The CEO asked his secretary to hold all calls till the puppy was rescued.

Stepping on to the roof I faced the biggest booby trap of them all: crumbling tiles under a patina of shimmering moss. The CEO mentioned that my story sounded almost like an Indiana Jones movie. I reminded him that art always imitated life. He nodded and asked me to continue. I tried holding on to the edge of the window with one hand and reaching out to the dog on the roof with the other. I gestured at the puppy to come towards me. The puppy, sensing that help was at hand, desperately began to scramble its way across the tiles towards me. But then, like a devious CAT question, the dog began to slip back two steps for every one step it took forward. How many steps would it need to reach me? Sixteen, I thought to myself after quick mental Vedic mathematics. Despite the odds stacked against it the dog made progress. Three steps. Then another three. After half an hour of tense struggle it was now just two steps away when …

The CEO’s mobile phone rang. He ripped open his phone, pulled the battery out and dumped the whole mess into his top left-hand drawer.

The dog was just two steps away when it lost its footing entirely on a patch of thick moss slick with water and slipped. Almost fatally. I flung myself on to the roof. Just as Copernicus’s body shot off the roof, into the sky and then plunged into the watery death below … I plucked him out of the air. I hung, suspended from the roof by one hand, with the puppy in the other. Was the cost of saving one life going to be two?

(You should have seen the look of suspense on the CEO’s face, Diary. And that too when I’m just making this up as I go. Imagine if I’d had some time beforehand to work on a proper plot and dialogues and all.) Normally, I would pull myself up on to the roof with one hand. Kathakali trains you for exceptional upper body strength. But I had not anticipated the weight of the dog. Then it suddenly struck me that the only way to save myself would be to let go of the dog in order to free my other hand. But this would mean dropping the dog into its hydrous grave. What could I do? There was no telling how much time I had before the wooden beam I hung from gave way due to the combined effect of my weight, the dog’s weight and years of abandon and termite attacks. At least one life, it seemed, would be lost. But which one would be spared? The tension built up every second. And then I let go. Of the roof. With the dog still in my hand. We went plunging into the water below, the dog wrapped tightly in my arms. For a few moments there was nothing and then I scrambled through the murky water, past weeds and plants pulling through the water with my arms and legs till I lay gasping by the side of the water panting for breath. And in my arms lay Copernicus spluttering out water but still alive.