Here’s the link to the first part of the story: Part -1

I started getting a bit restless. I didn’t know what to do, I tried calling her for the next one hour with no luck. I considered going to her place, but I didn’t know what to expect, so I wasn’t sure if that was the best move. Right then I got a text from her: “Sorry I was in a bad mood, I will talk to you tomorrow”. Something felt weird, she yells at me for nothing and then apologizes for it. One thing was clear to me or so I thought, I had nothing to do with her bad mood. It was something else. I was convinced it was probably okay to show up at her place after all.

I needed to have enough ammunition to deal with the situation. They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend but I would say flowers are a cheaper alternative(Btw, I can be killed for this statement). I went straight to a florist and asked him to make a bunch of roses. I couldn’t give a bunch of red roses, so I asked him to mix it up with all colors, but have more reds than any other color. I put the bunch in my backpack and started to her place.

I was a little nervous when I got there and rang the door bell. Her mom opened the door.  I introduced myself as Priya’s friend, Sid. She said “So you are Sid, Priya talks about you all the time”. She invited me in.  Then I asked her if Priya was home and she responded “It’s one of those days, she doesn’t want to meet anyone”. I asked “where is she now?”. “She is in her room upstairs but I’m not sure if she is going to come out. You can try knocking her door”, she said.

I went upstairs and knocked her door. A quivering voice responded,  “Go away, I don’t want to talk to you today”.  I said, “I’m stubborn too, I’m just going to wait here until you come out”. She didn’t respond for about five minutes, but then she opened the door.

“I’m not really in a mood to talk to anyone today”
“Me neither, but someone ruined my day with a stupid response on the phone. Btw, you look so ugly when you cry.”
“How dare you say that? That’s why I didn’t want you to come in”
“Ok, ok! Now will you tell me what’s happening.”
“Nothing!”

I thought I have to start playing this ‘nothing’ game now. When a girl says there’s nothing, it just means that she is not going to tell you very easily. You have to ask for it again and again until she is pleased enough to tell you about it. So, I know I’m not going to get the answer very soon, but I have to give her the impression that I’m trying hard enough to get it out of her. In this particular case though, I really wanted to know what was going on. After playing this game for a bit with not much success, I decided to use my ammunition. I opened my backpack and gave her the rose bunch. I don’t know what is it about the flowers that makes her so happy, but she couldn’t hide the smile on her face. Now capitalizing on the moment, I said “I’m hungry, I didn’t even have breakfast in the morning because of you. Can we please go out and get some lunch?”. She lightened up a bit and said, “OK give me a few minutes, I will get ready”.

We had lunch at a nearby restaurant. She didn’t speak much; I realized she was hungry as well. She later told me that she skipped her dinner last night as well. After lunch, we went to a hang out place near the lake and sat on a bench facing the lake. It was a cloudy day, adding a bit of gloominess to the mood. The place had a few fast food joints and it usually gets crowded in the evening. But now, as it was just an hour past noon, there wasn’t much of a crowd except for a few college kids, who presumably bunked the college, roaming around with their back packs.

Then she started talking “A few months ago, I was introduced to a guy by one of my friends at a party. That guy somehow got hold of my mobile number. He called me and started asking me out for dinner. I politely said no. But when he tried a couple of times after that, I gave him a strong warning. He never called after that, so I forgot about that matter. Yesterday, my friend called me and asked me if I knew that guy. I told her what happened. She then told me that she got to know from someone about how that guy was making lewd comments about me and my character. I was completely taken aback by that. I don’t know why guys are like this, I didn’t even do any harm to him”. She had tears in her eyes, I could see that she was hurt badly.

Then I looked into her eyes and said, “Let me tell you something about this girl I know. She is extremely beautiful, to the extent that she won a beauty pageant in her college, she is the gold medalist of her undergrad batch, she is a good dancer, and she has hosted some large scale events, while working for NGOs. Her name is Priya. That’s you”. Her face started to lighten up a little bit, I continued, “and then there is the guy you mentioned, who is no way an equal to you, but just probably wanted to boost his ego by going out with you. But when you said no, he just did a sour grapes. That’s his only way out of the situation. Now, let me tell you one thing, given what you are, you will always encounter these kinds of people who will try to bog you down, you can either get pulled back by them and spoil your mood or just ignore and not let them impact you in any way. It’s a choice you have to make”.

She came closer to me, rested her head on my chest and said “thank you so much”. That moment, I felt really good about myself, I should have said something right. It started to drizzle a bit, so we got up and started walking towards the food court for shelter. Then she suddenly stopped and asked “Why were there more red roses than any other roses in the bunch you gave me”. I was totally caught off guard, I stuttered and only could manage “Is it?”. She started smiling already. It sometimes amazes me how many things women can keep track off.

