Twilight Executives: The one who jumps off a cliff

AND THE SPY SPOKE.

“Whose is the first story?” I asked.

“Well, I would love for you to guess it. Why not let me tell you the unknown first? I am sure you will arrive at the names yourself.” He laid down the rules.

I didn’t mind a bit of jigsaw, specially when he had already dangled the clue at the onset. “I have already met them here right?”

“Yup, very much.”

“Ok, hit the ignition then.”

He smiled at the irony perhaps. “This one will make ignitions and cars ridiculously redundant.” And with that he pulled up the first curtain.

“I started following her on a Thursday afternoon. Thought female bosses are relatively soft and condescending to greenhorns like me. So I followed and followed waiting for the crack in her busy clockwork schedule where I would slip in my resume. But that was not going to happen. Office, departmental meetings, IT evaluation calls, drawing boards, dissection trays, family, team issues, traffic, media calls, conferences and the whole shebang. I was almost giving up. And then..” He paused in an intense second of reflection.

“And then?” I was not letting him sandbag it all with his art-film commas.

“Well, it was a Sunday. I thought who would step out after a hectic week. But there she was. All set and serious for a meeting I assumed. Out on the road, into the traffic, but not blending into the ant-rows like any other weekday. Slowly and steadily after several U-turns, digressions, sideways, and highway stretches, she wriggled out of the city suavely. And with an equal grace and dexterity, she trickled in to a patch of hills. At one of the foothills, she suddenly stopped and stepped out with a backpack. Had it been a large black suitcase, I would have suspected cold murder. But here, and with her, there was only one possibility — shooting with a camera.

So, she started trekking and panting for breath I climbed the alpine way too in a futile attempt at keeping up the chase. Clearly she was aiming for a good top spot for a nice shot. She just didn’t stop anywhere. Up and up and up, and finally we came to the peak point. I was exhausted and almost down on the ground. Yet, hell bent on catching her. But she was already several feet away when I looked up after a break to catch some breath. I couldn’t for the love of Lord expect what happened next. She was slowly approaching the edge of the hill. Then out of nowhere, she jumped!”

“What! Jumped! Are you crazy?” I was coming to a conclusion that I was being superbly conned now.

“Yes, jumped. Like you pull your feet up and leave the ground and then come back after some milliseconds. The only difference was, she did not land back after those milliseconds.”

“What do you mean, but you said I just met her!”

“Yes you did. And the lady you met knows how to fly!” He whistled.

“Fly! You mean like staying in the sky and not falling with a thud.” I was feeling a little irate at his wool-knitting skills.

“Yes. She is a paragliding pilot. I discovered it beyond doubt that day. She left the hill with the smooth confidence of a sea gull and then floated all over those hills like a sharp-eyed eagle. I almost forgot that I should be flabbergasted rather completely awed at that sight. This lady, whom I had only seen among huddled computers, black boxes, IT meetings and all, was all alone there, in aquiline glory, swooping like a majestic bird in the sky.”

“Ok look, don't mind, but I don’t buy this at all. No woman CIO I know at least is made of those kind of wings. For all we know, I have not met even a male CIO doing that kind of stuff. ” I was still in my ivory tower of disbelief.

“She is made of the best phalanges, believe me. Made of steel may be.” He threw a bone now.

“Wait a minute. Are you implying that the lady we are talking about is…?”

{#PageBreak#}

“Yes, May be I am.” He chuckled.

“Oh Gosh! That’s like a total knock-out for me man. But Anuradha Roy is…” I couldn’t help but stop to relish this surprise.

But then I thought and the more I thought about it, it fit like a T. “You know as much as it is unbelievable, there is a part of me that would have believed it even if it didn’t come off in this dramatic a way. She has this energy and spark in her eyes and her voice, a bit of adventure in her vibes. Working at the IT pillars of SAIL, as a General Manager she is great at her work, but then she holds this understated layer of charm. You want to peel that secret layer off, and find out that mystery that you can’t put a finger to. Your intuition says, there’s more to her than steel, and iron will. Now, I know.”

“Yes, thanks to me.” Before he wallowed in self-appointed applause, I quickly importuned him to tell more details.

As I discovered, adventure or sports are not newly-met words for Anuradha. Since at a young age, she has been initiated into the world of treks and mountains. A couple of mountaineering and skiing courses, kept up that side of her personality. And then in 2007, she did her first paragliding experience with her husband. Like they say, since then, there’s no looking back, or down.

There was so much in that hidden layer of this sincere, serious, busy CIO, that was shining cheerfully now.

Our funny and very amateurish spy had managed to get a peek inside her diary.

Good he did, because her own words described it best.

“Paragliding. That’s the closest I have come to a spiritual experience. I don’t know if it’s adrenaline or something else. Your whole life becomes clear and framed in a big picture. The relative importance of small things falls into place. You ask yourself for probably the first time — are those petty things really worth the time we give them?

The perspective about life changes remarkably when you are a thousand feet in the air. If you goof up, that’s it. Your life is actually in your hands.”

I read that page and wondered aloud. “But does she not feel any fear at all?”

He answered. “I guess there is. The next time I followed her, I made sure to find that out in that penultimate moment before the leap. Looked like a thing that can make anyone’s blood curdle. But then when someone like her jumps, it feels like she’s just murmured — let’s find out what this is about, and what I am about?”

I could see that in the pictures he had sneaked out. I did not speak. There was no point of wrapping goose bumpy feelings in a hollow paper of words. But I couldn’t control the itch of my pen.

“How does that kind of a surreal moment affect her when she gets back to work?”

“It helps, of course.” He shrugged off.

“How? Coming back from hills to ground realities is much more than the physics or geography of it. Specially in our offices and typical corporate lives.” I was still not convinced.

“Look at it this way. Take a snap shot of her life only. One has to work in a large group and there can be all sorts of interpersonal and inter-functional conflicts there. Human emotions play out everywhere, in every way, good and bad. But someone like her, who has just seen the view from the top, tends to see a Monday very differently. You can eliminate emotions from the routine things; you can create a distance between yourself and issues. Then you work better, with a higher level of self and maturity. As simple as that.”

“Hmm..not as simple as it sounds. It’s a different and in fact a higher feat if she had managed to ascend to that level. Nothing is higher now.” I sighed jealously.

“Nothing is higher? Come on; wait till you hear about what she has planned next.” He teased.

“What?”

“The P2 level, which is an advanced level of paragliding with acrobatics and all those formations in the sky. And..”

“And?”

“Probably going up Mt. Everest and jumping from there for a change. Or in Antarctica.” He smiled.

I know he was not joking. Heights, for people like Anuradha, mean more than elevators and corporate ladders. And that’s why she will surprise us again some day.