She is MY giRl - The Curtain comes down

“I’d come here just to see a friend. How are you? Come lets go. I have an umbrella.”.

“Yeah, that’s what you need. A walk with me. If  you wanted this then why didn’t you tell me that you were leaving the company?” Rohit said to himself, but still got up to go with her. As she led the way out with her umbrella, it started raining ferociously. Both were together in an umbrella, united by the umbrella but separated by the umbrella handle. He was still angry on her for not telling him and for leaving the company. But deep inside he knew he missed her. He missed having hot tea with samosas with her, he missed post lunch walk with her, he missed the long talks he would have with her, in total, he missed her. He realised all this only when he was walking with her. Her chatter box was on all the way they walked, but he was not listening to what she was talking. All he could think was how much he missed her. By the time they reached the bus stop, the rained had toned down its ferociousness and was reduced to drizzle. The sun was peeping through the clouds forming a rainbow. There were not much people at the bus stop. “Shall i? No not today. Or better i finish off the job today. What if  she says no?”. The conversation was going on in his mind. “You never know she might say yes.”, he heard Akash say. He turned back to see , but no one was there. Just a fragment of his imagination, he thought. A bus was approaching, she folded the umbrella to board the bus. “This might have been your good chance dude, but lost it” again he heard Akash say. As she was about to board the bus Rohit called out her. She turned back. “What Rohit?”. “Eh.....!! Nothing. Be careful. Call me when you get to your PG. Cya”. “Sure Bye, Take care. J”, and she was gone. Rohit took out his cell  phone and dialled Akash’s number, “Dude where are you?” “Hey I’am in  my home town dude. You yourself dropped me to bus yesterday. Forgot so soon? ” “Oh ya... I called up to say you have a good time at home. See you after 2 days. Bye”

It was  dull Sunday morning. Rohit opened his eyes and the clock was showing ten thirty five. “Too early...” he said to himself, feeling as lazy as a guy and closed his eyes again. Just as he was about to drift off to sleep, his cell phone rang. “Hello, ya Roopali tell me... ok... but tickets?.... Oh k... sure. Ill be there in half an hour. Cya there.”. He jumped out of bed like  a cat. There was a new wave of enthusiasm in him. Her call had sure made his dull day, very bright.

Roopali and Rohit were, sitting in an almost empty theatre watching “Ajab prem ki gajab kahani”. Not that either of them liked the movie, but it was her favourite song – “Tera hone laga hoon...” and she was Ranbeer Kapoor’s big fan. And he was her fan. It was just about the time of her song when Rohit said “Ill be back.”

“Where you going?”.

“Going to meet the President of India, who is in town. I need to give her a memorandom on the issues our countries is facing now and how we can handle them.”

“What!!!”.

“Where would i go out in the middle of a movie!!! Obviously to the rest-room.”

“Well Rohit ,in that case, give the President my regards!!”, she said and smiled.

“Sure. The President will be happy to...”

“Shh... Go soon. Enough of your sarcastic jokes. My song is in few a minutes.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve watched this movie 5 times, for Ranbeer Kapoor.”

“Fine. Keep watching that kid. I’ll be back in a min.”

And he went off. Soon her song started and she was lost in her song. Just as the line “Tera hone laga hoon ...” came up, someone came beside her. She turned aside to see Rohit on his knees, holding out a ring along with a rose, to her, singing along the song. She was shocked. There were a few whistles from the few people who were in the theatre. Rohit’s heart skipped a beat. Will she or wont she? She may become his partner or she may never speak to him. It was all a matter of seconds and a few words. She stood up and said “I...”

“You what?”

“I ...... I need some time to think Rohit.”And she left the theatre.

Rohit and Akash were having their lunch.

“Hey Akash, you were talking to her in the morning know, did you ask about me? She wont talk to me anymore.”

“Ya i asked but she said she didn’t want to talk about it now.”

“Why didn’t you force her?”

“How could I force anyone to talk?”

“You were talking to her for so long. What did you talk then?”

“We talked about work Rohit, not you.”

“I scared her off man. She wont respond to my calls now. I am ashamed of myself in a way now.”

