The glass door automatically opened to let me into the shiny, large office of Chorus Creative Marketing Consultants, one of the largest brand management and marketing agencies in the city, and even in the country and overseas. At 24, I was overjoyed being there. My first job, straight out of grad school, bagged via campus placements from one of the best colleges in India. I couldn’t have been prouder. I went to reception where a pretty young lady, smiled at me and asked, “How can I help you?” “This is my first day on the job. I need to report to Ms. Fraislyn D’Souza.” “Sure”, she said as she took in my details and issued me a temporary ID card. “Go straight and first left. Seat No: 77”, she pointed her fingers. I thanked her and went off to look for Fraislyn. She was the same person who’d interviewed me at the college and offered me the position of Manager, Brand & Creatives.  In likely her mid-thirties with thick-rimmed glasses and hair tied to a bun, she might pass off as a strict teacher if you didn’t know her credentials/qualifications. But she was one of the best creative minds in the country at that point, having been ranked in the Top 100 marketers and won the best creative award for the ad she created for Global Chocolate Company. I went up to her desk and wished her good morning. “Hey, hey Richa! So glad to see you again. It’s been so many months since we met.” “Yes. We had the placements at the end of the last year. Almost three months now”, I said trying to keep the conversation going. “Sure, sure. No worries. I hope you are excited. We are really excited to have you here. Come on Richa, I’ll provide you a quick walkthrough of things and introduce you to your team.” I nodded eagerly and followed her to the nearest meeting room. Taking one of the seats and motioning me to take another one she said, “As I said we are very glad to have you join us. We are slightly short-staffed at this moment. So I expect you to take the plunge quickly.” “We’ll be there to guide and help you at every point’, she added and continued, “I am allotting you to work with four of our top clients. You’ll have a couple of interns and another lady also with you. Sharan, who’s working with some of the other top clients would be your buddy. Let me introduce you to Sharan first and he can help you with the rest of the stuff for the week.” I smiled. It felt so overwhelming. How do I take the plunge quickly? True, I had been trained in one of the best design and management schools, but it still felt intimidating. I gathered all the confidence I could, smiled, and nodded, “Sure, sure Fraisyln. I am ready to get started. Eager to pick up the challenges that come up the way.” She smiled. We walked together to Sharan’s desk. He was probably only a few years older than me and we hit off quickly. Over a cup of coffee, he showed me the different templates that they used, talked to me about the core team members and even introduced me to some of the office gossip as well. “The interns are good. But the other person on your team, I’m not so sure about her.  I don’t know why Fraislyn hired her. She’s just too old for this stuff. IMHO!” “Come on, let me take you to your desk and help you meet up with your team.” My desk was just a few desks away from Sharan’s. In that cubicle sat two bubbling youngsters, still pursuing their undergraduate degrees. The boy had curly hair and wore spectacles while the girl had straight brown hair that reached her hips and was dressed in a chic dress. “This is Hema and this is Varun. They are interns, students at BYC Design & Marketing Institute. They’ll be with us for some months as part of their curriculum. And if good, we can absorb them as full-time employees”, he beamed at them. “And this is Richa, your new manager”. “Ahem”, he cleared his throat looking in the direction of the third person who sat in the cubicle.  She was wearing a black top and denim jeans and had jet-black hair that obviously seemed to be the result of the use of excessive hair dye. She turned around. There were awkward greetings from all sides. “This is Richa. You would likely be reporting to her. She’s just passed from GT Institute with honours, and off to the start of a great career.” “Richa, this is the other lady in your team.” Whispering he continued, “That old hag I was talking about. We call her aunty”, he chuckled. “Okay then, I’ll leave you to settle down”, he said before sharing a wink with the interns. “Thanks” I muttered and took my seat, beside the ‘aunty’. I surveyed her from the corner of my eyes. She was heavily built, had rough patchy skin on her hands, and seemed quite serious. “Hello!” I said trying to start a conversation. “I didn’t get your name.” She looked up from her laptop and said, “Hi, I’m Sandhya.” “Nice. How long have you been here?” “Just six months”, she smiled. “Oh, okay!” I opened my laptop and there were already emails with to-do things on it. I started on it one by one. The interns behind me were a chatty pair of youngsters, making it hard to concentrate. *** I looked at the lady beside me. She was engrossed in her laptop. I tapped on her shoulder. “Coffee?” “Sure”, she said surprised. At the canteen, she continued, “I haven’t yet made any friends here. Most of the people, including you probably, are half my age. I’m almost 57 years old.” I wondered why she started working when it was almost time for retirement. As if sensing my question, she continued, “I know it’s the time most people retire and I have started working now. People joke about it, even here on the office floor. My