Archives for category: Eastern Europe

THOSE EYES

February 19, 2015 //
2

I Went Home And Cried

Haresh Shah

bea
Sitting across from me in a small windowless meeting room of the Holiday Inn in Warsaw is stunningly beautiful Beata Milewska. She is dressed in a conservative grey dress with the sharp U shaped neckline, trimmed with black satin ribbon. Underneath the geometric U are black brass buttons that run down to and below her breasts. Blonde, she wears fashionably shorter hair, reaching down just a little above her neck. Her eyes are sparking blue and smiles are amused but slight and measured. I guess her to be in her late twenties or the very early thirties.

Sitting next to her is Tomasz Raczek – supposedly to translate from English, but Beata herself is quite proficient in the language, so other than some whispered consulting, Tomasz is there more as an observer who would eventually be the editor-in-chief of the Polish edition. On my left is our Hungarian Publisher Deszo Futasz and on my right is Rolf Dolina, the man who has gotten us together in hopes that I would be positively impressed by Beata and her ability to gather a qualified team of professionals to create the Polish edition of Playboy.

After landing in still the old and the dilapidated Warsaw-Okecie Airport, as we drive into the city, I witness the remnants still of the city heavily bombed first by the German Luftwaffe in 1939, and then by the Russians in 1944 to quell the Warsaw Uprising. Both sides of the road are lined with the communist era’s drab and dark harsh apartment blocks. Making them further sinister is the shroud of the cold and the cloudy month of January. I cringe at the thought of the lives lived and of deaths and destruction and the dismay that still must permeate the day-to-day lives of its citizens. After all, it’s just little over a year since the fall of the Berlin wall.

Up until then, this is what I know about Beata. She is from Danzig – once the autonomous city state on the Baltic Sea, Gdańsk, nearby to the port of Gdynia . She is currently publishing a woman’s fashion magazine, Bea, in the image of Germany’s Burda Moden, named after its editor and publisher Aenne Burda – likewise she has named the magazine after herself. It speaks of her definite self confidence. Beata is publishing her magazine with very limited or no resources at all. Rolf has come to know of her through his regional manager Wlodzimierz Trzcinski. Beata had approached Wlodzimierz in hopes of selling ad pages to Fuji in her magazine. Instead, Fuji offers to supply all the films Bea needs in exchange of the byline that would say: shot on Fuji films. Not exactly what she is looking for, but the money she would save on films is still substantial – a sort of win-win situation. Rolf is impressed by this young, tenacious and hard working “businesswoman,” – as much as he is with her looks, smarts and sophistication.

The meeting proceeds well. With exception of the others present making their small contributions here and there – it’s basically Beata and me interacting while the rest look on. As we go through issues of Playboy page by page, me explaining and defining them, then throwing questions at Beata. She answers them with earnestness and precision. She seems not only to understand and know the nuts and bolts aspects of building a magazine from cover-to-cover, but also has a genuine feel for the product and its target audience. She has studied various editions of the magazine and has given serious thought to what kind of Playboy she would help create for her country.

As relaxed as the meeting seems, with Tomasz and I drinking beer and everyone else sipping on their coffees, the general air in the room is somewhat tense. Like that in an examination room. Me playing the part of a serious academician conducting orals to Beata’s doctoral candidate. While I am being my natural professional self as I a try to make important points, I am equally as aware of the fact how attractive the woman sitting across the table from me is. She exerts a certain aura that blends in well with her professionalism and very serious business woman demeanor. Her total attention to the every word I utter and her precise responses to my questions and the comments are refreshing. She has certainly done her homework. I can’t help but admire this young woman.

As much as we try to be discreet, frequent eye contacts are inevitable. Every time it happens, I see in her eyes a certain spark and a purple burst of light rays flashing across the table like from the old fashioned revolving flash cubes of the Kodak Instamatic camera. And yet, I know, and Beata is well aware that whether or not we would do Playboy with her hinges upon if I am impressed by her and her answers and have positively gauged her ability to pull it all together.

At the end of our meeting, that lasted a little over two hours, I feel drained. But I still have a long day ahead of me – a quick visit to Rolf’s Fuji operation in Warsaw. Have initial chat with the rep of another Polish prospect, Jerzy Mazur, who has flown in from Gdańsk. Rest of the day, I spend with Deszo and Rolf, have dinner with the Fuji crowd and by the time I return to my room late in the night, I am totally and positively wiped out.

As I hit the sack and think of the busy busy day and the people I have met, is when I realize how impressed I am with Beata. And how I am also taken by her overall beauty and the intelligence – what keeps flashing in my mind is the sparkles of her eyes and their penetrating gaze piercing through mine. As if we two were alone in that room shrouded in the darkness like that of the double apertured camera obscura with twin cones of lights rushing towards each other and colliding mid stream in a fusion. I suddenly feel spent by the undercurrent of the intensity of those two hours.

