Written in the Stars

by Divya Anand

  As far as he was concerned, we were just friends.

  And maybe not even that.

  We were just colleagues.

  22

  Don’t Let Self-Doubt Stop You

  Some people can wake up the morning after a drunken binge all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I’m not one of them. The next morning, I woke up with no memory of what had happened after I got home. I felt the beginnings of a massive headache pounding behind my eyes. I shuffled out of my room and sat down on the couch, pressing my temples, hoping that it would somehow help the pain.

  ‘Good morning,’ Kavya said as she plonked a tray on the coffee table in front of me. She’d thoughtfully placed a Crocin, a glass of water and a mug of steaming chai. There was also a plate of biscuits and a bowl of curd. While the very sight of curd turned my stomach, Kavya strongly believed in its curative properties for hangovers. I knew she would eventually force a few spoonfuls down my throat. The very thought made me gag, so I stopped thinking about the curd and focused on the other items instead.

  ‘What happened?’ I croaked as I picked up the Crocin. I popped it in my mouth, took a sip of water and shuddered as I tried to stop myself from throwing up.

  ‘You couldn’t really put together coherent sentences, but I guess you’ve finally realized just how much you like a certain marketing head, given you polished off an entire bottle of gin after seeing him with his ex,’ she speculated.

  I groaned and covered my face with one of our cushions. It smelled musty, reminding me that neither of us had bothered to change the covers recently, even though we had promised our landlady that we would wash them regularly. I kept the cushion back on the couch because it wasn’t helping my attempt to avoid hurling.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said.

  I looked around for my phone. It hadn’t been in its usual place on my nightstand and I didn’t know where I had put it. Until now, I had assumed I had left it on the coffee table, right by the empty bottle of gin that was still glinting at me this morning, but it wasn’t there. Kavya just watched me in silence as I frantically began searching for my phone. I was throwing cushions off the couch, and attempting to look underneath the chairs as well.

  ‘I last remember having my phone with me while I was sitting here,’ I said. ‘Did you see where I put it?’

  ‘All I remember is that you were busy stalking Abhimanyu on LinkedIn because apparently that’s the only form of social media you can rely on to keep tabs on him,’ she rolled her eyes at me. ‘And then you whined about how life is unfair, how it’s idiotic to trust cheats because once a cheater always a cheater, how you’re the only one who really knows the real Abhimanyu . . . ’ She picked up a biscuit and chewed on it thoughtfully. ‘If I remember correctly, your exact words were: If he wants to be fooled by a cheater again, then fuck him.’

  ‘I’m certain I didn’t say fuck him,’ I said, even though I knew I was highly capable of saying it. I’d said way worse for far lesser transgressions in the past.

  I continued to look for my phone. By now, I had looked in every corner of the living room. I upended my bag and rifled through it but it was nowhere to be seen. If only I had any memory of what I’d done after polishing off the gin, I would’ve known how to retrace my steps and find that damned phone. I was starting to mildly panic as my head throbbed.

  ‘OK, maybe you didn’t swear,’ said Kavya, noticing my obvious distress and trying to go easy on me. ‘But I cannot watch you fall down that rabbit hole again and whine about Abhimanyu and Pooja. I listened to it for hours last night.’

  She walked over to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. She poured herself a glass and began drinking. Suddenly, a flash of memory came back and I remembered. I ran into the kitchen like a woman possessed. I picked up the fruit bowl from the counter and brought it into the living room. I began tossing the fruit out one by one as Kavya watched me with a bemused look on her face. At the bottom of the bowl, I found my phone. I gleefully pulled it out.

  ‘You put your phone into the fruit bowl?’

  ‘I was hiding it so I wouldn’t drunk text,’ I said.

  Kavya was well aware of my track record with drunk texting. I had the habit of sending effusive messages to all my friends when I was drunk and sad, or drunk and angry. I had damaged quite a few friendships by giving unsolicited advice, ruined some brand new relationships by professing my undying love to a near stranger, and even made the mistake of having an extensive conversation with my mother about her flawed approach to child-rearing. I had learnt the hard way to hide my phone while I was still on the brink of sobriety to make sure that I didn’t become a danger to myself.

