That's Life....

That's life

That’s life

“Niru, I know you are a very good friend of mine. We are very much close friends but something more than just friendship? Ummmmm… Sorry.”
‘Aha… complete end of everything……’, I thought.
“Actually I have always found a very good, cute and sweet friend within you…”
‘Really??? Then why the hell I can’t be your boyfriend? ’, I thought again but obviously just thought without uttering a single word.
Meanwhile she continued, “…but just a good friend nothing more than that and may I tell you one thing about girls?”
‘You are asking as if; if I say no, you are not going to utter even a single word after that…’, again… again in mind nothing explicitly at all.
“Girls… When they consider someone as their good friend then they never ever think about anything else I mean related to affair or thing like that about him…. ”, she was explaining me those so-called theories as if I was going to write my PhD thesis on this subject. Actually the situation was simple - I asked her, she said NO... a big damn NO… that’s it! Why the hell to put forward your theories and all and that too, at the most inappropriate place and time? But no... some girls have no sense about these things (and I think I like them for the same reason…). The conversation about what girls think, what boys think, why boys always take it wrong and blah blah blah…it all continued for a while after that… The conversation, truly speaking a complete monologue except for sometimes me saying just ‘Hmmmm’ or ‘ya’ or at the max ‘no it’s not that…’ continued for around half an hour. Then suddenly she said, “Niru, I know it will be difficult for you to get through all this, but I’ll help you out. After all we are friends. Let our sweet friendship start again in a fresh manner. You should give me a party for our new friendship. What say?”
‘Hahaha… as if I have a say here…’, again not openly. Poor boy-myself could not even express a complete disapproval over the idea of celebrating my loser. I had to spend 50 bucks on a girl who was just a friend with no chance of her becoming anything other than a sister.
Somehow I managed to convince her that my last bus was at 8 and literally ran away from the place. I think she was imagining as me going mad after hearing her answer and that’s why she was trying to console me or diverting my mind to some better things even when I didn’t need that. In fact I was getting irritated because of the same. I just left her and went to the bus, for the first time blessing the transport committee for not plying the buses for Chinchwad after 8.
I was the first one to get into the bus. Others who had stayed late because of the real work reasons were yet to arrive there. I got a window seat but somehow I was not at all in a mood to watch out of the window. The Bus driver had switched on the FM radio which was playing damn romantic songs for the Valentine’s Day which happened to be the next day itself. Not much surprisingly those songs actually irritated me. All my plans for the Valentine’s were now in vain. I felt like crying. But no… Boys don’t cry right? At least not openly…. I went straight to home and resumed daily routines such as going to mess, watching TV with roomies just pretending as if everything was just as normal. Even the damn cable was showing Valentine day special movies that day. I wished I could just hunt for that cable provider and wring his neck, nothing else.
Somehow I could not manage this pretending much when I went for sleeping. I felt like anything to cry out loud and give way to my feelings but I cried softly trying my best not to be audible. I didn’t want to reveal my loser even when my pillow cover was completely wet with tears. It was not a new happening as such; in fact I was a bit used to it, but still; every time you lose something or to frame it better, you somehow can’t manage to turn things the way you want them, you feel hurt, up to whatever extent you might be used to them.
Somehow, I felt like going back to my Mysore days. Those were quite a lot better than these. Not that I was successful in case of love or so there, but at least there was someone with me to help me in everything, to share all my sorrows and to support me as and when needed… Now also, I wanted someone to help me out of the loser, someone who could share my feelings, someone who could understand me, someone who would listen to me patiently… Sadly there was no one…I had lost her and it was my mistake…. but even memories of those old days gave me condolence… they assured of someone present with me whenever required… even though not physically, but just in memories.… I was soon lost in the loveliest days of my life…
***
After having a small 20 days’ vacation after my final semester B.E. exams, I was there in Mysore to join a very well reputed software company for training, before the actual start of my job. It was amazing... I mean after striving hard for 4 years of engineering, we even didn’t get proper time to relax and enjoy life. We were soon at the training institute to get trained…. To get trained for the corporate life… the training was going to be hectic and busy as if the four years of engineering were not sufficient for the harassment but probably the price was worth to become the professionals in the corporate world.
I still remember that day… 25th June 2006… time around 4.30 p.m. We were standing in front of a big entrance gate obviously closed for allowing the security personnel to complete their work. “Hey do they really think we are terrorists and we have brought some hand grenades and rocket launchers with us to attack this place?”, It was Jango, who else would have guts to crack such jokes in front of the security men especially when they were checking our luggage for presence of any prohibited things. I feared how the security man will reply to this so-called joke because usually these people completely lack even a trace of humor, but he seemed to be just too busy in searching for the weapons to reply and he simply neglected the comments.
It was a long time when the security cleared us to get inside the campus. I think if the airports in our country would be employing such strict security, then we would never have a flight hijack. Soon we were transported by cool small golf carts to our respective hostel rooms. Searching for the room was not a difficult task. All the markers were easy to understand and I was soon in front of my room. Thankfully Jango was in another building itself.
The room was good. I mean I had expected the room to be a typical hostel room with all those typical color-faded walls, anytime ready to fall ceiling, etc. But no…. This was something different… The moment I opened the door of the room…I felt as if I had checked in a 5-star hotels’ private suite. I just marveled at the neatness and the posh furniture inside.
“Hello sir, Good Evening. Welcome to the trainee accommodation facility….”
‘Who’s this? Calling me SIR??? And on the top of that the voice seems to belong to a lady’, I was really startled and turned around to see who was calling me sir.
“Sir, I am Tanuja. I am the Hostel co-ordinator. If you have any problem just approach me. I’ll look into the matter.”
‘Oho… that’s why she was calling me SIR… now I should do something that should impress her, obviously first impression is the last one... I should find some cool problem asap now… what could it be?’ I thought for a second or two. Time was running out.. I had to speak something good sooner.
“Oh hi Tanuja, good evening.”, Somehow I proceeded with whatever knowledge of English I had. “Tanuja, thanks for the help you offered, I hope I won’t need any such help.” She simply smiled over that.
Smile on the face of a hostel co-ordinator? This was very much shocking thing for me. I had never seen people at such post smiling. ‘Good. I hope this smile remains like this and you welcome me for any problem I take it to you…’ I wished like telling this openly but again who has the guts here?
“Tanuja, can you please tell me where this amphitheatre is? We have been instructed to gather there at 6.00 p.m.”, I asked. I would have got answer to this question even by asking a security guard or any fellow joinee but no. It was the world’s most silly doubt, but I had to put forward some problem for her. After all it was the matter of the first impression.
“Sir, very simple sir. It’s behind Food court 1.”
‘Food Court??? What kind of place is this? And she was telling me as if I used to be in food court everyday with my friends for time pass.’
“Pardon, where is this court?”
“The food court 1 sir, just go straight when you get out of this building. It’s behind the ECC.”
‘ECC??? Aha, now what’s that? Amphitheatre, Food Court, ECC what kind of places are these? Am I on earth or some place on mars?’
“Pardon .. but now what’s ECC and where is that?” I said.
“Sir, ECC is Employee Care Center, where you have library, swimming pool, washing machines sir. Behind that there’s FC1 i.e. food Court 1.”
“Do you have a map?” I think this would have been the dumbest question anyone could have ever asked but I was simply too confused with the names of those places to think twice before speaking anything. I could even read the same feelings on her face.
