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APOOR RESIDENCE was in a chaotic state that morning. Aditya was getting ready to go to work. Maya was running around fixing Aryan’s tiffin box. The maid had not arrived.
    The doorbell rang at the most inappropriate time.
    ‘I will get it,’ yelled Aditya as he rushed to the door. He knew that Maya got extremely hassled if anything disturbed her morning schedule. The maid not turning up had already messed up her morning. She was going to be late and she hated that. Fearing a backlash, Aditya was trying to keep her calm and at the same time, stay out of her firing line. The driver was at the door. Aditya handed the car keys to him and got back to helping Maya.
    On a normal day he would drop Aryan at school. Occasionally, even Maya would join him and he would drop her on his way to work. Today, given that Maya was a bit hassled, he decided to drop her. Whenever he did that, the driver followed in Maya’s car.
    After dropping off Aryan, they were heading towards Maya’s school, which was a mile away.
    Maya looked at him and smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
    ‘For what?’
    ‘The morning.’
    Aditya raised his eyebrows. He had a naughty grin on his face.
    ‘I don’t say anything doesn’t mean I don’t notice,’ Maya smiled.
    ‘Aaah . . . that’s an interesting confession,’ Aditya teased her. ‘You must try not to get so stressed, Maya.’
    ‘It’s just the morning. I don’t want you guys to get late because of me and I want you to take food from home. Stress is inevitable.’
    ‘Once in a while we can manage by eating outside.’
    ‘That’s what I don’t want you to do. Stressful work, sedentary lifestyle, inadequate sleep, zero exercise . . . All my pleading and prodding for you to work out falls on deaf ears,’ she complained.
    Aditya looked at her and flexed his left bicep. ‘Naturally gifted with a great body,’ he joked.
    ‘Be serious, Aditya. I don’t want to add outside food to the list of problems that you have. That’s why I am so insistent that you take home food. Remember, you are not getting any younger. You are the one in the rat race. It adds to your stress levels,’ she argued.
    ‘What to do, Maya? I am forty; reaching the midway mark of my corporate life. Another twenty years and we will be gone, wiped from people’s memories. What have we achieved? What will we leave behind?’
    ‘What’s wrong with you, Aditya?’ Maya cried. ‘You have such a great career; from Junior Executive to Director—Branch Banking, in fifteen years. Not just that, you also have a successful alternate writing career. And to top it all, we have Aryan, a nice little family. People would kill to be in your place. Do you even realise that?’
    Invariably in such situations, Aditya would just smile and the discussion would end. He knew that Maya was a contented soul, happy with what she had. But he was different. He wanted everything from life, not only for himself, but also for Maya and Aryan.
    They reached Maya’s school. As she was getting out of the car, she looked at Aditya and said, ‘I forgot to tell you yesterday. The school trip to NASA is on.’
    ‘Oh. But I thought that’s still some time away.’
    ‘Yes, but I have to tell them if I am taking a vacation around it. I can’t just dump them. There will be 60 kids with us. Someone has to herd them and bring them back.’ Maya was hopeful that they would be able to take a vacation around the same time.
    ‘Okay, baby. We will close it out this week,’ he said before waving at her and driving off to work. He had a National Bank Annual event to attend that night.

6
    S ELDOM DOES ONE see bankers letting their hair down. But the occasion that evening was clearly special. It was the year-end event, where winners were identified and teams were rewarded. It was a complex combination of team performance; voting by heads of select support functions like Operations, HR, Compliance, etc; and the judgement of the segment heads that was used to pick the