She was also highly organized and efficient and great at data crunching, three things that regularly appeared on my list of areas of improvement whenever I did some soul-searching before an appraisal. All in all, Priyanka and her sterling qualities provided enough fuel for me to spontaneously erupt in blazing flames of envy, but there was more to it than just that. Even though I was trying my best to ignore it, somewhere deep within me was that niggling little thought that Papa would been proud to have a daughter like Priyanka. That it should have been me winning that award as my brand soared its way to the heights of glory. After all, Papa had always been the one encouraging me and Sammy to build our careers so that we could be financially independent, stand on our own feet, make something of ourselves. He had been a great believer in business education, strongly believing that a professional degree in business administration was the best stepping stone towards a successful career.

‘After an MBA you have so many options, beta—the world is your oyster!’ he had told me when I dithered between that and my more flighty dreams of pursuing a course in creative writing or theatre, which I had been strongly attracted to at that point. And so I had set aside my notions of being a great artist and plodded along on the tried-and-tested path taken by so many before me. I had done well for myself too, getting admission into the most reputed B-school in the country and then landing a job in GF. And even though Papa had passed away when I was still in my second year at B-school I had always felt his presence with me, celebrating my achievements and standing by me during difficult times. Would he understand what I was going through now? Probably not, given that I was finding it difficult to understand my own motivations these days. Until Bright Biscuits had happened, I had been finding work singularly uninspiring and tedious, to the point that I had even considered taking a sabbatical to figure out if I needed to explore other options outside of GF, maybe in a different field. And even though I still thought Varun had been extremely unfair in his appraisal of my work, I had to admit that there had been an inkling of truth in his feedback—I was involved heavily in the creative work, maybe a little too involved. Of course I was working just as hard on everything else on the project as well, stretching myself to breaking point in the process. But maybe if I hadn’t been so obsessed with the creative work I would have been more focused on the other stuff, more productive even. Maybe Varun had been right, after all? God, why did life have to be so confusing?

‘Tum mile, to mil gaya yeh jahaaannn…’ my cellphone rang out clearly, the sound ricocheting off the walls of the cafeteria and I froze in my seat—I had completely forgotten to switch my phone to silent mode before the meeting began! A few prissy types turned around to give me disapproving looks and, hurriedly fishing my cellphone out, I was about to turn it off when I saw Neil’s number flashing on the screen. Neil was flying out to Delhi that evening and he was supposed to carry the stimulus material for the research with him, so it had to be an emergency if he was calling me now. Maybe he’d missed his flight! I sidled out of one of the side exits as discreetly as I could and snapped my cellphone open. ‘Neil! Dude, have you made your flight? Please don’t say you’ve missed it!’ I hissed.