Game Face

“Full game face, boss. Kal hai Jhansi ki Rani. Tomorrow, everybody should be ready at 6:30. And if you want to do push-ups, you can meet me outside at 6:00.”

This happened last night. Kaptaan was counting off the days to the festival on his fingers. Not too many left. (Days, not fingers.)

13^th onwards, all local labourers will go on leave for Diwali. So everything needs to be up by then. For that to happen without a hiccup, the plot needs to be cleared and marked before the stage-setup team arrives. They are due on the 1^st.

The plan is to finish levelling and clearing the entire festival site within today and tomorrow. If they can do that, then they can take all of 31^st to measure and mark the site.

“If we can get one day to plot everything out,” explains Kaptaan, “we can rectify anything that’s wrong.”

And it will take all day. The total area they need to cover is a little over a square kilometer. Time and money have both defected to the other side. The heat is taking a toll on whatever motivation remains.

And half the day is spent reversing unwanted acupuncture

But the show must go on.

So Kaptaan gathered the deputies and belted it out for an hour.

“What big companies do, we’re trying to do. Without any resources. And we have to. We have to get this done. It’s only us. You can’t be bothered about the sun or the heat. There’ll be snakes, there’ll be scorpions, there’ll be everything. It’s going to be bad. But we have to do this for the people coming to the festival. It’s all for them. We are not going to enjoy this festival. Get that in your heads right now. We’re not here for a holiday. We’ll celebrate when it’s over. For now you have to put every fucking thing into this – heart, mind, body, soul. When something needs to be done, don’t tell somebody else to do it. Just do it. Take a call. Do it yourself. Hum sab same level pe hai. We’re all labour. Set aside your ego. Everybody go do your own shit and block, block, block. Everything is sortable. Think on your feet. Your brain will hurt but you’ll sleep easily at night.”

Then he took a long look at his young battalion and softly added, “And if you’re tired, take a break. Don’t fall sick. Don’t be a hero. Just stay motivated and contribute, contribute, contribute.”