My reverie was broken by a loud, cheerful voice followed by a smack on my shoulder.

‘Wassup, dudette?’

It was Vijay, my batchmate from B-school and assistant brand manager on the Dinky Chips brand, one of the fun brands to work on in the company. Their ditzy ad campaigns had won several awards and the brand team seemed to be on the constant lookout for wacky real-life situations that they could translate on to celluloid. Vijay had even threatened to cast me in one of their ads as a chip-eating, daydreaming weirdo who needed to get out of the office terrace and get a life instead.

‘You tell me, Tau!’ I replied, addressing him by the nickname bestowed on him in B-school. He had been named thus because once, when accused of having the hots for one of the better-looking girls in our batch, he had insisted that he thought of her as a younger sister. And ever since, the name had stuck.

‘How come you’ve graced my humble terrace with your presence?’ I asked him.

‘Your dear boss was doing a tap dance on my nerves with his constant whining, man!’ Vijay groaned. ‘I needed to get out of there. Honestly, I don’t know how you put up with the guy.’

‘Oh, I just tune out most of the time,’ I sighed, ‘and pretend to throw imaginary poisoned darts at him when he’s particularly painful.’

‘Well maybe you should try telling him what a jerk he is! It’ll do him a world of good. So what’s the scene with Bright Biscuits? Did the agency come up with anything good today?’

‘Nope’, I shook my head dolefully. ‘Today’s meeting was an absolute disaster and Shiv looked like he was going to eat us alive. That’s why Vile Varun has been whining so much—uski izzat ka sawaal hai, after all. He just barked at me for making him lose face in front of Shiv.’

‘It’ll be rather nice if he does lose that constipated face of his,’ Vijay remarked wryly. ‘I wonder what’s with Suketu these days, though. He seems to be slipping up a lot, quite uncharacteristic of him!’

‘Really?’ I was genuinely surprised, but before I could ask Vijay to explain further, Varun burst upon the scene looking most agitated.

‘Megha! What are you doing here? Have you wrapped up the meeting already?!’

‘Pipe down boss, we’re just taking a coffee break,’ I replied soothingly. I was used to handling Varun and his melodramatic outbursts. ‘I’m just heading back to wrap up the discussion now and to finalize a plan of action for the next presentation. We can’t afford any more disasters like today.’

‘I don’t think you’re going to be afforded the luxury of any more plans of action either,’ Varun snapped. ‘Shiv has just called for an emergency meeting with the team. He’s extremely upset with the progress on this project. And so am I! I mean why should I be pulled up for a project that’s not even my direct responsibility?’