Nidhi13: Absolutely not.
Risha_K: And you don’t find his crooked smile sexy?
Nidhi13: What is the media’s obsession with his ‘crooked smile’? How can a crooked smile be sexy? It doesn’t even make sense!
Risha_K: And you don’t think his abs are downright perfect?
Nidhi13: He’s a stupid, shallow playboy.
Risha_K: Wow. What’s your problem with him?
Nidhi13: Nothing. Dibakar is on his way to my workstation, so I gotta ‘run-run’.
Nidhi minimized the chat window and turned to Dibakar.
‘Hello, Nidhi!’
‘Hi, Dibakar.’
‘Can we go over the list?’
‘Again?’ she asked.
‘I just want to make sure we haven’t missed anything.’
How could they have missed something in the last half hour since they had gone over the list? Ignoring the pounding in her head, Nidhi reached for her notebook and read out the items: ‘Shammi kebabs and mushroom patties from Wenger’s, grilled shrimp from Dhaba by Claridges—although, again, I really don’t think we need the shrimp—chocolate pecan brownies from the Taj Mansingh coffee shop, banoffee pie from Big Chill, and four types of coffee from Starbucks.’
‘What about tea?’
‘The pantry is stocked with a variety of teas.’
‘And cookies too?’
Nidhi nodded.
‘Have we forgotten anything?’
‘Yes.’
‘What?’ Dibakar asked, looking mildly panicked.
‘A waitress uniform for me,’ Nidhi said sweetly.
‘Not the time for jokes, young lady!’ he said with a feeble smile. ‘Wait, we forgot one thing.’
‘What?’
‘Mineral water.’
Nidhi shook her head. ‘No, I already had the conference room lined up with bottles of Bisleri.’
‘Bisleri?’ Dibakar blanched. ‘No, Nidhi, we need Evian!’
Nidhi’s eyes widened. ‘Are you serious? The campaign is meant to raise funds for the education of underprivileged kids. Should we be wasting money on imported water?’
‘We need Evian,’ he repeated firmly. ‘Or Himalayan, at the very least.’
‘But, Dibakar,’ she argued, ‘cricketers have great immunity; they drink tap water all the time and never fall sick.’
Nidhi didn’t know that for a fact, but it sounded plausible.
‘You don’t understand,’ Dibakar said, and Nidhi thought that was the only sentence they had agreed upon all day. ‘We are about to give him a taste of experiential marketing,’ Dibakar continued gleefully.
‘Really?’ Nidhi asked, and instantly regretted her rhetorical question.
‘It’s like the sizzle of a sizzler,’ he began, and Nidhi silently mouthed along the latter half of the sentence she had heard a million times, ‘you can’t taste it, but it adds to the experience.’
‘In that case, I better go organize the water,’ she said with sham gravity, not because she actually intended to, but because she needed a break from his incessant micro-management.
Dibakar nodded approvingly, scampering off to his large cabin with mincing steps, greeting everyone along the way with a beatific smile.
Nidhi walked in the direction of the sports editorial department, and spotted the associate sports editor Sameer Singh. She rested her chin on the wall of his cubicle. ‘Hey, Sam.’
Sam stood up and gave her a dazzling smile. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure, hot stuff?’
Most of Sam’s conversations began with ‘You’re so hot’ and ended with ‘Why don’t you just date me already?’ Nidhi humoured him because he was harmless, but also because he was one of the few in editorial who didn’t acknowledge the Chinese wall between marketing and editorial.
Over the years, Sam had become a good friend, and Nidhi shared a healthy professional equation with him. He was approachable and reasonable, and didn’t throw his weight around just because he could. Unlike his boss, sports editor Sukhdeep Pal Singh Baweja, who was a cantankerous asshole in a permanent bad mood, known for coming to work either drunk or stoned, or both. Nidhi hated interacting with Sukhi because, aside from the aforementioned traits, he was just plain difficult to work with. He was always ready with a snide remark or an insulting comment, and his tone was forever dripping with boredom or distaste.
And even though he was only in his late thirties, his prematurely grey ponytail, unkempt beard and perpetual scowl made him appear closer to sixty. In her three years at News Today, Nidhi hadn’t seen him smile even once.
