus in queue I reached the counter. The counter clerk checked all my papers and then took the application form. Then she suddenly realized that I did not have my wife’s name in my passport endorsed under spouse name.

So, I filled in an affidavit and submitted and she said this procedure of amending the passport would take 2 days. Since I was kind of in a hurry to get my daugther’s passport, I asked her if this is absolutely necessary to have my wife’s name in the passport. She promptly replied “Sir, no problem, you can change this name anytime”

So, coming to the blog….

We are doing a dispatch system to track a taxi and also dispatch a taxi. Now, this project was given by our client to a company. That company approached another company for this project. That other company approached yet another company for the project. The “yet another” company happened to be our partner and we got the project. It did not end here, we out sourced it to another company. Phew!

After a year of development, we deployed the software in the end client’s facility. Un-fortunately the software was not tested, eventually it did not withstand a production environment and we ran into some payment issues. We had not got the source code from our vendor. So, it took another year to get the source code. After we got the source code, as a project controller, I invited my colleague and friend who is a project manager for another project in Bangalore, India to wrap this project in 2 months and deliver. He arrived along with one of his team member. We will call him Nick (name changed).

Nick, was newly hired in our company and we believed he would rise to the occasion. So, he came to Dubai and we moved him to Abu Dhabi where the project was actually implemented.

My friend, the PM after a week of taking stock and listing action items left the responsibility with Nick and went back to Bangalore. Since, my work was in Dubai (180 Kms from Abu Dhabi) I went two times a week to take an update.

Three weeks went by and there was no progress. I was getting impatient and called my friend back to Abu Dhabi to take control of the situation. Since, I am not a developer, I was not able to answer Nick’s development related queries. Nick was getting increasingly trouble some.

I used to sit next to Nick for almost 3 hours while he was listening to his iPod. I was expecting an update, he would suddenly wake up from sleep and say “Yes, you want something…”

When my friend and I thought it was too much, I got into the details of the project, its value, the wasted 2 years and so on….

Almost after hearing me for 1 hour, Nick said “I really don’t care the project value… All I want is to go home and be with my wife. Can you confirm my tickets?”.

My friend and I decided, its not worth keeping him any more in the project or in the company. This was at around 2 AM in the morning. By that time, the pressure was so much that we shifted our living to the project site from the hotel. We lived in one of the apartments 2 blocks down the road.

So, the next day I drove Nikhil from Abu Dhabi to his Aunt’s house in Sharjah. The drive was for around 3 hours and I kept silent while he was listening to his iPod.

The very same day he left to Bangalore. We fired him the very day he came to office.
Unfortunately he did not send a resignation letter we had to serve a termination notice to him.

Poor Guy I pitied him.. but end of the day he bombed a big project and we are gettign fried. Now it is my friend and I who have pulled our sleeves to get it done…