●●●

In Rolf’s opinion, Poland has the potential of being the bigger and the better market than already existing Hungary and soon to be launched Czechoslovakia. But we are in no hurry to move yet. This is January of 1991 and we have ahead of us the launch in Czechoslovakia. And Rolf’s focus is still to first strike an accord with the Czech license holder Vladimir Tichý. We have actually snuck out of Prague for a day just to get a feeling.

Now months later, smitten and encouraged by the success in Czechoslovakia, Rolf and I once again begin to talk Poland. In the meanwhile, on a quick visit to Gdynia in October with Rolf, I have a chance to see Beata again and meet her  partner Tomasz Zięba, whom she would eventually marry. I feel quite comfortable with them. Once again, should we go with it, through his Autraco Holdings, Rolf would bankroll the edition. This time around, now I no longer remember, but believe at Rolf’s suggestion we discuss and for the first time Playboy agrees to go into a joint-venture with Autraco Holdings as one of the two major share holders – Beata and Tomasz would manage the company and would also become its minor shareholders. All the logistics in the place, we begin to work on creating the Polish edition.

Of all the editions I have been a part of launching, the early days are the fun most. There are no pretentions, no pressure. No real deadlines. Something I always insist upon  – it’s a NO GO until we are well and ready. I want us to work simultaneously on three issues. Agree on the details and the definitions of the contents, assign the contributors, make dummies and then revise everything. Plan promotions and advertising campaigns, work on the launch details. This is the time when I excel in my role as the teacher and this is when the team is its most enthusiastic. This is when the adrenaline flows and the creativity takes place. This is when I am hardest on them. The suggestions turn into heavy discussions and the discussions into serious arguments. All work for the good of the magazine, because when we’re ready to launch, almost everyone is in sync. Nothing is more satisfying than the feeling that we have done the best that we could. We have created something we all could be equally as proud of.

This is when we all spend most of the time together, we bond or not, crowd the restaurants and taverns. Brain storm all the while. Still in the formative stage, we barely have proper offices. The publisher finds a space, a few desks and a couple of phone lines, a fax machine and we begin to buzz.

What they have found as our offices is a quaint single family row house on a quiet curved street away from the hubbub of the city center. The two story house is renovated with wood paneled sky lighted loft and exposed beams and the brick walls. The roof is red tiles. The admin offices are on the main floor and up above is editor-in-chief Tomasz Raczek’s office, which is where I am usually parked. Frequently joined by the celebrated artist and the art director Andrzej Pągowski. I love the cozy homey ambience. Once in a while I would climb downstairs and talk with Beata and Tomasz Zięba and their associates about the details of the launch.

Intense, and yet, they would be nice and easy days. The afternoon I still clearly remember as if it were only yesterday is when Beata and I are sitting at the edge of her desk, oblivious to the hurried steps crossing the hallway outside her office door, we are talking in whispers. Not exactly the business. And somewhere along the line we are holding hands, not unlike lovers. We have developed a special kind of rapport in which I wrote in my journal during one of those early days – we are becoming to be good friends – buddies if you may. Now she has longer hair that billow over and caress her shoulders. She is dressed in casual slacks and a loose fitting top. Her face wears her usual friendly and seductive smiles. Things are moving along fine and we’re relaxed – sitting side by side on the edge of her desk. We are reminiscing about that first time when we had sat across the table from each other at the Holiday Inn conference room, now a year and a half in the past.

‘Do you remember still?’ Beata asks.

‘How can I forget? I had immediately fallen in love with you, you know? I was so taken by how beautiful you were! And the blinding sparkle of your blue eyes! But I had to maintain my professional demeanor and concentrate on doing my job.’

‘While I was a nervous wreck.’

‘I know, it was tense. But nervous?’

‘And then your intense gaze! As if you were looking right through me. Your deep dark brown eyes, penetrating like two sharp arrows. It was difficult controlling myself.’

‘No!!!’

‘Yes.’ She responds. And then there is sudden silence between us.

‘I came home and cried!’ I hear her whisper.

© Haresh Shah 2015

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, February 27, 2015

ONCE BITTEN FOREVER SMITTEN

Yup! That’s the power of cuddly Bunny for you. A story of the young man’s falling in love with the idea of publishing Playboy in Poland, while having no clue what it really takes to create a magazine. But when you’re in love?

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Categories Eastern Europe, Entrepreneurs, Memoire, Playboy, Poland, Profile

THE TRADER OF EVERY PORT

December 4, 2014 //
1

Always Ready For A New Business

Haresh Shah

chickenbiz2

Must have been early 1990 when landed on my desk is an impressive corporate brochure of Autraco Holdings based in Vienna, Austria. In the cover letter signed by its CEO Rolf Dolina, he expresses his desire to want to publish Playboy magazine in Czechoslovakia. But we are already in negotiations with Vladimír Tichý of the Gennex Corporation, the publishers of magazines, books, films and video that included the Czech language edition of ComputerWorld. That in itself wouldn’t have stopped me from entertaining another option, especially because the Autraco Holdings boasts of its wide reach in the former eastern European countries that include Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The countries where they are sole distributors of Memorex USA, Honda automobiles and Fuji films. Enclosed with the letter are some issues of the Czech language version of Germany’s Burda Moden, widely distributed and hugely popular women’s magazine – similar to the Simplicity patterns in the United States. The magazine he was publishing with Hana Wagenhofer – his Prague based business partner in several joint ventures. And it is mainly for Hanna that he is so keen on doing Playboy. It would give her a stronger presence on the Czech publishing scene.

