Burn The World

Blind Rage

Meerab’s hand clenched tightly around the edge of the papers that she was holding. Her heart was beating so loud it was deafening her and she was seething with rage.

She was in another temporary job placement for experience. She had just been handed back her project summary. It was covered all over in scribbles made of red pen. The feedback remarks were horrible. And personal. Meerab could feel an acidic taste build up in her mouth. Her eyes rapidly scanned the page again and again as she re-read the horrible remarks.

How exactly are you planning on monitoring the storage of these pesticides?! Do you plan on caging them in a shed on the site? Did you bother to even look at a map of the site in question? They said you were a capable worker, but I’m questioning their judgement because your level of effort on this project is abysmal.

You do realise these facilities have to be inspected on a yearly basis to determine if they meet industry regulations, right? Yet your proposed procedural changes do not fall within the budget nor the required time constraints. Is this how you plan on our company meeting our legal requirements? Do you even possess a single ounce of brain capacity? Or did they hire you as a quota filler? Are you the personality hire?

Did you even bother to check if the labour hire companies listed were licenced? Do you want us to face a slavery lawsuit? I would have thought you would have possessed some degree of common sense! Or is this just another crucial detail you’ve overlooked? Another out of the billion details you’ve overlooked already! Your work ethic is so poor and reviewing your research and proposals is a waste of time. I’m surprised you even know how to staple a stack of papers together.

Murtasim. It was all Murtasim. He had reviewed her work.

Meerab had gone and applied to the headquarters of Faizaan Sugar Mills which was located in Karachi. And guess who had a huge percentage of ownership in Faizaan Sugar Mills? Murtasim! Murtasim and Naurez owned Faizaan Sugar Mills. Meerab’s luck could not get any worse.

Of course, Meerab knew like most feudal landowners in Pakistan, the Khan’s too had invested their wealth in horticultural businesses. The days of landowners only relying on selling their fruit and vegetable produce from their farms were long gone. They now had portions of their lands set up with sugar mills and their lands both produced the sugar canes and then turned them into sugar too. Especially in Sindh, the sugar mill industry was heavily dominated by people who came from age-old traditional landowning families. In her desperation to get out of property law, Meerab had blindly applied to any entry level commercial law position without bothering to check who the owners were. This coupled with the fact that Saba, her fiancé Farrukh and Rohail, had all gained positions throughout the company, and that had made her want the job too. That’s how she landed with Murtasim as her boss.

Well, technically her boss was the legal department's manager Mrs. Chandio, but fate had other plans. Murtasim who had previously never needed to step into the head office as his sugar mill business was being run by a very competent Mr. Javed Pirwani, for God knows what reason, had chosen the next four months to come into the office and oversee business personally. The very four months Meerab’s job placement was happening in.

Murtasim’s glee was out of the world when he walked into the legal department one morning and he realised Meerab was working in his company as his employee. He immediately self-appointed himself as her boss and she was now reporting her case assistance and legal regulation compliance work directly to him. Mrs. Chandio tried to reason with Murtasim saying it was not needed at all and that he should focus on more pressing business matters, but he was the owner after all and the owner’s say was final. Meerab was royally screwed.