The Bestseller She Wrote (9 page)

18

A
DITYA WAS UP
till late that night. He had a deadline to meet and was awfully behind schedule. He had no option but to sit up till late and finish the book.

His phone beeped from the other room.

Maya was sleeping. He tiptoed into the room and picked up the phone. The screen announced that it was an SMS from Shreya. Maya saw him sneaking out and mumbled, ‘What happened?’

‘Nothing, some stupid SMS,’ he walked out of the room, back to his story. He flicked the SMS open on his screen.

The Luminaries
by Eleanor Catton? Want to read it, but it is huge. 1000 pages.>

Since when had he become an expert on recommending books? He was just a writer who had no time to read. Family, work and writing took away all his time.

<:) Read the new James Patterson.>

He responded with a smiley and went back to his writing.

Within a couple of minutes she SMS’d again.

Aditya knew that Sunaina was her hostel buddy and soulmate.

Aditya was enjoying the thrill of their exchange. Middle age had set in faster than he would have liked. Maya and he had long stopped giving this sort of attention to each other. Those leisurely morning cups of coffee and eating lunch out had been replaced by fretting over Aryan. This left little time for overt display of romance. Aditya lied about not being busy, because he didn’t want this attention to stop. Books could wait.

Aditya didn’t respond. He had walked to the refrigerator to get himself a glass of water. It was a warm night.

Shreya’s next SMS read.

They went on chatting for a long time that night, for over an hour. Only when Aryan woke up and groaned for his dad did Aditya realise what the time was and called it a night.

Maya woke up sensing him slither into the quilt. ‘You need to take care of your health, Adi. You need at least seven hours of sleep.’

Aditya felt a touch guilty. He loved her, and Aryan too. But he was beginning to enjoy his tryst with Shreya, a bit too much.

19

W
HEN
T
IM CALLED
for a follow-up meeting on the shut down of the wealth management business, he was joined by his boss; the CEO of National Bank, Sanjay; a representative of group HR, and the heads of the other businesses of the bank. The agenda was to come out with a working plan and timelines for communicating the redundancy of the 300 employees to the bank in general and the impacted employees in particular. National Bank had, of late, been in the news for adopting a flip-flop business strategy on various business lines.

Aditya had his favourites within the wealth management team, those whose jobs he wanted to protect. He derived enormous comfort from the fact that Sanjay was there and would be able to pull some strings to make sure that people he wanted to ring-fence would be largely insulated. It was upon his recommendation that Tim had invited the heads of other businesses too, for he wanted to impress upon them to hire as many people from the wealth management team as possible. Sanjay was driving the meeting and the discussion.

Beep. It was Aditya’s phone. Hurriedly he put it on silent and glanced at the screen. It was Maya. Typical Maya. It is not that he would have thrown a fit if the box didn’t have what he liked.

The meeting went on. They debated and agreed on the number of wealth managers to be moved out—297 of them. The CEO instructed the other businesses to hire as many people as possible from the wealth management team so that they could save people from getting sacked. ‘We can train them for different roles. So go ahead and hire them to fill the vacancies in your respective teams. We need to take care of our people,’ he reiterated. ‘With immediate effect all recruitment from outside, at the Manager and Deputy Manager levels, are frozen.’ Sanjay smiled. This is what he had wanted the CEO to say, and the CEO had effectively delivered the message.

Aditya’s mobile vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at it. It was a message. He swiped it open.

He smiled. he typed back into his smartphone and pressed the send button.

He had just pressed the send button when his phone vibrated again. Another message.

Tim had sent him an SMS from across the table. Extremely embarrassed, Aditya kept the phone down. It vibrated a few times post that, but Aditya stoically refused to look at it.

By the time the meeting ended everyone agreed that the entire staff retrenchment exercise would be completed within the next ninety days.

At 6 pm Aditya packed up his bags and was ready to leave. He looked around for Shreya. When he couldn’t find her, he sent her a message. She came hurriedly towards his cabin within a couple of minutes.

‘I was leaving, so was looking for you,’ Aditya said.

‘Leaving early today?’ Suddenly she remembered her discussion with him earlier that day. ‘Oh you have that Bollywood party, right?’

Aditya pretended to frown, even as he murmured, ‘I hate these Bollywood parties. They suck.’

‘But isn’t this one for you?’

Aditya nodded. Viacom, one of the largest film production houses, was throwing a party to celebrate the commissioning of a film based on Aditya’s third book.

‘You obviously have to look dapper and sound excited,’ Shreya added.