“Sir, just a minute. Someone is calling me … I will be back in a moment.” And she fled away. Definitely she was very much irritated by my hopeless questions… I just hoped the first impression would not be the last one.
***
Anyways somehow after asking 1-2 security people and following the large crowd going in the same direction, I made it to ECC then Food Court 1 and finally to the Amphitheatre. The place was looking cool. I had never seen such a structure before. To my left was one magnificent glass wall building…I was simply stunned to see the architecture. The glass walls, people working inside, the reflection of the cool blue sky in the glass, and of course, the reflection of sun rays over the fountain water to the glass… everything was just beautiful. I was just standing in the dim evening light witnessing the beauty that emerged from the combination of the natural and artificial wonders…
I had almost got lost in the splendid view before me when suddenly my head was struck with a big pat. “What the h…. Ohh hi… when did you reach?” The pat hitter was Jessica- my best friend. “Sometime around 2… what about you? And what’s your hostel building number?”. “5”, I replied.
‘Aha, since Jess is here, that means Vidhi has to be somewhere around.’ I thought. Vidhi was our college queen. Although we never talked to each other except for silly things like ‘excuse me, can I take this chair’ or ‘may I borrow your pen please....’ for the whole four years, I had a secret ambition of being her ‘someone special’. Somehow my fate didn’t turn out to be so lucky is a different question altogether but I never killed my feelings about her and which seemed to have some hope here.
When in college, she was consistently in the other division making it difficult for me even to catch a glimpse of her, but one thing was good that my chances of being her special were still very much alive… she was not committed yet. This time at least I could meet her regularly, talk to her and even try to improve friendship. I was lost in these thoughts…. When Jess spoke again, “She is there near the CCD, buying coffee. She should be here any minute. Don’t worry. I’ll introduce her to you formally in case you need that but the rest completely depends on you only. Plan your strategy accordingly. You have ample time.”
Jessica was damn brilliant. I don’t know how but somehow she could just read my mind. How she came to know that I was thinking about Vidhi, was beyond my imagination. But at that time I had no plan other than just to concentrate on my strategy. “Don’t worry. I’ll help you.” it was Jessica again. She was such a sweet girl always helping me in such difficult cases. I thought each and every person in the world should get at least one friend like Jessica.
“Hi there, you are Niranjan right?” Vidhi…. What a cute voice she had got. Moreover she already knew my name… Now this was good…. She at least knew me….“Hi, I am Vidhi...”
“I know. COMPS B right?” I don’t know why but I preferred to recognize her by the division name rather than her pet name- college queen. I think that was my strategy as to denote that I don’t give a damn to her looks and all… one of the typical strategies to impress a girl … At least typical of me…
“Ya. When did you…”, but she couldn’t complete her sentence. There was a lady in the middle of the amphitheatre making some announcement.
“A warm welcome to all of you. I as the head of HR – trainee section welcome you all at the grand campus of…” she went ahead with much more things depicting about the company, it’s progress, our role, vision and lots and lots more. I was not at all interested. I was now completely lost in planning my strategy for a definitely important work during my training. I had a great desire of looking at Vidhi but somehow that would have directly given her a hint of me getting completely mad for her and that’s what I wanted to avoid because, I was damn sure that once she would know that I liked her even more than Diya Mirza or Emma Watson then definitely she would have behaved like a typical good looking girl trying to prove many boys were just ready to die for her and what not... I just wanted to avoid that. That’s why I controlled myself like anything and didn’t see anywhere else than the speaker at the center of the amphitheatre and pretended as if I was listening to her with all my heart in ears and had some really serious expressions on face showing as if I really enjoyed the lecture. It was really a very hard time concentrating at the old lady rather than looking at the babe on my side but somehow I managed it. Thank god the lecture got over just in around 20 minutes. As the lady asked us to disperse, it was Vidhi who spoke the first word, “Hey, you were listening to her as if a follower will listen to the teachings by his teacher. Were you really interested in the lecture or it was just acting?”
‘Bingo!!! That means she was looking at me throughout the lecture. Aha that means I am not so avoidable. Cool. Niru, you seem to be in a very good advantageous position here… Keep it up…’, I thought.
Now there was a problem. I couldn’t tell her that I was not concentrating on the lecture, because then she would have asked what all things that lady said …an obvious question, answer for which was definitely not there with me, whereas, if I would have said no; I was not concentrating, but was trying to look at the girl in the first row, then all my hopes with Vidhi would have been just washed off; but my luck seemed to have been in a very good mood that day. My brain worked correctly for the first time and I just plainly said, “Hey I was not at all listening to her. I was watching in her direction but was almost on the verge of sleeping. If she wouldn’t have finished her speech in 2 more minutes I would have definitely dozed off in front of this whole crowd.”
Vidhi just smiled over this and gave me a pat on my head and said, “Poor boy, feeling sleepy? Might be because of the travel tiredness. Let’s have dinner early today so we can sleep early. Tomorrow is our first day at job and we shouldn’t be late for it.”
I would never ever forget that pat. Truly speaking I was simply confused. ‘A girl whom you have never spoken to in your college days, speaks to you on her own, smiles at you and on the top of everything gives a cute sweet pat on your head; ohh Niru cumm’on you must be dreaming. These happenings are just too good for your luck to be real.’ I pinched myself. It wasn’t a dream. I was about to die because of the happiness. I knew about Vidhi that she was kinda’ free girl, would go, introduce herself and talk to strangers, kinda’ open and a free natured girl, but there have been lots of such girls around me, till now no one had bothered to say even a ‘hi’ to me… a pat was miles away….
“No way”, I replied. Till then Jessica was busy in chatting with Jango, Sudeep and Dinesh. Good that she was trying to keep that Jango away from my Vidhi. If Jango would have got a chance to get to Vidhi, my chances of having Vidhi with me were almost nil. Jango was very much infamous for that.
“Vidhi, let’s have a round in the campus. You have come here in the morning right? You must have seen all the canteens here, and that ECC and all those things. Will you take me to all these?”
“Why not? It’s just 7.00 p.m. we have at least a couple of hours or so for dinner. Let’s go.”
“Let’s inform Jessica about it.”, I said and was about to turn and get to Jessica when Vidhi held my hand…. Her touch... I felt like freezing the moment and experiencing the magic of that touch forever…forget the pat on head… this one was the master stroke to stun anyone in the universe. I was about to get mad now… I was stunned but somehow I recovered myself pretty early… “What happened?” I asked, keeping my face indifferent and trying my best not to show even a line happiness on it.
“You see that Jango there? I don’t like him. He is a big flirt. I just hate him. I don’t want him to join us…” Vidhi said.
My happiness knew no bounds…I felt like jumping in air with joy. ‘Vidhi hates Jango, the only possible obstruction to my plan of action. I hope I am not dreaming.’ My luck had never been so kind on me. Actually I also liked the idea of ditching Jango but I didn’t want to show that on my face. I tried my best to remain calm and kept my face expressions as indifferent as possible. We left the place as secretly as possible.
***
That one hour was the best and the most memorable one in my life. We, I mean Vidhi and I went to the parking lot, took two bicycles and moved around the campus. She was sincerely telling me info about each building and I was pretending listening to her and having a chance of staring at her cute face. I think either she didn’t notice that or she wanted me to stare at her like that and that’s why she talked continuously at times not giving me even a chance to express my opinion. It was very much ok with me, the more she talked the more chances I would get to look at her. Even her voice was a cool one. Once she would start, you would just feel like listening to her intently till the eternity.
