Page 19 of Made in Mumbai

Life at Made in Mumbai was set. As long as she didn’t see the grumpy owner, which she hadn’t in the last week. Her work was a mix of designing and sourcing. She had to tap into the GK Textiles’ mill produce, their partner factories and sometimes also bring her own contacts for fabrics that weren’t in their expertise. The first floor people didn’t take too well to her friendly olive branches though.

They needed ‘to-the-point’ conversations. It was as if they were conditioned to behave like robots at work and store their personality in their lunch bags for when they returned home. Thank god everybody on the ground floor carried their personalities on their sleeves. She would have died of boredom otherwise. The Made in Mumbai people got together and ate lunch on one table, went out for smoke and tea breaks at 4 dot, sometimes played music and clapped at her Josh movie jokes. They understood that Josh was Shah Rukh and Aishwarya’sbestmovie, not Devdas. They were her kind of people.

Except Rustom. He was a Devdas himself. Not Shah Rukh Devdas. Abhay Deol DevD.

“This is really good, Rustom bhai. Really, really good,” she handed back the fabric samples that he had designed, then mocked-up.

“Yeah,” he stuffed them into his binder. She knew he didn’t like showing things to her for approval, but that was the hierarchy. She couldn’t help it.

“Wait, wait, wait!” She held his hands. “What is that?”

He eyed her dubiously. Ever since that first time she had let off like a loose canon, he had looked at her like she was a ticking time bomb.

“You made this?” She bellowed, delicately picking the pista green cotton silk square that was worked intricately with rani pink and platinum buttas. “Wow, it’s almost like… khinkhab. How did you manage it?”

“With my hands,” he grunted.

“Will you teach me?”

Surprised, he harrumphed. Then plucked the fabric from her fingers and preened back into his cabin.

“You shouldn’t have acted like a bitch to him on your first day,” Riya reiterated, collecting the sample swathes from their co-working table. “He is cordial otherwise.”

“Arey tu tension kayko leta hai re?” Maya shut her own fabric binder and got to her feet. “Have I been a bitch to him after that day?”

“No.”

“Then?”

Riya made that cute ‘what are you trying to say’ face. It was Maya’s favourite expression of her. That was her reaction to most of the things she said. Maya took it as a compliment.

“When someone thinks you are bad in the first meeting, and then slowly discovers they weren’t right after all, it is easier to win them over. If you try to be goody-goody from the get go with a hostile party then you will never win them over. Ok? Now…”

“Maya?” Leo called out.

“Yes?”

“Gautam Sir is calling you.”

“Me?” She pointed to herself.

“Yes, you.”

“Me as in me-me? Are you sure he said Maya Kotak?”

“No he said Maya Sarabhai but she isn’t available so I am sending you up.”

“Ha ha. Less Hotstar, more… receptioning.”

“Go,” Leo laughed, pointing her in the direction of the staircase to heaven.

Maya prepped herself this time. She ran to the bathroom, checked if her attire was ‘workplace appropriate’ and added an extra dash of lipstick. She wore a blue pinstriped boyfriend shirt tucked into a high-waisted navy pair of wide-legged trousers. A brown belt cinched the look. Workplace appropriate much?

She tucked her hair behind her ears, pushed her rolled sleeves up her elbow and tiptoed up the stairs in her mules. Heels were good, but this uneven moody workplace required flats. Maya went up running after one point, riveted all over again by the trees and the trunks. Today the terrace floors were dry, the sun out bright, making it a tropical haven in the concrete jungle of Mumbai.

“Hey!” She waved at Sia coming down from the beast’s terrace. She nodded, her kind smile in place.

“How’s the josh?”

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