‘Our sales have grown marginally over the last few months, folks. Strategic thinking and some well-timed articles are making people buy us and talk about us. Can anyone tell me what bit of strategic thinking I am talking about?’ Ed asks.

‘It was the spin thing—as in—I mean—wasn’t it the spin on the Nithari case?’ Mita asks hesitantly.

‘Are you answering me or asking me because I think I’m asking the questions,’ Ed says, smiling at Mita.

‘Ed got some last night—he’s smiling too much and he isn’t swearing,’ Nisha/Rajni whispers loud enough for the entire Features team to hear.

‘Oooh, everybody got some last night—my neighbour complained about the screaming this morning,’ Neelima says suggestively and the twins giggle.

‘C’mon Polly, you can laugh, the way you’re beaming, you got some too—didn’t’ you?’ Neelima asks.

The question startles me—I’m not into discussing my sex life—and definitely not in the edit meeting. I smile politely but don’t answer Neelima.

‘I am—am—answering your question, sir,’ Mita responds meekly.

‘I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a good answer Ed—and as usual you’ve hit the nail on the head. Our sales have increased but the operative phrase is ‘increased marginally’—I don’t think we can celebrate just yet,’ Sinha upstages Ed neatly.

‘Right you are, Sinha. We cannot celebrate yet because—’

‘It’s only the first quarter and we have the whole year ahead of us. While we didn’t do many exclusive stories—we didn’t break any story—we stood out to the reader because of our well-timed, provocative action,’ Sinha says.

‘Provocation is our salvation,’ Ed pipes in.

‘The market is already dominated by the big-gun daily newspapers and 24-hour news channels. We are trying to take some of it away from them—’ Sinha says.

‘The greedy bastards,’ Ed adds.

‘We need to remember that as a weekly newspaper most news we publish will always be second to what those—’

‘—buggers—’

‘—have already covered. Till such time we spearhead our own exclusive investigations, we need to stand out because of how we tweak the stories, how well we write them and by our ability to—’

‘—make mountains out of molehills,’ Ed says. ‘I want every goddamned molehill to look like fuckin’ Everest in this paper. I want—’

‘But we need to recognize the right molehills—would you like to know the molehills for this week, Ed?’ Sinha asks, smoothing his crisply ironed shirt.

It’s apparent that Ed would like to give us one of his speeches but Sinha’s direct question has taken that opportunity away from him.

‘They better be good molehills, Sinha,’ Ed says scowling at Sinha.

Sinha simply nods.

‘Mita has a couple of story ideas and Ratan wants to follow the Facebook storyline for this week as well,’ Sinha says.