“This is Food Court 3, here you can get good paav-bhaji just like the one from our Mumbai; will try someday if we are bored with the South Indian food in FC1.” Vidhi said. “Why we can’t come here just as such? Why is it that the nausea for South-Indian food can only bring us here?” I asked one more of my silly questions.
“I don’t think so. The training gonna be very much hectic for us and FC1 is definitely nearer to our training building than this one and that’s why I think we’ll prefer FC1 over this and FC1 has only South-Indian food which is ought to create nausea in our mind after eating there for around 4-5 days. Let’s see.”, Vidhi put forward one of her very much stupid theories but I listened to it as if it was theory of relativity.
We were speeding on a slope when I felt some cute feeling in my chest. I was so involved in Vidhi’s thoughts that I thought it as the signal of love given by my heart. Yes… I was lucky.. A girl whom I admired the most was with me and my chances seemed bright… on the top of that my heart also was giving good signals…. I was very much involved in thinking about her when she cried, “Niru, I think your cell is ringing.”
‘Ohh, so that cute feeling was nothing but vibrations of my cell phone…Damn…’ I cursed it and stopped my cycle. “Who’s calling me now? I am already on roaming. Even an incoming costs me lot maan... Oho... it’s Jessica. She must be very much angry that we ditched her.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell her that we fled away because of Jango. She must be assuming that.” I sighed; thank god Vidhi didn’t hear that.
“Hello, hi Jessica, where are you?”
“You damn brat, I am not talking to you. You ditched me- your best friend for that girl today when she is just your friend what will you do if she becomes your gf?”
“Jessica, ….Jessica, Calm down. We’ll explain you everything. Just tell me where you are. We are coming there. Don’t waste your energy in shouting especially when my cell is on roaming.”
“You… I gonna kill you both. Anyways, come to FC1. I am here waiting for you. Let’s have dinner early today. We have early morning office tomorrow.”
“Ok. Babes. We are reaching fc1 in 5 minutes.” I said and just turned my cycle towards FC1.
I am not sure whether the dinner was good or I felt so because of the tiredness because of cycling and travel or because of the cute company I had, but overall it was nice.
Later at around 9.30 when we said ‘Good night’ to each other and parted to our rooms, I was willing to talk to her the whole night, just under the black skies with lots and lots of stars just twinkling and smiling to us… but no. I had to be satisfied without that only. My luck had given me today a lot more than what I had expected. So for the day I should have been happy. But as it’s rightly said that the human mind is never contempt, I also wished to have something more. What destiny had left before me was completely unknown to any of us…
***
26th June… my first day at work! I was so amazed just by the idea of working instead of the boring lectures, studies and colleges and all such hopeless things, that I didn’t sleep for the whole night in spite of the travel tiredness. My room partner –Tushar .. he seemed to be a good fellow. He was merrily snoring for the whole night while I was getting excited by the work ideas. It was around 6 in the morning when I got up, finished all my chores by 7 and had just left with tying the knot of the tie and that’s where it all went wrong. We all had to reach the GTI i.e. Global Training Institute by around 8.30. The actual program was scheduled at 9 but taking care of all the late comers, they had suggested us to be present there at around 8.30 itself. Jessica, Vidhi and I had decided to meet at around 7.30 in FC2 which was nearer to all of us from our respective rooms, have the breakfast and then leave for GTI. It took around 20 minutes for me to tie the tie-knot itself. The more time it took the more I was getting frustrated and even more time it wasted.
At around 7.30 the girls started giving me miss calls which interrupted my concentration and I literally left the tries to tie the knot. I decided to take someone’s help at GTI itself. Till then Tushar had gone into bathroom and didn’t seem to come out before 8 which would have caused me just too late to take his help. ‘There must be someone cleverer than me as to know, how to tie a knot’,I thought and left with the tie in my hand and almost ran to FC.
“Where have you been? What took you so long? You boys never understand the value of time. This is your first day at work and you gonna be late for it.”, I was amazed to see Vidhi almost bossing on me… I kinda liked it… Meanwhile she continued, “Hey, why didn’t you wear the tie? It’s a part of the dress code for you guys today, isn’t it?”
“Please ask anything but that. That’s the reason I am late…” I explained.
“Ok people, chill. Tell me what you’ll have for breakfast; I’ll get it for you today. Ok?”
“Thanks, Jess, you are so sweet. Get me Idli Sambar.”, I said.
“Very bad. Gentlemen don’t let the ladies work. You should instead get up and get breakfast for us…” it was Vidhi. Fortunately Jessica just ignored the comment and went straight to the counter leaving me and my Vidhi just in each other’s company.
“Then, I am not a gentleman… and by the way why so bossing in the morning itself?”
Vidhi didn’t say a word over this but just kept mum. She must have felt awkward but I couldn’t help it. It was ok in liking her or so but the way she was bossing…. She was getting on my nerves. While Jess hadn’t arrived with the breakfast plate I again tried my hand at tying the knot of tie. Suddenly Vidhi broke into laughter, “Hey you duffer, have you ever tied a knot?”
“Honestly speaking, never. That’s why this is my condition today.”, I replied trying my best not to show the embarrassment clearly on my face.
“Ok. Lemme help ya.” And she started tying the knot taking the tie in her hands. I was just staring at her soft hands, rather than studying how to tie a knot. I wished I would be the tie… We both were so engrossed in that tie I mean Vidhi in tying the knot and me watching her doing so that we didn’t even realize that Jess was there at the table with my breakfast.
“Here you have sir, hey you don’t even know how to tie a knot do you?” I just smiled at her and started having my idli.
“Hey, this Idli is good yaar. Seems to be very much fresh.”
“Take this. I hope you at least know how to tighten it.”, Vidhi said giving me back my tie.
“Oh ya… I know only that much. Thanks anyways. Have your breakfast now. Then we’ll leave for GTI.” I said.
***
GTI has a grand building. It’s a spectacular building to house hundreds of the trainees. The whole building is built in a sort of mountain. It looks like an ancient temple carved into a big rock. The greenery around the building was giving a very cool natural look to the artificial wonder built in it. The structure of the building was such that it was impossible for one to have the whole view of the building in a single eyeshot and whenever you tried to stare at one marvel in the construction; some other was always ready there inviting your looks to fall on it. All the trainees from various parts of India in fact the whole world were going to get the most professional training here, that was going to be very much helpful in their professional life while working for the company.
We had been told to go to the 3rd floor to some hall… The hall, I think its name was ‘Edison room’ named after the great scientist ‘Thomas Alva Edison’. I was just amazed to see the name. It’s usually a protocol to assign the numbers to classrooms; even it becomes easier to locate them in case you are new to the area. Just imagine searching for room no. 3 or Edison room, which one will you be able to locate quicker without any external help? Although I didn’t get the logic behind changing the naming protocol, I think even the name of the scientist had some magic attached to it. Probably it somehow gave some inspiration to the reader. I was relieved that at least they didn’t use any politicians’ names there.
Soon we were inside the hall, there was no specific seating arrangement, I mean anything relating to our employee ids or anything like that. We just got seated in some middle row. Of course neither last nor first, to keep safe in case we felt like dozing off. It was the college habit afterall… Jess sat between me and Vidhi. Actually even she realized the mistake she had done of becoming a barrier between us, but then it would have been just too embarrassing to exchange her seat with Vidhi just to let us sit together, so we just dropped the plan.
