Prologue
1 September 2018

Today is Sonia’s birthday!

The reminder popped up as soon as Rishabh opened his Outlook. He had added this nugget to his sparse reminder list two years ago. A long-standing unorganised person who was fierce about his privacy, Rishabh’s calendar concealed more information from the outside world than it revealed. He had missed many essential calls and meetings due to his lack of scheduling skills, and in one instance, even landed in a completely wrong place.

It wasn’t easy to work with him. Sonia was one of the few who could. She managed his meetings, calls, engagements, etc. in her methodical way. It had been five months since she had left, and he felt the absence of her efficiency.

He was missing her.

Rishabh veered away from his laptop. His gaze rested on the bookshelf that was neatly arranged, thanks to his wife’s home décor skills. It had an eclectic collection of books on media, the industry he had been working in for the past twenty-three years. The complete Asterix series, piled in a chronological manner in one corner, broke the monotony.

He was a voracious reader. ‘How much do you read!’ was a frequent lament of his teenage son. His wife, on the other hand, was used to it after twenty years of marriage. He could not understand how some people did not read at all.

Standing at five-feet-eleven and pushing forty-three, Rishabh kept himself physically fit and intellectually stimulated. Even with fine lines below the eyes and around the mouth, his warm smile revealed a handsome man of youth. He was a successful man, widely known and respected in industry circles, quoted every day in some or the other media outlet, and a regular speaker in many forums.

Rishabh was the Head of the Response and Strategy division in one of the largest integrated media companies in India. In the last three years of his ten-year tenure, he was in charge of the Print division, where his primary objective was to maximise revenues and he did so consistently, exceeding his targets. In a country where newspapers cost less than a cup of tea, this predominantly meant advertising revenues, which had grown five-fold during his tenure. ‘God has been kind,’ was his customary reply to all the compliments and queries that came his way.

Generally, he didn’t do any official work late at night and preferred to read instead if still awake. Tonight, however, he had opted to check his pending emails that had piled up during the two days he was in his business trip. The reminder came then. Serendipity?

He would not have recalled Sonia’s birthday if not for the reminder. This was why he had set it up in the first place. He smiled, reminiscing how he had coaxed Sonia to reveal her actual date of her birth.

‘Only a few family members know my birthday. Everyone else wishes me on the official date,’ she had written on WhatsApp, the first time he had brought up the subject. He didn’t follow through just then. Patience was one of his virtues. The next time when he asked at an appropriate instance, she could not refuse. He had promptly set the reminder then.

He would wish her. Ideally, he would have mailed a oneliner but it would trouble him not to get a reply. Sonia has been in his thoughts ever since she had left. Over the months, emails and calls fizzled out, WhatsApp conversations trickled down to sporadic few general forward texts, and even those ceased gradually. He wanted to know how she was doing.

I can call her.

And risk her not picking up your call.