Flight of the Flamingo, the first title in the Beyond Pink series, takes a look at the real dilemmas of urban women who choose to follow their gut, using their talents and career options to design a life they can be proud of. https://www.facebook.com/LivingBeyondPink https://www.youtube.com/LivingBeyondPink

2. 14
Go to office on Monday morning, present Ashish with the
book, apologize to him for going behind his back, assure him
that the book was not in public circulation and then throw myself
on his mercy. It sounded like a perfectly reasonable plan. No
fireworks, no drama, no surprises. At nine a.m. the plan was intact,
five minutes later it had collapsed.
The intercom rang just as I had unloaded my bag from my
shoulders and was slinging it on the back of my chair. Halfway
through this act, I grabbed the ringing instrument, almost
overturning in the process of balancing myself, the chair and the
telephone. ‘Come to my office,’ said Asshole in his broadest Haryanvi
accent.
Later I knew I had followed his summons like an unsuspecting
sheep going to slaughter, but at that moment I was being utterly
natural when I sauntered into his office. There was still time to go
for our weekly gabfest, as Neha put it so elegantly, so my mind, in
addition to the problem of Dangerous, was reviewing all the
manuscripts on my desk, and which ones to put in the ‘out tray’.
In contrast to my cluttered desk, as always, Ashish’s was empty,
except for one object, the shiny new Dangerous, with its elegant
ochre cover. It caught my eye as soon as I entered. I froze in the
doorway, and for a moment everything in the room, the desk and
chairs, the wall of bestseller covers, the billowing curtains on the

3. Flight of the Flamingo / 247
windows, the accessories on the polished desk, Ashish himself,
faded out of my vision. Only the book remained, its image
hammering on my eyes until I thought they’d start bleeding.
I felt I was in the middle of some CIA plot, a smoke and mirrors
world where nothing was as it seemed. How had the book landed
on Ashish’s table? Only Sonia, Prakash and I had the book in our
possession. ‘Where did you get this?’ I whispered.
‘Congratulations, Preeta. You’ve set a record. The only editor in
the whole world who self-publishes while working for another
publisher. What the hell were you thinking of? Whose bright idea
was this?’
‘I can explain.’
‘I don’t want to hear any explanation, thanks. When I’d said
Dangerous wasn’t happening under Pradhan, that was meant for
you as well. Why were you doing this . . . this cloak-and-dagger
stuff? It’s just a bloody book, a pretty salacious one, if I’m right.
Why did you turn it into some sort of damn mission?’
‘Look Ashish, I . . .’ I stared at Ashish’s closed, fleshy face and
shut my mouth. No explanation that I offered would carry any weight
with this man. If we were dealing in facts, there was only one fact,
that Pradhan had rejected a book that I had then, while working at
Pradhan, proceeded to publish. That was all. It was enough.
‘You’ll have to leave, of course. That’s the only way your name
can be associated with this book. Otherwise we’ll be the laughing
stock of the publishing world. I’m sure you had your reasons for
what you did. I don’t understand them, but it doesn’t matter. How
much time do you need to clear your desk? You can hand over all
pending manuscripts to me. All of them. I hope you can do that?’
I knew what Ashish was implying, that I would help myself to
some of the literary gems that had come to Pradhan. He flattered
himself. There was nothing on my desk worth stealing. Except
Dangerous. ‘Of course.’