Her room is in the 3rd
floor of an apartment in T.Nagar. She has been living there since she joined
our college. Her mother visits her occasionally.
“Hi da was sup!!!” she yawned as she walked out of her
living room to the balcony.
I had called her standing at the other end of the road I was
standing under the shade of a tree in such a way that she couldn’t see me. With
a panoramic view I could see that she
was wearing a short grey t-shirt and a black track. She had neither plaited her
hair nor did a pony tail. After cranking my neck skywards and expanding my
pupils the inverted image on my retina sent signal pulses to my central nervous
system and within a nanosecond the associative part of my brain interpreted
that she had done a bun and results match with what my mom and sister have told
me.
“Hello you there, I could hear only autos and buses”, she
yelped.
“Hmmm…..nothing I was just crossing the road”, I stammered
getting back to my senses.
“Oh. I thought you knew the routes in Chennai better. What
have you called me for?”
She asked as if she was my class teacher inspecting whether
I have done my homework.
“Guess I do know the routes well for that I have been here
for 23 years. I came to T.Nagar to drop my sister at her friends place. She
said she wanted to copy some notes. I could see my sister and her friend were
not that very comfortable with my being there. So I thought I could visit you
by the way” I cooked a small tall story.
“Like brother like sister. You never felt comfortable when
you came to my place to copy notes and my mother was here. Were you?” she
guffawed.
Mine was different. Only I knew what I was there for. And I
could see a million questions in her probing eyes when your mom asked me “How
come you missed these notes beta”, sugarcoated with a beaming smile. I wanted
to say her. But in reply I just laughed twice her breath only for the street
vendor and autowalas to throw a cold stare at me.
“So what time you ll be here.”
“I should be there in 10 minutes. Hey listen, don’t go down
to buy any snack. Just get ready. We are going to ascendas.”
“Oh! Good then, salary week is it. Got any hike or promotion?
What is the treat for?” she asked all excited.
“Well you ll know it when I come there” I said and we snapped.
I could see the dimple in her left cheek as she was smiling when she hung the
call and moved inside to get ready.
The next 10min went like 10 hrs since I had nothing to do
other than seeing the watch ticking. The autowalas thought I was mad to stand
beside an a.c car in the scorching sun. The street vendors thought I didn’t
even have the basic courtesy of picking some fruits when I am going to visit
someone. I dodged eye contact with them
I reached her apartment in the 12th minute and
knocked her door at the 13th.
“I am ready!!!” she came out closing the door behind. I
noticed that she had washed her face, wore a jean instead of track and a litre
of perfume. She was back with the stunning ponytail that drove me crazy for
years.
“Come let’s move” she said as she slipped the keys into her
carry bag that complements her sandal. She bought it last month when we went to
the City center.
“How come you got ready so early? Were you planning to go
somewhere else?” I asked innocently.
“Ya. I have actually skipped my quants classes. Anyways I
was too lazy to go.” Meanwhile we reached the ground floor.
“Where did you park your bike? See some idiot has parked his
car right in front of the gate. Before the apartments owners do something we
should thrash the person inside.”
She hurried towards the car and before she could reach to
the door. I just opened the door with my remote.
She stopped and slowly turned back at me and saw the keys in
my hand.
“Oh. Well well! So this is it. Bought a new car? It was just
a month ago you bought a new bike. What sir!! Won a jackpot or what? “
“Not exactly. My dad bought it. Weekdays he takes it to
office and weekends its all mine.”
“Oh. That’s great. I wish I lived with my parents in Mumbai.
I could have saved money, used my dad’s office car. But here in Chennai, I have
to put up with my secondhand scooty. On rainy days I d rather take a bus to
office. Hmm!! Never mind who chose the color. Did you contribute towards buying
this car??”
“No, my dad chose a red color bike for me. But I told him I
liked the black one better. So this was his turn when I suggested an Ivory
color he chose red this time quite emphatically. He paid full in cash all by
himself”
“You are portraying your dad as if he is your elder brother.
So which ascendas are we going to, velachery?”
“Yes, longtime since I have been there. That place would be
ideal”
“Ideal?!?!”
“Well I meant to say it suits us both. I could order chicken
legs at some non-veg counter and you could order vegetarian from a variety of caterers.”
I sounded as if I was taking door delivery for caterers at ascendas. However, I
was happy that I was able to cover-up.
The next 20 minutes she was on call with her mom. I was raking
my mind to come up with something if she told her mom that she was with me. All
my earlier nightmares with her mom came to my mind. Her mom’s eyes were glowing
brighter in my mind than the sun and I started sweating. The a.c was not
helping at all. But luckily she didn’t say anything to her mom and by the time
we were almost there at our destination.
As expected the food court was empty since it was just
around 3.40 in the evening. That is exactly what I meant by saying her that the
place was ideal. They just had a single table with a couch around. W sat there.