  As I unlocked my phone, pieces of last night started coming back to me. I’d stood on a random street corner for half an hour sobbing uncontrollably while I waited for an Uber. I had come home in a blinding rage and insisted that Kavya join me for a night of drinking. She’d had one glass out of politeness, while I had lost count. I had spent hours sleuthing around on the Internet until I finally found Pooja’s Instagram profile. Unfortunately for me, she had set it to public so I’d spiralled into a wave of self-loathing and judgement as I had tortured myself by looking at her picture-perfect, posed photos. I had lost all control when I spotted her most recent photo. An extremely lovey-dovey picture of her and Abhimanyu at trivia. It didn’t help that she had captioned it as: ‘I’m bae’s lucky charm. Look who won trivia with me by his side.’ I had promptly decided to make a drinking game out of every like that picture got and kept refreshing the page.

  Kavya had tried talking me out of it but that’s when I had launched into my lecture about how the entire world was unfair and how cheaters didn’t deserve a second chance. I distinctly remembered I had said ‘fuck him’ more than once and had followed it up with some more very colourful phrases as well. Clearly, the drinking game got terribly out of hand given that the picture was super popular and it single-handedly led me down the path of polishing off the bottle in entirety. I looked up and spotted the bottle again. I really needed to get it out of my sight, else it would keep reminding me of my self-destructive binge.

  Thank God I had remembered to hide my phone at some point. I shuddered to think of what I may have done or who I may have messaged if I’d had my phone. I wondered if Abhimanyu even knew that his latest life update was all the rage on social media. Or maybe his so-called social media detox was only limited for as long as he wasn’t with her. Now that they were together, maybe he wanted the world to know. Ugh. I had shut Instagram after that because the picture was making me want to throw up. Besides, I’d spotted new likes and I didn’t want to begin the drinking game afresh.

  ‘I don’t want to be the one to say I told you so . . . ’ Kavya began.

  I shot her a dirty look and she shut up. She picked up the mug of tea and handed it to me. I began taking slow sips.

  At least I still had one person on my side.

  Even if she was insisting on exercising her right to say ‘I told you so’ in the most annoying, self-satisfied, smug manner.

  I pressed my temples wishing I could will this hangover headache away.

  I stumbled into work bleary eyed, with a continued headache. I realized a little too late that I should have taken the day off. Especially since today also happened to be the tenth anniversary of Glam’s launch, because of which a havan had been organized outside our building. It turned out I wasn’t the only one with a hangover. I overheard from the whispered murmurs that the rest of the team had gone out for drinks after work too. Almost everyone was either clutching their head or nursing a water bottle in their arms as they stared sleepily at the huge bonfire-like pooja flame in front of us.

  I was standing in a corner by myself, yet again. Abhimanyu had walked up to me to say hello, but I hadn’t encouraged conversation so he’d gone back to stand with the senior management, all of whom were crowded directly behind Ash. Ash was looking particularly devout this morning, with a large tee
ka on his forehead. He was also wearing kurta and pyjama instead of his usual attire of formal wear. He looked different in this avatar. He was sitting next to the pandit who was busy chanting. I rubbed my eyes, wondering how much longer this pooja would go on.

  Suddenly, I realized everyone was starting to pay attention to the pooja. The pandit was a stickler for the norms. He had already yelled at Ranjani for not having the right pooja thali and other paraphernalia ready. And now, he was making all the senior management sit next to Ash and quizzing them on their antecedents for pooja reasons. He appeared to have gone around the circle and had finally settled on Ash.

  ‘Gotra?’ he said.

  ‘Bharadwaj’. The pandit began his chant by yelling out the gotra.

  ‘Village?’

  ‘Jhunj’. He continued by yelling out the village name.

  ‘Father’s name?’

  ‘G.D. Bakshi.’

  ‘Poora naam bataiye,*’ the pandit said in all seriousness.

