Is This Love : Part 2

Continued from: Part1 .....

Naina had been quite restless recently. Tarun had not come online for weeks now.

She spends her days flipping through his pictures and posts a zillion times a day, admiring them.

She spends hours analyzing the reason for his absence. Reads his last messages over and over again to get some clue. Nah.. Surely he must have been busy with work or has gone for some unplanned vacation.. whatever.. she decides to wait..

It was a lazy weekday morning. Naina had decided to work from home. Reluctantly she boots her laptop while preparing her morning cup of coffee. Scans through her to-do-list and office emails for work and sighs in relief. Nothing that can’t be postponed till tomorrow or till she gets over her morning blues, smiles Naina.

About an hour later she is back to check her emails again. She opens up her Facebook account to check the updates while scanning through her emails again.

“Tarun is online” popped up from the gtalk notifications!

Her heart skipped a beat. She felt a strange mixture of happiness and anger rush through her head. She had so many questions to ask him that had been flooding her thoughts all these days. Where was he?

She waited for him to respond.

10 minutes pass… No response. Unable to resist, she pings him.

N: Hi

T: Hey Hi
N:wassup?
T:nothing..
Nothing?? She pauses.

T:how are you?
N:fine… n u?
T:very good..
N:hmmmm..

N:long time..huh?

T:Hmm..i have a news.. J guess what?
N:what??
T: I got engaged!! :P
What! She pauses and re-reads the whole conversation.
N: what? You mean Sagaai?
T: na re…not yet…but will be scheduled soon.. J
N: W…o…w J J J
She takes long to type just three letters.. Before pressing the Enter she deliberately adds some smileys.

N: Whos the lucky girl?

T: it’s a surprise yaar…you will have to wait till I officially announce it.
N: congrats yaar! She finds herself gasping for breath.
T: Thanks.

She stares blankly at the screen…

Writes..Erases…writes again…erase again

T: ok..gotta go..catch you later. Bye

N: bye.
T: take care
N: J
*end of chat*

A slow smile touches her lips.

She rolls over in her bed and stares at the ceiling. Tears flow freely from her eyes.

(Disclaimer : All characters in this post are completely fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons or incidents is purely coincidental.)

PAGLU-2

After a long tiring day at work I plunged into the cab with one of my colleagues who happen to share the same cab drop that day. Exhausted by the long Mid year goals discussion with my supervisor, I slammed the door of the ambassador and sighed. It was late and the weather looked promising enough to give us a tough time along the 1 hour journey especially the first 30minutes.

We started our usual frustrated conversation cursing the person whose idea was to build a office at this remote location, the government of neglecting the roads and accidents in Basanti Highway, the client for not enough onsite opportunities, even the cab driver  for being late and making us wait. Just then it started pouring and we cursed out luck too.

We saw the cab driver rush from one of the small “Jhoops”, a small hut type tea stall, stuffing a Bapuji Cake in his mouth. The mobile phone battery was running low and I thought it would not be a good idea to turn on the Radio.

 "Cholo , salt lake hoye laketown”, Lake town Via Salt lake, I purposely try to sound restless and irritated by his punctuality.

“Dada, garite gaan ache?”, can you play some songs, I Ask him. Just then I looked closely at him. A skinny boy,  appeared not more than 18. He wore a red Tee with black collars with – PAGLU written in neon at his back. I wondered if he had a valid driving license.

“Naa”, he replied back regretfully.

“Jai hok”, whatever, I sighed and start the conversation with my colleague about the poor lighting condition on the roads. It had started pouring heavily by then, making it very difficult to drive.

We were progressing at a mere speed of 20km/hour along a road lined by tall trees and dense bushes.

We were crossing the local village market when he suddenly stopped the car and got down hurriedly. Not a single human being was to be spotted around. Almost all the shops had their shutter down. The heavy rains had made the visibility very poor to spot the boy’s whereabouts. Both of us were equally tensed and I literally freaked out ten minutes after the boy vanished. I was just about to call the office transport desk for help when he appeared....Drenched…with a CD in his hand!

 “CD chilo na Sir”, he said while inserting the CD. Our jaws drop, but we were really touched by the gesture.

The first song starts. Some peppy romantic Bengali song which I have not heard before.

“Ki gaan eta?”, which song is this, I ask my colleague.

