Among Rock's boys, one stood out as the Bad Boy of the team, the illustrious Sanjay Goel. San didn't have too much choice about this; he was simply a creature of instinct, and followed the dictates of his whims and fancies. Unfortunately, these impulses normally took him against the dictates of Papa Rock, and gained him a reputation for disobedience. Rock tore at his hair in frustration: San was his most senior Boy after Ganesh's departure, but also the one who caused him the most problems.
This tall, lanky mustached figure became a familiar sight around UT; San wasn't often capable of controlling himself enough to stay still for any great periods of time.
Back in the early days, VA used to get tired of people calling him
"Sir" on a regular basis, preferring a more informal discussion.
"Arre, yaar," protested VA, "call me Virender, or VA, but not Sir !"
"Yes, yes" chimed in SKG, who was standing just behind VA. "You can call me Shreekant."
VA smiled, and passed up that line.
A few days later, Sanjay walked into SKG's office at TBC, and smiling
broadly, stuck his hand out to SKG, with the words,
"Hello, Shreekant, I am Sanjay !"
SKG paused in mid-sentence. His face froze, but his eyes revealed a frenzied torrent of thought passing through his head. It was a while before he regained conscious speech control.
"What did you say ?" he asked.
"I said hello, Shreekant" smiled Sanjay.
SKG paused again. So his ears weren't playing tricks on him after all. This rash, callow youth had actually called him ... SKG shuddered at the thought ... Shreekant. Thoughts of red-hot pincers and fiery coals danced through SKG's head, but he sadly dismissed them; this was the Kali-Yuga after all. Such disrespect from youth was to be expected. Still, a certain degree of communication had to be established for proper understanding, so ... Shreekant steeled himself for the upcoming task, and began his explanation of what was right and proper.
Sanjay was surprised to begin with; then, slowly, as he caught all the implications of the speech, he slowly stiffened into a block of ice. SKG slowly warmed to his work and the flow of speech grew even more voluble (though strictly one-sided, of course) as he preached the basic concepts of respect, seniority and the fear of SKG. Sanjay was ready to run out of the office at least half an hour before SKG actually released him to freedom. But SKG's work was done well; he had introduced the fear of God into at least one more human breast. The Kali-Yuga had not won out completely as yet.
In Gan's absence, San became Rock's primary force, which normally translated to mean that he put in twenty-hour working days. Rock took this in his stride, as the normal course of affairs; he was astonished that San occasionally objected to these meager work-levels.
Sanjay's son, of course, could not appreciate his father's long working hours quite as much as Rock did. It seemed to him that every time Papa came home, he immediately dropped off to sleep, rather than (as would be the right thing to do) play with him. Frustrated by this, he often resorted to the solution of waking Sanjay. No small problem, that, since after his highly packed days (and nights) of work, Sanjay was extremely difficult to wake, Still, he managed to do this by tugging San's eyelids open with the plaintive cry, "Papa, uth ! Papa, get up !" The doting San found it difficult to refuse, for more than one reason, but often was simply unable to stay awake.
San was the antithesis of another Jakartan legend, the famous Tank. Unlike that worthy, who desired nothing more from life than a peaceful nap, San remained discontent unless he was out roaming the night. One of the foremost members in any disco trip, San's patronage of Ley Gardens remained legend. This suffered greatly under the workloads that Rock imposed on him (one must remember that this occurred during Rock's celibacy phase, some time before his "Paint-the-town-red" mania, during which his boys wondered about his sanity). The cheerful San, ever willing to join a party, was restrained from going by Rock's caustic tongue. Still, that couldn't hold out forever, and there were times when the floodgates erupted, unleashing the uncontrollable San onto the night. Medan still remembers his wild riotous nights with fond memory.
Sanjay was one of the few hard-working souls who actually travelled to NIIT's Singapore office when he was passing through that city. True, there were a few uncharitable souls who said that this was only because of the presence of an extremely attractive young lady named Sharifa in the Singapore office (which might also be the true reason that a workaholic like Rock never failed to visit the office, if at all possible), but we prefer to see it as further evidence of the boy's devotion to NIIT.
San is currently the sole die-hard from the Indonesian team remaining with NIIT. He's currently a project leader, investigating China as a possible market for the company. He recently travelled there as part of a three-man mission (with VA and SKS) and may possibly travel within that country for extended periods.
That's enough travel ... now let's head back home