Not At First Sight (Episode 4)

Episode4

Havent read the third Episode Yet?? Jump to Episode 3

I was cursing myself for what I had done yesterday. I had slapped her and left her all alone in the rain and then gone home. I hadn’t even turned back to see if she had been crying. But she must have cried. After all, she is a girl.

Making a girl cry was the last thing that I had ever wanted to do in life. I had been feeling guilty from the moment I had gotten up this morning. All my anger had died off.

For the first time in three months I took the company bus to go to office. It was obvious that Disha wouldn’t be offering me a free ride today.

It was different, the journey to office today. While I stared out of the window, I felt that something was missing. Disha’s lame jokes, her courteous laughs at my poor jokes, strands of her hair dancing on my face while she rode her scooty, her inexperience at slowing down on speed breakers which always sent me flying a feet up in the air were not all that I was missing- I was missing a whole lot of Disha.

As I was getting down from the bus I decided that I would apologize. But the very next moment I felt that there was no need to.

Every human being has an advocate inside him who always tries hard to prove himself innocent. I just recollected the negligence that Disha had shown towards my precious work. Even she was guilty.

But she didn’t do it intentionally, said my conscience. But the advocate argued that even if my act hadn’t been intentional, it was her carelessness that had driven me to slap her. After a huge round of debate between me and myself, the judge inside me pronounced the verdict. I will apologize only if she appears to have realized that she shouldn’t have spoilt my writings.

When I entered the cafeteria, she was already there sitting and having her breakfast. I had expected her to be depressed. But she looked fine sitting with a group of colleagues, laughing at their jokes and having breakfast.

There is a specific genre of attitude which asks you to act absolutely fine in front of your close one with whom you have had a fight. Even though you are dying to have a word with him/her, you choose not to do so. You would first want them to be depressed. Depending on the extent of their depression you take the decision whether to talk to them or not.

I had the same plans. I had decided to act absolutely fine and had expected her to be depressed. But when I saw her having good laugh with her colleagues, I felt a sting. My ego was hurt.

“Hello people”, I greeted the group, even though I did so looking only at Disha. She just smiled – a formal smile. And it hurt me again. That smile was supposed to be thrown at someone not so close.

I bought my breakfast and sat at a distant corner of the same table. She was at her jovial best, cracking jokes. The group was laughing its heart out.

I felt Disha had a very good sense of humor, probably because I was jealous.  Her cheeks looked chubby whenever she smiled and it urged me to go straight up to her and pull her cheeks. One of the cheeks was the one which I had slapped. I wondered if her cheeks were indeed chubby or if it had become swollen because of my slap.

All through the breakfast she treated me like any other colleague. I somehow wanted to bring things back to normal.

******************************************************************

“How does it go now? Are we going to stay without talking forever?” I asked. Yes, I had surrendered. She was at her desk. Her desk looked different today. She had pasted photographs of her college days all over the walls of her compartment. One fat teddy adorned her desk.

“I am fine this way” she said.

“But I am not fine”

“So what am I supposed to do? I don’t run an Art of Living course”. She looked as if she was prepared to have this conversation.

“Don’t talk like that. I am missing you” I said and looked around. The office looked empty and people were yet to come.

“Please listen ..!” I pleaded once again. This time I did it with extra emotions.

“Will you please let me do my work!” she said with her usual volume levels (she shouted). A guy, who was sitting almost seventy meters away, busily working on his computer, lifted his head. 

I opened my hands signaling that everything was fine. He buried his head into the computer once again.

“Please don’t create a scene, Adi..!! Leave me alone” she said.

I felt strange. This looked more like those patch up scenes between couples who had broken up. I recollected how in college days my ideas had managed to patch up more than one couple. I wondered why I was not able to think of any ideas now.

A cardiologist- however famous he is, however expert he is- cannot operate on his own heart. The same theory applies here also, I thought. But I am not in love, so this analogy doesn’t hold good.

Or probably, it was because I was an expert at helping couples patch up but still a novice at doing the same between friends. That was why I was not able to think of any idea for patching up with Disha.

The mindless conversation inside my mind continued as I walked towards my desk and started working.