husband passed away a couple of years back, during the COVID first wave. While I did have some savings, I got apprehensive about how life would get. I was good at writing and had been doing some freelancing. Simultaneously I also learned a bit of Photoshop and found that I had a good sense of design too. That’s when I saw the advertisement here for a contractual role for a year and I decided to apply. Maybe most youngsters wouldn’t prefer a contractual offer, so I was successful.” I was impressed. “You deserved this role. That’s why you are here. You are better than the other applicants, so you got the job.” She smiled weakly. “A lot of people here wouldn’t have said that. You are very kind.” “They keep talking about me behind my back. She’s eating our jobs. Why does she want this job at her age? Maybe her kids have deserted her. Maybe she’s divorced. She doesn’t even know how to open a deck in the present mode. And so on.” She looked away sad. Over the next few days, I got to know her better. She had done her B.Com almost four decades ago and worked as an accountant with a small firm in her home town in Gujarat before she was married away. She had then had to let go of her job and be a stay-at-home wife and daughter-in-law. She missed doing the books, calculating the taxes and catching the errors but instead had to spend her hours near the stove, making theplas, dhoklas and countless rotis. Her husband travelled the country for business purposes and she wished she could go along with him and explore new worlds. But her mother-in-law never saw why she needed to see the world when the only thing she needed to do was turn out rotis and produce an heir. While she finally mastered the former, she was not able to conceive. The family performed countless poojas and made her undertake fasts almost every day of the week, but the results were never positive. It then turned to name-calling and a torrent of blame and abuse. Her husband remained a mute spectator to all that went on, never blamed nor sharing the blame. Finally, he took on a second wife, who gave the family a male heir, though with some effort. She was shunted and “that’s how I began writing. Penning my thoughts in a secret diary. Writing stories about my life, faking stories about the life I wanted. Once I sent one of them to a magazine under a pen name and they published it, giving me my first pay in many years.” “That was cool!” I replied. *** The work at the agency was hectic. There were several days when it stretched on past nine in the night. It also often ended up with me working from home later. I wondered how Sandhya was keeping up. She probably wasn’t. While whatever work she submitted was above par, there were many tasks that she missed. I ended up picking the balls that got missed and this often got me tired and cranky. “Richa, why do you always step in for that aunty? I can see that it is taking a toll on your health”, Sharan commented one day as we sat together for lunch. "I am only stepping up for my team, Sharan. I do it for the interns as well. Most of the time I end up reworking whatever they submit also. At least with Sandhya I don’t have that trouble. Her work is very good. It's just that she may not be able to stay late in the night to meet clients. She is staying in a PG and there are restrictions." Sharan doubled up laughing, "Still staying in a PG! At this age! She is nuts, I'm sure. Let me tell you, don't get associated with her too much. You will go down the same path." I smirked and left it at that. But probably Fraisyln also felt the same way about Sandhya. At the end of her contract period, she was let go. She was told at the last moment about the contract not being extended and her being terminated from the role. Instead, the interns were awarded full-time positions. Sandhya was sad. And I was heartbroken. I tried to reason with Fraisyln. "Fraisyln, Sandhya's work is good. We should be extending her contract at least if not absorbing her as a full-time employee. The interns on the other hand still have a long way to go. They need to be trained more before they can handle client calls, email communication, or projects end-to-end. Sandhya is doing all that now." "I don't understand why you are standing up for Sandhya, Richa. Our average workforce age is up by almost 10 years just because of her. And she doesn't get any of the new-gen corporate lingos. TBH! I just had her on board because the then Director approved of her and sent a recommendation. Now that he's no longer with the firm, I don't think we need to keep her either and slow down things. Have you seen how much time she takes just to get up from her seat and reach the water cooler? We need young blood who are as swift as a jiffy in getting things done. There'll be some errors. But that's okay. They will learn. You just get going with all the projects, and we can get a few more interns onboard if that'll help you." "You too seem to be going slow sometimes", she said as a parting shot. With the heavy work schedules, parents in the middle of a divorce, and the educational loan eating into my earnings, I'm still doing my best. And I don't know what more you want, I retorted in my mind. *** "Hello Sandhya", I said picking up the phone. "Good evening Richa. Thanks for calling." "I'm so sorry how the firm treated you, and I couldn't do anything despite being your manager." "Don't blame yourself, Richa. I had seen this coming. Other than you, everybody else in the office was never friends with me. Ageism, you can call it. But I can't wallow in self-pity. I need