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...)
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ReplyDeleteI wonder who is that roopali....:)
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