It was around 5 minutes past 9 when a person came in with a big artificial smile on his face. I was sure he belonged to HR department. Usually these are the people who are really important from the point of view of company as well as the employee welfare but somehow let it be college or school or perhaps any other institution which I have come in contact with in my life, the HR person has never been very much friendly. I hoped I would be wrong this time.
He then introduced himself and started telling about what all challenges we would be facing in the corporate world, what we were expected to do and what not…. Sometime later I felt as if someone was kicking my left leg. It was irritating. I mean just imagine you are listening to some lecture or so and someone starts poking or kicking your leg...in between, how would you feel? I looked at Jess…. She and Vidhi were looking at me and smiling…
“Now what happened? Let me listen to his lecture… don’t disturb me now”, I said… on which both of them literally burst into laughter… I couldn’t understand what the hell was going on there… It was Jess who somehow controlled her laughter, “Ok.. sorry mister.. continue listening to the lecture. But will you please let me know who is delivering lecture here?” “Obviously that HR guy yaar… that…”, and I looked at the podium… there was no one there.. “Hey where did he go?”, I asked, puzzled; upon which both of them again went into laughing attacks… I was simply confused.. “He completed his lecture 5 minutes ago and went away…You duffer you were sleeping happily. This isn’t college lecture yaar.. you should stay awake…”
‘My first day on job… and I slept for the very first lecture…’ what was gonna happen next… I was lost in these thoughts when suddenly two people made a dashing entry into the hall. ‘Dashing’ in the sense the first person stumbled upon the carpet and fell down and the other one who was behind him religiously followed his friend. The whole hall burst into laughter. One thing was good, because of this laughter my sleep ran away… someone has said ‘whatever happens happens for good only’…. It seemed to be true in this case…
It was around 1.50 …10 minutes still to go for the lecture to start for the post lunch session. Suddenly Vidhi got a call. She saw the caller’s number and immediately went out of the classroom. There was a very pleasant shyness on her face. It didn’t escape my notice. Jess and I looked at each other, we didn’t say anything as such but whatever was to be conveyed, was conveyed through the eyes. ‘Who was that caller? Is she committed?’ My heartbeats increased. Somehow I could sense my blood pressure shooting. ‘Were all my dreams which I saw about myself and Vidhi, all in just a single day, were they all in vain? Were we just destined to meet like this and part without anything else than just a pure friendship?’ I wanted the answers to all these questions. I decided to ask Vidhi about this. I didn’t want to bear any more suspense; I just wanted to clarify things for once and for all.
I don’t know why my luck honestly followed Murphy’s laws. Vidhi took hell lot of time in returning and I got more and more frustrated. I tried my best to stay normal and calm and not to show anything on my face but Jess could easily guess what was going on in my mind. She just held my hand assuring everything would just go fine. I didn’t know why but I kind of felt better. Jess was my best friend and was always with me. College days would have never been easy without her. Right from completing assignments to getting myself introduced to the hottest girls in my college, she had always helped me. We were so close that we could easily guess what was going on in others mind without the either uttering a single word.
Just then Vidhi returned back to her seat. Her face had a very small but a very cute smile. That smile told me everything. She came, sat down on chair. I tried my best not to look at her and tried reading the information in the booklets given to us so as to suppress the anxiety but still I couldn’t refrain myself from looking at her, Her face conveyed me everything.. I had lost something before achieving. My first day on job had brought with it lots of dreams and yes not to forget a heart break. It didn’t hurt much but it was after all a heart break. It remained memorable for some unpleasant reasons.
The remaining day was hell. There were numerous people lecturing us regarding the company, its founders, the values of the institution, and what not. I was simply not interested in all these things for one thing- I was there as a software engineer and I wanted something for coding or such interesting work rather than some really boring management things. And the second reason was Vidhi’s phone incident. I was just waiting for the clock to show the ‘day over’ time. I was getting restless. I wanted to know why Vidhi had become so happy, who was the caller, what he had said to her that had made her so joyous. My heart was filled with numerous questions… questions that demanded answers… questions that literally harassed me … and questions that made me nervous… why was I getting so restless about a girl to which I had befriended just a day before? Why was it that my heart was getting restless just because of a small feeling of losing her? Why??? My brain demanded answers to all these questions…
***
“Ok Vidhi, enough of suspense… tell us to whom were you talking to in the break? There was a pleasant smile on your face at that time. It didn’t escape our notice.”, said Jess. The question which I felt like asking her since the noon was finally going to get answered. My heart started pounding fast.
Vidhi took a pause for 2 seconds. Those were the lengthiest seconds of my life. I couldn’t wait for the suspense to open up but I couldn’t do anything else too. I felt like telling her, “Damn it Vidhi…. Tell me the reason or I gonna shoot myself… I can’t bear this suspense anymore.” But I kept cool. Good that she didn’t make me wait anymore. Finally she spoke, “Niru, Jess, actually I am kind of embarrassed to tell you this…. I am getting married next month. Actually in the noon I received call from my dad. I might quit the job now… I mean he is in US and I also will join him there so there’s no point in continuing the job here ….you see.”
My brain simply didn’t seem to respond. ‘Marriage? What about engagement? Is it done already? Who the hell is this guy? How you dare to spend time with me like that and let me get into those cool sweet dreams when you are already committed to someone else’, I felt like firing these questions to her but I kept mum with a confused look on my face… It was Jess who again came to my rescue… “Ohh Congrats Vidhi, but you didn’t tell us that you had a boyfriend and you were engaged to him? Anyways.. that’s a very good news yaar. Congrats. Now I think we deserve a treat… wassay Niru?” “Indeed yaar. So many secrets… that’s what we call ‘chhupi rustum’..” and I tried my best to show a small smile on my face. I myself could sense that the attempt was simply waste but Vidhi being in the happy mood of her wedding didn’t realize the faded color of my face.
“No yaar. You know me since engineering… I never had any boyfriend as such. Actually he is my dad’s friend’s son. Our marriage was decided in our childhood you see, typically filmy.. And now that we are grown ups, our parents asked us about marriage. Anyways I didn’t have anyone special in my life and also he seemed to be a decent guy.. So I agreed.”
I was dumbstruck. I felt like asking her that how she could spend her entire life with a person whom she didn’t know much ? How could her parents make her marry to guy based on some decision they had taken in her childhood? I felt like holding her close and asking, “Vidhi, please tell me you are joking… aren’t you?...”
I kept calm. Anyways she had taken a decision… a decision in her life for her life and of her life. I didn’t want to embarrass her by asking any stupid questions. It was better to keep quiet. I simply congratulated her and convinced myself again about how the life is and how the things go on….
The next day itself she treated me and Jess. It was really funny for me to get a treat from her for my heart breakup but afterall I had to pretend everything was just as normal. Two days later she left… She went back. She parted, never to meet again…. Leaving her memories with me never to leave…

***

“So, who’s gonna code for your team? I mean is it going to be all designers-all coders-all testers’ team or each one is going to do only one of the tasks?”, Jess asked while we were going for the lunch break. “Jess, will you please stop that encrypted language of yours? I didn’t get a single word of what you are talking about? What coding, which team?”, I replied. I seriously didn’t get anything at all. “Damn it Niru, you duffer, you were asleep again? You idiot, the lecturer was explaining about the projects we need to do for this subject as an assignment.” Thank god that Ritu came for my rescue, “Niru, don’t worry, even I had dozed off. This lecturer was damn boring yaar. I just woke up when she said she will be giving the actual explanation for project in the post-lunch session.” “Saved….”, I thought.
