Her happiness on rightfully grabbing the spotlight

Mihika was irked to see the dreaded mail in her inbox. This was the third assignment and her boss, the Regional manager Arya Chawla had yet again sent it on a Friday evening with forty-eight hours deadline. This meant a working weekend once again. Arya would chill out with his friends while she had to prepare the quarterly review slides and projections. She had been considering finding a new job but didn’t want to leave this organization without teaching this manipulative man a lesson.

As she started collating the figures, she assessed the way her corporate dreams had taken a beating. She had been one of the brightest students in her management college. Thus it wasn’t a surprise when FinGo, a leading Financial advisory firm in Bangalore recruited her from the campus. Her aspirations of becoming a top Financial advisor had been eventually crushed under Arya’s ambitions. He rarely gave Mihika her due credit for the research, analysis and presentations.

As she rushed back home after mailing the final version of the power-point presentation to Arya, she received a call from her younger brother Manav, a second-year M.B.B.S. student in Mumbai. Despite the four-year age gap between them, the siblings had always been best friends.

“Did I disturb you amidst a crazy Sunday night party?” Manav asked cheerfully.

Her happiness on rightfully grabbing the spotlight
Her happiness on rightfully grabbing the spotlight

On listening to his voice, Mihika broke down and started narrating her ordeal to him. After listening to the situation, Manav spoke thoughtfully,

“Quitting without teaching this parasite a lesson is definitely not an option. His recent claim to fame is because of your endless hours of effort and I have an idea for you to get your due acknowledgment.”

As Mihika listened to Manav, her excitement grew by leaps and bounds.

As per their plan, Mihika sent an updated version of the PPT five minutes before the scheduled meeting on Tuesday morning. She gave details about the minor modifications in the mail. She was confident that Arya had spent the whole of Monday studying the PPT and would never bother to re-look at the modified file before the meeting commenced.

The norm of the quarterly meetings with the senior management required the presence of all the team members along with their Regional manager. Arya detailed out their performances and future expectations. Mihika looked extremely nervous as the presentation moved on to the last slide. She knew about Arya’s habit of reading out from the slide before analyzing and sharing his perspective.

Arya had started reading the last slide, “This presentation has been prepared by my team member Ms. Mihika Gupta after an in-depth research and analysis.” He abruptly stopped realizing his blunder and gave Mihika a scornful look. She hardly noticed since she was busy thanking the General Manager who had walked up to her to appreciate her contribution. The outcome of this face-off didn’t matter to her anymore because she had managed to rightfully grab the spotlight today, even if it meant only six minutes of fame.

 

This is the sixth post of Bar-A-Thon Blogging Challenge (2nd to 15th July 2018) by Blog-A-Rhythm. The prompt for the day is Six minutes of Fame while the theme for this challenge for all the days is run/chase/dash/marathon/sprint. I have chosen to combine both the prompt and theme to come up with this piece of flash fiction.

You can read the first post here, second post here, third post here, fourth post here. and the fifth post here.

bar-a-thon
Bar-A-Thon 2018

 

Author: Sonia Chatterjee

Who am I? An erstwhile banker turned blogger/writer/author. Any qualifications? A Post-Graduate degree in Chemistry followed by a second Post-Graduate Diploma in Management. I completed a one-year MFA in creative writing course from the Writer's Village University, U.S. in Dec 2020. Though I must admit that I am still trying to figure out how and when I can connect all these dots. Have I done any real work? If two years in market research, six years in banking as a branch head, three-plus years of blogging, writing, and publishing a book can be considered as real work, then yes! Where do I live? After spending life like a nomad for sixteen years in Delhi, Bangalore & Mysore, I am back to where it all started from - Kolkata. My favorite things - Books, coffee, travel, food, and my five-year-old son. What is this blog about? Through Sonia's musings, I intend to explore writing in various genres, create social awareness, spread laughter, and give words to emotions. Anything for readers? You can check out my book 'Deal of Death' on Amazon Kindle. If you like fast-paced thrillers, this Detective fiction introducing the woman sleuth, Raya Ray could turn out to be your perfect weekend read.

40 thoughts on “Her happiness on rightfully grabbing the spotlight”

  4. Thats was very wise move. Sibling to the rescue. Wish Mihika continues to gain strength and push her way up circumventing Arya. She deserves more than just six minutes of fame and am sure she will get it one day!

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  13. I just hope Arya doesn’t screw Mihika up during her appraisal. Given that possibility, it may just be 6 minutes of fame.

    Oh my, my! What a story you’ve woven around the prompt, Sonia. Corporate life really sucks with bosses like Arya & insipid bell curves! You are ridiculously talented at writing stories. Please take up writing professionally very soon. Today, whatever mindset, prudence & outlook I have towards things around me largely comes from the books I read when I was growing. Those books were from the school library treasures.

    I dream of you being that author whose books will be lined up in at least a hundred shelves of each library.

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  16. Hope its more like a stepping stone that 6 minutes of fame. Hoping she maybe gets to work with some other senior who appreciates her work.

    Got carried away there! Was invested. That meant you did a great job. 🙂 Kudos Sonia!

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  17. Pingback: To a unique and special kind of relationship – soniasmusings

  20. After reading the first few sentences, I read it out loud to my husband. Most of the times the boss sends him a mail just before the weekend. Corporate life becomes tough. However, he does get credit for his work. Coming back to your story, I had a hearty laugh at the end, thankfully Mihika also got credit as well.

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