“AWARA, recent movie ta”, he answered confidently. “Never heard before?”
Suddenly the driver turned back and said, “Na na, eta PAGLUr gaan, Dev ache..”
“Ki??”
“Haa ami to onekbar dekhechi, hall  e…PAGLU-2 o berochhe.. ”
We are quite amused by the response and continue the conversation with the self proclaimed Dev-fan..

 He eagerly tells us that his favorite actor is Dev, but he likes watching Jeet’s films too. He doesn’t like Koyel being paired with Dev and that he has promised to take his wife to watch PAGLU-2!

What! Is he married!! Anyways…

 My colleague starts enquiring him about how long he has been in this profession etc etc.

What seemed to be a boring journey after the long boring day at work, turned out to be a small adda drive, in the backdrop of the heavy rains and Dev hits.

Both of us equally refreshed and re-charged as we reach our respective drop points.

“Good night Madam..”

"Good night…Pore dekha hole bolo PAGLU-2 kemon laglo..”

He blushed, as he sped by.

 

 

Weekends

 With still half open eyes I check my cell phone. Saturday, 8AM….Disappointedly I check my sms inbox and Facebook updates to recall any special engagements and shopping–appointments for the day. None…

I open my eyes harder and look around and see my sister hurrying and getting dressed for office.

“Toder bank e Saturday chhuti dey na kano bol to?”. Why doesn’t your bank have holidays in Saturday?

“Jatey toder moton IT r lokera aste pare”, So that people like you can visit it during their holidays.  She replied with a grin while searching her uniform tie from a pile of clothes.

Pffff…why did I get up so early….

I got up and went to the living room…my father is going through the headlines of the freshly arrived newspaper and my mother is busy arranging god-knows-what in the room. Both seemed equally surprised to see me. I ignored their looks and sat down looking at the empty tea cups.

 “Jol Kheyechis??”, had water?. Baba broke the silence.
Maa facing a serious competition too joined, “Sokale utechis to Yoga ta koris tahole?”, So that you have woken up early, you have time to do some Yoga.
 I felt it was safe then to escape from their vicinity.

About half an hour later I am back to the living room area with my freshly prepared tea and Marie biscuit. Maa is busy explaining the latest Suicide story from the newspaper to our help who is listening spell bounded sitting on the floor, floor mop in her hand. Baba must have gone to the nearby Bazaar.

“Ki khabi?”, what will you eat , Maa asked not even taking her eyes off the newspaper.

I pause a bit before replying wondering what are my options. “Ki ache?”
 “kalker rater torkari but ruti ta sokalei korechi”, the leftover curry and freshly prepared rotis, Maa replied making it sound like as if she has ordered something from Rahmania.
 She has emerged as a master in re-cycling all the leftover foods over 29 years of home-making.

I go back to my room and open my laptop. Hello Mr. Ratan Tata or whoever the responsible person may be, can you please change the start up page of tata-photon-plus of yahoo news. I am least interested in the wardrobe malfunctions of the celebrities and the food that would help me look younger.  Anyways, may be I should google myself to find it out.

My father has returned and peeps into my room.

“ki re jol kheyechis?”, Did you have water?
There must be some special relation between Baba and Water in his last birth, maybe he was Bisleri owner or something …but for now it gets on my nerves at times. I nod my head to respond without looking up.
“Kire serious kichu?”, anything serious, asks  Baba. The fact that he thinks I am always doing official work whenever I am with my laptop.
“Naa”.
“Naa???” , he asks again not convinced by my ans.
Arrghhh… :-/

Maa emerges out of nowhere, smelling some conspiracy between the father-daughter.

“Dekhna kichu elo kina”, check if something has come up. Obviously she is referring to the BM requests.
“Naa asheni”, Nothing yet.
“Areey dekh na ekbar”..
“Ufff, Maa!!”

My cell phone rings and I give them a can-I-get-some-Privacy look. Uknown number, must be bank or unicef….. :-/

“Hello, its me from the gym”

“Oh Hi!”
“The aerobics class which was cancelled has been re-scheduled at 1PM”
“Oh Great”
“Sorry for notifying in such a short notice.”
“Oh no problem at all…”

Wah!! Excited me get up and starting sorting my newly bought Tees that would hopefully give Miss Branded and Miss Wanna-be-model  some competition.

 My cell phone beeps just as I was about to step out of home. A Text message from a close friend.  

“Shopping and a long drive after that??”. My friend had bought a new car and has showed a middle finger to all those who thought girls can’t drive.

“Wow! Sounds like a plan.. at 4pm sharp”, I text back

 I luvvveeee my weekends!!