You and I (Part 1)

‘Glad you could make it for the lunch. I never thought you would come. Anyway my invitation was a joke’ I said as I spooned in the fried rice in the office cafeteria.

‘I have no reasons to reject your invitation. You had the odds. My colleague is on leave and I am hungry. You played the cards at the right time. Thanks for inviting me Navin.’

‘Anjali, I have to come alone for lunch today. My friends are stuck up with something. It was just a thought. Thanks isn’t needed here.’ ‘A Tupperware dabba with 3 rotis. That will suffice till 3?’ I was curious.

‘Till 8. I reach home at 8 and have my dinner. It is fine till then. I will have some tea break around 4. May be I will have something then. And here I am inviting you for tea at that time. If you are free.’

‘Oh sure. I will join definitely. After all, I have known you for three months, why should I be worried?’ I tried to sound nice so that I can decline it later.

‘You have seen me for three months Navin. Not known me. There are differences.’ She laughed as she pinched the chole with her roti.

‘Yeah right. Agreed. Let me take this time to know you. Where are you from?’

Just then her mobile rang. The sound of the vibration didn’t justify the silent mode. It was heard even in the noise of the cafeteria.

Anjali excused as she walked away to answer the call. She was tall, long hair, often in Tshirt jeans that are less fancy. We both share the same project but we have never spoken to each other. In fact I have not spoken only to her. Her team has three more girls with whom I am Facebook friends too. But not her. Why?

‘It was my mom. She usually calls at this time to check if I am done with lunch. I have this habit of skipping lunch sometimes. So she is pretty cautious. And usually I would have finished my lunch by this time, so it was difficult convincing her that I was eating.’

‘You are a mommy’s girl.’ I couldn’t control my laughter.

‘Na. She is a daughter’s mommy. There are differences. We were talking something else.’ She sounded rough.

‘We were talking about’ I pretended to think even though I knew what we were talking about. I wasn’t sure if she is okay in discussing that. Her mood was changed. I continued, ‘I am from Bangalore. That’s what we were talking about. I speak Tamil but. My favorite actor is Kamal and my playlist is filled with AR Rahman.’

‘Whoo… That’s too much information for ‘Tell about yourself’.’ She mocked at my flow of words. ‘And I am from Varanasi, I speak Hindi. No favorite actors as such and not too much into music.’

‘How long are you in Pune?’ she asked me when I decided it was time for us to leave.

‘7 months. Shall we leave?’

‘Pune?’

‘Hey. We are done with lunch right. Shall we leave this place for others?’ I prayed that her earlier statement was an intent of joke and not what she thought.

She agreed and we left. I told her to proceed as I had to take a bio-break. As per my earlier plan, we never met for Tea. But that night, we were chatting on Messenger.

I wasn’t interested much in chatting with her. I was recovering from my girlfriend’s marriage. It was a hard time for me but I wasn’t thinking of relationship anytime soon.

Meeting her at the office was inevitable. Only if either of us were on leave, seeing her would be missed. The chats were mere general topics because we had nothing in common to discuss about. She knew nothing of cricket and I hated her for that.

Once she sent me a picture over WhatsApp (We switched to WhatsApp after 10 days of messenger) of the famous MS Dhoni run out against Bangladesh and asked me what is so special about it. I was a little infuriated for no reason. I replied her with a fairly long message of the entire match summary and her reply ‘Oh ok...’ didn’t help either.

When someone reads our chats, they could easily conclude that it is not between two people who are in a relationship or if either one is trying to lure the other into one.

The chats were regular and happened almost everyday. We somehow had some insipid topic to chat about.

97 days after we had our lunch for the first time, she came over at my desk again. I made this calculation when I saw her coming towards me. The same scenario has repeated again. Her colleague was on leave.

‘Navin, are you done with your lunch? If not can I join you guys?’ she asked me. The situation was not completely similar. My friends were available for lunch.

‘No problem. We will be going in a couple of minutes. I will ping you.’ I said.

I am usually accompanied by two guys during lunch. One of them was on leave today and the other one just pinged me asking if we could go for lunch.

‘I got some work, carry on.’ I replied. Now when he is alone, he goes for lunch outside. He has got friends in the nearby office and he will go meet them. My guess was perfect. He answered me the same.

After confirming, he left the office, I searched for her in our office IM. Man she had a beautiful display picture!! I hesitated because my display picture is going to pop-up on her screen when I message her. Nevertheless I messaged her and told her it’s time to go.

