An act of Difference

Most of you might not know that i am a summer Intern at a reputed American Investment Bank called Goldman Sachs. Life everyday means learning new stuff. For the first few weeks i was amazed at the way the employees conduct themselves with ease. They seem to be very cordial with "Hello! How are you Doing?", "Hi! Have a nice day". Every single person is on that good manners list and I having entered the organization as part of the curriculum made every effort to look normal when i come across people in the floors of the office only that i end up being clumsy. The moment there is a "Hi Haarish! Good morning. How was the day yesterday?" .."Grrr!! hmmm. yeee.. Great...Sorry but i have a meeting at 9 with John and i am already late" is my reply when the whole office knows that John resigned aeons ago! But could not help that for quite some time. I eventually realised not to venture out when some one's in the coffee station because i could be confronted with these "Hi" "Hello" etc stuff, the coffee place being the only place i frequent in the whole office.
Things started getting better after a month and i got comfortable with the new place and surroundings. Now back to my topic("An act of Difference"). The office in India was started a year ago and we have considerable American and British employees with us to help us with the transition. One of them is the CEO David Simons, a energetic, athletic and quite interesting personality who commands a lot of respect among all the divisions of GS.
It so happened that over the weekend we had our inaugural David Simons Cricket Tournament at the St. Johns Cricket Grounds, the first of any entertainment event in GS.
Our CEO is a person who travels executive class in flights, advices all the employees to use both sides of the paper for print- outs etc. They are other instances that i have heard about him being the real driving force for most of the accomplishments in GS elsewhere.
So we turned up in hundreds for the match and me not being much of a sporting freak was there to support my team(App Dev) who eventually turned out to be the Runners! The matches were on by the time i got there at 10 having woken up at 9.20 and making every effort to look good taking into account the number of girls who come there to cheer their respective teams. The moment i get there, my team is warming up for their next match. There i saw this gentleman in a red T-Shirt, hat and really long camera(the lens i guess). You would have guessed who that person is by now, but i didnt for the slightest chance realise it could be my CEO, the official photographer for the cricket tournament named after him!
He was supposed to play his first match against our App Dev 'A' team that was not as strong as the runners up team but that team had my manager in it and i was praying the zillion Hindu gods so that a miracle could help my managers team win the tournament. The first match started at 12 and my managers team was bowling first. The opening batsmen for the CEO's team were already in their positions and one of them was the CEO himself.
He being American knows nothing about cricket and we had this opinion that the match might be just easy. We were in for a surprise. He held the bat out side the body just like the way cartoons depict cave-men with a club. Off came the first ball and he swung the bat. Phew, the ball raced past him to the keeper! It was from the next ball that we were brought to our senses. Most of us didnt realise that the most of the Americans could play BASEBALL. The next ball was a short length delivery and off she went out of the stadium. No foot movement, just one swing and that did it. The first two overs cost us 46 runs and this being a three over match something had to be done. My manager was on one of the fielders and he kept staring at me for the "Rip them Apart Buddy!!" that i told just before he went to play! Finally in the last ball of the last over we got him out and i jumped like one "George of the Jungle" as though it did us great in getting him out in the last ball of the match.
Facing their bowling was next in our minds when one of the team mates popped up this question "Guys, What do we do if David bowls?". Me in the usual spirits of impressing my manager exclaimed "Hey, that should not be a problem! I dont think he bowls. But then we have have Mathew(My Manager) with us who can infiltrate that!". Neither did Matt answer that not was i waiting for an answer!
To our joy David donned the wicket keepers role and that was our first relief ! Their Bowling lacked the consistency that we did! One or two balls that batmen could chase and hit got us the maximum runs. In the end we won and Extras was the top scorer for us, David was the man of the match as expected!
We were having lunch and it was Chicken Biriyani, Chicken Sandwich for non-vegetarians and veg biriyani and sandwich for the vegetarians. The food was good and me being strictly vegetarian (Guys, my Parents might read this!), was content with all this and ofcourse the endless amount of coke.
The food was served in paper plates and coke in paper cups and as usual the Indian mentality caught up with me(rest of us too!!). The plates and the cups were thrown all over the ground and i personally contributed to ten such cups! The rest of the matches were going on when suddenly David was off everybody's screen. His camera was on the table but he was not to be found. To everybody's surprise David re-appeared with three empty card-board boxes and two empty tins, placed it on the pavement and started collecting all the plates near him and put it in the boxes and the cups in the tins. I was shocked to see this man doing this job and so was everyone else. The next moment i was chasing all the plates and cups flying like a mad man(gave me a feeling like i was chasing chickens) and personally went to the bin near David and dropped it there! In just over ten minutes that place was clear of any plates/cups. Just then David turned to me and said "It just takes one man to make a difference". Just so true!!!