Narad had called the meeting. Brahma was unhappy. Times had changed, no doubt, but Brahma preferred Narad to be the mischief maker of ancient lore than the Chief PR Officer for the Combined Heavens. Nowadays, he shuddered when reminded that Narad had possibly sprung from his forehead in a weak moment of poor humour. He preferred the other story of Narad being the son of Kashyap.
Somewhere along the way, Narad had transformed from the Veena strumming mischief maker and purveyor of gossip to the pinstripe three-piece suit Public Relations manager for the Combined Heavens.
Right now as Brahma looked at all the re-designated Gods, he mused how Man had finally got the Gods to cast themselves in their image. Brahma had been redesignated Chairman of the Board, Indra had taken the CEO hat while Vishnu and Shiva had both been given the Executive Director tags.
This meeting was for him one where he had sworn to keep his peace as he knew that Shiva and Vishnu had a greater say in the discussion to follow from what he had read in the agenda.
Narad called the meeting to order which now had a dozen on Gods, half a dozen goddesses and two dozen apsaras in attendance. Indraprastha had been turned into a large board room with plasma screens and ipods and handhelds were scattered all over though, Brahma mused, god only knew why they needed these human instruments when all their senses were infinitely more endowed.
'' We have a problem," Narad said, "which requires a comprehensive solution. Over the past 50 years, our exit strategy has failed miserably, resulting in very poor PR. Where earlier people used to look at their passage into the next world as time for Gods and Goddesses, worship and the rest, we find that there is increasing disgruntlement specially as there is now a good appreciation of the body wasters like Cancer, AIDS, Hepatitis and the rest. There is no fear of an act of God. Worse, even natural disasters have ceased to draw awe and wonder. The whole approach has become quite clinical. It is time, therefore, for a complete overhaul of the exit strategies and its time we called in outside consultants."
Narad paused as much for effect as to invite reaction. All he saw was dowcast eyes as the assembled gathering struggled to grasp the concept. In a way he felt pity for them. They had done the same thing over and over again with great success. Centuries had passed with the same effect from the same practices, same interventions in the affairs of men.
And yet the pace of change over the past 50 years had been so rapid that even as Men and Women prayed to God more, they believed in the might of Heavens less and less. The Gods seemed defeated, disillusioned and in disarray. More and more them would make trips down to Earth to pick up the latest gizmo or, worse, a new magazine or book.
The apsaras were particularly affected as the nubile scantily clad women on earth were distracting more Gods than their more classical mould of beauties with a slight bulge in the midriff and abundance of endowment in the asset region.
Taking silence as consent, Narad moved on. "I have, therefore, taken the liberty of inviting a number of top notch Earth Global consultants to make a presentation on New Exit Strategies. Over the past 60 days McKinkey and ThriceWaterhouse have worked hard to prepare a SWOT analysis of our existing exit options and come up with choices. Please do note that they are still Earth bound and have been transported through dimensional portals. So they believe that they have come to a hideaway destination in India and are addressing a group of post-modern ascetics with immense wealth to squander. I would request all of you to not use your devic powers in front of them." Kamadev groaned as that meant walking across to pick up his choice of cuisine.
Narad nodded to the Dev at the door who scampered out. Shortly after, the Dev ushered in a flange of men and women in dark suits. The group looked a little disoriented, a little puzzled by the strange series of incidents.
But India was a 'different' destination as the President of McKinkey had patiently explained and there were likely to see 'different things and have different experiences'. Still, some of it was truly strange.
Specially, the bit about the plane landing vertically in the valley surrounded by brilliantly lit Himalayas. They had all taken pictures with their new digital cameras but there was certainly something odd in this strange gathering of oddly dressed men and women with a smattering of men who looked like they would be at home in any corporate boardroom. In fact, it almost looked like some of their clothes were changing shapes and contours and the walls of the room looked almost fluid. Vishnu smiled as he read the thoughts of the bewildered group in front of him and winked at Shiva.
The McKinkey leader muttered under his breath at the strange mix but reminded himself that India today was the largest outsourced destination and, god forbid, he might himself be outsourced to India if the country kept picking up its economic pace.
He picked up his visiting cards, stopped staring at the floating piece of wood and turned to introduce himself.
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