He parked the car in his designated space right outside the entrance. He was known to park anywhere and throw his keys to the valet. Now, he didn’t find any joy or rush in doing that. His heart scare had brought a lot of his life and his living into perspective. Or maybe it was a certain cardiologist who was pulling him down the pegs he had notched in his own rise?
“NiP, hi! Good morning!” His assistant, Kedar, stood ready with an iPad and a mug of green tea.
He took the mug and checked for the concentration. The inside of the mug was painted deep olive.
“Do I need to buy space on Outdoor to reiterate that I need my mugs white?” He held it up.
“Sorry, sorry…” Kedar floundered, taking it back. “This is from your collection, NiP.”
“I asked you to bring my green tea in whites only.”
“It’s white from the outside.”
Nilay could go on and play a game of sarcasm until the man was weeping. He didn’t have the inclination to do so today. He wanted to get his morning’s work over with so that he could think in peace about how to best contact Ritu.
He walked inside the store to the sales staff cleaning. Silent nods and nervous smiles buzzed around him. Nothing new. Unless he was briefing Sales on something, which was as rare as the blood moon, they did not talk to him. He liked it that way. He wasn’t a man meant for Sales. He couldn’t be a ‘Yes man,’ woo the client or wax poetic about their beauty to sell his piece. He had not wooed his investors either. They had wooed him. The world wooed him.
Except one.
He stepped inside the elevator with Kedar beside him and it reminded him of another elevator in Patan. He smirked.
“Are you ok, NiP?”
“Do you have a death wish?”
“You are smiling.”
He turned his smile on Kedar — “I am without my morning tea, what do you think?”
“I’ll… I’ll get you one in a white mug.” He ran as soon as the doors opened on the top floor. His workshop space was still deserted. None of his designers came this early. That gave him time to review his own work in peace. He liked to create at night, then look at it objectively in the light of day. Alone.
Nilay walked to his office when faint lilts of music caught his ears. He followed it and reached the source at the far corner.
“What are you doing?”
The young woman startled up. She was sitting with her back to the glass window, hair disheveled, probably in last night’s clothes, playing music. He didn’t know her.
“Who are you?”
“I… I work for your Creative Team, sir… I meean NiP. Hi,” she shot to her feet, trying to smile.
“At 8 in the morning? My Creative Team does not know what the sun looks like.”
She let out a laugh. Then clamped her mouth shut — “Sorry… I pulled an all-nighter curating the list.”
“What list?”
“The rain list.”
“Right. Go home.”
She glanced at the clock. “If I go home now I won’t be able to come back on time.”
“Go home and stay home.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stay back, I got late and I…”
“It’s not an imposition. Take the day since you pulled an all-nighter. Send me the list before you leave.”
