The black hole

The Black Hole.

It instantly absorbs everything that approaches it. Situated in the centre, it has a special affinity for oranges from the east and pears from the west. More so the oranges. When overripe and exhausted oranges and pears start to drop from their branches, they get pulled into the Black Hole by a sudden and great force of attraction called more-money-less-bullshit. The Black Hole takes the oranges and the pears, adds sufficient erm... "dough"... and blends them all together to make a special kind of fruit punch, which we're pleased to declare - packs quite a punch.

Within the premises of the Black Hole dwell strange beings - some who have never stepped out of the Black Hole and hence do not know how merciless the world outside is, and others who are still trying to get over the ghosts of the orange and the pear. Amongst them are the Black-street boys, whose chief is O-CIA (Office CIA), a reliable database that has access to every bit of information - from the GM's salary to the security guard's age. This group, that gets unwillingly dragged into post-lunch shoe-shopping and China-edition-CD-buying sprees by the ladies, also includes the guy who used to live as an orange under an assumed name in the past, and till date his colleagues aren't too sure of what his real name is. And of course, there is the Captain who has recently hopped aboard, and is too new to pull off any of his usual antics. We'll see.

Then there are the utterly gorgeous babes. This group includes the one who gets so many emails a day that even her automated email prompt has given up and declared "Beyonce babe, I quit. I can't do this anymore. You have way too many emails." There's the frustrated Santarina whose ELFs are always missing and who faints even if she as much as reads the word 'durian' in an email. Not to forget the one who is supposed to be like Charlotte from SATC but is sometimes spotted sporting blonde wigs in the office and receiving mail packages addressed to 'Samantha'. And finally, the one who's out searching for an answer to the eternal question, "Where can I find a good private Hindi tutor?"

Recently, interesting developments have taken place in the Black Hole. There has been a rather large delivery of a fruit basket with many many oranges, each of a different kind, with promise of more to come. They will all be described in this space when the time, just like the oranges, is ripe.