All others had ordinary chairs. Only one
table was occupied by a man who was sipping his cold frappe loud enough for us to
hear. The place was otherwise deserted.
“What did your mom say” I asked finally breaking the
silence.
“Nothing new. She
asked if I was ok with my work. How is my Masters preparation going? She is
really concerned about that because she wants me to do well to get admit in Mumbai University India
but disjointed. Either my dad was away or it was me. Mom was just switching
places. So they want me to spend sometime with them before I get engaged or
something and….” she winked.
“And… what? I asked anxiously as I leant forward
“And she wanted to know if you were still visiting me”
I felt lambasted. But my reflexes were really good.
“How sweet. Actually I was thinking that you would give the
phone to me so that I could ask her of her health and all.”
“Oh. Really!! Then I think we should call her right away”
she told with a wry smile.
“Check and mate buddy” echoed my mind. I wanted to get up
and shake hands vehemently with her like Kasparov once did after losing to
Viswanathan Anand.
“Ok. Let’s order something” I said helpingly and walked
towards chicken walas. She went to the pizza hut. We placed our respective
orders and came back or I should say at least I did. She came with the pizza
walas catalogue. I was quite bemused for I know that she’s very selective and
specific about what she wants. May be since I have told that it’s my treat
today she is trying something different I thought.
“You didn’t order anything?” I asked
“No, am just checking she said looking into the catalogue”
I thought this was the moment I was waiting for. I took a
deep breath and told her
“I think I love you”
Deep breath didn’t help, my heartbeat was pounding as she
looked up to me straight in the eye and asked me “what???” As if I told her that your mom has just met
with an accident and she has been taken to the ICU. Then she continued
“Why do you think so?” and sank back in to the catalogue.
I was always a firm
believer that women are born HR, given the fact that they can think of
multiple things and yet dedicate right attention to each aspect of it. I was
reminded of the lady who interviewed me in the HR round in my pre-final year of
college.
I introduced myself and greeted her. She didn’t care. She
took my certificates and started scanning them. While she was still looking
into my mark sheets she shot her first question blatantly “Tell me about yourself?”
The situation was so similar for that both were open ended
questions, both tempts you to ape what successful people have done in similar
situation. Reference comes from other interviewees and movie stars
respectively. But in both the occasions I was well prepared and I had my own
script ready.
She was still browsing the one side printed catalogue
exactly the way the HR person looked in to my mark sheets. From my previous
experience I knew that she was waiting for my reply.
“Listen I know it should be shocking for you. But let me
explain what exactly I mean when I say I love you and how different it is from
what a dozen others which includes your
schoolmates, our college mates, our college staffs and your collegues told you”
I started gingerly
She didn’t lookup. The
catalogue was instrumental in making our dialogue in to a monologue.
“I still remember the day we got acquainted to ourselves, in
the first week of orientation when you sat beside me. In the first year of
college you were very sociable with everyone in our class. You were genuinely
concerned about my ranks, threw a sympathetic look when I got punished for late
submission of assignments. I saw a good friend in you. By the end of first year
this caught the ire of our classmates and eventually our seniors. You were
short listed among the elite club of newcomers adjudicated by the final year
students. One of them asked me to give you a love letter on behalf of them and
through other guys to the other girls belonging to the elite club. I thought
you would never talk to me again. When the other girls chose to have some time
pass by sending positive vibes to them you chose otherwise. You neither fed
their ego not did you hurt them. I liked it when you told them we can be good
friends. You understood things from my perspective and continued talking to me.
I liked your matured way of handling things.
By the end of second year 30 of us went for an NSS camp.
There were 10 girls. Guys were given bulk of the physical labor. All that girls
had to do was to give poses whenever they were asked for. Of course we all did
it for the certificate. But I noticed that you started interacting with the
villagers, called the kids by their names. Besides teaching them for the
stipulated time you started playing with them. At the end of 15days, while all
of us were happy to go back home, get the tans out and relax with our family it
was really moving when you cried as we bid farewell to them. You explained to
me how heavy you felt in the heart. I thought you really deserved the
certificate more than anyone of us. I knew you were a good human being.
In the third year of college, when we went on a college trip,
2 of our classmates and a support staff proposed you. Again you dealt with it
as clinically as before. You never
cracked a private joke on any of them when you were among friends. I started
respecting you as a person.
In the final year, since I lurked in academics I was iffy
about cracking the interviews. You instilled hope in me saying that I possessed
excellent communications skills and highlighted my real-time problem solving
abilities and you were pretty sure I‘d make it in my first interview. I
believed whatever you said and it happened. But I was disappointed that you
couldn’t make it to the same company. Till then I was admiring you and always
wanted you in capacity of a friend. In our final semester we just had 3days of
college and in those 3 days half the time you’d be in a different class based
on the elective we chose. I started missing you. I started seeing a companion
in you.