‘Haha! Yes. I don’t have a choice. Professional hazard,’ he commented and picked up his bag. Before leaving the room, he asked her, ‘Wanna come?’

‘Me? Would have loved to but Sunaina is coming.’

‘So?’

‘She is transiting through Mumbai. I’m to meet her at the airport. She will get upset if I don’t,’ she sighed.

‘Oh!’ Aditya nodded.

‘Had I not committed to meet her, I would have come with you.’ Shreya was feeling quite disappointed at having to turn him down; she loved these parties. ‘I will come when you have a proper book event . . . Like the EasyLib one. I am a sucker for those. But . . .’

‘But what . . .?’

‘Don’t get me wrong . . . but you are going for a Bollywood party dressed like that?’ she pointed towards his suit and said.

He looked confused.

‘Isn’t it too formal . . . ish? Don’t you need to look slightly cool for these Bollywood parties?’

‘Haha! It is fine. If they don’t like me they can throw me out,’ he laughed.

She laughed too.

They had been walking and had now reached his car. ‘Cool. See you tomorrow,’ Aditya said. He waved at her and drove off. Once he reached JW Marriott, the venue for the party, he went straight to the washroom and looked at himself in the mirror. Why did Shreya say that he didn’t look cool enough?

*

Maya was awake when he reached home that night. She was correcting some answer scripts.

‘How was the party?’

‘Awful. You know how much I hate these filmy do’s,’ he lied, to show solidarity with Maya who herself felt stifled at these parties. ‘You should have come. I wouldn’t have felt as bored.’

‘I am very happy with my world, Aditya. You know how much I hate these air kissing and backside groping parties,’ she winked at him.

He smiled and sheepishly asked her, ‘How do I look in this suit?’

‘Awesome, Mr Kapoor. I would have married you, had you come in front of me in this suit.’

‘Well the question to be answered then is whether you would have married me because of this suit, or despite it,’ said Aditya. He patted her head and walked to the bedroom to freshen up and change. On the way, he remembered something and stopped.

‘Oh by the way, Siddharth Malhotra from Midas Touch Entertainment was there. He approached me to be a judge for a reality show on TV, a dance show.’

‘Ewwww . . .’ Maya exclaimed.

‘Hahahaha!’ Aditya guffawed. ‘I knew this is how you’d react.’

‘Are you mad? Don’t be so blinded by the arclights that you make a fool of yourself. You have a huge stature in this industry. Maintain some mystique around yourself. And a reality show? Where is the synergy?’ she went back to her papers. She looked up through her reading glasses and added, ‘I hope you didn’t say yes!’

‘I want to do it. It will give me a foothold in this industry. There is so much to do, film, scripts, screenplay. And more books of course. Unless I get the fame and adulation, no one will give me respect in this space.’

‘Remember this success comes at a price. The price you pay for this is your self-esteem. Are you ready for that, Aditya?’

‘Hmm . . .’ was all Aditya could say as he walked into the bathroom. He and Maya were on different planets as far as his film escapades were concerned.

A message was waiting for him on his phone, when he walked out of the shower.

<:) Yes. I know. Later I thought I should have come. But by then it was too late.>

< Have you completed your manuscript?>

20

T
HE NEXT FEW
days at work were extremely stressful for Aditya. The impending retrenchment was constantly playing on his mind. The only solace for him was his life outside office. His books helped him escape the agony at work and get into a world where he was the king. And as long as he was at work Shreya provided a welcome distraction. Just talking to her and being in her company calmed him down.

Over the past few years, he had considered quitting his job many a time to get into writing full time. The intensity and frequency of those thoughts had gone up. But he couldn’t gather enough courage. He was worried that the day he started to rely on his writing to make ends meet, the fun would go out of it. It would become just another job for him.

That day he was on a restructuring call with the regional head of HR in Singapore. The India team was being represented on the video conference call by Aditya, Sanjay and one of Sanjay’s deputies. It had become a bit of a routine ever since they decided to shut down a business. Aditya was anchoring the call, when he saw Shreya pace up and down the aisle outside his room. He tried to catch her eye, but she refused to look up. She looked disturbed. Aditya couldn’t leave the room. It would have been too obvious had he got off the call to talk to her. He picked up the phone to SMS her but then kept it down instantly. Sanjay looked at Aditya’s worried expression, then looked out of his cabin and made a face.

The call was a long one. By the time they ended the video conference, Shreya had left. Aditya stepped out of the room and looked around. He couldn’t see her. He stepped back into his cabin. Sanjay was still there, hanging around and waiting for him.