******************************************************************

For the next four days I was busy trying to rekindle my friendship with Disha. I kept gifts on her desk. I offered her chocolates. I tried speaking to her in office. My mobile tariff plan didn’t include free messaging. Yet I sent her almost a hundred messages. She didn’t bother to reply. I flooded her call logs with my calls. She didn’t bother to answer.

However, the result remained the same. The only thing that kept on changing was my account balance. It was shrinking. My mind asked me to stop spending and that it wasn’t worth spending on her. But I was a guy who always listened to his heart. And my heart said that if we become friends again I would get free rides which would compensate for the money I was spending on her. The heart is always right..!!

It was eight in the night. I went to her society and sat on a bench facing her apartment. She lived on the sixth floor. I was determined to make her come down and to have a word with her. I wanted to settle things, once and for all.

‘I am downstairs sitting on the bench. I want to talk to you. I am not leaving until you come down’, I typed into my cellphone. I gave it one good look before sending. The text looked too plain. I added three smileys- Angry, sad and sad.

I was about to send it to her, but then I felt the smileys were unnecessary. Using smileys would make the message seem lighter and would not convey the right seriousness of the emotions I felt. I removed all the smileys and clicked ‘Send’.

I anticipated her to call me up and ask me to leave, since it might create a scene in the society. If she does so, then I will ask her to come downstairs. I will threaten not to leave the society and to sleep on the bench until she agrees. My mind was doing countless calculations.

Five minutes went by. No response. I felt sick. Every thirty seconds I checked my cellphone for her message. I knew that my cellphone would beep upon receiving her message. But I still couldn’t help checking it.

 ‘I am a man of my words. I won’t leave the society and will sleep here only, I swear.’ I sent one more message, again without any smileys.

Ten minutes went by, still there was no response. I was restless. She should have sent some kind of response by now. At the least she should have sent her sentry to the gate, to shoo me away.

I was going mad, frustrated, annoyed, restless and what not. I didn’t have time to look into a dictionary for a more appropriate word for what I was feeling.

When you are desperate you tend to grow rational. She might have sent me messages and probably the network had become jammed, I guessed. I switched off my cell phone and turned it on again. I repeated the exercise for the next twenty minutes but with no great results.

I thought of sending one more message but, then, I thought I should call her. I dialed her number. I couldn’t hear anything for the next ten seconds. My heart was pounding hard.

‘The number which you have dialed is on another call. Please stay on the line or call sometime later’, I heard the Vodafone lady saying. She was on a call. Probably that’s why she didn’t reply to my message, I consoled myself.

But what should I do now? Should I wait for her to read my message? But if she doesn’t read it, then there was no point in my staying there and sleeping on the bench tonight. The temperature was dropping each second; it was cold.

I waited for ten more minutes and called her again. The same annoying lady told me that the line was busy. Each stroke of breeze diluted my determination to sleep on the bench.

After half an hour, I called her up again. She was still on call. Who is she talking to for so long, I wondered. Some family member of her in trouble was my first guess. If so, should I be worried about them too? Or is she really on a call or is she faking it by exploiting the capabilities of her smartphone? If so, I should download an app to check the same. Or is she some secret spy of an enemy nation planning a bomb blast? That sounded scary. Or is she talking to her secret boyfriend?  The very thought of it made me sick. The time read eleven-thirty.

“Hey you..!! What are you doing?” I heard someone saying. I saw the security guard standing next to me. He was holding a fat brown stick. I froze completely. She had sent the guard down, I assumed.

“You don’t reside here. Do you?” he asked frowning. 

“Well..!! Hmm.. Ah..”, I searched for words.

“Before I kick you out from the campus, leave by yourself” he warned me waving his stick.

A few minutes ago I had claimed to be the man of my words. But now what was more important was saving my ass rather than proving myself to be the man of his words.

Anyway, she wouldn’t have read my messages. So it wouldn’t matter even if I stay here, I felt.

Before he could pull out his choicest swear words and hit me with his stick, I walked out of the gate, safely and briskly.

