Meera's day

Ritu the Shah planner calls at 11 a.m. with a referral that turns out to be the same Delhi builder — Dhruv Khanna — asking Ritu for an August mehfil quote under a different company name. Ritu recognises Meera's name on the builder's forwarded brief and calls to warn her, voice low, that the man is shopping her fee against Niharika's undercut and has already booked the Lonavala farmhouse through a third-party planner in Kalyan. At 4 p.m. Meera meets the fixer a second time in the Bandra cafe's back corner, and the junior sitting with him reaches across the table to slide a sealed envelope under her hand with enough force to scrape her palm — a paper-cut violence the cafe cannot see. Inside the envelope: a four-by-six print of the second clip, the one with the pulled dupatta, and a sticky note reading 'Level 2. 4 p.m. Thursday. Or this goes wider.' Decision crystallised: her name is being spoken in three rooms she is not in, and her palm is bleeding onto a cafe napkin in front of a stranger she has already paid to recognise her.