to keep going. I have a few freelance projects in hand. I had seen the termination coming and had got in touch with a few people via the earlier projects I worked on. I have work lined up to keep me busy and away from starving. No need to worry", she reassured me. I had called her to offer her support and here she was teaching lessons on anticipating the future, networking, planning and self-confidence. I felt she either would be or already is more successful than many of the people in my corporate circle. "I'm sure Sandhya things will go all well. Do let me know if you need anything." "Sure Richa! Thanks again for being kind and helpful. I consider you a good friend." *** Little did I at that time know that I would be the one needing help. As the economic landscape underwent a change, from extravagant budgets to shoe-string budgets I found my position made redundant suddenly. Fraisyln called me in the morning, "Richa, I have some bad news. You don't need to come to the office from today. Due to cost-cutting, we are eliminating some positions and yours is unfortunately one of them. The courier service will deliver the items from your desk to your home and you are required to submit your office belongings including the laptop and identity card to them. We thank you for your short service." I was too dumbfounded and stunned to ask anything or even speak for the next ten minutes. I heard the phone click ending the call at the other end. I stood like a statue at the spot, the mobile phone still held to my ear. Slowly I dropped onto my bed, head in my hands. After a few moments, I yelled, "Damn it!" and cried hard for several minutes, tears streaming down my cheeks. I pulled my hair in despair and sat down on the floor of my studio apartment, unsure of the future, unsure of myself.  Within an hour, the courier service delivered my items and took away my office ID card and laptop. I lay in bed for several hours, sometimes crying, sometimes angry at the turn of events. Eventually, towards the evening, I sat up. I need to stand up again. I may have fallen, but this is not the end of the world. I cannot wallow in self-pity. It's time to move on with determination", I tried to encourage myself, only to be shaken a few minutes later. I opened the box the courier agency had brought in. There wasn't anything much inside it. A pen, a notebook, the statue of the goddess, and a birthday greeting card. I opened the card, given to me by Sandhya on my last birthday. 'You are one more step closer to the stars Shoot for it now And it will be yours forever. Nothing is outside your reach. Happy birthday Richa!' I wondered how Sandhya might have felt when she was terminated. I picked up the phone and dialled her number. "Hi Richa! It's been so long. How are you? ", Sandhya's voice boomed from the other side. She sounded happy and excited. "I'm okay Sandhya. What's up at your end?" "You sound gloomy. Is everything alright?" she senses my sad tone. "I just got laid off, Sandhya." There was silence at the other end for a few moments. She is probably recalling the days of her own ordeal. "Everything will be alright, Richa. Every valley is followed by a mountain. Every summer with rain. And every setback with victory. Don't lose hope. Continue to persevere." I listened silently. After a moment, she asked with excitement brimming in her voice, "Richa. I have many freelance projects under my belt. Too much for me to effectively work on. Can you take some of them? And you can take the remuneration also." "Yes Sandhya, I would like to do that", I said slowly, a little unsure where I was going, charting from a stable full-time job to freelance work. This was not what I wanted, not how I had imagined my career graph to go. But I had nothing now and Sandhya was offering something, so I took it up. I didn't want to offend her, although she would have understood if I declined. "Great, let's meet at Starbucks tomorrow then. 10 am." "Okay" *** At Starbucks, we ordered just two cups of latte. Over those she explained to me the projects she wanted me to take up. It was paying a total of Rs. 14000 for website content development including writing some short blogs. As we sat staring outside through the large window at the crowd that went about their business - selling, haggling, and occasionally fighting - and at the audience in business suits and laptops inside the cafe, I wondered where my life would be headed. "Richa, I get many freelance requests, sometimes recurring ones. You know, the same clients coming back again and again with more work. I was thinking of registering myself as a business. One of the clients told me that it has tax benefits. What do you say? You have more experience with business management, you have done an MBA? "That's all theoretical knowledge, Sandhya. But we can definitely give it a try. Most large firms including Chorus grew up from being small agencies with little work." "Let's do it then, Richa. Let's start our own business." *** It took several more years for us to take that plunge, and to register our partnership as an LLP. And that's how ‘Keys & Words’ was born. I smiled at Sandhya sitting across the stage, where we were panellists for the Women Business Leaders Conference. Our business had grown 10x in the last four years and we were a known brand in the B2B circles.  That's how we, Sandhya and I, though divided by the years but united by circumstances, challenges, thought process, and ambition had built a strong challenger to the organization that was once our employer and had brought us together.