“You must be ashamed Rohit. Why did you propose in front of so many people? You embarrassed her.”

“What was embarrassing in that?”

“It’s embarrassing for some people Rohit, especially girls – proposing in front of so many people.”

“I think I lost her. Well you know there are many other girls out there. She was not the only one.”

“No buddy, you don’t want to jump into flirting right now. Take your time to get over her else you will rush into things to take a revenge on Roopali. Just try to concentrate on work for now.”

“I’ll  try Akash”

Rohit had proposed to Roopali, on same day a week back and till now there was no response from her. He saw her no more at the bus stop. Whenever he went to her PG, her hot PG room mate said that she was not at room. Off lately she had been visiting hometown regularly and when asked would say she had some personal work . He thought she may have talked about this to her parents and they may have got married her off to some guy they chose and that’s why she was not receiving his calls. He gave up hopes of talking to her anymore. As he was lying in hisbed lazyly, he got a call. He took his cell phone and went to the balcony.

“Hello, hey Roopali. How are you? I have been dying to receive this call.”

“Hey Rohit, I’m fine. How are you? I know you have been waiting for this call.........”

It was drizzling outside. Had she said yes his next walk would in this drizzle have been a walk to remember, but had she said no, he would have hated this drizzle forever. A single word could have changed his life.

“So what do you think Roopali, you and me?”...

“What!!! This is not fair. Roopali, how could you do this to me?”...

“And Akash knew about this? That’s why he was talking to you so much from last week. ”

“Ya Roopali, but I never expected such a big one!!!”...

“I am already half dead by now waiting for this call Roopali, but anyways now I am happy that you will be that other half for me from now.” A small smile slipped from his lips as he said this. Two lines of tears started from his eyes but were washed away by the drizzle. He would finally have the walk of his life the next day in this drizzle.

Rohit dialled  Akash after her call but it was busy. He then started typing in his cell “Thanks buddy, You don’t know what this means to me. Thanks for being my friend. If it weren’t for your good talk with her about me, this probably wouldn’t have been possible. Thanks buddy. I owe you a big party, actually we owe you :)”.

She is MY giRl(Part 2)

Rohit ran get a glimpse of the guy. He was standing there waiting for the lift. Rohit shouted, “Excuse me!!!”. The guy turned back and said, “Hey, what happened? Why are you running? Anything urgent?”.

“Oh its you. I always felt I’d seen that Rangeela shirt somewhere. Akash, what were you talking with her? Anything important about work which i can help?”

“See Rohit, you’d told that I can’t talk to her before you talked to her. You didn’t tell what I should do after you talk to her. J. Chill man. I am not interested in her as you are. Was just getting introduced, and cracked a few PJ’s, as usual. And common, don’t be so possessive. Come lets go for a coffee now.” The door to the lift opened and both stepped into the lift.

“I was not being possessive, just thought it might be something important related to work. And by the way, why do you still keep wearing this shirt Akash? It has all the colours in the world. Or is it some kind of a dare?”. There was a Chinese guy in the lift. He looked at Rohit and smiled, as if acknowledging how foolish and embarrassed Rohit was feeling at having followed the guy talking to Roopali. Rohit smiled back, acknowledging.

It was only a few weeks since Roopali had joined the office and all that Akash could hear in home was Roopali stuff – Roopali looked beautiful today, Roopali called me dear in her mail today, Roopali  cut her finger today, Roopali asked about my hometown, Roopali did this, Roopali did that, Roopali, Roopali... Akash was fed up of this. He felt her  stories were a revenge on his PJ’s. Rohit was telling a Roopali story for every PJ Akash had once told him. Once she had got Rohit a cup of coffee from cafeteria and all that Akash had heard for the next week was about her helping attitude.

An early morning, Akash woke up with severe headache. All the vodka shots of the previous night’s bachelor party were shooting now in his head. He tried sleeping after taking a tablet, but didn’t help. He asked Rohit to drop him to hospital on his way to office. “Be careful. Take the medicines and go home. I’ll come over after-noon  to give you lunch. Take care. Bye” and Rohit sped off to office.

