NUTMEG, CHAPTER 8: TOGETHER, WE CAN

25^th OCTOBER 2018, 10:35 AM

As soon as he swiped his identity card over the scanner locking the entry door, the silent demeanor of the lobby was replaced with sounds of loud chatter and meticulous planning. He made his way past the hive of cubicles and dropped his bag on his desk. Without starting his workstation, he drudgingly moved towards the cafeteria and pushed the door open with a yawn. The benevolent coffee machine roared as Parth pressed the button for a cappuccino. Though tempted for tea, he knew coffee was best cure for his drowsiness. Only football fans in India can sympathize with this situation, staying up late on weekdays sacrificing their sleep, usually past midnight to witness their favorite teams play in the Champions League. As he gulped down the first sip of his drink, he realized the reason for the unexpected buzz surrounding the office – it was the ‘Day of Geeks’. The biannual event, which motivates the employees to visualize and code a viable piece of technology working together in a team, brought some anxious moments for Parth. For last 3 such events, the team he had participated and persisted with were him, his friend Roshan and Sachin, his mentor. Sachin was the brain of the team, always coming up with the specification for the code and masterminded the win they achieved at the last event. With Sachin leaving the office last week, the team was short-handed and Parth felt the burden of coming up with an interesting idea on his shoulders.

Likewise, there were some nerves for Barcelona as well prior to their match against Inter the previous night. Their talisman, Lionel Messi, suffered a fractured arm and following the reports after the match, he was about to be out for nearly 3 to 4 weeks, leaving Barcelona without their greatest asset for few crunch fixtures. The first of them were against Inter at the Camp Nou, whom Barcelona fans or Cules as they are called, still remember for the painful defeat they inflicted during the semifinals in 2010. Inter may have lost their competitiveness post their emphatic victory but they have been rising again in Italian football, led by a charismatic Argentine of their own, Mauro Icardi, who had played at youth football level at the Barcelona academy, making it a sort of a homecoming for him. With Messi’s absence, the vacant spot in starting lineup was expected to be filled up by Ousmane Dembele, but displaying a glimpse of his shrewd tactics, coach Valverde opted to start with Rafinha, earning him a rare start. The surprising move soon started to pay dividends. Barcelona started the game with high tempo as Coutinho and Rafinha provided extra cover in the midfield to win and retain ball possession.

Parth thought of asking Navya to join his team for the event but came to know she had already registered with members from her project team. With no option in sight, they informed the event coordinator, Mr. Doval, about lacking a member in their team to meet the minimum count needed. Mr Doval was a stout cheerful man with a solution for every problem right up his sleeve. Infact, Parth couldn’t remember if he ever saw Mr. Doval without a smile plastered over his face. “Well, today is your lucky day. A fresher has just joined today and I’m pretty sure he is without a team for the event”, proclaimed Mr. Doval triumphantly. The fresher, looking like a person living inside a gym for decades with a muscular frame, introduced himself as Mohit. Parth, at the very first glance, formed an opinion in his mind that Mohit wouldn’t be cut for the job but sighed remembering that there is little he could do otherwise. Finally, the three settled down to begin their work.

Two hours out of the allotted twelve had passed and the trio still hadn’t figured out what they were going to implement. Even though ideas were thrown up for discussion, some were too simple while others were being vetoed by one member or the other. Mohit had cheekily suggested a ‘sarcasm detector’ which Parth rejected vehemently. Frustrated without a breakthrough in sight, Roshan and Parth decided to take a break grabbing more coffee in the cafeteria.

“It’s tough without Sachin, isn’t it?”, muttered Roshan. Immersed in stirring his drink Parth replied, “Yes. None of the ideas have been good enough to win. To think, new boy even suggested a sarcasm detector”.

“Is that what this is about?” retorted Roshan with an exasperated expression. “I thought you had been rejecting ideas because we might not be able to complete them or for some other issues. I had no idea you were judging it based on winnability”

“As the winners of last time, we can’t present anything sub-standard!”

“Bro, there is no legacy to live up to. We participate in this competition because of the fun we have as a team in creating something new and possibly learn something. Even the last time when we won, we created an interesting product because we believed it would be challenging and had fun building it. Also, personally I don’t think Mohit’s idea is such a bad option because ask yourself, do you know how to create a sarcasm detector?”, growled Roshan at Parth’s feeble excuse. Having his head set right, Parth raced back to their desk calling out to Mohit, “Hey, about that sarcasm detector, let’s do it!”.

Rafinha justified his selection in style, scoring the first goal of the match. Having won the ball in midfield, he moved the ball past two opposition players to pass the ball to Suarez on the right and continued his run forward. Suarez, who has upped his game by a notch ever since Messi’s injury, hit the ball with miraculous precision as it lofted over 4 Inter players to fall right at Rafinha’s feet, who smartly guided the ball into the net. Parth was stunned by the perfection of Suarez’s assist and had made a mental note to watch it again at the time of the match. The second half of the game dropped slightly in tempo, with Barcelona controlling the proceedings with ease with Inter hardly putting any pressure. Apart from a critical save goalkeeper Ter Stegen made early in the second half, Parth couldn’t remember any other Inter attack causing menace, thanks again to a stellar display by Arthur in the midfield, who was substituted to a round of standing ovation by the home crowd later in the game. Much maligned for his late substitutions, coach Valverde made the change in personnel quite early in this match bringing in Semedo and Vidal, using their pace and energy to liven up the intensity. Semedo’s introduction made it possible for the versatile Sergi Roberto to move to midfield from defence while Vidal was out on a mission with a point to prove after being in the centre of an Instagram controversy for expressing his displeasure of not playing regularly over social media. The changes created a quick impact as shortly after that Coutinho hit the post after a quick team attack, but the real salvation came in form of Jordi Alba’s goal. Vidal passed the ball to Rakitic who passed it to Alba between two defenders and Alba used his blistering pace to run past them and unleash a thunderous shot into the net. The whole team was delighted on doubling their lead, and so was Messi watching the game from the stands with his arm bandaged along with his son, Thiago.

Parth admitted to himself about being wrong about his first impression of Mohit as they started implementing the idea. He surely was talented but coded with a sense of naivety, which reminded Parth much of his early days in office. Free from the burden of his own expectations, Parth was thrilled to be working on training their machine learning models to improve accuracy and debugging the issues together with his team with occasional jokes and expletives flying around. Completing their task well within the defined time, Parth was at his charming best leading the demonstration for his team and his popularity in the office was an added advantage. Though on declaration of the result, it was revealed that they didn’t snatch the victory with the final votes count showing on the big screen set up, he wasn’t dejected and was content for the close fight they had provided to the eventual winners, who won by a paltry margin of 15 votes. He had learnt an important lesson today and from the match the night before, that despite the odds of the situation being against you, the key to success lies in teamwork and enjoying your actions. He cherished a different kind of victory, the one of reveling in that lesson.