Witch Farm

Madam Sadiqa peered through her gleaming spectacles at her secretary. "Minutes of the last meeting?" she demanded.

"Shall I read them out or ...."

"Hand them to me. I'd rather read them out myself."

A bit reluctantly, Vishalakshi handed over the notebook in which she meticulously minuted every meeting by hand. Her handwriting was flawless, but she knew Madam would stumble over the bigger words, and blame it on 'your scribble'. However, it couldn't be helped. The boss was the boss.

"At the last meeting," Madam Sadiqa began, "we were discussing the sound effects for the latest animated version of witch farm. Now that our clumsy recordist has smashed our faithful recording machine ..."

Vishalakshi saw the hapless recordist blush, and her own cheeks started to go red. Only, her cheeks went red out of anger, not embarrassment. She had to tell the truth, right now, in front of the whole meeting.

"Madam Sadiqa," Vishalakshi stated, standing up. "I beg to differ. It wasn't our recordist who smashed the recording machine, it was your grandson."

Madam Sadiqa stopped short. She gazed at her secretary for a long moment. Then she said three icy words, "Leave the room."

Watched by a dozen pairs of sympathetic eyes and one pair of hostile ones, Vishalakshi left the room. Once out the door, she smiled a secret smile to herself. She'd been banished from meetings before, and knew the trick. She kept the door slightly ajar, so that she could still hear everything that was going on.

"Now," Madam Sadiqa was booming, "With every equipment that we've tried so far, the sound effects of the cluck doesn't sound authentic at all."

Vishalakshi could not resist. She knew she'd get into a LOT of trouble, but she had to intervene. She poked her head round the door and yelled, "The clucks sounded bad because your nephew, who replaced our usual cluckster, can't cluck to save his life. He clucks like a - a - fish."

"GO TO YOUR DESK!"

Vishalakshi wound her way through the maze of corridors to her desk. She was chuckling now. She had an arrangement with Revathi. As soon as Madam had yelled the word 'desk', Revathi would've speed dialled Vishalakshi's number on her mobile phone and put it on 'speaker'. Vishalakshi would still be aware of all that happened at the meeting.

She put her headphones on and sat there, listening.

"And we couldn't proceed with the actual dialogues because the scenario presented to us was too sketchy ..."

What had come over her? She absolutely HAD to. Knowing the phone at the other end was on speaker, she yelled into hers, "Actually, we received a very detailed scenario. You were sweating a lot that day and excused yourself from the meeting to go take a shower."

Silence.

Vishalakshi waited.

More silence.

"Hello?" she ventured.

The sound she heard in response wasn't on the phone. Swift high-heeled feet were making their way to her, purposefully, angrily.

Calmly, Vishalakshi removed her headphones. She stood facing the direction of the approaching tap-tap-tap-tap. She was as tall as Madam Sadiqa, and the angry eyes glared straight into the calm ones.

"You - are - "

"Wait," Vishalakshi said, so softly that Madam Sadiqa had to stop to ask what she had said.

"You're going to fire me," Vishalakshi said, raising her volume just a notch.

"Obviously."

"Before you do that, I'd like to make one more honest statement."

"It's honest statements that are getting you fired, aren't you aware?"

"Ah, but I think this one is going to be different."

"You have five seconds."

Vishalakshi chose to take three of the five seconds to inhale deeply. Then she said, "My father now owns this studio."

The eyes flashed. Anger - disbelief -

Vishalakshi talked on, calmly, softly, "My father has bought the majority share in this studio, and has a particular contract on witch farm. He didn't want me to tell you because he wanted me to keep working normally, up the ladder. But today, I just had to be honest."

The eyes were gleaming with -- tears?

Suddenly, Vishalakshi was engulfed in a hug. "Nobody's ever told me the truth before," Madam Sadiqa choked. "They were too scared. I didn't enjoy what you said, but I guess I needed to hear it. Will you take a pay raise?"

"Honestly? Yes!"