The milk cooker howled its shrieking whistle announcing that the milk was ready, the calling bell tweeted along with the morning vegetable vendor’s squall, Ramya’s hands were busy typing out a mail. Vicki, the enthusiastic 10-year-old ran to the door. Shankar silenced the milk cooker. The pandemic had extended work hours to 24/7 but had built a team at home to work together.
Ramya was an entrepreneur doing business online, she was enterprising and was always there when anyone needed help. Her family, their friends and their friends treated her number as their first emergency, SOS, all purpose numbers. She had an answer, a contact and reference for just about anything. Sharadha mami, her brother’s neighbour, called to ask where she could drop off some unopened pack of cutlery she may never use- she had a reference for that. Shankar’s colleague called her to ask for the best place to but fabric for making western fashion dresses, she had an answer for that.
Shankar ran an Event management business, he was creative and always enthralled his clients with new ideas. He even organised online events with a lot of creativity. He was excellent at networking, every person he met, every client he worked for, he could remember names and the events. He maintained a diary in which he noted down things for the day and ticked off items that did not need his attention any more. Ticking off items from the list gave Shankar a great sense of fulfilment. His latest assignment was an online birthday party with ‘Spiderman’ theme. He was working on it like a super hero himself.
Vicki was in 5th Std studying at a CBSE school, he was a cheerful kid with a lot of creativity and talent. He was skilled at painting, drums and coding. His parents felt he did not fit into the rigourous CBSE regime. They wanted to look for an alternate school that would help him blossom naturally.
Ramya and Shankar eagerly looked for announcements from schools for applications from time to time, especially the ones they had shortlisted. After about two months, the websites finally announced applications open. They were both thrilled but that excitement had hardly lasted a minute. All applications had to be collected in person on a date they were both busy. They had never before had clash of events. Their professional commitment was important for both and could not be sidelined, that was their bread and butter. At the same time, they didn’t want to give up on the months of patience for the applications. Both of them called their contacts who may be able to help, but unfortunately, they could not find anyone in their circle who could help.
Shankar suddenly remembered one of his clients, Leena, talk about some personal assistant, he immediately checked his diary for her contact. He called Leena, he was a bit wary about making what he thought of as a ‘weird request’. Leena assured he could ask them anything. Shankar anxiously waited, the phone beeped and when he opened he saw a Vcard on Whatsapp that read OK BOSS and a message that said OK BOSS ROCKS! With a new lease of energy he dialed the number, at the end of the conversation with them, he was happy about finding help, at the end of the day he ticked the item ‘get application’ off his list with the application in his hand.
OK Boss was naturally added to Ramya’s set of SOS numbers and Shankar’s networking list.
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