‘And now,’ Varun went on, the manic look in his eyes intensifying, ‘let us dwell on the areas of improvement.’ Right. I could bet he would have liked to dwell there forever given half a chance.

‘I’m sure you’ve done some introspection yourself, Megha,’ Varun went on, grease dripping from every syllable. ‘So what I’m going to say next won’t surprise you. In fact, we’ve even had this discussion before at an informal level. You are aware that I was extremely disappointed with the way you have been handling Bright Biscuits. Let me be honest and admit that I was apprehensive when the project was handed over to you. I mean, you have a reasonable track record, but you are certainly not a seasoned marketing professional and this was a critical project for GF. However, I thought that the magnitude of the responsibility assigned to you would shake you up a little, make you realize the enormity and significance of the role you were required to play. I hoped you would do us proud by managing the responsibility well. Alas, that did not happen. As a result, I had to undergo one of the most shameful moments in my career when Shiv took the creative team off the project and got a new team involved. I mean, for Shiv to get involved like that—to change a team like that—reflects poorly, very poorly on the brand manager handling the project.’

‘Varun, hold your horses for a bit, will you?’ I’d been listening to Varun with a mixture of incredulity and rage, but I finally snapped out of my state of total shock to counter the rubbish he was spewing out.

‘Why are we even discussing this, Varun?’ I asked him angrily. ‘All this stuff you just said is a thing of the past, right? Why can’t you focus on the work I’ve been doing since then? I think you’re just raking up the past so you can run me down—it’s downright destructive criticism, and aren’t these feedback sessions supposed to be all about constructive feedback?’

I paused, shaking with rage. Varun, who had turned a delicate shade of purple, held up his paw, which looked like a plump pincushion with the many stone rings he wore for good luck embedded tightly around his fat fingers. ‘Megha, kindly—kindly—do not try to tell me how I need to go about giving feedback. Just in case you’ve forgotten, I happen to be your superior in this organization even though you may just happen to be from a superior business school and therefore consider yourself a being of greater intelligence.’

I sighed. This was vintage Varun. He and I were from sister B-schools, both highly reputed for their quality of management education, revered faculty and high-profile placements. But if there were to be a sweepstakes of these hallowed portals of education—and indeed there were many such—organized by the management and business fraternities, my business school would undoubtedly be ranked higher than Varun’s. And that, for Vile Varun, was very difficult to digest indeed. I think the erstwhile esteem in which he had held my B-school had gone down a notch or two when he heard that I counted myself among its alumni. As such, snide remarks about my being from a school ranked higher than his were par for the course at every appraisal.