Akash awoke for the loud noise of his cell ringtone. He hastily received the call, “Dude open the door, I’ve been waiting outside for almost 5 min.”Rohit was shouting. Akash opened the door.“Hey Akash, how you doing? This is your lunch, have it. I’ll come and talk to you. Gotta go and meet her. She’s waiting for me. Bye”. He didn’t even give a chance for Akash to say anything.

“Dude, you’ve gotta listen to this. I am having the best day of my life. Will come home and tell you the story.”, Rohit had messaged. Akash, bored from doing nothing the whole day, was waiting for him to return and tell the story. Rohit came home dripping wet, took a towel and began his story, drying his hair.

“After giving your lunch, i went to office and she was sitting in her cubicle. ”

“I have a thought Rohit .It would be obvious that she would be sitting in her cubicle and not mine, because she is not Akash to sit in ..”

“Shut up man. Keep your PJ’s to yourself. Just listen. She was wearing a beautiful green chudidaar with golden embroidery, with matching ear-rings and a single parrot green bangle on the right hand and a wrist watch on the left. When i saw her...”

“One question sir, was it that you ignored her chappals because they were not nice or you didn’t want to see them, thinking of what all ladies’ chappals  could do to men?”

“Shut your mouth and listen. No more questions or thoughts. As it was raining , we went for a cup of coffee. As we finished our coffee, it had stopped raining. She said we’ll go for a walk. We went along that small stretch of road outside our office. It was the most memorable day in my life. The weather was moist, there were not many people on road at that time, no much noise. At that moment it occurred to me that...”

“That you had not taken an umbrella in case it started raining?”

“For God’s sake please don’t talk Akash. At  that moment it occurred to me that how much I liked her. All I wanted to do then was get down on my knees and tell her the precious three words, that I ”

“Say that You Hate Her? He he”

“Oh Akash, you wont change man. I hope you never get a girl. I hope you become a gay, man.”

“Dude i was just kidding. Don’t change my sexuality for such a small reason. So if you like her why don’t you tell her man. I am telling you again and again, if you dont do it soon, you might loose the precious chance. Think over it.”

Rohit was sad the whole day. Ever since he had got know from Tina that Roopali she was leaving the company, he was mad on her – one, because she was leaving and two, because she had not told him. Rohit and Akash were having their evening tea together. None of them had spoken for 5 minutes. Akash started the conversation, ”How is she leaving the company so soon? Didn’t she just join just a few months back?”

“Ya, but her uncle is in HR here and that uncle’s wife is in HR in her new company. So that made things easy for her to shift.”

“But why is she shifting at first place? Isn’t this company good enough for her?”

“She says she is not getting good work here. Why is she so interested in working Akash? I would be happy to sit and spend time on Facebook the whole day.”

“See thats the difference between you and her. Did you try to persuade her?”

“I did, but she is adamant.”

“Then you need to tell her how you feel about her.”

“what!!!Why should I tell her? These days all I did was worry about her and now she has no respect for all those. All girls are like this. She didn’t even tell me she was leaving the company.”

“How would she respect your un-expressed feelings, which she may have never known you had?”

“Feelings are to be felt Akash, not expressed.”

“Oh crap!! All this is bull shit. Its not any sine or cos wave which jumps from your heart to hers. You need to tell her about it, or at least hint her. I dont blame her in this Rohit.”

“Oh shut up. You wont understand. I am not talking to her anymore, that’s all.”

“See Rohit, in this, she may or may not loose anything, but you have something to loose. So dont be adamant. Talk to her.”

“Why wont she lose. She will lose a guy who loved her more than anyone in the world.”

“She should know of such a guy then. So tell her.”

“No Akash, dont persuade me. I am not talking to her.”

The next day Roopali came to office and was all smiling, as usual. But Rohit didn’t have any plan of talking to her. He didn’t even look up to see her when she came. He replied to her good morning wish with a cold “Morning” reply. He neither joined her for a post-lunch walk nor a coffee that day. She was quite surprised at his strange behaviour.