From the look of it, the corporation seems to be financially healthy and thriving, with dozens of entities spread over ten European nations. Looks more like a department store of consumer products, up until then deprived to the communist block. Also included in their portfolio are Palmer’s and Elizabeth Arden fashion and beauty products. A far cry from really creating a high quality magazine. But I realize that for any successful entrepreneur like Rolf Dolina, everything is a “product”, as it is for our group President William Stokkan. I remember when International Publishing was absorbed by Bill’s Licensing and Merchandizing division, me often chiding him that magazines don’t have customers, they have readers. He would smirk and say, whatever! And yet, smart enough to know the difference.

For the businessmen aspiring to be publishers, the thinking must go; They can find some good translators, sign up with a printing company and distributors and voila! Other details are just logistics. That is, until they meet me do they realize that you can’t make a successful local edition of any magazine just by translating the content. Unlike other products, it doesn’t come pre-produced. That they really need to create it issue by an issue of their own, month after month, for which they need an entire editorial staff, advertising and distribution arms.

Ditto, the small independent publishers. Even though they do have some idea of what sort of infra-structure making of a magazine takes. And still they think soon as they put Playboy logo on the cover, it should fly off the newsstands like the pigeons off Piazza San Marcos in Venice. Suddenly it would become their flagship and above all they would be known as the publishers of the local edition of Playboy – Hugh M. Hefner reincarnate of their countries.

Up until the opening up of the previously closed markets of the eastern Europe, Playboy had signed up with the major local publishers, some even larger corporations than PEI in Chicago. Once the agreement was signed, they would have a team devoted exclusively to Playboy, and one more title would be absorbed into their wider network of other publications. Not so with the emerging markets such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland – the first of the three viable eastern European markets. There are no established publishers for us to hook up with. There is no tradition of free journalism. The people with some professional knowledge of the media had emerged from the state’s propaganda machinery who worked within the stringent constraints of communism. The field is wide open to anyone who wants to explore. Suddenly there are small time hustlers with BIG ideas. Some of them, serious contenders, others without a clue.

And then there are the Western entrepreneurs – the expats returning home and some like Rolf Dolina, well established businessmen across the driving distances of the Eastern borders. Rolf is already doing business in several of those countries and is the go getter – the kind who grabs an opportunity when he sees one. And he knows how to make and cultivate contacts. He is a quick study and learns ropes incredibly fast. Never mind the product. In India, they would call him sub bunder ka vepari – the trader of every port. He is smart, shrewd and calculating, not to mention, charming. Making money is his passion and of many business cards he carries, the one of them is an illustration of the rooster just having settled his hen in the process of laying eggs, turning around and chasing another chick before she gets away. The tag line at the bottom says: always ready for a new business.

You can’t help but respect their daring and tenacity. Even so, the first thing I do is to try to dissuade them, because as Jorge Fontevecchia of Editorial Perfil in Argentina once put it: only to your enemies do you suggest publishing as a business. Another argument I make is that asking for Playboy’s hand is like wanting to marry a rich man’s totally spoiled daughter and it takes more than money to keep her in the style she is used and aspires to. I have gotten some laughs out of it, but you can’t dissuade someone who has hopelessly fallen in love with the idea.

In such cases I try my best to avoid meeting face-to-face with such prospects. What if I end up liking him or her? But when he sets his heart on something, Rolf is not that easily dissuaded and he is not the kind to give up that easily. After some months of fax correspondence Rolf seems to have understood that doing a serious magazine was a different ball game altogether. Not too long after, he calls my office in Chicago and casually mentions that he is in Florida, and wouldn’t mind flying to Chicago and talk with me personally. During his visit, we have a pleasant Indian lunch at my favorite of the time, Bombay Palace. Even though I had forgotten all about it, Rolf still fondly remembers that meal.

A month earlier, I had hosted the Czech team in Chicago and over that beautiful fall week sat down with them at my home around the dining table and taken them through the nuts and bolts of making of Playboy magazine – with as Ivan (Chocholouš) still remembers, Beethoven’s Symphony #9 playing in the background. Ivan couldn’t help but ask: whether there was any significance behind me playing that particular music? Not really. But it gave me an idea to use it as an example for what I was just then trying to communicate. I was taking them through the making of Playboy, page by page, and one of the things I always want to hammer into the minds of a new team is the concept of pacing.

