eight Caught in 4K
eight
Iwas dreaming about eating my mom’s special apple kheer when Nikita’s scream jolted me awake.
‘Wake up babeeeee.’ She jumped on my bed, bouncing a few times over.
Despite the fact that we’d had more fun over the weekend than I’d had in the three and a half years of being in the city, in that moment, I wholeheartedly regretted befriending my flatmate.
I rubbed my eyes, glancing at the clock on my bedside table.
It was fifteen minutes before my Monday morning alarm was set to go off.
‘What do you want?’ I croaked, pissed at being robbed of my last few minutes of sleep.
My lack of excitement didn’t deter her. She peeled my blanket off me in one swift motion, earning a high-pitched shriek from me.
‘I’ve done it …’ She thrust her phone in my face. ‘I’ve gone viral.’
I blinked at the screen a few times before the photo came into focus. ‘Is this for real?’
She nodded, grinning from ear to ear. I sat up in my bed, a wave of adrenaline washing over me. I pinched the screen to zoom in, to confirm that this was, in fact, happening.
My flatmate was on @devilwearscolaba’s Instagram page.
It was a photo from Friday night’s party. Nikita drenched in champagne, Aditya Jindal draping his leather jacket around her shoulders, fairy lights twinkling in the background.
The photo did an excellent job of highlighting the all-too-familiar way Aditya was looking at Nikita, his right hand resting on the small of her back. His jacket hung loosely from her shoulders, intimate and telling.
And then I read the caption.
PSA: If you’re going to lend your Versace jacket to someone who’s not your fiancée, at least make sure it’s not a knockoff. #InfidelityIsNotInFashion #NeitherAreFirstCopies
I went back to the post to swipe left. The second image in the carousel was a side-by-side comparison of Aditya’s jacket with the one on the brand’s website. The difference was impossible to miss. The real one had an embossed logo, whereas his looked printed.
My jaw must have dropped to the floor because Nikita lifted a finger to set it firmly back in place. ‘I guess money can’t buy you class,’ she said.
‘What are you going to do now?’ I asked, trying to wrap my head around what this meant for her.
For anyone else, this would’ve been a nightmare.
The insinuation that she was involved with Aditya Jindal was clear.
The Aditya Jindal, the millionaire who was engaged to a billionaire’s daughter.
And for a struggling actress to come between that?
The tabloids would chew her up and spit her out.
But Nikita didn’t look like she was panicking. She looked pleased—thrilled, even.
‘This is it, babe,’ she said breathlessly, her eyes widening in delirium. ‘This is my big break.’
By the time I left for work an hour later, she was filming a fit check in Aditya’s jacket.
I spent the entire train journey glued to my phone, scrutinizing the increasingly viral Instagram post. The comments section was flooded with breakup predictions, slut-shaming and all kinds of financial conspiracy theories about how Aditya’s company was dangerously close to bankruptcy, which is why he was marrying one of India’s richest businessman’s daughter.
Meme pages had started posting ridiculous edits and were already garnering millions of views.
Headlines were springing up one after another.
Business Tycoon Aditya Jindal Caught in Cheating Scandal
Cheating Rumours Swirl as Aditya Jindal’s Jacket Finds a New Shoulder
Who Is the Woman in Aditya Jindal’s Arms? Cheating Allegations Rock the Jindal Empire
As a scandal connoisseur, this should’ve been my annual highlight. I had insider knowledge about a @devilwearscolaba post that yesterday-me would’ve killed for. But something about it didn’t sit right.
I zoomed in, studying the photo more closely. The fairy lights, the jacket, the shameless look on Aditya’s face … it was all exactly how I remembered it. Except …
I thought back to that moment by the pool, to Nikita wobbling in her heels as Aditya reached out with his jacket.
I’d been holding her arm then, steadying her.
My hand had been right there. But in the photo, it was gone.
Not cropped—erased. The water behind her shoulder was too smooth, too perfect.
Whoever had edited this hadn’t used one of those lazy AI object removers that warp the edges.
This was real Photoshop work … lasso selection, content-aware fill, maybe even a bit of healing around the reflection.
A knot tightened in my stomach. What were the odds that more than one person at that party knew the Photoshop trick I’d shown Neil last week?
‘You willingly went to a stranger’s party?’ Tanya narrowed her eyes. ‘I don’t buy it.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say willingly,’ I said, sliding into Neil’s empty chair, trying to appear casual. ‘My flatmate dragged me.’