******************************************************************

 “Hi Vinya..!” I waved at my colleague. You could say that Vinya was one of the hot prettiest colleagues of mine. That doesn’t mean that I greeted her because she was beautiful. Usually if a person intends to admire a girl’s beauty he doesn’t greet her. Instead he silently stands at a distance and does all the admiring.

I greeted Vinya because she was with Disha. I somehow wanted to ignore Disha. Greeting Vinya and not Disha was one of the easiest ways of ignoring her.  

When you have fought with a close one, you tend to do things which defeat all logic. You will be angry with that person. But not satisfied with being angry, you would want that person to know that you are angry. You will want to ignore the person, but you will also be trying hard to make that person know that you are trying to ignore him or her.

Disha appeared oblivious of me ignoring her. She was also ignoring me. Or was she trying to make me feel ignored?

During the team meeting that day I purposely ignored her when I spoke to the team. You could say I was one of those guys who could ignore any beautiful lady however strong an urge I had to talk to her. I ignored her while going out for coffee. I asked the colleagues sitting next to her for coffee; I asked everyone in our friend circle for coffee. I was doing my best to make her feel ignored.

The weak point of most beautiful ladies is that they can’t bear the feeling of being ignored. Honestly, I don’t know if they can handle attention but they definitely can’t handle being ignored.

Towards the end of the day I could see that Disha was annoyed by this strategy of mine. Though I was enjoying my newfound success in making her feel bad, I was really upset seeing her mood dip. After all I was her best friend. I couldn’t see her sad. When she is sad, she looks ugly.

I felt that I should go up to her and apologize. But the gentleman called ‘Ego’ sitting inside me told me that she should greet me at the least. It even suggested to me that I should continue the same exercise for at least one more day.

******************************************************************

Next morning I woke to find a message in my inbox. It was from Disha.

‘If you want a ride to office, give me a call. I will pick you up’ read the message. There was no smiley. I thought for a while. Evidently, I was all happy. But the ‘if you want’ part of the message didn’t look all that beautiful.

Clearly, she was desperate to give me a ride to office but then she wanted it to appear as if I was desperate to get a ride. She was smart.

Given that I was an arrogant smart ass, I chose not to reply. I took the office bus. I guess she must have waited for me.

When I reached the cafeteria for breakfast, she was already there. This time she wasn’t in her ‘all joking mode’. It was obvious. She looked humiliated and depressed. I continued to ignore her by greeting everyone by their names, except her.

I bought myself gobi paratha (Disha’s favorite breakfast item) and came back to the table. Disha saw my plate and pulled an empty chair closer to her. That was an invitation to sit next to her. Every time I bought gobi paratha, Disha used to grab a bite. 

Even now she wanted to have it. But I thought I deserved a better invitation. I ignored her completely and sat two seats away from her.

Along with the breakfast I started having a conversation with my colleagues. Today I was at my humorous best. Each joke of mine and people were laughing to their knees. I constantly kept a watch on Disha with the corner of my eye. She had more than many emotions going through her. She was enjoying my jokes - she was laughing at them, she was jealous because of my proximity to the other colleagues and she was sad because I was ignoring her.

But I was neither enjoying the conversation nor the sumptuous breakfast. Even I was sad because I was making her feel sad and because we weren’t talking to each other.

The whole day went by without the two of us talking to one another. There were moments when it appeared that she wanted to have a conversation. But, we didn’t.

After a fight with your close one, you won’t talk to each other. Ego prevails. Later you both want to talk to each other but you wouldn’t know how to proceed. Only your eyes do the talking. Both of you will realize that you both want to have a conversation, very badly. But you will neither have courage nor words to speak. An awkward moment of silence prevails.

******************************************************************

The time read 9 pm. I was on my way to Greenglow Street. It was a thirty minutes journey from my place. I had a birthday party to attend. I got down from the bus, when my cellphone alerted that I have a new message.

I looked at the screen. It was a message from Disha. Without wasting a second, I opened it.

‘I want to go on a walk in my society and I want you to join me’. There was no smiley. She was ordering me to join her. I didn’t need a smiley because in her order was hidden a clear stamp of affection and love. You can show authority only to people whom you think are dear to you. Clearly, she was missing me.

