Guess who has a crush on Charlie?
Note:
The ten Mahavidyas (Great Wisdoms) are a group of ten aspects of the Divine Mother Devi in Hinduism. The ten Mahavidyas are Wisdom Goddesses, who represent a spectrum of feminine divinity, from horrific to the gentle, and represent and guard the arts and intellect. The name Mahavidyas comes from the Sanskrit roots, with Maha meaning "great" and Vidya meaning, "revelation, manifestation, knowledge, or wisdom". [Wikipedia]
A crisis meeting has been called by the council of MVs [Mahavidyas]. The memo, sent from the office of Kali, read:
"Dear all,
Please make yourselves available in the Himalayan boardroom to discuss an unusual situation that has arisen out of the Charlie Hebdo assassinations and subsequent events unfolding on Earth.
PS: Lunch will be provided after the meet."
In the Himalayan boardroom, a terse Tara, HoD Surveillance, nervously sipped on mineral water and looked around the room. Sundari, HoD, States of Mind, asked everyone how they were feeling at which Bhairavi, Deputy Executive Chief, typically scowled. These ladies up in Kailash often get on each other's nerves with their predictability - it's just an ordinary Monday in the boardroom.
The rest of the ten MVs walk in one by one - Chinnimasta, called Chinny both by friends and colleagues, Head of Health, Yoga & Gym (specialising in Kundalani) is currently experimenting with her boundaries in formal/informal fashion and wearing shiny black skinny jeans that she'd worn the night before. Bhuvaneshwari, Head of Art Works, is late as usual and scurries in from the back entrance just as Kali, the CEO, is taking off her sunglasses and taking the chair, while Dhumavati, Head of Extracurricular Activities, and Bagala, Head of Communications, chit-chatting with HoD Economic Affairs & Progress, fall silent.
Matangi's chair is empty.
Kali addresses the boardroom: "Ladies - to get quickly to the point - as you see, one of us is missing. This meeting is called to discuss a delicate and rather grave matter that has come up regarding our talented and brilliant colleague, Matangi."
As the morning coffee arrives - Kali has hers black, no sugar, obviously - the CEO updates the gathering of the current crisis. Matangi, Chief Editorial Officer supervising Investigations and Intelligence Gathering and Content, has resigned from the job citing moral responsibility on what can only be termed a Himalayan blunder in these high offices.
Matangi, following the proceedings of the assassinations of journalists in Paris, began to take an extra interest in Stéphane Charbonnier or Charb, the editor of Charlie Hebdo who was slain by terrorists, to an extent where, upon consultation with Chinny and her staff at psychiatry and psychology, the diagnosis was that it was not just a passing crush, but bordering the real thing. It could be Love.
Now, you see, boys and other distractions are anyway frowned upon by the council of MVs who have no time for such frivolities, but in a job of Matangi's nature, personal involvement is strictly out of bounds as, obviously, it leads to clash of interest and has to be immediately reported to Head of Surveillance and HR, which Matangi dutifully did, leading to the Health Department's probe and subsequent diagnosis, which confirmed Matangi's own fears.
A hush fell on the newsroom. Matangi was highly skilled, supremely efficient and effortlessly brilliant, obviously, which explained her position here at the highest offices of editorial and communications in the world. Her command over language was unparalleled as were her powers of clinical observation and assessment - how then had this lapse taken place, leading to risk of possible lapse in judgment, which of course must never be allowed, and a reason for the predicament.
"I just knew it!" said Bhuva from art works throwing down her pencil and breaking the hushed silence with her anguished cry. "This Charlie guy is just her type - she's always attracted to the wrong men, and this time it's just gone too far." She was thinking of Matangi's confession of a slight crush on Edward Snowden during a girls' night out after work, but she didn't mention that.
Like all celebrated individuals in the powerful position such as Matangi, she had a much published history that was now part of her professional folklore. As a child of lower middle class parents - there was no elite education for her as was the norm in ruling intelligentsia of those days, she made her way up studying under lamplights and buying second-hand books and sustaining herself on hand me downs, or books discarded by others and given to her as an act of charity - Matangi is a misfit.
