“Raichand has hired a new blue-eyed boy. He is in charge of the project now,” Swami said while sipping his coffee.
Jigneshbhai and I looked up and took notice. We saw a scowl of irritation make Swami and his face its home. This new hire didn’t seem to have gone well with him. But neither of us said anything, yet. Swami continued though.
“He gets on my nerves,” he said lifting the muffin. “I am just hoping I don’t lose my patience one day with him and give it back,” he added and bit into the muffin.
Jigneshbhai and I looked at Swami and then at each other again. The scowl on Swami’s face had spread.
“He throws his weight around, dropping names every minute, and expecting me to notice it. As if one boss for doing my daily ‘Yes Sir’ routine isn’t enough, now I have to tolerate this guy,” Swami continued his rambling of complaints.
Finally, he stopped and focused on a couple of bites of the muffin. There were a few moments of silence.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” he finally broke the silence and looked at Jigneshbhai.
Jigneshbhai was busy chewing his muffin. He lifted the coffee cup and gulped it down, swallowing the muffin with it.
“Have you seen boxing or wrestling matches?” he then asked, out of the blue.
Swami and I raised our eyebrows. Why was our friend talking of games when Swami was worried? Swami’s scowl got some more company, in the form of a frown on his forehead.
“Yeah, what about them?” Swami yelped.
“Those are timed rounds, aren’t they? Three minutes, are they?” Jigneshbhai asked and opened his phone to search for it.
This irritated Swami no end.
“Whatever. Can you stop talking about boxing and wrestling, and focus on my problem?” Swami howled.
Jigneshbhai smiled softly as usual.
“Well, your fight with irritation and nerves is like that match,” he asserted.
“Like boxing or wrestling? How?” Swami asked. Even I scratched my head wondering what this was about.
“Yeah,” Jigneshbhai said and sipped his coffee. We waited while he finished it.
“Very often, if the weight of one opponent is higher, the other player dodges him, isn’t it? You should do the same with your anger,” Jigneshbhai finally said.
“Anger is my opponent?” Swami probed.
“Yeah. You can’t fight it, it’s a mighty opponent. Dodge it for a few minutes,” Jigneshbhai said.
“And then? What if it keeps attacking?” Swami asked with a smile. He liked to counter-attack Jigneshbhai’s arguments.
“Well, it’s a timed round. It will get over. You start afresh in the next round,” Jigneshbhai grinned, and broke into a big guffaw.
Swami wasn’t fully convinced. We pondered over it for a while. Meanwhile, Jigneshbhai continued with a bite of his muffin.
“Maybe I should use the same tactic with this heavyweight blue-eyed boy of Raichand. Dodge him and I would have dodged my irritation,” Swami said and smiled having found a solution for his latest problem.
We happily refocused on the coffee when I noticed that the wealthy old man walked over to us from the adjoining table.
We were pondering over what Jigneshbhai had said.
That’s when the wealthy old man said, “We don’t have to always be stronger, sometimes we just have to wait longer.”
***