To make it simple, you don’t place a cartoon behind a cartoon, non-fiction doesn’t follow another non-fiction, ditto the pictorials. You can’t have every illustration as a two page spread or a single page opening. The magazine, like a symphony has to have a certain rhythm which segues from one note to another. The fan of classical music, Ivan immediately understood it, something he still brings up in conversations. At the end of our weeklong orientation and the brain storming, we had agreed on the next steps. For them to go home and begin to put together the first few issues. I would take several trips to Prague and work with them and we would shoot for the early 1991 launch.

●●●

Well before the Berlin Wall crumbled on November 9, 1989, Hungary was already wiggling out of the tight ropes of the Soviet Union. Popping up were many young entrepreneurs and starting up private businesses. Among them, Dezsö Futász, the suave and dynamic publisher of the Hungarian edition of Scientific America and ComputerWorld.

Approached me on his behalf were the Hungarian expats and venture capitalists, John and Eva Breyer of Invent Corporation, based in Hillsborough, California. The breathtaking story of their escape across the border into Austria and on to the United States during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in itself would make for an incredible and thrilling love story. But for the time being, I would stick to the story of Playboy’s arrival in the eastern Europe.

After the initial exchange of information, my boss Bill and I met in my office with Eva and Dezsö in the early spring of 1989. Over the next several months we work on the details of launching of Playboy’s first edition behind the Iron Curtain. As we had just began to put together the pages of the first issue of the Hungarian edition, I remember how our entire team had put everything away and rushed over to the Kossuth Lajos tér to join the jubilant crowd gathered outside Hungary’s Parliament Building to witness the historic moment of Matyas Szuros, Hungary`s acting president declaring Hungary to be an independent nation.

It was Monday, October 23, 1989. Sixteen days ahead of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The exuberant crowd and the joy that rippled through us took me back forty two years to the night of August 15, 1947 to Bori Bunder in Bombay, and to the jubilant crowds celebrating India’s independence from the British. I still can feel the exhilaration and the thrill of that night. Seven years old, perched on the shoulders of an adult, I was surrounded by an euphoria with beating of the drums, screams of joy, chanting – the fireworks lighting up the sky and the Indo-Gothic façade of the Victoria Terminus lit up like a bride was something I still cherish like a distant dream that’s still well and alive in my memory. The Hungarian edition of Playboy launches on November 28, 1989, nineteen days after the people began to carry bits and pieces of the Berlin wall home as souvenirs.

It’s almost a year later that I am sitting with Rolf Dolina in Chicago’s Bombay Palace restaurant. It is clear to me that he is smitten with the idea of publishing a Playboy in the eastern Europe, where his businesses reign supreme. I tell Rolf about how far along we already were with the Czech edition. Nothing I could do.

But I am thinking, perhaps he can team up with Dezsö in Hungary. A whole year in publishing Playboy there, the economy and the weaning optimism of the country is setting in and the magazine is not doing as well as anticipated. Though it has already established itself as the class in itself against which others are measured. They are struggling. What the magazine needs is some infusion of cash and someone like Rolf’s expertise and the business acumen.

Over the next month or so I speak with Dezsö, Eva and Rolf, resulting in Dezsö, his partner Andras Toro, Rolf and I meeting in Budapest. Rolf is willing to land helping hand in Hungary, but his heart is still set on Czechoslovakia. Dezsö is connected with Vladimír Tichý in Prague through their common thread of ComputerWorld. The next day, Dezsö and I drive to Prague and meet with Vladimír and his right hand man Ivan Chocholouš. A day later, Rolf drives in from Vienna and the three of them reach an accord. Rolf gets to help Dezsö as well as gets to participate in Czechoslovakia. Eventually he would buy out Vladimír. Mission accomplished!

When we launch the Czechoslovakian edition on April 25, 1991, I am on the stage of Lucerna  Palace with Playmate Christy Thom (February 1991) by my side, announcing the arrival of the Czech Playboy. Standing on the side are: the publisher Vladimír Tichý and the co-publisher Hana Wagenhofer, while Rolf is hobnobbing in the crowd, feeling like a million dollars, smug and with a big smile on his face. Like the German Playmate Barbara Corser (July 1975) once said to me: Haresh, if you want something bad enough, you somehow manage to get it.

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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THE ARABIAN NIGHT

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Categories Czechoslovakia, Eastern Europe, Entrepreneurs, Friendship, Hungary, Playboy, Profile