‘So again we both alone for lunch. You know what, it is 97 days since the first lunch day.’ She said when I came back with the plate of Thali.

‘Oh!! So she also has been doing the calculation thing.’ I thought to myself and pretended to be surprised with her memory.

The mobile rang. This time it was a ringtone that I was not familiar with. She smiled at me and I understood it is from her mother’s. She didn’t move out to attend the call.

‘Another three days and we can celebrate the century.’ She giggled and gestured the Rajma box to ask if I needed some.

‘Oh wow. A cricket reference. Surely she has worked on it.’ I said to myself. I didn’t react as I took some Rajma from her. It tasted awesome. It is been almost a year for me in this town and not even once I came across such tasty recipe. Homemade food are delicious indeed.

‘This is very tasty. May be your mother has so much love on you and that is the reason it is this delicious.’ I took another bite.

‘Actually. I made it.’ She replied.

Awkward silence.

Both of us didn’t know how to react. We both were in desperation searching for a new topic. One of the brain’s chief characteristic is to take a break when you need it the most.

The silence that lasted for about 15 seconds but looked fairly more than that was broken by me.

‘Still it tastes too good.’ Have I started to develop feelings for her?

Things cooled down but never looked like returning to normal throughout our lunch.

We were done and while moving back to our cabin I asked her if we can meet for tea for which she readily agreed. I didn’t want to miss this time.

My mind had too many thoughts, too many questions. My brain, ironically, was working at the speed of MSD’s stumping.  Of all the questions that were revolving, the most repeated was ‘Did I slip into her?’

No. All I did was slipping my leg in the staircase. I had a bad fall. My head hit the handrail that knocked me unconscious.

The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital a couple of hours later. The friend with whom I was supposed to go for lunch was there. Not because he cared but just to laugh at me. He laughed hard enough that could serve him for laughter starvation for months.

He told me I fell down and had a black out and I was brought to the hospital in the office ambulance. It was Anjali who informed him. He added that I also had a sprain in my leg and they have taken a few more tests to rule out the possibility of the fracture whose results are expected in an hour.

‘Until then I have to be in this hospital?’ I sighed.

‘Don’t worry man. The nurses are hot here. Should I call them to check on you? Oh no. You will have a blackout again if you see them.’ And he started his laughter again.

Just then Anjali entered the room. She gave him one look and he stopped laughing.

‘Ok. I will be back in a while.’ He said and left.

‘How are you doing?’ She sounded concerned.

‘Yeah. I am good only. Thanks a lot for helping me out. Heard you underwent a lot of discomfort yourself in getting me here.’

‘No that is not true. Thanks isn’t needed here.’

‘I am sorry I had to cause so much pain to you. I…’

‘Sorry also not needed here.’ She interrupted before I could complete. ‘It is because of me you are here. I should have went for lunch by myself. It is my fault. I am sorry.’

‘No no no. If not for you, I would have been alone and I wonder who would have saved me after my fall.’ I tried to convince.

‘I know your mind was preoccupied with something. I guess I had to do something with it. So it is my fault.’

‘In that case, I should have said no when you asked for lunch today just like I said that day for tea.’ I confessed.

‘In that case, I should have said no when you asked me for lunch that day.’

‘Listen Anjali, if we are gonna play this game, we can do it all day. I was supposed to take leave that day but I didn’t. I came to office with my flu. So it is my fault.’

‘Oh is that so. Then since my colleague was on leave that day I planned to work from home. But my laptop didn’t work because I spilled water on it the earlier day. My fault.’

‘I shouldn’t have come to Pune only. My fault.’

Silence for about 10 seconds. She was looking right at my eyes.

‘Let me.’ I continued. ‘I shouldn’t have attended this interview call. I shouldn’t have agreed for Pune. I should have answered poorly in that call. If all that would have happened, this wouldn’t have happened.’ I pointed at my bandaged leg.

She came closer to me. She whispered ‘You shouldn’t have attended this interview call. You shouldn’t have agreed for Pune. You should have answered poorly in that call. If all that would have happened, this wouldn’t have happened.’ She gestured the proximity between us with her cute index finger.

That peck on my lips would never be forgotten.

She smiled and returned to leave.

‘I would like to listen to your side of our story too.’ I requested.

Her beautiful smile was the answer. May be because it was filled with love?

(To be continued…)