  ‘Gagan Deep Bakshi.’ He was mollified, and now yelled out Ash’s father’s name.

  ‘Name?’

  There was silence.

  The pandit frowned disapprovingly. And then repeated the question.

  Ash mumbled something.

  ‘What?’

  He mumbled again. The pandit glared.

  Ash took a deep breath and mumbled something that we were all straining to hear.

  Phones began pinging. I wished I was still on the team’s group chat. I was definitely missing some major entertainment. I was disappointed that Ash had managed to share the information really quietly. I looked around and realized nobody had been able to overhear the conversation over the din of the pandit’s entourage who had been continuing the chants while this exchange was going on. I was about to tune out of the chanting again, when the pandit picked it up with renewed vigour.

  And that’s when the pandit and his entire entourage loudly chanted in chorus:

  ‘Bharadwaj gotra, Jhunj gaanv, Shri Gagan Deep Bakshi putrey, Shri Asaram Bakshi . . . ’

  Every whisper was instantly silenced. The team looked at each other in shock. I looked up and met Upasana’s eyes. Even though she and Shirin were still mad at me, in this moment, we were all united in our glee at having found out the answer to the mystery. There was a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, and as we looked at each other, we allowed ourselves a tiny giggle. The giggle set off a ripple of other smothered laughs, and soon the entire team was trying to hide the smiles and laughter that threatened to burst out of us.

  Asaram. I made a mental note to apologize to Sahana for telling her she was terrible at picking names. Poor Ash had a much tougher time. No wonder the man had officially changed his name on every single piece of paperwork.

  As I giggled yet again, Ash finally raised his head. His face was mottled red with rage. He glared at every single person until they were as poker faced as they were at the start of the pooja. We knew we couldn’t risk his wrath, not when appraisals were around the corner.

  PING!

  Glam Office Messenger Group Chat

  [#Glaminions—11.45 a.m.] Bhargavi: And you guys thought I was being ridiculous when I suggested Ashwem!

  [#Glaminions—11.45 a.m.] Aakash: Who could’ve imagined THIS?

  [#Glaminions—11.45 a.m.] Dhruv: Asaram! How do we keep a straight face while addressing him as ‘Ash’?!

  [#Glaminions—11.46 a.m.] Upasana: Doodle in progress of Ash-as-Asaram. Check it out this evening, at my desk!

  [#Glaminions—11.46 a.m.] Shirin: So we’re splitting the money we had pooled for the winner on drinks? Nobody won . . .

  [#Glaminions—11.48 a.m.] Bhargavi: Done. I will figure out a time and place. Everyone be there or be square!

  I smiled. They still hated me, but when it came to the mystery of Ash’s name, it seemed to trump all other misunderstandings. I hoped that once my project was launched and complete, they would eventually forgive me.

  Sometimes, all it took to improve a terrible relationship was interesting gossip!

  23

  The Winds Bring with Them a Windfall

  Was my work stressful? Yes.

  Was it even more stressful when I was trying to coordinate a launch? Definitely.

  Was it the most stressful when I was trying to coordinate a launch where people were avoiding me? Absolutely.

  After the havan on Friday, I spent the entire weekend working. I then spent the week pushing everyone else to complete their parts so nothing would be delayed or could go wrong. I was already the most hated person in the office, so I had nothing to lose by being pushy. By now, there wasn’t a single person who wanted to speak to me. And so, I sent my directives over email. I didn’t receive any responses, but I wasn’t expecting any. Thanks to Ash, they were forced to do what I asked, otherwise they would’ve left me to my own devices.

  The only person who seemed to genuinely want to help me was Abhimanyu. I was curious to know how he’d got back together with Pooja, but I made sure our conversations were restricted to work to protect my feelings. I didn’t want to cross over into anything that seemed like friendship again. Especially since the trivia night debacle had taught me that we were colleagues and nothing more, as far as he was concerned. He had tried joking around with me a few times, but I had shut him down promptly. He was now being very guarded, taking his cues from my behaviour.

