‘Just get him out of your mind, Megha! Right now!’ I told myself for the millionth time and, taking a deep breath, walked into Shiv’s room. Shiv and Varun were already seated and Shiv nodded at me to make myself comfortable. I perched my mug of coffee next to my laptop and began pulling out the projector in Shiv’s cabinet to take them through the presentation.

‘Hold on a bit, Megha,’ Shiv said, waving at me to sit down. ‘There’s been a slight change of plans here. We’ll go through your appraisal first and we can then handle the presentation. Is that okay with you?’

‘Sure,’ I shrugged, feeling a little deflated. I’d been looking forward to taking Shiv through the presentation but maybe it was better to get the appraisal out of the way first. I pulled open my folder and looked at Shiv expectantly.

‘So, Megha,’ he said, leaning back in his chair and joining the tips of his fingers together. ‘Let me just cut to the chase, okay? Before we get into your formal appraisal, there is an issue we want to discuss concerning your recent performance on the Bright Biscuits launch.’

‘Issue?’ I exclaimed, the smile freezing on my face. ‘What issue, Shiv?’

‘Megha, I don’t need to tell you that Bright Biscuits has been one of our most successful launches in recent times. In fact I’ve already told you as much several times, when I’ve called upon you individually or as part of a group to congratulate you. No doubt you deserve the lion’s share of credit for the success of the new film in particular, but in our line of work Megha, the end is not always as important as the means. And the means are what seems to be the issue in this case.’

I looked at Shiv, my head spinning. I had completely missed the point among all the fancy sentences he’d been spinning around me like a verbose spider. ‘Umm, what do you mean, Shiv?’ I asked him weakly.

‘I mean that I’ve been having a word with the rest of your team, Megha, and it has been drawn to my attention that you have taken a very keen interest in the creative work on Bright Biscuits. Is that correct?’

I nodded wordlessly.

‘Well, that’s where the issue is, you see,’ Shiv went on. ‘Creative work is not really a part of your job. In fact, that is what we hire the advertising agency for. If all our brand managers started getting involved in creative work at the cost of other aspects of the project—aspects that really should be more important as far as the brand manager is concerned— we will have some serious trouble.’

‘But Shiv,’ I interrupted, ‘why do you think I focused on the creative work at the cost of other stuff? I worked just as hard on each and every aspect of this project and the end result is there for all to see! I have demonstrated that I can handle a project of this importance.’