No Deadline for Love

MANASI VAIDYA

No Deadline for Love

PENGUIN BOOKS

Contents

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Acknowledgements

Copyright Page

PENGUIN BOOKS

NO DEADLINE FOR LOVE

Manasi Vaidya spent her childhood travelling all over the world with her parents and reading all the books she could get her hands on. After a degree in commerce at Pune University, she went on to do her MBA at IIM Ahmedabad where she was first introduced to the wonderful world of brands and advertising. She has worked in brand management for many years and has been fortunate to have worked with exceedingly nice bosses who have been very kind to her during appraisals. No Deadline for Love is her first book.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR NO DEADLINE FOR LOVE

‘A light-hearted, highly insightful take on the lure of our professions versus the lure of life. A must-read for people who believe that careers define who they are.’

—R. Balki

‘Manasi has done a great job in her debut novel. This book has some valuable insights on the challenges and dilemmas faced by a career woman.’

—Ronnie Screwvala

For Priyank and my parents

One

The end!

Reaching the last slide of his two-hundred-and-seventy-six-slide presentation, Suketu looked around the conference room with an expectant smile.

A sea of bored faces gazed back at him.

It was the sixth presentation by the ad agency on the new Bright Biscuits project and they seemed to be getting progressively worse each time.

Sensing the general air of gloom around him, Suketu decided to salvage what he could of the situation. ‘What do you think, Shiv?’ he directly addressed our vice-president of marketing, flagrantly bypassing the ranks in between. I could see my boss Varun glowering in the background at this slight.

Shiv let out an audible sigh. ‘I’m disappointed, Suketu. And that’s putting it mildly. This is the sixth effort by your team in coming up with a good film idea for Bright Biscuits and we seem to be going nowhere.’

He strode out of the room with a last sidelong glance at Varun who, by now, was gaping like a goldfish.

Suketu sat down with a dejected thump and buried his face in his hands. I felt sorry for him. At thirty-one, Suketu was one of the youngest and brightest servicing directors at Blue Strawberry, the ad agency that worked with us, and one of the few people I knew who truly loved his job. He was also usually very good at it, but the series of disasters on Bright Biscuits seemed to be taking their toll on him. He turned to Varun now for guidance: ‘Where do you think we’re goofing up, Varun?’

‘Gah?’ Varun snapped out of his goldfish mode, staring at Suketu and then at the creative team whose faces mirrored Suketu’s dejection. ‘Well, I think that’s for the lot of you to decide!’ he spat out contemptuously before turning around to glare at me. ‘Megha, this is the sixth time we’ve had a disaster on our hands for heavens’ sake! Shiv must think we’re a bunch of losers. This is your project; you figure out what to do next. I can’t lose face like this on something that’s not even my responsibility!’ Spewing these words of wisdom he bounded out of the room, ostensibly to save face with Shiv and redeem himself of any blame.