But despite his obnoxious personality, Sukhi was the apple of Editor-in-chief Jay Soman’s eye. Primarily because Jay shared Sukhi’s no-nonsense attitude, but also because Sukhi’s contacts with various sports bodies, particularly the BCCI, made him indispensable to the sports ed team.
‘Vijay texted saying they are twenty minutes away,’ Nidhi said, referring to the cricket correspondent. ‘Will Sukhi make it in time for the Vikram Walia meeting?’ she asked.
‘Only Sukhi knows the answer to that,’ Sam said dryly. ‘Yesterday he showed up for a meeting fifty minutes late. And guess who the meeting was with?’
Nidhi arched an eyebrow. ‘Don’t tell me it was with Jay?’
‘Yup. And you know the reason Sukhi gave for his tardiness?’
‘Flat tyre?’ Nidhi hazarded.
‘He said he got into an argument with his weed guy.’
Nidhi’s eyes widened. ‘No way! How did Jay react?’
‘He lit a cigarette, took a drag and passed it on to Sukhi, as though the excuse was perfectly legit,’ Sam said with disgust.
‘Wow. If he’s late for Walia’s meeting, he better come up with something more creative,’ Nidhi said.
Sam shook his head. ‘Walia is an important guy, so Sukhi will probably show up before time.’
‘He can be such a pain,’ Nidhi muttered. ‘At least make sure you come early.’
‘Coming early isn’t something I’m usually known for,’ Sam said, wiggling his eyebrows.
Nidhi rolled her eyes. ‘Real grown-up, Sam. Be there or I’m going to unleash Dibakar on you.’
Sam feigned a shudder. ‘I can’t handle his chummy smiles and sugary friendliness. They grate on my nerves.’
‘You can’t handle Sukhi’s grouchiness and you can’t handle Dibakar’s niceness. What can you handle?’
‘Your spiciness,’ he said without missing a beat.
Nidhi laughed. The man was incorrigible. ‘Stop it!’
‘Never,’ he said dramatically.
Nidhi threw him a helpless smile. ‘Marketing conference room in twenty minutes.’
‘By the way,’ Sam called out, and Nidhi turned around expectantly. ‘Nice skirt.’
‘Twenty minutes, Sam,’ she reminded him firmly before walking away.
Inside the conference room, Nidhi arranged the EducateIndia literature and double-checked the projector. She gasped when she caught sight of her desktop wallpaper—a shirtless image of Vikram Walia.
‘Oh ha ha, very funny,’ she yelled to her colleagues seated behind the wall of the conference room. The faint laughter that followed confirmed their attempt to prank her. Shaking her head, she changed the wallpaper back to the sensible (even if less aesthetically appealing) Windows default—rolling green hill beneath a blue sky.
That morning, Nidhi had asked Dibakar to give Anusha, the summer intern, a chance to present the EducateIndia proposal to Vikram, but Dibakar had refused point-blank. Apparently, Anusha was not ‘ready’.
‘But it will be a great learning opportunity for her,’ Nidhi had argued.
Dibakar shook his head firmly. ‘You know I’m a reasonable person, Nidhi. This is not negotiable. You will present to Vikram.’
Dibakar was always pretending to be flexible and democratic, but he ran the marketing department on his own whims and fancies. Realizing it was a lost cause, Nidhi had just shrugged.
In the long run, Ni
dhi’s goal was to move away from news media marketing to social marketing, and EducateIndia was a step in the right direction. So there was no way she was going to let a spoilt celebrity like Vikram Walia damage her campaign. He might be a rich cricketer with a hot Bollywood girlfriend, but as far as Nidhi was concerned, he was a lemon.
Life had handed her a lemon in the form of Walia, and Nidhi intended to make the best goddamn lemonade anyone had ever tasted. No one would stand in her way, not even Walia.
Over the years, Nidhi’s animosity towards Vikram had faded into indifference. His face was plastered on every newspaper, magazine and billboard in the country, and he was often seen on TV brushing his pearly white teeth or shampooing his perfect hair. Nidhi was so used to seeing Vikram all around her that their forthcoming confrontation didn’t faze her in the least. He had broken her heart and walked out of her life, but she had been a fourteen-year-old girl when that had happened. She was now a twenty-six-year-old woman, and a thorough professional at that.