The post lunch session was good in the sense it involved mainly of some practical work rather than listening to all those boring sessions. We had to implement one project for some library management. A pseudo one, something similar to what we had done in engineering college for 4 years, nothing new, but this time we were expected to work as a team and use the latest technologies. It was hard; especially for people like me sleeping for almost half the time of the lectures. “Hi, I am Niranjan, you may call me Niru. I am from Mumbai.”, I introduced myself to my project team. There were total 4 people in my team. Nimesh, Nilima, Nishaa and myself – the great Niru. People around me seemed to be very much enthusiastic about the project. We were actually fighting for getting various modules for coding, afterall this was the first hands-on we were experiencing.
We had been given four days for the project. I wondered for how much of time our enthusiasm would last and I was proved correct. The next day itself all the four soldiers who had set out to conquer the world were together, returned with a sad mood and depressions because of the errors and bugs. “Niru, I have lost it dude. I can’t concentrate anymore today. I’ll leave. Will complete all that thing tomorrow surely.”, and Nimesh went away. Me and Nilima then tried inspecting each other’s codes trying our best to take out the bugs, but all that was just in vein. We soon left the office leaving the attempts for the next day.
“Hi dude, it’s 1.30 in the morning, where are you coming from?”, it was Tushar, my roommate. “Were you busy in that project work? cool man. You seem to have completed everything on the second day itself. Good work dude…”, and he simply went away talking to his gf on phone without even waiting for my response.
It was a hard day, indeed. I lied down with all those memories of bugs we had faced that day. I tried my best but still was somehow unsuccessful. I felt like all that knowledge that I had gathered for all those four years of my engineering life was in vain. I was getting a feeling of being a loser. I didn’t want to lose the job for everything depended on my performance in those assignments and the tests that followed. I didn’t know what to do. It was 2 in the night to call up anyone and share my feelings. Once again in my life I had to share my depression just with myself.
Suddenly the extension in the room rang, “Hello, Niru? Jess here.” “Yes Jess, what happened you also are still awake?” There was no response from the other side and then suddenly I heard sobs. “Jess… Jess, are you crying? I mean why are you crying?” Jess and I were together for 4 years, I had never seen her crying, infact I had not faced any crying girl before. It was a bit embarrassing. This time, my best friend was crying at 2 in the morning and it was my responsibility to console her. But there was no response to my questions; there were only sobs. I let her cry for sometime. I didn’t say a word. Not that I thought better to let her cry and clear up whatever tension she had, but the dumbest me was not getting any words to open up any conversation and my brain found it easier to stay quiet than uttering some really nonsense at that hour.
A couple of minutes later, her sobs reduced. I mean at least their intensity went down as I was not able to hear them any more now. “Jess, are you ok? What happened? Did someone say anything to you? Did you hurt yourself somewhere?”, I could easily get that whatever I was talking to Jess was good for a school going child. Do you ever speak like this to a young crying girl? I mean all that scolding-hurting part is ok for child, not a young lady but really I was not getting any words to calm her down and was actually fumbling for words at that time.
“Niru, I feel like I am a loser. Today whatever programming I tried, it all failed. We couldn’t even trace where the bugs were, then forget about fixing them. Niru, if my module fails like this, then I am sure to get less marks. I don’t want to fail Niru. I have got hell lot of depression. I have never ever failed in any exam and at this point in my life when I have got a good job in the most reputed IT company, I don’t want to lose it just because of my inability to code properly.”, she said all this in a single breath and stopped. Probably her sobs had overtaken her voice.
“Jess, I really don’t know what to say here. The minute you called me, I was having the same thoughts. Our team also started the work in full enthusiasm today, all was set properly and don’t know why but it went on failing sometime after. Nothing worked. We broke our heads over it but as soon as we fixed one bug, some other was ready. I was in depression too. I mean we never failed in any subject till now, we did all our programs and assignments in engineering on our own then why did we fail today? I thought there is something wrong with me or this corporate work culture hasn’t suited me. If I can’t handle such pressure at this training what am I going to do when I am actually going to work for a customer? Frankly speaking Jess, I felt like talking to someone but didn’t dare to speak to anyone. I mean we boys can’t even cry freely. We have to think about the world before we express any opinions… but thanks Jess, the time you called up and told me this, I got a confidence somehow. I mean see if something similar has happened to us, same is the case with others. We are still in learning phase. We aught to go wrong, just that we shouldn’t get that depression take over our capabilities. We are not losers Jess, we are still students, and we will keep learning till we become successful…”, and I kept on talking. Neither of us had the notion of time. It was a talk between two best friends. No time could stop it, no one could hinder it….
***
The life was getting harder day by day. I had never thought I would be studying so much in my life. A boy who never studied after 12 o’clock in the night even for his engineering exams, was now awake till 2.30 in the morning, solving some papers and studying some more study presentations. Everything was getting on my nerves now. I mean when I had given my last paper of engineering, I had never ever thought that I would be studying anything anymore. I felt like a free bird. No more exams just some simple coding or so for the work but I had never ever thought even in my dreams that I will be slogging like this. For days and nights I had bad dreams of those codes, the errors and the bugs in our assignments. The place of actresses in my dreams was taken up by assignments and presentations. It was bad but definitely it was for our good only. Probably the life on job was never that easy and rosy as we thought in our college days and this training was just a snapshot of what might have been there for us during the actual job.
It was again one of those days when Jess and I were returning to our rooms at around 2 in the morning when suddenly she said, “Niru…. I wanted to tell you something…” and she paused.
Now if a girl says this to you and that too at 2 a.m. then you may feel something good in your heart, actually you should… but somehow I didn’t feel anything. Of course there were reasons… first of all, Jess used to use these words often and I was very much used to them and it was 2 in the morning. After around 18 hours of slogging, studying, coding and resolving code errors or so, I didn’t have anything in my mind other than the sound sleep. I didn’t say a word but just kept looking at the bushes around us.
“Niru, I said something.”, Jess didn’t seem to like my mute response. “Ya.. go on …” “Niru, you know that girl Ritu in our class? She was there with us today for coffee break?” I very well knew her. She was there at the coffee break with us and was looking at me as if I was some famous celebrity. I could easily see that but somehow I preferred to neglect her and I didn’t wanna say this to Jess. I preferred to nod than to utter even a single word.
“She likes you. I mean I am not 100% sure but the way she keeps talking about you, the way she keeps looking at you, the way she keeps asking me about you I think I am right.” I didn’t say a word. I didn’t know how to react over this. Fortunately, we were at Jess’s building. We wished good night to each other and I returned to my room. I was surprised of my behavior. I mean it was funny. The guy who was desperate to have a girlfriend some days ago, was not even excited by the news of someone having crush on him. It was puzzling…
The very next day, somehow we could finish up our assignments early. It was just 12 o’clock when we were heading to our rooms when Jess again got onto the topic. “Niru, I said something to you yesterday. You didn’t say anything about it neither yesterday nor today.” “See Jess, first of all, I didn’t feel like saying anything. I mean it’s ok to have someone in this world who likes you or so,.. but now… and that too Ritu… nopes…” “Why? Why can’t her? When it was Vidhi, you would have loved to get along with her. What about Kritika? I could easily read your mind from your face when she told about her boyfriend. Then why not Ritu? Niru, I want the answer… now.”
