‘Hey, dude,’ he said as he crossed Vijay on the stairs and then stopped as he reached me. ‘Megha, Shiv wants to have a chat with you now. Shall we?’

‘Okay,’ I nodded and waved at Vijay. ‘Tau, I’ll catch up with you later, okay? I need to go meet Shiv now; I’ll give you a call later tonight if we don’t get a chance to meet today.’

‘Sure,’ Vijay nodded, looking slightly puzzled. While he turned around to go to the first floor, Yudi and I walked back to the basement in silence.

‘We’re meeting Shiv in the business lounge next to the ballroom,’ Yudi said and I nodded. Yudi paused as we reached the doors of the business lounge and took my hand in his.

‘Megha,’ he said, looking at me gravely, ‘I haven’t had a chance to tell you everything I found out about what happened in office yesterday, after your meeting with Shiv and Varun. I’ve just about managed to figure everything out myself a couple of hours ago. Some of what will be revealed in that room may come as a shock to you. But it’s something you’re going to have to handle without blowing your top. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ I nodded at Yudi. I had a strong hunch about what was going to transpire in that room. Yudi nodded back and opened the door of the lounge. Taking a deep breath, I walked in to find myself looking straight into the delusive eyes of Suketu.

Thirteen

I held my throbbing head in my hands and tried to focus on the glass of water in front of me. Slowly, sip by sip, I chanted to myself, trying to calm the chaos in my mind. The meeting with Shiv had ended about fifteen minutes ago and I was still reeling under the impact of the shocking truth that had emerged.

My hunch had been right. It was Suketu who had gone behind my back to have a conversation with Shiv, disparaging my professional conduct on the Bright Biscuits project. What was worse, he had connived with Varun to paint a sordid picture in which I was portrayed as the irresponsible brand manager. Together they had managed to convince Shiv that I had been reckless in my handling of the project. That I had been interested only in the glamour of making the ad film— so as to fulfil my own fanciful notions of doing creative work—and had let the other aspects of the project suffer.

Varun’s motives for being a part of the plot were easy to figure out. He hated my guts and he hated the fact that I had been able to pull off the Bright Biscuits launch successfully. Worse still for him, we had a killer film on our hands which we had created without his involvement, and this meant he wouldn’t get any of the credit. He had to get me out of the way somehow.

What was shocking was how easily he had found a willing ally in Suketu. In fact, it had been Suketu who had masterminded my downfall. Everyone knew there was no love lost between Varun and me, and Suketu had taken advantage of that. He had approached Varun and discussed how I had been throwing my weight around with the creative team by insisting on being a part of the creative work. In Varun’s absence I had been able to get things done my way even though Suketu was uncomfortable with the way the project was progressing. Varun had added the finishing touches about my irresponsible attitude towards the rest of the project, something that he could easily lie about and get away with since it was just my word against his.