‘That actor girl? I didn’t know you both were pally like that …’
Neil’s laptop was screaming my name. I glanced around briefly before flipping it open and typing in the default password that HR gave to every new joinee. The screen lit up without protest. Ha!
‘We weren’t, not before this weekend. But she’s actually quite fun,’ I said, distracted, as I clicked through the surprisingly well-organized files on his system. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first glance.
Tanya hummed, completely oblivious to the fact that I was snooping through my intern’s stuff. ‘So, did anything exciting happen at this party?’
I was about to recount the many exciting events of the party to her when I clicked on a seemingly normal folder and entirely lost my train of thought.
‘Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?’ Tanya’s voice jolted me back to my workstation. I mean, Neil’s workstation.
I looked up from his laptop, blinking rapidly to focus on her face. She talked right over whatever I managed to mumble.
‘Anyway, the new DWC post? A cheating millionaire wouldn’t have surprised me … but a cheap one?’ She brought her fingers to her lips in a chef’s kiss. ‘Now that’s gold.’
I managed a weak smile, my thoughts in a world of their own.
The open laptop on Neil’s desk was still glowing, the cursor blinking in a folder titled ‘Drafts’.
Inside were thumbnails of fashion-forward Instagram grids, a Word doc full of caption options, each one more savage than the last, and photos I recognized from last month’s scandalous influencer takedowns.
It took me a few moments to fully register what I had just discovered.
Neil was @thedevilwearscolaba.
Neil, my intern. My lazy, privileged, purposeless intern.
Was the man behind the most viral IG account in the city.
For a second, I just sat there, my throat dry. Tanya kept scrolling through her phone, still laughing, completely unaware that the person responsible for Mumbai’s juiciest fashion scandals sat one desk away from me.
For years, people had tried to unmask the person behind @devilwearscolaba.
The internet was convinced it had to be an insider, not a pap.
Fingers had been pointed at an A-list celebrity’s stylist and a few different socialites and influencers, but no incriminating evidence had surfaced against them.
Some even suspected André, a well-connected hairdresser from the industry.
But no one had ever considered that it could be a straight man.
Granted, the straight man in question had great style, but still.
I knew I’d just stumbled onto a gold mine.
Nikita’s voice echoed through my brain. Find some dirt on him. Uno-reverse him, you know?
I snapped the laptop shut and got up, reeling as well as thrumming with something that felt dangerously like excitement. My pulse was in my ears.
‘Hey, are you feeling okay?’ Tanya asked, leaning close to look at my face.
‘Yeah, I just … need to go to the loo.’ I all but ran to the washroom, leaving behind a perplexed Tanya.
It had been almost an hour since Neil had stepped out for lunch.
I needed to figure this mess out before he got back.
I locked myself in a cubicle and pulled out my phone, unsure about what to do with it.
After a few seconds, I typed out a message to Nikita.
Me: You’re never going to believe it. I actually found dirt on Neil!!!
She responded within a minute.
Nikita: Good, now bury him with it.
I waited until the end of the work day to pull Neil aside. ‘Care to join me in the conference room?’
He was in the pantry, making his irritatingly healthy protein shake. ‘Can it wait till tomorrow? I was just about to leave for the gym.’
I pulled myself to an upright posture as he continued shaking the sipper bottle loudly. ‘No, I’m afraid it cannot,’ I said in my most corporate, boss-like tone.
He looked up, a hint of amusement already shadowing his features. ‘Okay, well, lead the way.’
I gave him a knowing smile before turning on my heel.
Around us, the office was winding down for the day.
The sales team, as always, was running around like headless chickens, trying to get the editorial teams to finish just one more creative before signing off.
One of Saloni’s interns stopped me in the hallway to the conference room, but I just shook my head at her. ‘Can’t, I’ve turned off my system.’
‘It’s just a minor tweak,’ she pleaded, showing me a printout of one of the creatives I’d made earlier in the day.
I made the mistake of glancing at it. By ‘minor tweak’, she meant rearranging the whole composition—the headline, image, CTA, everything.
I was about to (politely) tell her to get lost when a better idea occurred to me.
‘You know what? Neil can help you with this one,’ I said, glancing over my shoulder to look at him.
He raised an eyebrow, looking between me and the sales intern, who was now beginning to look hopeful. ‘Um …’ he began. The confusion on his face was priceless.