Chat with PYT

Last weekend, I had a very James Bond-ish experience. I had been chatting with this PYT from a rival publication for over a month or so. (If you don't know what a PYT is, you are senile!)

Out of the blue, the lady in question asks yours truly whether he would be interested to join her for a drink or two on Saturday evening. Now, with all humility, yours truly does not encounter situations of such abundant possibilities on a regular basis. So the reply was an unequivocal 'yes' – a bit too unequivocal perhaps, on hindsight.

With punctuality completely unbecoming of a journo, I turned up for the rendezvous at the decided hour. PYT arrived half an hour later, looking more PYT-ish than ever before.

Conversation turned to work, which in business journalism circles, strictly means the Satyam saga. Now, any biz scribe worth his salt will tell you how he had predicted Ramalinga Raju's downfall a couple of years ago. Though I tried gamely not to show off my proximity to the Rajus, a couple of pegs of good ole' VAT 69 had me blabbering like a you-know-who.

PYT was listening with rapt attention, scribbling once in a while, as I waxed eloquent about my scoops, both real and imaginary. All this while, she had hardly touched her bottle of breezer.

"So who's been feeding you with all the dough from inside Satyam?" PYT asked as if she was asking what day of the week it was. "Just between you and me, it was Mr.XYZ's PA, who incidentally happens to be from the same place as I," was the prompt reply. "But just between you and me," I added, as my muddled mind tried to make out if I had just committed hara-kiri.

Anyways, to cut a long and sorry story short, it would suffice to say that this peccadillo of mine set off a chain of unfortunate incidents which resulted into Miss PYT being promoted to correspondent from trainee reporter, Mr. PA being shunted out of his office and yours truly searching for new sources and thinking of what could have been.