Comedy of Confusions

4. Minax : Brand New Adventure

"Are you sure Suha? " Nandini put down the lemon she had been sniffing.

"Yes Ma'am" Minax replied, standing in Nandini's cabin across her messy desk. Her father's Meenaxi, her brothers' Minax was back to being 'Suhasini Jayram' at her work place, which her colleagues had taken the liberty of shortening to Suha.

"You sure? Think about it again and get back to me tomorrow. Is that alright?" Nandini looked absolutely drained. It was not yet mid day and she had the appearance of a pale ghost.

"No ma'am, I have thought about it. I would love to work on this assignment." Minax insisted, just like she had insisted on standing earlier when Nandini offered her a chair to sit down..

"You realise it is going to be a very tough project. You will not be able to take days off. Most likely you will end up working 60-70 hours per week and once you commit to it there is no going back. Not to mention, you don't have previous experience." Nandini was not sure about Minax.

"You are right about my experience, but I want to be a part of the project. I promise to work hard." Minax reiterated. Earlier Nandini had asked for volunteers to work on the new project. In the light of her pregnancy, she wanted to set up teams sooner than later and get started. This was a god sent opportunity for Minax to show Sam that she was doing something meaningful. Once Sam was happy, she could easily bully Cheney into setting her up with someone. This was the perfect short cut to a boyfriend.

Nandini sniffed the cut open lemon in front of her once again and put it down in a tiny porcelain tea saucer before looking at Minax earnestly. She let Minax go without making a decision yet. She would wait for others to show up before shortlisting.

It was not long before Nandini was making several trips to the bathroom as her morning sickness worsened. When everyone started getting worried and offered to call the doctor Nandini revealed the news of her pregnancy. Male colleagues awkwardly extended their congratulations and slipped away and the female colleagues got so excited that they almost forgot that they were supposed to work that morning. Someone procured a bunch of flowers, cake and it was almost like a party. Just that the person they were honoring by throwing the party was too busy with her morning sickness to enjoy the party. Eventually, the honoree was forced to move to a cubicle closer to the bathroom as she ran out of energy to walk all the way from her cabin to the bathroom at the end of the hallway. That cubicle turned out to be the one that Minax shared with her colleague Priya.

Nandini put up a brave front but there was a time when she needed to rest. While most of her female colleagues wanted to make her comfortable, Minax could not think on those lines at all. Perhaps growing up with brothers had made her alien to what pregnancy brought. This was the first time she was seeing someone in her close quarters throwing up so wildly and of course, pregnant. Her first thought was picking up some of Nandini's work if she could. Second thought was to call Cheney for a local doctor's reference, just in case of emergency.

Nandini expressed surprise when Minax offered to pick up some of her work for the day. Not having too much to lose and grateful for some extra minutes of rest, Nandini delegated a small bit of work to Minax.

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Over the next few weeks, Minax had taken up additional responsibility meaning to help Nandini tide over her present condition. Unbeknown to her, Nandini was testing her to see if she could handle more. A good mentor that she was, Nandini could very well tell when someone in her team was ready for the next step.To her abject surprise, she could see some sparks in Minax.

Similarly, Nandini ended up delegating parts of her work to two other colleagues, Nilesh and Chandan, who got to take care of existing Products and Services respectively.