The next few days were probably the best days of my life, we were together for at least 12 hours every day, roamed around in all the different places in the city and she even let me ride her bike. She is the best thing that could have ever happened to me. If you ask me whether I deserved her, I would say I don’t know, but I know one thing for sure, I can make her smile. I didn’t have a lot of time left, I wanted to tell her that I really loved her, but I’m afraid of what’s going to happen, given the past. I don’t want to lose her again, but I had to do something. So I called her up and said that there was a birthday party on Thursday(I would be leaving for US the next day), which I wanted her to come along. She said yes without even asking any questions.

It was Wednesday night I was checking all the travel documents for my trip back to Seattle on Friday. I got a shocker when I realized that I had to leave the next day itself. I had a 9 AM flight, so I had to be in the airport latest by 6:30 AM. I called up Priya and told her about it and needless to mention, she was annoyed and hung up the phone on me. I had to pack all the stuff overnight, so I wouldn’t even be able to meet her. I tried calling her a couple of times, but she wouldn’t pick up the phone.

Priya speaks …
I was so annoyed that night when he called to say that he had to leave the next morning and wouldn’t even be able to meet me before he leaves. I don’t know when I would see him again. I felt as if a part of me was leaving. I started imagining how my world would be without him and I felt really lonely. With him, I could be myself. He was interesting in his own way, he would acknowledge his flaws even before you could crib about them. He knows himself well and more importantly, I think he knows what makes me happy. I wouldn’t even have expected this would happen, but I have a feeling that I’m starting to love him. But I’m not sure how he feels about me now, I’ve made him promise that he wouldn’t propose to me again. Now I really wish he does.

I spent the entire night thinking about him. I could hardly sleep, I checked the watch, and it was already 7 AM. I looked at my phone only to see a ton of missed calls from him. So, I called him up. Before I could say anything at all, he started off. “Priya, I know you are pissed off with me, I will make it up to you, I promise. But I really need this help from you”. I was still mad at him, but I just said “go on”. “Remember I told you about this party I was going to take you to. I selected a gift for that party and I need you to go to that shop and pick it up. They should have it ready by now. You need to pay for it.  One of my cousins will call you around 11 AM and will let you know where to hand over the stuff. I will text you the details of the gift shop. I got to go now, will talk to you later, sorry once again, don’t be mad at me!”

Though I was mad at him, now is not the time to show my anger. He will pay for it, though. In the mean time, I got a text message from Sid with the gift shop details. That shop would only open around 10:30 AM, so I had a lot of time. A part of me was hoping Sid stayed back if only for a day, may be his flight gets cancelled or he forgets his passport: he is quite capable of that. I told myself that if he happens to stay back for some reason, I’m going to tell him what’s in my heart. But then quickly I realized its not going to happen, he might already be on his plane now.

I reached the gift shop in time and told Sid’s name as suggested in his text, and the lady at the shop came back with a gift wrapped item. I was thinking what it could be: A photo frame, I thought at first, but its way too lighter for that. A bunch of posters was my second guess, but I didn’t see anyone gift-wrapping posters that way. It cost 250 bucks, but I still couldn’t make out what it was! I paid for it and right when I was about to step out, I got a call on my phone. A guy who introduced himself as Ravi, requested me if I could hand it over at the party venue, which was just a few minutes walk away from the gift shop. I told him I will be there in another 5 minutes.

I reached the venue and as I entered it, I felt something weird. The party was supposed to be tonight, but the arrangements seemed far from complete. One of the staff members there approached me and asked if I was Priya and directed me to a conference room a little inside. I entered the conference room and was amazed at how beautifully it was decorated. It had a red theme and it was filled with a few hundreds of roses decorated in different styles. The conference room itself was very small so I didn’t know what kind of an event could be hosted in it. But someone definitely had taste.

Then I saw someone approaching the conference and to my astonishment, it was Sid. He was dressed in formals and looked very handsome. It was one of my cribs that he never wore formals. But I didn’t understand what he was doing there, he was supposed to be on the plane. On one hand, I was so happy to see him, but on the other hand, I was still mad at him. But before I could say anything, he started off “I will explain everything later, but first let’s look at what you got for me”.

“What did I get for you?”
“The gift lying there, I guess that’s for me!”
“Seems big, what’s in it?”
“Why are you asking me, you should know”
“It’s your gift, you bought it for me right? Stop arguing and come over”