So, superstar or not, Vikram Walia stood no chance in the face of Nidhi’s steely resolve. And given that it had been over a decade since they had last seen each other, Nidhi had even entertained the possibility that Vikram might not recognize her.
A few minutes later, the marketing and sports editorial teams—including Sukhi, thankfully—stood in a neat row in the conference room to greet Vikram Walia and his manager, Monty Bhalla. Since she would be making the presentation, Nidhi was standing farthest from the door, next to the projection screen.
Nidhi had spent the last two days preparing for the meeting. She had conditioned herself to treat Vikram like any other client and keep their interaction purely impersonal. In addition to that, she had gone over the presentation half a dozen times, memorizing every bullet point on each slide and every number on each spreadsheet. She was confident that she would breeze through the meeting and Vikram would be out of here in less than an hour—signed, sealed, delivered.
Unfortunately, while Nidhi was quite over-prepared to do her job, she turned out to be grossly underprepared for her reaction to seeing Vikram in person. The moment Vikram sauntered into the conference room, Nidhi stopped breathing. Even though he was clad in khaki pants and a casual white t-shirt, unwittingly, Nidhi’s gaze clung to him. Her heart hammered relentlessly in her chest, her head started spinning and her knees threatened to buckle under her. She struggled to compose herself as memories flashed before her like a rapid, disordered slideshow.
Sitting on the charpoy in Dadi’s garden, eating mangoes directly from the bucket. Buying Pan Pasand from Lalaji ki dukaan. Sharing a plate of chhole bhature at Nagpal Corner. Devouring a dozen golgappe at Central Market.
And just as Nidhi was wondering why all her memories were food-related, snatches of past conversations pushed forth in staccato.
‘You can borrow my racquet.’
‘I like you the way you are.’
‘Don’t worry, Nidhi. I’ll fix it.’
‘I never want to see you again!’
‘I hate you!’
Nidhi took a deep breath and placed her palms on the table, steadying herself as Vikram bestowed the lazy glamour of his lopsided smile on each member of the News Today team, warmly shaking their hands, and politely taking the visiting cards they were handing him.
‘Sukhi Paaji, good to see you again,’ he said with a friendly smile at Sukhi.
‘Pleasure to meet you, Dibakar,’ he said formally, glancing down at Dibakar’s card, seemingly to get the name right.
‘Nice to meet you, Sameer,’ he said with a quick peek at Sam’s card.
As soon as Vikram’s gaze locked on Nidhi, his entire frame went rigid. A cold sneer replaced his amiable smile, and his eyes filled with cynical distaste as they raked over her.
So much for not recognizing her.
Vikram took the visiting card she was holding out, but without bothering to glance at it, he said, ‘Nidhi, a pleasure.’
Sans pleasure.
Nidhi clasped his hand and a spark shot through her entire body. Knowing that every eye in the room was on her—and that Vikram’s eyes in particular seemed to hold some sort of a challenge—she resisted the urge to jerk her hand away immediately.
Oh, boy. This was going to be a long meeting.
Vikram struggled to keep his anger under control. He fought the overwhelming urge to storm out of the conference room—only because he was unwilling to give Nidhi Marwah the satisfaction of thinking that she had the slightest impact on him.
From the corner of his eye, Vikram conducted a thorough perusal of her physical appearance—albeit a detached, clinical assessment. A grey pencil skirt had replaced the baggy shorts she had always worn as a kid, a pair of gleaming black stilettos had substituted her worn-out sneakers, and her trademark messy bob had grown into chestnut-brown waves that bounced around her shoulders as she turned to share something on the projection screen.
Over the past few minutes, Nidhi had stood at the helm of the conference room, taking them through the marketing plan. A plan that, incidentally, Vikram had not heard a single word of. Not because he wasn’t interested in educating underprivileged children, but because he couldn’t take his eyes off her damned legs.
Clinical, my ass.
Vikram almost hadn’t recognized her. But while the rest of her appearance had transformed drastically, there was one thing about her that was unchanged.
Her eyes.
Her deep, dark, piercing green eyes. Eyes that, he had once thought, could peer into his very soul.
Vikram clenched his fists, furious with himself. Twelve years ago, this girl had ruthlessly crushed his heart, and yet here he was today, a besotted fool, waxing poetic about her eyes.
