The Bestseller She Wrote (19 page)

‘Oh. This programme is in end August too. Bad timing . . .’

‘Damn. We will have to figure out something for Aryan.’

‘But then it’s okay,’ Maya immediately responded. Her mind was clear. ‘If it comes to that, I will tell them that I can’t go. We’ll manage; you don’t stress over it.’

‘Rubbish. You have to go. I don’t want you to give up this opportunity. If nothing else, I will drop Aryan at your parents’ in Delhi. He can spend a week there. In any case he hasn’t missed much at school this year.’ Aditya stepped into the kitchen and held her by her shoulders. ‘I don’t want you to give up more than what you already have, baby. You gave up your career for me and Aryan. That bothers me till this day.’

‘I didn’t do it for you, Mr Kapoor. I was fed up of the rat race.’

‘As if I don’t know,’ he smiled as he hugged her. ‘We will figure out a way for you to go.’ Maya hugged him back, a smile on her face.

‘So one more round of shopping?’ Aditya asked her as they settled down for dinner. Aryan had not returned from his play date.

‘As of now, there is only one thing that I want.’

‘And that is?’

‘An iPhone6!’ she squealed. ‘I will pick it up either from Paris or from the duty-free in Dubai, if we transit through Dubai, that is.’ Aditya could make out the thrill on her face as she said this. Maya loved Apple.

42

T
HERE WAS ONLY
a month left for the retrenchment. Everyone involved was getting jittery. No one wanted a collateral damage on the brand and so the approvals were slow in coming. Things were progressing, albeit slowly.

‘Is everything under control?’ Tim asked Sanjay and Aditya when the two of them met him that afternoon.

‘Yes. As of now it is. We have covered everything from a legal and HR standpoint,’ Sanjay answered.

‘What about regional office approvals for the severance packages?’

Sanjay nodded. ‘Work in progress. It’s expected to come through this week.’ He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it over to Tim. ‘Three months’ notice pay plus three months’ severance pay, and on top of it every employee will get one month’s pay for every completed year of service,’ he outlined their recommendation, which had become a standard practice across the group.

‘Good. How many people have we managed to find jobs for internally?’

‘Thirty-eight. Of the 297 whose jobs were on line, we have saved thirty-eight jobs. We could have saved more, but we hired forty management trainees. So, most of the entry-level job openings are taken.’ The moment he said this, Sanjay realised it was a mistake.

‘That’s unfair.’ Tim’s face turned red. ‘On one side we are sacking 297 people and on the other side, we go and hire forty management trainees?’

‘We had made campus offers to them earlier, Tim.’ Sanjay reasoned.

‘Offers could have been withdrawn. When did they join?’

‘End of May.’

‘And when did we get to know that we have to wind down the business?’

‘End of April.’

‘So we had time to withdraw the offers?’ Tim asked him.

‘Would we have wanted to?’ Sanjay said cheekily. He didn’t need to be as restrained as Aditya was, as he didn’t report to Tim. Moreover, Tim had known about the management trainees all along. Then why create a ruckus at this stage?

‘Damn well sure I would have wanted to,’ Tim was furious. ‘How many of them are in Retail Banking?’

‘Not sure, but around twelve of them, I think.’

‘I don’t need a single MT in my team,’ he said, looking at both Aditya and Sanjay. His face was red with anger. ‘Do you get it? I do not need a single management trainee in my team. All the roles that have been given to MTs need to be reallocated to the people who are being sacked.’ He looked at Sanjay. ‘As of this month-end, terminate all the management trainees in Retail Bank. I will speak to the CEO.’

‘But, Tim, the management trainee programme is very prestigious. We will lose face in the management institutes. The preferential treatment we get at the campuses will stop. Hiring good talent from institutes will become difficult.’

‘I would rather pay and hire experienced people from the market, than hire duds from campuses and train them.’

‘But these guys have already joined,’ Aditya reasoned even as he looked at Sanjay.

‘That is an HR problem,’ Tim thundered.

‘Yes, Tim. Let me see what can be done,’ Sanjay said and got up and walked out. He had had enough of Tim.

The moment they got out of the cabin, Aditya angrily whispered to Sanjay, ‘What is wrong with you? You should’ve never agreed to Tim’s idea.’

‘Relax, Aditya, Shreya is safe. She is on HR head-count. Even if we execute Tim’s diktat, Shreya won’t be touched.’

‘Aah then it’s okay,’ Aditya was relieved. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to face her had Tim had his way.

‘Is there anything else you think of these days, Aditya?’ Sanjay shook his head. He looked upset. ‘Irrespective of what he feels, I do not think Tim can carry out this weird decision of his. Global HR will have to be involved. And they will actually fuck Tim, if he even utters these words in front of those blokes. Management trainees just can’t be sacked at one’s whims and fancies.

43

A
DITYA’S BOOK WAS
launched on 8th August, at a well-attended event at Crossword Bookstore at Kemps corner, Mumbai. Over 500 people attended the event, in a store which would burst at its seams if 250 people came in at the same time.

Shreya was the first guest to arrive, much to Maya’s chagrin. She even sat in the first row, just a seat away from Maya. It was a big day for Aditya. Karan Johar, who announced on stage that he had bought the film rights for the book, for an undisclosed sum, launched it along with Ramesh Karia, the Commissioner of Mumbai Police. Aditya had been in touch with Karia since they first met. Who could have been better than the commissioner of police to launch a crime thriller written by India’s number one writer?

In the first week of sale, the book rocketed to No.1 position on all the bestseller lists across the country. As Vaishali had often told him he was a brand unto himself. The numbers proved it, beyond doubt.

