I hired my first secretary last week.
Unlike most other collaborations in this book publishing process, I got exactly the person I wanted. She’s smart, young, confident, and the sort of girl who actually prints out an agenda when her grandfather holds a magic show at his apartment. She is also – fortunately – the kind of secretary I can hug, which was pretty high on my requirements list.
If you have met me, you may know that I have a famously fuchsia business card, and it was only fitting that she carry something suitably reflecting my, um, values too. This led to the question of what her official job title would be. As a relatively benevolent megalomaniac, I naturally opened the subject to debate.
There came the fictional character suggestions. Could she be the Smithers to my Mr. Burns? The Alfred to my Batman? The Herbert Cadbury to my Richie Rich? The Jeeves to my Wooster? And of course, there was the hardcore literary reference that’s actually been adapted into common lingo: Girl Friday.
I liked the Robinson Crusoe analogy, but Girl Friday was slightly sexist, and reminded me for some reason of Helen Gurley Brown’s 1960’s instructions to the working gal (“In taking a man to lunch, I suggest you not reach for the check with your limp little arm in his presence” would be an example). My secretary didn’t want to be named after a butler, so that knocked Cadbury, Alfred and Jeeves off the list. As for Smithers and Burns, well, the whole one-sided infatuation thing didn’t go down too well with her. Too bad, I personally quite liked the allusion to the fact that I am actually very much a sinister, balding despot with a prominent overbite and hands perpetually in the scavenger mudra.
“Would you like to be my right hand man?” I asked, hoping to slide a bit of subversion in sideways.
“Um… no?”
Then came the absurdly fancy and meaningless titles. I once held an NGO job in which I was officially the “Communication Rights and Media Advocacy Officer”. In other words, I did the press releases and copywriting. So we came up with: “Liaison Coordinator”, “Administrative and Liaison Manager”, “Administrative Specialist” and “Associate Publicity and Public Relations Aide”.
She said, “My god, when I submit my resignation, I would probably die of exhaustion before I finish typing that.”
Bringing up a resignation was not a good sign. So we moved along.
I summarily dismissed the demeaning options – minion, underling and gofer – because I’m a TV villain despot, people, not a bitch, and those are not even remotely endearing.
Which brings us to the mummy-baby names. I have the kind of megalomania that makes me sometimes think I’m the Messiah and sometimes His mother. Tyra Banks has the same kind. Fortunately, I happen to know this, so I refrained from suggesting “descendant”, “sishya”, “poppet” and “protégé”.
In the end, we settled for something suitably professional, not too pretentious, and which will not result in poor Shilu having to tell people she works for a crazy lady – Executive Assistant. The name came courtesy of our friend Anand, a former child actor who is soon going to outdo and exceed his claim-to-fame of having danced on a table with Silk Smitha, and will need his own secretary then.
So, friends, frenemies and future patrons of disorganized poets: if you want to schedule in some face or phone time with me in the next few months, kindly consult my Executive Assistant.
Now excuse me while I go and enjoy feeling smug about the fact I can actually say that.
An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express. “The Venus Flytrap” is my weekly column in the Zeitgeist supplement. Previous columns can be found here.
Sharanya Manivannan 