“There are lots of thing there Jess.. See the schedule for this training is so harsh, so hectic, I don’t have time for myself, my parents, my friends. How can I have any commitments at such stage? I mean it’s easy to have a relation but to maintain it… that’s lot difficult and currently I am not in a position or mood to go for it. So I didn’t say much or to say it, tried to neglect the matter completely.”
Jess was wiser than me, definitely and she was sure to catch me somewhere unguarded and I pretty well knew it. “Hectic schedule? Is that the only reason Niru? When you met Riya first, what was the time? She was there in our class at 2 in the morning and the whole class was dying hard to complete the project. In fact the whole week was hectic one. Still you liked her, still you longed for just one glimpse of her, still you watched dreams of you two getting along. The schedule wasn’t hectic at that time as you are saying it is now? I know the reason is different. I know it but just that I want to hear it from you.”
“Ok then hear it Jess. Ritu is not that kind of a girl which Niru would like to have in his life as his girlfriend. My girlfriend would be good looking, smart one and definitely not like Ritu. Somehow I didn’t like her at all in the first impression itself.” Jess’s face was getting more and more harsh by my comments….“Niru, does only outer beauty matter to you? If a girl is not good looking but is good natured, good at heart, it doesn’t matter to you, in fact to all you boys out there..isn’t it? Niru, I hate you for this. I thought you were different from them. I don’t understand how you can think like this. Just good looking, smart… is this all that matters to you?”
“Jess, in fact I am being normal. This is the real world ma’m, forget about all those rosy stories where the kings or princes go for good natured girls rather than good looking ones. I am a normal boy and I want my girlfriend to be smart, good looking and just mind blowing. While talking about boys in general, all are same, agreed but even girls are not different. If the girls would have been going for good natured, good at heart boys rather than just rich ones or good looking ones, Niru would have been the person with at least 10 gfs till now. Think about it Jess. The girl in our college… Seema I don’t say she dumped me ‘cause there was never an affair or so between us but she chose Shirish over me. Can you tell me what wasn’t there with me as compared to Shirish? I belonged to middle class family, I didn’t have any good personality, what I had was just brains…. I was good at study that’s it. Whereas he was a dropout two times in engineering, had a cool record of 5 gfs till that time all of whom he had dumped in a couple of months or so…. But who cares…. Most important thing was he was damn rich, he was good looking, he had a good personality that’s it. Niru was simply a loser in front of him. She chose him over me… and you pretty well know what happened later…There are lot many examples like this Jess…. Whenever you say anything like this… think about them first. It’s always natural to search for better qualities in your girlfriend or boyfriend… I don’t blame anyone particularly for this…. It’s a bit natural… You wait for someone with all those qualities, all that perfection, all those characteristics that you have seen in dreams… At the end when you really get bored of waiting… you have to adjust somewhere… and you do that…. but for me Jess, I think the time for those ‘adjustments’ hasn’t arrived yet. Let me stay in the dreams as of now…. And I don’t want Ritu in between when I am dreaming….”, I said all this in a single breath and waited for Jess to reply something initiating some really fighting spirit.
Jess remained silent. She didn’t say a word. Her face seemed to have got confused in her own thoughts and my bombardment. We soon parted wishing each other good night. She was still silent but I was sure there was a storm of thoughts going on in her mind.
***
When I had just entered the campus, I had never even imagined that there would be so many facilities inside a company’s campus. A couple of cricket grounds, where there would be Ranji Trophy matches, dozens of tennis and badminton courts, a couple of basketball and volleyball courts, dozens of table tennis tables, a full fledged gym, a swimming pool, fountains, a mini theatre, a departmental store, a book shop, 3 storey library and what not. There were people who enjoyed everything but I wondered how they managed to pass in the exams… I wanted to concentrate fully on study… there were lots of things out there but I simply couldn’t find time to enjoy them. I used to slog from 9 in the morning till 2 in the morning of other day just to pass the tests with good marks… I didn’t want to lose on that front. I wanted to earn a good grade and better salary… that was my goal…
I remember it was Friday… we received some email from the HRD saying the movie for the weekend was ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. “Wow… Niru, let’s go for it yaar, I really need some break out of this boring routine.” “Nopes Jess, we have Java test coming up in the next week and I haven’t even started with the preparation and anyways this is a movie for children yaar… we are grown ups… I would prefer to have a sound sleep for 2 hours rather than wasting my energy and money both in something which I don’t like much, on the top of that, I haven’t seen the first part… this one is second… me not gonna’ understand a word outta’ it.” “Niru, please at least sometimes listen to me… I want a break yaar… and I don’t have a company. I am a girl and when a girl requests you something, you should not turn down it so harshly you see. You are coming with me for the movie and that’s final.” It was not impossible to convince her but then even I needed some break from the daily boring routine.
It was 6 p.m. when I reached the reception to get the tickets. There was a huge queue for the same. It was obvious… rather than getting bored with the typical study slides or boring assignments, everyone wanted some break. I just hoped I would get a good break and a refreshed mind after the movie to start the preparations in a fresh manner…
The building for the multiplex was a sphere. A cool, grand, big sphere. In the dark background of night and the cool moon it appeared as if we were on some other planet, enjoying the space journey. The multiplex looked bright, it looked posh, it looked royal.
There were still 10 minutes for the start. The chair beside me was empty. I wished for some good looking girl to sit there, not that I wished to do anything as such during the movie but there was nothing wrong in wishing so….The movie started sooner…. During the titles… a group of girls arrived and sat beside my seat…I couldn’t see who were they exactly… but it was good to have female neighbors…. I was happy…
The movie was good. I didn’t remember much of the first part but things were conveyed quite a lot properly making me at least understand what was going on there. There were typical fighting scenes, ship battles and all, I was actually getting bored of that but soon there was a cool mountain sized octopus trying to destroy ships and killing people. Actually this was a lot creepy, but somehow I liked the thrill in that. I was so involved in that, that I didn’t understand when my neighboring girl’s palm was over mine. Probably she was scared. She tried to get hold of the chair but instead she caught my hand. I felt something really good inside me. A girl holding your hand like this…. Yes it was romantic. I felt like experiencing that touch forever. Her anxiety was getting reflected from her shaking palm. I felt like freezing the moment. I wished to let that monster keep destroying everything forever on screen and the girl beside me be holding my hand like this….
I was lost in those thoughts when it was the interval time. I looked at her… and then I was back to the real life. The girl holding my hand was none other than…. Ritu. I didn’t like her. I mean I wanted to stay away from her. She was not the girl Niru would like to give his hand to. I wanted someone else, better looking and probably smarter.
The interval lights made Ritu as well as me back to normal. Both hands were taken back as if we had experienced a severe electric shock.. Was she embarrassed or was she hurt by the expressions I showed on my face after realizing that the hand belonged to Ritu… I don’t know… but she quickly left the theatre not to return. The next half of the movie, the chair remained empty. I stayed there watching the movie, but never got involved in it. I was plainly looking at the screen. I was lost in thoughts. An animation film or a normal 70mm movie didn’t make much difference to me then. I just kept thinking about Ritu… Were I right in making a decision about Ritu?