THE CORPORATE CASTE SYSTEM

September 5, 2013 //
1

Haresh Shah

A Touch Of Communism In The Capitalist Culture

tugowar2

In the fall of 1989 over the weekend of October, 6/8, Carolyn and I went to the Duneland Beach Inn in Michigan City, Indiana and returned with an agreement that the best course of action for us as individuals – to use the corporate cliché, going forward, was for us to go our own way. Not even a tiny blip on the world stage. That very weekend on October 7, Hungary becomes independent and on October 23rd, the acting President, Mátyás Szűrös declares the country a Republic in the public ceremony held in the same Kossuth Square where the first mass rally of the 1956 revolution was held.  The historic moment for which I happened to be in Budapest and along with the Hungarian  editors, would go to the square to hear the declaration proclaimed. We come back to the office and begin to put together the first issue of Playboy to come out a month later – the first of the three I would launch behind the iron curtain. On November 4, I turn 50 with a big fanfare and the nine liter Salamanzar  bottle of Lanson champagne, compliment of my boss and the friend Bill (Stokkan). The Berlin Wall falls on November 9th, the Velvet Revolution unfolds on Národní třída in Prague on November 17th, and in-between on the weekend of October 14/15, Playboy headquarters in Chicago move some three plus blocks south east  to 680 N. Lake Shore Drive from it’s imposing skyline presence at 919 N. Michigan Avenue. The Bunny Beacon that illuminated the Chicago skies for 23 years, is no longer and neither are the floor high letters PLAYBOY, lit bright.

I am not even in the town when the big move happens. Thanks to my most able and the efficient assistant Mary (Nastos) that I am moved into my new office and when I walk in a couple of weeks later, other than a few unopened boxes, Mary has found the new home for my stuff in a very organized way in the space I would occupy for the next four years. The office I have yet to see.

I park my car in the same building instead of a block away in a separate parking garage. I take the elevator first down to the lobby and switch to the one which would take me to the Playboy’s new headquarters on the 15th floor. I am dazzled by the cascade of natural and artificial light, the high ceiling and the U shaped railing up above, looking down at the receptionist a floor down below. Mounted on the wall on the west side of the reception area is a huge bronze sculpture of Playboy’s familiar Rabbit Head blinking at me with its left eye. Commissioned and created by the renowned Chicago sculptor, Richard Hunt. On the opposite side, in front of an expansive glass wall sits a slender, exotic looking dark skinned, very sweet and petite young woman, I have never seen before.

‘May I help you?’ She flashes a friendly smile, which is unconsciously seductive, her voice dripping with honey.

‘Oh yes! I am here – ur, I guess I work here!’

Soon I see in the background Mary coming down the steps of one of the two Terrazzo staircases.  At the first glance I perceive them to be  to be twin modernistic Spanish steps descending on to the either side of Piazza di Spagna in Rome. I see Mary rush towards the glass wall and yanking open the door on the side.

‘Welcome back,’ she gives me a hearty hug as the receptionist looks on.

‘Mona, meet my boss Haresh Shah.’ Mary introduces  me to the receptionist and takes me by the hand. ‘Let me take you to your new office.’

I am in awe of what I see as we approach the atrium. Instead of little shops and the stands found on a Piazza, I am face-to-face with a large oil on canvas portrait of Gloria Steinem, done by Chicago artist Ed Paschke, mounted on one of the panels, staring menacingly at me through her magenta colored glasses. Up the stairs on the wall facing us, I see a pair of giant red lips by Tom Wesselman, open wide in a hearty laugh, a set of perfectly aligned teeth sparkling. I also glance up at the  slanted modernistic metal canopies crowning the glass walls. The executive offices. Mary informs me, about what would come to be known as the fish tank. As we stop at the top of the floor, there is an office on my right, That’s John Mastro’s office. And the right outside begins the grey Steele railing that stretches over the expanse of the atrium, curved like  the shape of a luxury liner. Stunning!

Turning the curve, Mary  leads me to the section behind the lips; assigned to our group. Suddenly I am in the different world away from the glitz and the glamour of the areas surrounding the atrium and the executive offices.  It’s a large square space. Clustered in the middle are the work stations, mostly in blue with grey trimming. While most of the support staff sat outside the offices of their bosses at 919, here they each have their own work stations, separated by about six feet high soft padded partitioned walls. Over there is Bill’s office. She points to the closed door across what I will call the bullpen. And then there are other offices like fortresses to the support staff. This is where I sit, right outside of your office. She opens the closed door on her right, turns on the lights and lets me in.

I pause and stand at the threshold of my office and take it in. The floor is covered with bright royal blue soft padded rug, The bright white, perhaps 5000 Kelvin fluorescent tubes filtered through the chrome slated fixtures flood the room.  I am pleased that at long last, I’ve gotten the larger desk, the kind I had always wanted but never had an office big enough to justify having one. Unlike the beige marble desk top, this one has speckled black granite top. The base is the same with the filing and storage cabinets built-in as before, because it’s one of the same desks refurbished, in that instead of the natural oak stain, it is now painted black. It is flushed against the sidewall made up of the bright blue padded panels.  Behind the desk is wall-to-wall credenza – something I really love. A side of the desks had always been a small credenza meant for  typewriters. Which alas would become too small just in a year or so to accommodate desk top computers. The chairs too are the same, reupholstered and covered also with different fabric – now with either solid black or small black and grey pattern. On my right is a granite topped conference table, which is larger in diameter than the one I had. But no  couch for lounging during the meeting breaks.