Sometimes Rohit felt Akash was right, he should have expressed his feelings to Roopali. But he never did. Not it was almost 2 -3 days since she was not seen at her seat. Rohit had started to repent his acts. He should have talked.

“Akash its all over for us dude, she has left the office.”

“Its over for both? Actually its over for you but not her. It never started for her. You never expressed your feelings to her.”

“I know. I should have told her before.”

It was raining heavily and Rohit was waiting for the rain to slow down a bit to start from office. He was waiting at the office reception reading a magazine. But most of the time he just turning the pages and just thinking about Roopali, “I should have expressed myself. May be she has met another guy there. No I won’t give up so soon. I’ll go to her office and tell her. May be I’ll go next week to her office and tell her all. But what if another guy expresses himself before me? That Nihal guy was not seen today. May be he had gone to meet her today. I’ll go tomorrow to her office and tell her all.”

 “Hey Rohit, you leaving office? Wanna join me?”. He heard a voice from behind.

“Hey Roopali, what are you doing here ?” (To be continued...)

She is MY giRl

It was a dream  come true for him. The breeze, the falling flowers, the sunlight kissing goodbye for the day all made it perfect. Both had an arm around each other and were walking on that lonely beautiful road, on a carpet of flowers. He had always dreamt of just talking to her but here he was having the best walk of his life with her. He couldn’t believe they were together now. He stood there for a second to realise this, and closed his eyes and... hugged her. He felt all  his world stop for a moment. The breeze was still, the flowers stopped falling, it was suddenly completely bright all around. He would surely not forget this.

When he opened his eyes, thud!!!!! He heard a loud noise and felt blood oozing out of his head, and saw a freakingly overweight man, whom he had seen somewhere but couldn’t recollect where, standing in front of him with a hockey stick. His girl was shouting and crying but no one was there to help.

When he opened his eyes he took some time to come to senses. He pinched himself, touched his head. Oh, it was only a dream, he said to himself.  It would be just another boring and keep-staring-at-his-girl day at office. He crawled out of his bed, hoping for some change today.

While leaving the house he saw a note on the table, “Hi Rohit,Tina wants me early in office today. Leaving soon. See you at office - Akash”.

The canteen was as usual crowded. After eating south Indian paratha, or called uttappa usually, he went to his work place, started his system and looked around. Nope, she had not yet come. And Akash was busy flirting with manager in her cabin. Looking at Akash’s desk beside him, Rohit could tell that Akash had directly gone to Tina’s cabin, with his bag, for flirting. So much he is fond of flirting, he said to himself and put on his earphones while settling down for work.

Womanizer woman womanizer woman womanizer baby, you you you are, you you you are womanizer... “Wow, Britney Spears looks awesome in this video” he said to himself, listened to the song. Akash finally came out of  manager’s cabin and signalled from far that Tina was calling him.

 “Hey Rohit, Tina wants you in her cabin. Your frist date with your manager. Good going. I hope you guys make out. He he”

“Shut up Akash. You know she’s a bitch. And you are her favourite, not me. And you also agree that we listen to her only because she’s hot. I wish she was like my girl – always calm and smiling.”. Akash started laughing ,“Oh common. You have not talked to that girl even once since she joined and you call her your girl. I don’t think you even know her name .”

“Ok. We’ll talk about it later. I have to go meet Tina. And by the way my girl’s name is  Roopali.”

Since the day she had joined, Rohit had a crush  on Roopali. But Rohit was a silent kinda guy who always kept to himself. He never had the guts to express his feelings to her, or even talk to her. He needed the much needed push to talk to her which came in form of Akash. Akash was a kind of guy who looked innocent, but was not. He took advantage of his innocence ,to flirt with girls. He felt it was his licence to flirt. He and Rohit had joined the company on the same day. Their manager, Tina, was their first topic of discussion. They had stayed and worked together for quite some time now. During their free time in office, they always did what they were best at - talk about girls.