***

It was the compre that day…. Compre… seemingly cool but in reality a harsh monster.. which stole all the fun and leisure from our lives those days. Compre was an abbreviation for comprehensive exam. This one consisted of the entire syllabus that we studied there during the training. It was hell. Every week we were busy in giving one or the other exam and now we had to study for all of them once again… the only good thing was we were going to get released after this. Everyone was studying hard. No one wanted to fail and lose a grade which would have directly affected their salaries. The studying time was now extended till 4 in the morning. Tension was getting built up and anyone could easily sense it.
9 a.m. in the morning. Everyone was inside the classroom. There was a pin-drop silence. Everyone was having a last look at the notes he or she had. Everyone behaved like it was the matter of life and death. No one wanted to lose it. No one wanted to fail in it. The environment was getting more and more tense by every second. An objective test followed by a hands-on exercise… everyone was under a load of tension… no one knew whether he/she would make it or not.
After 4 hours, finally it was over. The only sound that was heard was that of the sigh of relief. Finally after a month and half we were getting a couple of days to enjoy the life there. We were free, we were on our own. We were going back… no more studies, there was just fun now….
The two days went off like anything. Even we didn’t understand how the time flew past. We played games, we did cycling, we went for movies, we read books… we did everything, we enjoyed everything that we couldn’t in last 1½ months. We wanted to enjoy the life to the fullest… afterall these were the memories that we were going to cherish for our life time….
The next day our results were out along with our placements. Jess and I had passed with the ‘A’ grade and both had been placed in Pune. Now it was the return journey. We had curiosity as to what’s gonna be there in Pune where we were going to be the real professionals and not just trainees. It was good, it was one of the most awaited moments of our lives. But yes… along with all these good things, there was the departure from the Mysore campus. The campus where we studied for hours and days together, the campus where we got new friends, the campus where we were transformed from college students to professionals… we were going to leave that. The faces were happy and sad at the same time…
And the last day arrived. The bus was there in the campus to take us to the railway station. Everyone was sad. We didn’t want to leave the campus, we didn’t want to leave our friends… In this duration of a month or so, we got so many friends, all were going to be in different cities now. Some in Pune, some in Trivandram, some in Bangalore, some in Chennai… we had never thought of this parting. We felt like crying… what was there amongst us? This stay, the study here, the time that we had spent there, it was good.. no it was amazing… all that fighting, slogging for assignments, dozing off in between, studying for nights together… all was damn tiring but was amazing… we enjoyed every moment of our stay there. Everyone was almost in tears. There was time when we wanted the training to end for we wanted to be professionals and no more trainees but now we felt like continuing the training forever… we wished the life there could have gone like that… along with all friends together…
I got into the bus and sat at the window seat. I wanted to capture each and every glimpse of the campus while leaving. I was gonna cherish it for my lifetime. The bus was in front of GTI. The grand building of GTI stood there in front of us… it was now empty.. without all those trainees it was just a structure of walls… without any life. The fountain at the main staircase was there ready to silently welcome the new trainees… but it was all alone…. No… there was someone standing there giving it company... It was Ritu. Her eyes plainly looked at the bus and at me through the window. I could easily see the tears in her eyes. She was placed in Chandigarh… miles away from me. We couldn’t have met even by chance. I felt awkward. The girl whom I didn’t like much, at least that’s what I pretended, was there in front of me. She was sad that she was going away from me. I felt bad. I realized her feelings for me. I had felt something similar about Vidhi when she had left training. Probably Ritu felt the same. I had hurt her feelings… I had tried my best to stay away from her and I had tried my best to insult her just through the eyes. I felt like going to her and apologizing for my behaviour… but it was just too late for that. Someone touched my shoulder. It was Jess. Her assuring hand was on my shoulder. I needed it. Probably I had done the greatest mistake of my life by avoiding Ritu. They say ‘Be with someone who loves you rather than someone whom you love…’ I realized the meaning of that sentence now. I had lost something…
The bus started. Ritu couldn’t stand there… she ran inside the building. I couldn’t do anything other than watching her through the window. Some decisions had gone wrong but I had to accept the consequences. The destiny wanted them that way and I had to be ready for the same…

***
It was the compre that day…. Compre… seemingly cool but in reality a harsh monster.. which stole all the fun and leisure from our lives those days. Compre was an abbreviation for comprehensive exam. This one consisted of the entire syllabus that we studied there during the training. It was hell. Every week we were busy in giving one or the other exam and now we had to study for all of them once again… the only good thing was we were going to get released after this. Everyone was studying hard. No one wanted to fail and lose a grade which would have directly affected their salaries. The studying time was now extended till 4 in the morning. Tension was getting built up and anyone could easily sense it.
9 a.m. in the morning. Everyone was inside the classroom. There was a pin-drop silence. Everyone was having a last look at the notes he or she had. Everyone behaved like it was the matter of life and death. No one wanted to lose it. No one wanted to fail in it. The environment was getting more and more tense by every second. An objective test followed by a hands-on exercise… everyone was under a load of tension… no one knew whether he/she would make it or not.
After 4 hours, finally it was over. The only sound that was heard was that of the sigh of relief. Finally after a month and half we were getting a couple of days to enjoy the life there. We were free, we were on our own. We were going back… no more studies, there was just fun now….
The two days went off like anything. Even we didn’t understand how the time flew past. We played games, we did cycling, we went for movies, we read books… we did everything, we enjoyed everything that we couldn’t in last 1½ months. We wanted to enjoy the life to the fullest… afterall these were the memories that we were going to cherish for our life time….
The next day our results were out along with our placements. Jess and I had passed with the ‘A’ grade and both had been placed in Pune. Now it was the return journey. We had curiosity as to what’s gonna be there in Pune where we were going to be the real professionals and not just trainees. It was good, it was one of the most awaited moments of our lives. But yes… along with all these good things, there was the departure from the Mysore campus. The campus where we studied for hours and days together, the campus where we got new friends, the campus where we were transformed from college students to professionals… we were going to leave that. The faces were happy and sad at the same time…
And the last day arrived. The bus was there in the campus to take us to the railway station. Everyone was sad. We didn’t want to leave the campus, we didn’t want to leave our friends… In this duration of a month or so, we got so many friends, all were going to be in different cities now. Some in Pune, some in Trivandram, some in Bangalore, some in Chennai… we had never thought of this parting. We felt like crying… what was there amongst us? This stay, the study here, the time that we had spent there, it was good.. no it was amazing… all that fighting, slogging for assignments, dozing off in between, studying for nights together… all was damn tiring but was amazing… we enjoyed every moment of our stay there. Everyone was almost in tears. There was time when we wanted the training to end for we wanted to be professionals and no more trainees but now we felt like continuing the training forever… we wished the life there could have gone like that… along with all friends together…
I got into the bus and sat at the window seat. I wanted to capture each and every glimpse of the campus while leaving. I was gonna cherish it for my lifetime. The bus was in front of GTI. The grand building of GTI stood there in front of us… it was now empty.. without all those trainees it was just a structure of walls… without any life. The fountain at the main staircase was there ready to silently welcome the new trainees… but it was all alone…. No… there was someone standing there giving it company... It was Ritu. Her eyes plainly looked at the bus and at me through the window. I could easily see the tears in her eyes. She was placed in Chandigarh… miles away from me. We couldn’t have met even by chance. I felt awkward. The girl whom I didn’t like much, at least that’s what I pretended, was there in front of me. She was sad that she was going away from me. I felt bad. I realized her feelings for me. I had felt something similar about Vidhi when she had left training. Probably Ritu felt the same. I had hurt her feelings… I had tried my best to stay away from her and I had tried my best to insult her just through the eyes. I felt like going to her and apologizing for my behaviour… but it was just too late for that. Someone touched my shoulder. It was Jess. Her assuring hand was on my shoulder. I needed it. Probably I had done the greatest mistake of my life by avoiding Ritu. They say ‘Be with someone who loves you rather than someone whom you love…’ I realized the meaning of that sentence now. I had lost something…
The bus started. Ritu couldn’t stand there… she ran inside the building. I couldn’t do anything other than watching her through the window. Some decisions had gone wrong but I had to accept the consequences. The destiny wanted them that way and I had to be ready for the same…
***
We were in Pune the very next day. The environment was cool. The change was good. Rather than the happiness of being a professional rather than a trainee, the happiness of being nearer to Mumbai was more appealing. The project allocations were taking place but overall we had got a lot of free time to search for our lodging facilities. The other day Jess and I decided to leave early and take a break from the daily boring routine of searching for good rental homes. I was waiting for Jess who had to come down from phase-2 to phase-1 and then we were going to head for some movie or so. She took a long time to arrive… Finally I called her up…
“Hey Jess, where are you yaar, I have been waiting for you since half an hour… you girls never understand the value of time, do you?” “Niruuu…. I was caught up in some work yaar… See, I have reached.. I am talking from the other side of the road you duffer. Let me cross the road now.. Can I now cut the call please?”