Who got how big of an office and in which area and how each one of them would be furnished was determined by our corporate titles and the numeric personnel classifications. To be fair to everyone, a system had to be devised. It had to be just and egalitarian or at least to fit within our boss Bill’s definition of some people being more equal than others. Since there wasn’t going to be any natural light in our windowless offices, it became important to spruce up their interior  dressing.  Something we could choose. Sort of. So Sue Shoemaker, the Director of Corporate Administrative Services, stops by to see each one of us in advance of the big move.

‘What color wall paneling you like?’ Now the dirty brown cork walls to be replaced with the padded and fabric covered panels, to be used as before as our wall-to-wall bulletin boards. The choice was between bright red and royal blue. I chose  royal blue. Though I would get a larger desk, I had to choose between either a mini conference table and/or the couch.

‘I would like to have both!’

‘You can only have one or the other.’

‘I do have both of them right now.’

‘So I see. But with your position with the company, you’re entitled to only one of them.’

‘That’s new to me, but for what I do, I have a need for both of them. We have meetings all day long and it just makes it nicer to have a bit more relaxing couch when we break.’

‘Sorry, but we had to draw a line somewhere and only the Sr. VPs and above get both.’ I was only a VP.

What when and if I am promoted to be a Sr. VP? I want to ask, but stop short. Perhaps not a good omen. As it turns out, I am indeed promoted to be the senior VP within six months, but then the office I am assigned to is not big enough to accommodate both, and there is no provision for the expansion. Grudgingly, I accept what’s given to me.

‘Do you like your new office?’ Mary chirps.

‘I guess!’ She knows what I am thinking.

‘Well, I leave you alone to catch up with things. Welcome back again.’ And she closes the door behind her, leaving me feeling like a prisoner being lead to his cell and the door closed behind him. Feeling dismayed at not even a sliver of natural light peeking through, I try to forget it and settle myself at my new desk, pick up the piles of paper prioritized by Mary and begin with reading faxes that needed my immediate attention. The day slips by fast. Most everyone has left for the day, including Mary, leaving me behind still trying to catch up. Now with no need to keep the door closed, I am able to see out at the work stations outside. Even see a bit of the window at the farthest side of the hall, beyond which is Chicago’s pride and joy, Lake Michigan. The forbidden fruit for us.

When done for the day, I pack up and turn off the lights in my office. Suddenly its pitch dark in there, except for a bit of the light from the bullpen crossing in. On impulse, I put down my briefcase on the floor, enter back my office and shut the door. Never thought anything can be so dark. It feels like a cave with no opening. Closed in like a tomb. I hastily make my escape, and stop outside to look around at the exterior. While the atrium and other public areas and the conference rooms and the employee lounge are plastered with some of the magazine’s best art, none of the walls of our group have anything on their sterile white surfaces.

I approach Sue.

‘How about some artworks for our area?’

‘Its planned, but we just haven’t gotten around to it.’

‘How if I put up our own magazine covers that I had framed and hung outside our offices at 919?’

‘You can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because everything has to be coordinated and in graphic harmony. I will talk to Tom (Staebler) (the art director) about it.’

Nothing for another couple of months. Either Tom didn’t have time or didn’t think we were important enough to deserve some of his fine illustrations. Or the discussion between Sue and Tom never  took place.

I broach the subject one more time and insist that what I really would like to do is for us to have our own identity and since I have already had those framed covers in my storage, why don’t I hang them up? If Tom comes up with something, we can always take them down.

‘Let me think about it!’ So she does. Still nothing. But I don’t let go and basically wear Sue out.

‘Okay, when Bill (the company carpenter) has some extra time, I will ask him to stop by and hang them up for you.’ That is almost like never.

‘I can do that myself!’

‘No, no, no. Its not your job. Should something happen, insurance doesn’t cover that.’

I want to scream, but instead say: ‘Well okay. Will wait for Bill to come by. Thanks’ And watch her turn her back and walk back to her office. I spend some time outside my office and scope the wall space I have and try to figure out how I can best display the framed covers on the walls available to me.

The next evening, its past six when I am certain that almost everybody is gone home, especially Sue, I pull out my measure tape, pencil, nails and the hammer that I have brought along from home. An hour and a half later, they are all adoring the International Publishing walls and suddenly those sterile looking white walls seem to have acquired colors on their anemic cheeks. I leave with a smile of satisfaction on my lips.

Late next morning, I see Sue walking past my office, stop and take in what I had done, I am not sure she even cared to look inside my office, but I see her shaking her head before walking away.

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Celia Rose Mark

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, September 13, 2013

ALL IN A DAY’S WORK

Imagine this! Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The sun is shining bright, the sky is blue as can be and the waves of Banderas Bay rushing towards the shore to hug us – wet and warm and heavenly. We are conferring by the poolside, deciding on the next dramatic but a fun shot, with nine of the world’s most beautiful women. Lined up in the water by the edge of the pool, holding on to the long railing and ready to lift their bare butts in action.