I didn’t waste time thinking. I ran across the street and jumped into a moving bus. The conductor started abusing me. I didn’t care about his abuses or about attending the birthday party.

I hurriedly replied. ‘Would you mind if I turn up in messy hair, sweaty clothes in thirty five minutes?’

She replied in forty seconds, ‘J J’.

*****************************************************************

Both of us didn’t speak for one minute. I was nervous and she was nervous too. But she was smiling. We silently started walking.

I looked at her again. Both of us smiled again.

“Sorry…!” we both jumped into saying simultaneously. It reminded me of the typical movie scenes in Bollywood.

After twenty seconds of silence, I was the first person to speak.

“Sorry, for what? For making me come at this time of the night?” I winked.

“Ah ..!! Very funny..!! And why are you saying sorry? Because you look messy, you are sweating and because you are stinking?” she smiled. Aww..!! Under the moonlight she was looking beautiful and now she flashed a beautiful smile. I held my heart tightly. Trees along the path looked really lovely under the light of lamp posts.

“Sorry” I apologized and continued, “Hmmm..!! Because I slapped you, because I ignored you, because I made you cry, because I made you feel sad, because I didn’t talk to you”. I was clearly violating all grammar rules of English with too many ‘because’-s, but what mattered the most was to apologize.

“Huh..!! Sorry accepted” she said and winked, “Even I am sorry Adi for spoiling your precious work. And even I ignored you. Sorry for that”. Her face dropped. There was a gentle breeze flowing around us and i felt even colder.

“Aww..!! You look ugly when you are sad. Cheer up..!!” I said and drew an invisible smiley on her face with my fingers. She smiled.

“Disha I want you to know that I missed you” I said.

“Needless to say but I missed you too”, she kept it cute and simple. I felt good. The night looked really lovely. When you have moonlight, beautiful vista, lamp posts, cool breeze, lonely path to walk and Disha alongside you, it is evident that the scene would be beautiful.

What else should I say now, I wondered. The ritual of patch up wouldn’t be over this quickly and easily. I wished to take out my smartphone and google for ‘best ways to apologize after patch up’. But I didn’t do it.

“I promise. I will never make you cry”, I delivered my next dialogue. It sounded dramatic, but I meant it. “Actually, all these days I wanted to speak to you very badly. But I intentionally ignored you”, I confessed honestly.

“Bad guy..!!!”, she smirked.

I smiled. “You know what the hardest thing to do is? To resist an urge to talk to the dearest and closest person! I tell you, it’s the most difficult thing to do. I did a great job by acting as if I was ignoring you!” I raised my collar. Am I sounding too romantic? I wondered.

“Same pinch” she said and laughed. With each passing minute, I was feeling better and better. This was turning out to be the most beautiful day of my life. At distance I could see a couple happily walking, holding their hands.

“Aww ..!! That hurts..!” I said acting hurt, though she didn’t pinch me.

“Overacting..!! You will never win an award” she said and tousled my hair which was already messy. I had a tough time handling my heart which was pounding hard.

“Hey, I forgot to ask you. Did you really sleep here on the bench that day?” she asked me. I felt this question could throw light on history’s most embarrassing moment.

“Before that, tell me whom were you talking to that night. You were on the phone for more than three hours”, I asked. That was a genuine doubt.

“Well..!!Hmm…” she started searching for words. Her face went pale. My curiosity grew in leaps and bounds.

“That was Rohan. My ex-boyfriend...!” she said softly, “I had been feeling depressed that day. I called him up and we patched up”

“I told him that you had slapped me” she continued.

“He will be coming here tomorrow evening. And he wants to meet you” she had nothing more to say.

But when she was done, I was upset and shocked. I didn’t know why I was upset. Was I upset because she had a boyfriend, or because they had patched up now, or because he wanted to meet me or because he knew that I had slapped her..!!

But within a moment, everything was clear. I was upset and shocked not because of her relationship or because I was supposed to meet her boyfriend the next day.

I was upset and shocked because I had realized that I had fallen for her, completely..!! I just froze as she stood waiting for my response.

To be continued…