We graduated and headed in different direction. 7 months of
stay in Mysore
made me realize I was missing a part of myself since you were not there. I was
convinced that I was attracted to you but didn’t have the guts to propose then.
I was sure that my ego wouldn’t get hurt by acknowledging the fact that you
were always a better person than me in all aspects of life and you ll bring the
all needed stability in my otherwise disorganized life. I wasn’t sure what
would happen had you treated me the same way as you did to others at college. I
wouldn’t have been able to clear my training. I was determined to be well
settled before I could tell you everything. I forced my way to make friends
with good looking girls. But the more I spoke to them the gravity with which I
was attracted towards you grew exponentially ever since. That’s when I found
some reason or the other to call you. Trust me it felt really good. By then I
was pretty sure that I can’t live without you.
I got posted to
Chennai. I thanked God several times for I could meet you often again. I was
happy to learn that couple of your collegues tried to propose you and you said
no to them as well. At the same time I wondered what will you react like if I
were to tell you that I loved you too.
But today I thought I should tell you at any cost because
there is no point in sulking after you ve gone to be with your parents. Also,
having known you so well for so long I knew you would like me too. Even if you
say that you don’t feel the same way about me, I think have enough insulation financially
and emotionally to tackle it than before”.
Having rehearsed it umpteen numbers of times in front of my
sister I did well only in bits and pieces. But I was convinced that my script
had enough flavor in it for a heroine’s introduction song. I was patiently
waiting for her to reply
Suddenly she looked up again.
“Ok. I think am going to take a veg extravaganza. It’s good
here. I think your item would be ready buy now as well. Shall we go” she asked.
I was pissed off. I thought the HR lady was 1000 times
better. She at least nodded or had a vague smile when I spoke. But here there
is no sign of acknowledgement.
I gave my debit card to her and went to the chicken counter.
The next 15 min we ate gravely without looking at each other. I thought a smoke
would help. While I was in the smoking zone she paused, looked at me and walked
to the lobby .I thought she had gone. But she was waiting for me. We started.
She didn’t speak anything. There were a millions of questions doodling in my
mind.
Maybe I shouldn’t have told her!!
Maybe I should ve done it the conventional filmy way with a
bouquet and a poem.
May be I should go to the nearest bar. Get drunk and vomit
everything there.
Take diversion read a signboard. Maybe that is what I need I
told myself. I switched on the FM. They were playing one of her most favorite
romantic numbers .I knew.
Let me give it a try again and resort to conventional ways
now. I had a contingency plan in place. I pulled a bouquet which I hid under
the driver seat and gave it to her and told
“This song is dedicated to you”
She smiled.
I thought she blushed. But she burst into laughter.
She nudged my hand “You are so funny. Tune in to the station
which gives traffic updates. If they say the road via Madhya kailash is crowded
we ll go the other way round via adyar, alwarpet and then go to T.Nagar “
It was not funny at all. I didn’t listen to her and drove
fast to her apartment in the next 15 minutes.
“So?” she asked as she was about to get down.
If there was one word I never liked in English it was this
‘So’ attributed more to its usage by girls.
“So what?” I grumped.
“Next time around what are you going to bring, a
helicopter?”
“Yea. May be you ll be married to a person who has enough
landing space for me to park my helicopter then” I said with a lump in my
throat.
“Hey you should be able to have enough parking space yourself
if you were to buy a helicopter. Shouldn't you” she asked and opened the door.
I held her hand. She turned back. Tears were welling out of
my eyes.
“I think I told you something. Don’t I deserve a better
reply? Be it anything. Yes or No? Please say it” I pleaded.
She shut the door again and snatched away her arm. I was
convinced that I was going to be the 13th person to sign cordially
the treaty of friendship. I was prepared to orchestrate 100 violins moaning
bathos music. But I had the shock of my life time.
“You dumb arse. How many times do you want me to reply?”
“I never asked you why you are taking me to such an isolated
place”
“I hinted that my mom is aware of everything between us”
“I asked you to take the longest road ever possible to reach
home”
“I never asked you if it’s getting late for you to pickup
your sister which you have already forgotten”
“Finally I meant you re the one when I asked you to build a
house with enough parking spaces”
“And to top it all, I had no quants class and no plans of
doing an MBA. So, it wasn't you. I have set this up for you to speak up. Got
it? What else do you expect me to say?”
I was dumbfounded. I was still able to solve the riddle. I couldn't believe that she has proved that she is a born HR again. I wanted to
do a Kasparov again. But I did it in my style. I gave her a tight hug and
kissed her on the cheek. She closed her eyes in contempt.
When you are so deeply in love it’s not always necessary to set
the context with a cursory I love you. A mélange of mutual friendship, trust,
respect and admiration eventually brews in to love and paves way for a healthy
relationship. We explored it together that day.
May be we should sit together and
come up with a better script for MI part2 I told myself.
(PS: MI _Part 2= the art of convincing your parentsJ)
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