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Categories Corporate Matters, Eastern Europe

LIVIN’ LA VIDA LOCA…

March 21, 2013 //
2

Haresh Shah

From Sleazy Sex Show To The Celebration Of Suave Saxophonist’s 50th

sax_coaster3b

When I was based in Munich, it wasn’t unusual for me to start my day with breakfast in Munich, have lunch in Essen and land in Paris just in time for dinner and the next evening have dinner in Milan. Georg Kührer of the printing house Girardet once observed: you hop on and off the plane more often than I do a bus. Amazing. But true. Even so, the eleven days I remember the most about my relentlessly on the go happened years later when I was living in Chicago. What to me is mind-boggling still, is the intensity of those days, being in constant motion and deprived of sleep. And I don’t even drink coffee, let alone take any other stimulants. I thrived on the natural adrenaline and the high I got from interacting with people.

I began my journey in Chicago on the afternoon of Thursday, October 15,1992, arriving in Budapest the next morning.  I loved the way the airlines wine and dine you in the front of the plane on their intercontinental flights. No phones ringing, nowhere you can escape. I am not for watching movies or doing any real work on planes. Reading yes. But mostly what I love the most is to really let my hair down, enjoy the treats, perhaps snooze a little bit and arrive at my destination, if not well slept, quite relaxed.

My weekend visit had a certain urgency about it. Our original publisher, Dezso Futasz  had decided to get off the rat race, but was conscientious enough to bring a group of people, headed by Geza Panczel of Interart Studio  to take over the Hungarian edition. All three parties had agreed on the terms of transfer, contingent upon me approving the new organization. So I plunged right into the process soon after checking into the hotel. Meeting after meeting after meeting and then dinner at one of the new partners’ home, is how the day went.  Just before the dinner, Dezso had bowed out, leaving me in the care of Geza and his associates. After dinner, the last thing I wanted to do on that night was to go out to Bangkok – a topless bar. Hoping I would catch up on sleep the night after. But no such luck. Instead I found myself sitting on the edge of the stage at the place called Caligula. Caligula was nothing like anything I had ever experienced before. It featured explicit live sex that contained lot of rubbing, slurpy oral sex and frequent copulation – all of that happening just a few feet away from your nose. I don’t know what they were thinking, but that in itself should have been a reason enough for me to disqualify them. If this was their image of Playboy, what would they do to the edition once they got their hot hands on the license to publish the magazine? Sexually oriented yes, but how could I possibly trust them to produce the lifestyle magazine of the highest editorial standards?

So it had to be Dezso pursuing me with a gentle pressure, Geza and his associates putting forth their best foot. In sharp contrast to our social outings, I was quite impressed by their current offices and the publishing activities, which mainly contained of fine arts and literary books. Their offices had more of a feeling of a somber English library than the one bustling with the young men about town.  They seemed serious contenders.  And how can you not like Geza? A low key intellectual who looked so much like Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead  that I fully expected him to break out and begin singing  to lay me down, one last time. Plus, he took me home to his mother Idolka’s house for lunch next afternoon and then we had dinner at the restaurant owned by the group – the pizza joint called M*RXIM, with the A spelt with a red Russian star in defiance of the just fallen communism. The place was extremely popular with the young set.  Having been around in the former Iron Curtain countries good part of three years, I had observed that the sudden freedom had brought out the dormant entrepreneurship of their people and they were game for anything that would make money.

I wrapped up my visit to Budapest with an optimistic outlook.  More urgently waiting for me in Warsaw were my Polish publishers Beata Milewska and Tomasz Zieba. Only three weeks away from launching my third edition in the Eastern bloc. The content needed to be finalized,  plans for the launch revised and action plan put into place. This phase of launching of the new edition has always been the most exciting. With all that hard work behind us, now we had to make things happen. It was a feeling similar to that of an actor’s anxiety just before the curtain rises. Gave me a chance to get to know Beata a bit more. A dynamic young lady who would become one of the most successful publishers of Playboy family. Her partner in the venture, Tomasz accompanied me to Prague to pick up pointers from Ivan Chocholouš, the managing director of the Czech edition, who had very successfully launched  the magazine merely a year and a half earlier.

It’s already Friday, eight full days since I left Chicago, and not one single night I have had good eight hours sleep. And the real challenge of this trip still lies ahead of me. In order for me to succeed, the Murphy’s Law had to work to the perfection in the reverse order. Anything that can go right, will (must) go right.

Just imagine this: I depart Prague at 11:00 on Saturday and am scheduled to arrive in Frankfurt at 12:20.  I have forty minutes to connect to the flight to Hamburg. Having arrived from Czechoslovakia meant I would have to go through passport control and negotiate my way through the sprawling monster – that is Frankfurt International Airport – to get to the domestic departure. But I make it, just in the nick of time. I arrive in Hamburg at around 14:15. Since my baggage is checked in from a non-EU country, however perfunctory, it is still subject to the customs inspection.  I have the train to catch at 15:29 from Hamburg Altona to Westerland-Sylt. To make it across the city to the train station in just less than an hour in the afternoon traffic in itself is daunting. But I just can’t afford to think in those terms. Because I have promised my dear friend and fellow Scorpio, Andreas Odenwald – ex-editor-in-chief of the German edition, that I will be on the island of Sylt for his 50th birthday celebrations.  And so I am. I make every connection, tight as they were.  If that meant me sprinting from one plane to another, nervously rubbing my hands together while the cab sped along Hamburg streets, buying my ticket and making onboard the train just minutes before it slithers out of the platform. Arriving triumphantly in Westerland-Sylt on time at 18:17.

