Board Room..!!

Today was a special day.I don't know for me or not, but being in the Technology Group, I must say it was important for "us" !We had a meeting with the MD, Tata Steel !I realized the importance when I saw everyone sitting on chair 20 minutes before time,well dressed. Even my chief was sort of rehearsing his presentation, whispering the contents to himself. Anyways, it wasn't sufficient for making me feel tensed as I was among people who were going to just sit and listen. This was a board room meeting cum Video Conference with three more Tata Steel offices. All of us were told to either put the cell phones off or at least on 'silent' mode.
The fun started here. I am suffering from a little cough and cold since two days. I very quickly realized that I was going to cough out throughout the board room meeting. As soon as MD arrived, the proceedings started.It began with people greeting him in different ways possible. I too had a unique one !I loudly coughed out in a welcoming way to attract everyone's attention!And the welcome continued on behalf of at least a dozen of other persons hoping they would get a chance to make their voices audible!! As the meeting proceeded, it got worse and I stared varying the inter-arrival time of cough-outs and their volume by trying to suppress...
Now, the only hope left for me was the hot drink that was supposed to be served. I said 'drink' because at different times and venues, it is different!! Sometimes tea, coffee (conventional), sometimes lemon tea, sometimes tea without sugar and milk etc etc. Anyway, for me it acts as a straight forward cough reliever, so I was holding tight looking at the door for it. My eyes lit up when the tray first entered the door, followed by its carrier. But alas, he started serving form the other end. Moreover, it was only the half lot. The second lot was to come later!!! I almost gave up and started coughing constantly, grinning to all those who were looking at me with various expressions: pity, anger and some patronizingly too (who were feeling proud for coughing out 'relatively' less).
What was being noticed by most of them was that I was matching the frequency of MD's interruptions in the presentation. We both were opening our mouth at the same time, and obviously, I was the one with greater volume..he he...So, we all took down his suggestions as:
"Please understand...uhhu uhhu....that we need to be more...uhhu uhhu....and ....uhhhhhuuuu unnhuuu.." Hope that's enough description, because the drink finally arrived for me and I swallowed it in fraction of a second. The taste is not to be remembered anyway, but the meeting ended well. Hoping to attend another soon...