Vikram suddenly realized that there was complete silence in the room and five pairs of eyes were watching him curiously. He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, what was the question?’
The bald Bengali man gave Vikram a genial smile. ‘Would you like some snacks?’
Absently glancing at the elaborate spread of food in front of him, Vikram shook his head. ‘I’m good, thanks.’
The Bengali looked disappointed. ‘How about some tea or coffee?’
Vikram shot a quick look at the visiting cards he had arranged to correspond with the News Today team’s seating arrangement. ‘Thanks, Dibakar, but I don’t drink tea or coffee.’
Nidhi snorted. Or coughed. Vikram couldn’t be certain which, but there was no way to confirm without looking directly at her. And that he would not do.
Dibakar seemed positively crushed. ‘Have something, Vikram.’
Vikram studied the lavish assortment of snacks on the table with an inward groan. His late lunch was still sitting in his stomach and he didn’t really feel like eating, so only out of politeness, he reached for the food item he found most appetizing. Dibakar cringed at his choice, but Vikram ignored him and twisted open the Bourbon biscuit, licking the chocolate clean before popping it into his mouth.
Nidhi inhaled sharply as a strong vision flashed before her.
It was the summer they had turned eleven. Nidhi had just been proclaimed captain of the girls’ cricket team and she sprinted home from the bus stop, bursting with excitement to give her father the good news. Vikram waited outside her father’s study, with his ear pressed against the door, eavesdropping shamelessly. Inside the study, Nidhi handed the letter of appointment to her father and he read through the ‘good news’ before looking up to speak one cold, callous syllable. ‘No.’
‘But why?’ she cried in disbelief.
‘Because you waste enough time playing sports with the Walia boy as it is.’
Nidhi tried to reason with him, but in return she received a harshly worded lecture. She was losing focus on her studies by concentrating on fruitless endeavours. And then her father commanded her to walk over to the paper shredder and destroy the letter. Nidhi’s eyes welled up at the cruelty of his suggestion. ‘I won’t accept the position, but at least let me
save the letter!’ she begged.
‘Memorabilia is for sentimental fools,’ her father said.
‘Is that the reason we don’t have a picture of my mother?’ Nidhi challenged, even as her chin quivered with suppressed anguish.
A shadow of pain flashed over her father’s face, but it was gone before Nidhi could be sure. With a blank expression, he crossed his arms over his chest, patiently waiting for his order to be obeyed. In a deliberate act of defiance, Nidhi threw the letter on the floor and ran out of the study, shoving past a stunned Vikram.
Nidhi locked herself in her room and cried her eyes out even as Vikram sat outside her bedroom door for hours, whispering soft, comforting words to her, his voice laced with worry. When that didn’t work, he tried to tease her and make her laugh. When Nidhi didn’t respond to his jokes, he finally used the ace up his sleeve.
‘I have a really cool surprise, but you have to come out to get it. If you don’t want it, I’ll just give it to someone else,’ he said.
It was curiosity that finally drew Nidhi out of her room.
‘What is it?’ she asked, her green eyes brightening with interest. Vikram brought his hands forward and showed her the big surprise—two packets of Bourbon biscuits.
Nidhi gasped with excitement at the sight of the ‘special guest’ biscuits they weren’t allowed to touch. ‘How did you get these?’
Vikram chuckled at her expression. ‘Dadi forgot the steel ka dabba on the kitchen counter, so I swiped them!’
‘But won’t you get into trouble?’
Vikram shrugged. ‘It’s worth it.’
Forgotten was her shattered dream of being cricket captain as she lay in the garden with Odie on one side and Vikram on the other. They stared at the colourful evening sky, licking the chocolate off each Bourbon biscuit, chomping happily till not a crumb was left in either packet.
‘Nidhi?’
Nidhi shook away the reverie and turned to Dibakar. ‘Yes?’
‘My apologies for the interruption,’ Dibakar said, hinting for her to proceed.
She nodded and returned her attention to the projection screen. Over the next few minutes, she blitzed through the remainder of her slides with effortless aplomb. At the end of the presentation, Monty bombarded them with rapid-fire questions about Vikram’s visibility through media and editorial coverage, which Nidhi and Sam took turns responding to.
Man of Her Match Page 3