Andreas is waiting  for me on the platform. He gives me a hug: amigo! He says. Hotel Stadt Hamburg – where the shenanigans has already began – is only a short walk from the station.  I check in, park my suitcase in my room and come down for a quick beer and greet everyone who’s there. There are about fifteen to twenty guests occupying the dining room. Some of them I already know. Andreas’ life-long partner, Gudrun Thiel, Rainer Wörtmann and his wife Renate. And I see two very pretty ladies, they look quite familiar, but am not sure. They both smile at me and go, Eva Peters, Bettina von Beaust.  Of course. They must realize that my memory of them was from 1975, when both of them were ever so schlank, so their now Bottero-esque figures have me confused. But they seem comfortable in their evolution, which puts me at ease. There is no one else I recognize or remember, except in my agenda, there is a little note that says: meet Brigitte – interesting!  And like the saxophone aficionado – the birthday boy would have said: let the good times roll. And so they do. Between apèritif and digestif, the delicious home-made pasta with button mushrooms and wild duck in pepper crème sauce are washed down with appropriate wine pairings. And still waiting eagerly is the birthday cake with the colorful saxophone motif.

The clock is already ticking beyond 03:30 in the morning. I have the train to catch at 05:50 to take me back to Hamburg. Waiting for me at the station would be Michelle and Rüdiger, with whom I will have  breakfast before catching the Lufthansa flight at 10:45 to Frankfurt, connect with their Chicago bound flight at 13:00, and in the evening meet up with our visiting Dutch publisher, Meinard Carper and his advertising director, Auke Visser.

‘I guess, I can take a quick nap and a shower before catching that train.’ I say to no one in particular. By then all of us are wasted and more than ready to hit the sack. But nope! Leave it on Rainer.

‘It doesn’t make any sense to go to bed now. How about another bottle of champagne? And then we’ll walk you to the station.’

‘Warum nicht?’ I answer, as if on auto pilot. And I see a wide smile cross Rainer’s big square face, made it cuter by dimples on his shriveling cheeks and his small baby teeth. As if saying: That a boy! So we order another bottle. At around five thirty, I go upstairs to my room, pick up my suitcase, pay DM 230.- (approx. $115.-) for the room and whoever is still around, practically roll me back to the station and wave until the train slides out of the platform in the early morning fog.  One would think there would be nobody on the train that early on a Sunday morning. But there is a group of rambunctious youngsters. So I upgrade myself to the first class, slide doors shut, pull the curtains close and crash like a sand bag.

I have always loved trains at the night and the rhythm of their synchronized motion.  It lulls me to deep sleep almost right away. Relaxed, exhausted and deprived of  sleep all week long, I slip into a comfortable semi-coma. When I regain consciousness, all I sense is the total darkness and the pin drop silence. The train is stand still. Probably waiting its turn on the embankment, I think. Not even a peep, nor a sliver of light coming through.  Now I feel the train moving a little bit. And then I feel it stopping, suddenly. Following that, there is a loud thumping on the locked doors of my compartment.

‘Hamburg, Hamburg. End station. Bitte aussteigen.’ I am not sure, if this is real or it’s a dream. But the knocking continues, like the pounding of a heavy hammer. I spring up like  Jack in the Box. Disoriented no more, I slide the curtains and open the door.

‘Gott sei dank. Sie sind da. Hamburg. Aussteigen sie bitte.’  Seeing me well and alive, the conductor looks relieved. Frazzled, he tells me that if not for my friends on the platform, I would have ended up at the nearby train depot, nestled between half a dozen other idled trains. As I emerge from my car, Michelle flashes her sweet dimpled smile. They scurry me over to the airport right away. I check in first and then we sit in a café to have some breakfast.

No dramas or the time crunch with connecting in Frankfurt. We land in Chicago on time at around three in the afternoon. It is past four when I make it back home. I set the alarm and stretch out on my soothingly warm water bed. I am picking up Meinard and Auke for dinner at 19:30.  I feel energized as I walk to the garage. I put the key in the ignition of Nora Nissan,  as I call my car. The engine squawks, as if in excruciating pain and I hear the fan turning once or twice. And then the hood shudders sideways and pfffft. Sudden death!   

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Next Friday, March 29, 2013

THE STORY OF MY TUXEDO

Up until then I had successfully avoided having to buy my own tux. Cheap? Also. Cultural antipathy? Maybe. But mainly because I never saw any sense in owning something that I would wear less times through my entire life than I could count on my fingers. And I could always rent one if I must.

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Categories Eastern Europe