Through her brilliance, she rose up in the world of the Mahavidyas and attained positions of power, but at heart, she was always the outcast.
Following the flurry of news articles on Charlie Hebdo's editorial head Charb's own rebellious nature had activated that rebellious part of her that won't back down, that would not bow under criticism for being vehement, forceful, dyslexic, slightly eccentric, for being in many ways, the opposite in temperament to the ever gracious Saraswati, seen as the ideal of intellect in the mainstream in those days of intelligentsia conservatism.
"Screw all that," replied the more pragmatic Tara, who as head of surveillance, cut quickly to the chase. "How is the problem to be solved."
Kali, who as CEO was automatically the Head of Interventions, spoke. "Matangi cannot carry on her responsibilities if she continues to be in the condition, she is bound by the HR contract to report any such lapse as she has done, and offered to step down which is the honourable thing to do."
"So..." said Dhuma, "is there some solution we can come up with to treat her to full recovery, so that we don't have a position empty in her place."
An uncomfortable silence fell in the room.
Matangi's editorial vision and contributions in deciding editorial line and execution were considered unparalleled - among other things, she was acknowledged to have successfully bridged the gap between niche and mainstream creativity by accessing her own past as intellectual outsider and rebel and mastering and honouring the skills of the mainstream to create a whole new genre of expression that now reigned across their world.
She was, simply, acknowledged as a pioneer of the new editorial and enjoyed an unquestioned supremacy over peers.
But the events in Paris, along with her softening towards Charb, as Chinny explained to the boardroom with the aid of lab reports, had sent her into a sort of emotional and intellectual regression - she was reminded of her own days of early struggle, where she had to constantly fight the great fight of words and ideas, wrestle her way in an elite establishment which dominated. The rebel in her that she had mastered without killing its spirit, and managed to combine with the groomed civility of established intelligentsia, was a testimony to her genius and skill and had got her to the very top in her career.
But her rebellious nature could no longer afford to regain dominance.
While that was then the norm before Matangi took charge of the newsroom - where rebellion and establishment did not mix - the current supreme newsroom could no longer be allowed to regress to that medieval state which would mirror the backwardness of earthly newsrooms.
Matangi was in danger of being a threat to the newsroom she had created.
"May I..." said Tara, raising her finger to speak. HoD Surveillance was not known to be especially close to the Chief Editorial Officer Matangi, and often disapproved of her eccentricities that created a personality clash with her own more balanced temperament. But she was also not an expert in her field for nothing - she could survey worlds and ideas in a minute and, with her skill of assessment gained by experience and sharp shrewdness, come up with workable solutions, an ability that is never underestimated in a corporation of the MVs.
"I think you guys are jumping the gun a bit," continued Tara. "May I propose - and I know we must not resort to the cliché except in crisis, and what is this but an absolute crisis - the traditional wait-and-watch approach for a few days."
Continued Tara: "But it is not the patient Matangi we have to watch" - Chinny heaved a sigh of relief that her department would not be overworked - "but the events unfolding around Charlie Hebdo in their world."
"Brilliant!" said Kali, with almost a nervous half smile, the first one in the boardroom ever since the meeting commenced.
"If the Charlie Hebdo effect leads to a more cohesive editorial earthy newsroom, then they have taken a step closer to our current newsroom, rather than we taking a step backward towards their current and our previous newsrooms," continued Kali. The others nodded. Bagala made a thumbs up sign towards Tara.
"This will mean that to show solidarity towards Charlie and Charb, Matangi, who is medically certified as being infatuated with Charb, and it is declared a condition that cannot be medically reversed, need not regress her own newsroom to mirror the struggles of his publication post his martyrdom. If the earthy newsroom evolves instead, the danger will be averted on its own and she can resume her responsibilities."
On this note, Kali adjourned the meeting with instructions to Tara to set up a special SIT unit to follow the proceedings on Earth and monitor the manner in which the earthly newsroom, in a state of confusion, chaos and mourning, would emerge from the tragedy, after which a meeting would be set up for s later date. She then picked up her power bag to walk out, as usual absentmindedly leaving her sunglasses behind on the table.