His first stop after Mumbai, for the book promotions, was Pune. At the Pune Crossword, he got a reception normally reserved for a film star. The event lasted for forty-five minutes after which he signed books for about an hour.

He thanked the organisers and got into his car. The car went ahead a few metres and then turned right into the main road. The moment the car turned into the road and he was sure that he was out of sight of the organisers, he tapped the driver on his shoulder. ‘Stop, stop,’ he said urgently. Within thirty seconds the car door opened and someone
got in.

Aditya smiled, ‘Was I good?’

‘Fabulous! No one could have done it better. The Q&A round was super.’

‘You are biased, Shreya,’ was all he said, before asking the driver to head back to the hotel.

The two of them came back to Mumbai on Sunday morning. This had become quite a staple. Shreya would accompany Aditya to all his book launches around the country and sneak into the event, a scarf covering her face, to stay unrecognized. Afterwards, they would lock themselves inside their hotel room, undisturbed.

Oblivious to all this, Maya was preparing for her trip to Paris.

44

T
HE WEATHER IN
Paris is at its best in August. With summer just bidding adieu, and an average day temperature around 20 degrees, it is one of the best times for anyone to visit France.

Maya landed in Paris on a Friday morning. A representative of the Global Education for Progress Foundation, the conference organisers, was at the airport to receive her. The drive from the airport to the hotel was about an hour and the organisers had clubbed her travel with the participants from Egypt.

As soon as the Cairo flight arrived, the three participants, Maya and two others from Egypt were ushered into a minivan and driven to the Hotel de Crillon, the venue for the conference.

On the way, Maya got chatting with her co-participants. Both of them were from Cairo and had interesting but diverse backgrounds. The guy, Adly Mansour, a career educationist, in his fifties, ran a school for the disabled in the upmarket area of the city. The lady, Minouche Shafik, in her early thirties, was the Patron-in-Chief for a school for Syrian and Palestinian refugees who had fled the neighbouring strife-torn state of Syria. Operating in the Beheira Governorate, and largely funded by her diamond trader boyfriend, she was also instrumental in improving the overall condition of the refugees in the province—an effort recognized by Amnesty International. Minouche was the more impressive of the two and Maya instantaneously struck a chord with her.

At Hotel de Crillon, they were among the first few delegates to have checked in, and they managed to get rooms next to each other.

‘See you in the restaurant in an hour,’ Minouche said just before Maya opened the door and got into her room.

Maya showered, changed and connected to the Wi-Fi, and sent Aditya a WhatsApp message informing him that she had checked in. She even sent him the hotel numbers. It was standard operating protocol for her whenever she travelled.

Aditya didn’t see her message for a long time. He was busy somewhere else.

With someone else.

45

T
HE FIRST DAY
at the conference was just an icebreaker; the real sessions were to start on Saturday. It was an early night. The two of them, Minouche and Maya, returned to their rooms by 9. They settled in Maya’s room and started talking about life back home in Cairo and Mumbai.

‘It must be an amazing life, married to a writer. All the fame, the adulation . . . I would love it,’ Minouche rhapsodised.

Maya smiled. ‘I love to lead a life of my own, Minouche, away from all the attention, doing my work. I don’t like being dragged into Aditya’s life as a celebrity,’ she said.

‘I would have used the fame to raise money for my cause,’ Minouche commented. When Maya showed her a family picture of Aditya and Aryan on her phone, Minouche promised her that she would come to India and spend some time with them on her next vacation.

Minouche’s was a slightly more poignant story. Her boyfriend’s family was not in favour of them getting married. Though he stayed with her most of the time when he was in Cairo, his family persistently targeted her. She had even been attacked a couple of times. ‘Maybe his family is worried that I desire to be with him because of his wealth. Anyway, we hope to marry by end of this year,’ she said as she brought out his photo and showed it to Maya. ‘He will be here on Wednesday. We will be spending the rest of the week shopping for the house we are building in Cairo.’

Finally around midnight, Minouche walked back to her room. Maya checked her phone before going to sleep. There was a message from Aditya. It had come around fifteen minutes back. So lost was she in her conversation with Minouche that she hadn’t noticed it.

She had dropped Aryan with her parents in Delhi before coming on this trip.

*

The sessions the next day were interesting. Listening to how underprivileged children across the world were treated gave her many ideas on what could be done in India.

That evening, Minouche and Maya visited the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. She took a few pictures to show Aryan. On the way back, they stopped at the flea market and picked up some curios. By the time they decided to head back to the hotel, it was seven in the evening.

Both of them debated whether it was worth going back to the hotel for dinner or grab a bite at a roadside café. What’s a visit to Paris without spending time in its legendary bistros? That clinched the deal and they decided in favour of the sidewalk café. They settled down for a bite at a place overlooking the Seine River. The discussions over coffee again veered towards family. Minouche expressed a desire to read Aditya’s books. Maya had taken a couple of them with her. She always did that on her trips. She gave them to Minouche, after she promised to read them.

While leaving her room, Minouche smiled and said, ‘For the first time, I am going to read an Indian author.’ She raised her eyebrows and looked at Maya from the corner of her eyes, ‘Are they any good?’

Maya laughed. ‘At least this one is,’ she said as she shut the door behind Minouche.

46

M
AYA WAS SUDDENLY
woken up from her sleep by the ringing of her cellphone. The clock on her bedside table showed the time. 2.14 am.

‘Hey. All okay? What happened?’ she groggily whispered into the phone.

‘Can you come to my room right now?’ a faintly audible voice said. Her breathing was heavy, as if she was in some trauma. Maya was worried. ‘Minouche. What happened?’ she panicked. Something was terribly wrong. Minouche could barely whisper.