  It was almost midnight and the two of us were sitting bleary-eyed in the ‘War Room’ with the rest of the launch team—Harsh, Dhruv, Shirin, Basit, Abhijit, Sridhar and the engineers on the project, Heena and Shivam. I didn’t understand why all corporates pretended that launches were so life-altering that they needed to be compared to a war. It was as though the outcomes of our work were life-and-death situations, when all we did was drive the wheel of consumerism.

  The War Room was all set up to facilitate a launch. There was a table along the wall piled with coffee and snacks. It was also covered with empty cartons and leftovers of lunch and dinner, giving the room a musty smell of stale food mixed with sweaty bodies. The trash can in the corner was overflowing, with paper cups spilling out over on to the carpet.

  At the front of the room was a large TV screen which was set up to monitor important numbers like the number of people signing up for the subscription, the number of deals they claimed, the revenue Glam earned and so on as soon as the launch was complete. This screen would stay in the War Room over the next few weeks to allow us to track our progress. I knew from previous launches that people loved seeing the numbers climb. The room would become a favourite hangout place post a big launch as people would stop by to look at the screen while taking a coffee break. All the senior management would stop by at least once every hour, thus making it a great place to showcase how dedicated you were to the company’s cause.

  I’d set up a slide on the projector with our launch checklist so that each person in the room could call out when their steps were complete. I checked off the confirmed items. The list also had time for each item on the checklist, so we knew if a step was taking too long. We had to ensure that we went live at midnight, so everything needed to go like clockwork. As I surveyed the room, I felt good and prayed that things would go according to plan. There was nothing worse than when a big launch went off track, and Ash had pinned all his funding hopes on this one, so I couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. I smiled as I saw everyone peering into their laptops, completing the last-minute checks.

  ‘There’s something wrong with the targeting,’ Abhimanyu suddenly said.

  I held my breath, hoping Abhimanyu had made a mistake. This couldn’t be happening.

  ‘I tested it yesterday, it was working correctly,’ Dhruv replied, as he leaned to look into Abhimanyu’s screen.They were both looking concerned, which was the last expression I wanted to see on anyone’s face. I took a deep breath to collect my thoughts and then moved into damage control mode.

  ‘Heena, please take a look,’ I said, gesturing toward
s Abhimanyu’s laptop.

  I poured myself a glass of water. I started nibbling at my cuticle as I looked at the clock. It was 11.50 p.m.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  We needed to go live in ten minutes. A hiccup at this stage would derail everything I’d worked so hard for all these days. I began chanting all the prayers I knew, in the hope that divine intervention would save the day.

  Heena walked over to Abhimanyu. Mentally, I was urging her to sprint so she got to the other side of the table faster. I got up and walked quickly over there as well to see if I could help in any way.

  ‘See here,’ he pointed at his screen as Heena peered into it. ‘I don’t see any users within this segment. This isn’t working!’

  I felt the blood rushing towards my head as my pulse quickened. If Abhimanyu was right, and the targeting wasn’t working, we couldn’t launch the experiment. Even if we did launch it, nobody would see it because there were no users in the target segment. This was a disaster! A problem like this could take days to fix, and we were on a deadline. Ash’s scrawl with the dates was still there on the whiteboard—25 September— and it seemed to be mocking me.

  Heena immediately began looking into the code. With every second that she stared at her screen my blood pressure rose. I was racking my brains trying to think of what could have happened.

  ‘Guys, this should’ve been caught in the bug bash we did yesterday,’ Harsh jumped in. Until now, he’d been sitting in a corner with his eyes half-closed as he scrolled endlessly. It was almost as though he had been waiting for something to happen before he jumped in.

  He stared balefully at Abhimanyu, making it clear that there was only one person to be blamed if something went wrong with the launch. Trust Harsh to make sure that his ass was covered well in advance. He was a genius when it came to prioritizing himself over anything else. I now realized he had decided to attend this meeting to divert the blame for any mistakes from himself to other teams. Everyone in the room was now looking at Abhimanyu. He ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end.