Despite there being three housekeeping personnel and one housekeeping supervisor, the Bin is always filthy. I skirt around freshly spilled coffee that’s trickling down the stairs, avoid a puddle that could be vomit and head towards the pile of older Tabloid issues. I pick up last week’s edition, quickly flip through it and quickly put it away. It’s full of the India-Australia cricket matches that India lost. I am so not into cricket. I pick some more issues from earlier weeks and sit down to read. If I like anything for the compilation, I’ll have to note down the edition and page number and pull it out of the system files. I am very good at copy-paste.

I’ve just found three bits of Bollywood gossip when I smell cigarette smoke mingled with a perfume I recognize. I see Ragini walking up the stairs—the only person I know who can smoke and exercise at the same time.

‘More coffee on the stairs, as if this bloody place needed decoration. And eww, spew!’ Ragini says pointing at the puddle with her cigarette.

‘Hello Rags,’ I say and smile at her.

Ragini Malik is Tabloid’s senior correspondent, resident idealist and my closest friend since college. She’s always looked out for me and was the one who told me about the opening at Tabloid. She winks at me and points at the newspapers in my hand.

‘What are you doing with those early in the morning, my love?’ Ragini asks. ‘No wait, don’t tell me. Kareena and Saif are getting new tattoos because their love is not visible enough?’

‘You might have something there,’ I reply with a laugh. ‘Though Saif’s tattoo is quite showy really, it’s on his—’

‘It’s a bloody joke, Polly,’ Ragini says with a sigh, ‘Why must you kill all my jokes?’

She pretends to look hurt and takes the paper from me.

‘I bet Kareena has had a boob job done—look at how perky they are. My boobs though are real. What do you think of this?’ Ragini asks and twirls around.

Ragini is fiercely passionate about the things she believes in—the rights of slum dwellers, wearing cotton salwar-kurtas and showing lots of cleavage. Today she has outdone herself with the cleavage and her breasts …

‘The kurta is beautiful but your breasts are more out than in, Ragini!’ I say, taking in her appearance.

She’s wearing a tight black churidar and a maroon kameez with a plunging neckline. She’s not wearing any dupatta because Ragini believes ‘a dupatta completely defeats the purpose of a plunging neckline’.

‘Don’t worry about my breasts, love, you know I like airing them a bit,’ Ragini says with a naughty smile. She sits down next to me and lights another cigarette.

‘I’ve also told you many times—breasts are a woman’s biggest distraction strategy. We should be using them oftener,’ she says seriously.