I turned around. Jess was there in front of me, cautiously crossing the road. I didn’t know why but she always used to get scared by those heavy 18-wheel vehicles. I felt like mocking her. Anyone could have laughed looking at her frightened face. It was not a face of a young girl. It was a face of a small kid looking for her parents’ hand while crossing the road. She was slowly crossing the road… and suddenly she fumbled on something and fell down in the middle of the road. I could see her lying in the middle of the busy highway with a big truck speeding towards her. My brain fused out. Some really horrible feeling scratched my heart really hard.
I cried, “Jess, get up…. Turn around…. Try to get to a side…” She tried to get up but she couldn’t… she seemed to have got hurt after falling. The truck driver was honking the horn, he even seemed to have pressed his foot hard on the brake peddle but even he couldn’t stop the truck at that speed…. I closed my eyes….. When I looked again…. The truck had stopped… but a few feet ahead… making that stop simply useless. My cries went in vain with my best friend lying there in the middle of the road. Not even a couple of seconds and it was over…. Simply over ... My brain simply gave up… I went numb… How could I be so selfish… I could have dragged her to the side of the road and saved her. I couldn’t save the life of my best friend… There was no use of this repenting. Something really horrible had happened and I was responsible for it. I wished I could go back in time… That was the first time when I cried openly…
Departure from Mysore had costed me. I parted from Ritu and now Jess. I didn’t feel much sad after parting from Ritu but the absence of Jess in my life was simply unimaginable. Jess was my best friend. She was the one with whom I could share all my happiness, all my sorrows, everything. Jess was an inevitable part of my life. Even after a year of her demise I missed her everywhere. When I liked Gargi, I didn’t have anyone to share it. There was no-one to introduce me to her. There was no-one to share happiness when I decided to ask her and there was no one to share my sorrow when she turned me down. When Jess was with me, I never felt need for anything else in my life. She was always there with me. Always sharing and caring. With her in my life, I could easily accept any loser, could accept any sorrow, without her, everything seemed different… everything seemed difficult. She was the best friend; no she was the best person on this earth. I am still not able to forget her and will not forgive god or to say the destiny that snatched her away from me….
***
Yesterday I asked Gargi out and she turned me down. I wanted to share that with someone close, but there was no one. It was my Jess and her memories that again helped me to get over that grief. Somehow I felt better.
‘It’s time to wake up… the time is 6.30’… it was my cellphone alarm, indicating the time for me to get up and get ready for the office. I was simply lost in all those memories of the training days that I even didn’t realize that I didn’t sleep for the whole night… but I didn’t regret over that… afterall those memories made my mood normal. Just the feelings or memories of the nice people, incidents in your life gives you a hope to live it with a new light and enthusiasm.
Soon I was ready and was about to leave for the usual bus stop to catch up the office bus, when Paras, my roommate stopped me. “Niru, you proposed Gargi yesterday?” “Yes.”, I said… don’t know why but I didn’t feel shy or so… I even didn’t get any loser feeling while admitting that. Whether I had become a really shameless fellow or it was the effect of my Mysore memories… I really didn’t know… but one thing was sure.. I was very much ready with a fresh mind to face the new day with a new hope and enthusiasm.
“Niru, I had guessed it yesterday itself from your face. However you may attempt to hide your feelings, they show up on your face dude. Anyways, don’t worry, think of it like she was simply not destined to be in your life. Forget her, I am sure you will get someone better than her.” , it felt like Jess was talking to me… similar words… just that Paras’s eyes were not as kind and considerate as hers. The emotions that tried to come out of his words didn’t match the expressions on his face very much unlike Jess… I would have again got into Jess’s thoughts when Sanmeet brought me back to reality, “Don’t worry Niru, forget Gargi, have you thought about that crush of yours in our bus….? Yaa the secretary… what a code-name maan? Anyways… today - this valentines is a good day to have an introduction with her. Give it a try.. let’s go..”
And then we started towards our usual bus stop for the bus. Afterall my bus and my secretary in the bus were waiting for me to start one more story of my life… I was damn sure … Jess, wherever she was, must have been smiling at me… I was happy… with a new day, all that loser feeling was gone… Niru was back… There were some problems in my life just like everyone else… but I had to move on…. afterall that’s life isn’t it?

THE END

Hi Friends,

Here comes the end of my story and also as usual my disclaimer. Although this time, it’s not that serious as it was for my last story ‘Some Diary Pages.’ Anyways… first of all thanks a lot for spending your time in reading the story and sending me the feedbacks. It was really good to see all those replies. Thanks again for the same.
You all made my ‘Some Diary Pages’ a big hit. The story was forwarded across whole country. I have personally received many calls, mails asking about the story, the characters and specially the end in reality. It was really good to receive such calls, which gave me praises, comments and feedback. This was not at all possible without you all… Thanks a lot for that…
Now back to ‘That’s life’… Almost all characters in this particular story are fictitious. Let it be Ritu, Riya, Seema, Shirish or Gargi all are just fictitious and hence even the incidents linked to them are fictitious. The character Jessica, even she’s fictitious. I would like to have a good-close friend like Jessica, in fact I think everyone should get at least one friend like her who will be with you whenever you need her… Many of my friends asked me about the accident of Jessica and also expressed that it was unnecessary but if it wouldn’t have been shown that way, then Niru would have got someone to share his sorrows and grief and then it wouldn’t have been necessary for him to get into the past memories to get his mood back to normal. That’s why I had to show such a tragic incident even when I don’t wish any of such incidents to happen with anyone….
Coming back to real characters, the characters Jango [name changed], Sudeep, Dinesh, Paras and Sanmeet are all real. Tanuja-the hostel co-ordinator is a real character and also is the incident that happened between us regarding the map of Mysore DC. Last but not the least… the character of ‘secretary’ in my bus…. I don’t think I need to tell specifically about her reality….
Thanks again to all of you for reading the story…. Do send me feedbacks… If you wish, do forward the story to your friends just as you did for Some Diary Pages… :)
-Niru :)