Rohit and Akash were sitting and chatting about their “hot” manager, as usual, when Roopali entered. As she walked, Rohit’s whole world  was muted and all he could hear was her footsteps. He could see Akash’s lips moving but couldn’t hear a word. He felt like Shah Rukh Khan in Main hoon na, though Roopali was much younger and beautiful than  Sushmita. “Ah!!! How i wish i was a friend of her. I could spend more time with her rather than with this chatter box Akash” he thought. His eyes didn’t miss her until she walked across the floor to her workplace, and Akash was going on and on and on like he had no off button.

“Dude  who am i talking to - you or your ass!!! Why are you turning the other side? Ohoooo. Your heroine has finally come. So you’ll talk to her today?”

“Oh ya. As if i had the guts to do that. I am not as fast forward as you buddy. I don’t start flirting with women as soon as i see them, like you do. And you talk way too much Akash.”

“Fine  Rohit. If you are not doing it, i will.”

“Thanks buddy , you are my best friend in the world. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“No worries Rohit, no need to thank me. I am glad that you are so happy to accept her as your bhabhi. If I have a son with her, will name him Rohit. Sure.”

“Wait wait. Dude you are a moron , i thought you were going to tell her about me, instead you are cooking your own meal in my fire.”

“Well then you go and talk to her. Else a third guy will get the advantage of our fighting. I’ve always seen that fair north Indian guy, whats his name, nihal something, staring at her too. And he’s much well built too. So better be quick or allow me.”

“Ok ok. Ill talk to her by today. Ok? And you must know that we can never be good friends after i am her friend because i know you’d be flirting with her.”

“Chill man. I would never flirt with any of my friends’ girlfriends. And you are talking as if you have never tried to flirt with someone else’s girlfriend. ”

“I have never done that...”

“Look we can have this conversation whole day. So now spare me some time to work and you go and talk to her. Else  you might have to call her bhabhi or my wife”

“Ok fine. Ill talk to  her.”

“You know what Rohit? If you are too afraid , you must get an Airtel connection.”

“What?”

“Dil jo chahe, pass aaye. If not your courage, at least Airtel’s new 3G network will help you bring her nearer.”

“You are unbelievable Akash. What a PJ. I am talking to her before lunch. And don’t you dare talk to her before me.”

“Jab se uske naina, mere naino se, laage re, tab se diwaana hua...”

“Chuck it. I cant believe you. I am going now.”

It was lunch time and the cafeteria was overly crowded. They finally found a table. Akash said opening his lunch box, “So Rohit, she’s going to be your bhabhi or mine? Did you talk to her?”

“Well Akash, you should know, she was , she is and she will be your bhabhi.”

“That depends you know.”

“Akash , I know you are a big flirt and talking to any girl in office is not a big thing for you. But please spare this one girl, for me.”

“Ok ok, she is my bhabhi. So tell me what did you talk to her.”

“Well i went to her on pretext of asking something related to work. Then asked about her previous company, her hometown, and stuff. Got to know few things about her. She is quite nice you know...”and their conversation drowned in the cafeteria noise.

It was just a co-incidence that most of people Rohit liked and adored like crazy started with ‘R’- Rafael Nadal, Rooney,  RCB, Red Devils, Rahul Dravid, etc. R was his favourite alphabet. He was just crazy about R stuff. May be that was a reason why he liked Roopali. Her name started with R as well.

He hoped she would be his someone special. But rarely had it occurred to him that all those R people he liked, never liked him back.

The next day, Rohit came to office growling and ready to kill Akash. Akash had abandoned him in home and left for office without him without telling him. He as usual saw at Roopali’s workplace. She had not yet come. Then he turned right to Akash’s workplace. He was not there too. Ill kill this guy once he comes, he said to himself and glanced around.

Far away from him in the corridor, he could see Roopali standing. By the looks of her it looked like she was laughing, or giggling. The guy she was standing with, was certainly taking full advantage of this opportunity to impress her. Rohit’s head was now a burning tawa, hot enough to make omletes. He wanted to have a closer look at the guy, so started moving towards them. By the time he started, Roopali and the guy had finished their talk. Roopali had started moving toward workplace and the guy was going away. Rohit rushed to have a look at that guy. While walking to see the guy, Roopali walked past by him, wishing him good morning. He had a small chat with her and then ran to see who the guy was...(to be continued).