I stood next to him as I was also curious as to where he was going with this. He unwrapped the gift packet, in his usual clumsy way. But then he stopped half way and said, “actually this can wait for a bit”. Then he made some gesture and all of a sudden artificial snow flakes started coming down in the room. For the next few minutes it was absolute magic. The lights dimmed down and screens on the three walls of the room started projecting my pictures capturing my different moods. Then suddenly the room went dark and a spotlight came up at the place we were standing. He took my hands into his hands and looked at me straight into the eye. I felt like I had no shield at all, he was looking straight into my soul. Then he said “Priya, I know I’m taking a big risk by doing this, I might lose you for the rest of my life, but if I don’t do it, the regret of not doing it would haunt me forever. I love you and I want to be with you for the rest of my life. Now I just can’t imagine a life without you, you have filled my life with the little nuances you have brought into every aspect of my life. I understand that I’m by no means the perfect match for you, I can never be, I have too many flaws, but I do know I can make an honest effort to fix them. I may or may not succeed, the only thing I can promise is that I would at least put it in an honest effort. I will do everything possible in this world to make you happy, after all you are my princess. I could love you for a lot of reasons, but the one that stands out is the fact that you make me happy just by way of being yourself”. Then he closed his eyes, paused for a bit and said, “I love you Priya!”. I was mesmerized by his tone when he said that, and reacted almost impulsively “I love you too Sid!”. Then he opened his eyes, which were moist by then. Before I could think much, he reached out to kiss me and I couldn’t resist. There are some feelings in this world which can’t be explained but just need to be experienced and this was definitely one of them. We hugged tight for a while, we didn’t talk at all, there was no need to talk.

Then Sid announced, “This isn’t over yet, open the greeting card”. The greeting card was huge and it opened up into a huge heart shape which had our photos printed on it. And some tunes started playing. As it turns out, they were the tunes of my favorite music tracks hand picked by Sid. I was totally loving it. We spent another 30 minutes there and left. I took pictures of the place, for those were going to make for long lasting memories.

Sid speaks…
I’m just glad how that day turned out. I left for US the next day, but I moved back to Hyderabad in a couple of months and we lived together happily ever after. I had my doubts when I decided that I would go full on with the ‘filmi’ proposal setup, I knew that I just had a 50-50 chance. But then when life gives you a second chance, you got to squeeze every bit out of it

I was standing on the Raj Bhavan road trying to find an auto to head back home.  It was 2 PM in the afternoon and I was already feeling tired. After all, it was just the second day in my month long trip to India and the effect of jet lag was showing. It was a sunny day, very different from the weather in Seattle where I haven’t seen the sun for almost a month now. I couldn’t handle the brightness, so had to put on my goggles. I waited for about ten minutes trying to find an auto with  no luck, so I started walking towards a junction where the probability of finding an auto is much higher.

As I was walking past a coffee shop on the way, I saw a girl coming out of it and my heart started pounding . I was hoping it wasn’t her, but I was wrong. She was as stunning as ever.  It’s been almost four years since I saw her and I didn’t know if I should say hi to her or not. Our last meeting didn’t particularly go well. As all these thoughts were rushing through mind, she was walking towards me, I realized I was only a few feet away from her bike. I already started rehearsing what I would say to her, “Hey Priya, How are u? Its been a long time”, “Priya, remember me?” and so on. Now she was very close to me and it was the time to act. So, I called her name “Pppriya”. Actually, the words hardly came out of my mouth. “Try harder  Sid, you have nothing to lose”, I said to myself and tried again, “PRIYA!” I called out a little louder than needed. She turned around.

“How are you?”, I asked. There was a kind of a look on her face, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“Priya, this is Sid”, I said taking off my goggles.
“You have changed a lot!”, that was her first reaction. I was too proud of myself, for that reaction meant a lot to me. Later she would tell me how many times she told her mom that day as to how much I changed.
Then she said “I’m fine”.
“It’s been a while! I’m living in US and just here for a month on a vacation”. In my anxiety, I was telling her stuff even before she asked.
“That’s nice! And yeah it’s been a while”, she said.
I didn’t know if she wanted to continue the conversation or not. Then I just said, “Listen! Whatever happened in the past, I’m sorry about it. I was lame back then. I hope you are cool now”.
“I forgot about that a while ago. That’s fine, its good to see you”.
“I will be here for a month, and if you want to meet sometime, here’s my number”. I realized just then what a mistake I’ve done. Knowing her, even if she wanted to get my number, she has to do it in a way that doesn’t give out what she actually feels about it. I didn’t want to ask her number as the answer would definitely be no. So, I quickly improvised “Actually I don’t have a paper, but the number is easy to memorize, its 9885(vodafone standard prefix) followed by 556-557.” I repeated that twice. Then I said “bye!” and she left on her bike.

Flashback

“Priya, I have something to tell you”.
“Wassup Sid! You sound a little different”.
“Tell me you wouldn’t be mad at me”
“Come on, you know me and why would I be mad at my best friend”.
“Priya, I think I’m in love with you”
“What? You are joking right”
“No, I’m serious”.
“Sid, you are my best friend, but I have never thought of you that way”.
“Can’t you try now?”
“I don’t know what to say, why are you doing this? It was so good, our friendship, why do you have to ruin it now”
“We are good friends and that’s why I want you to be with me always”.
“No Sid, I’m sorry”
“Priya, I know why you are saying this, just because those two guys are after you trying to get your attention, you think you are too good for me”
“What the hell? How dare you say that to me?”
“Hurts to accept the truth isn’t it?”
“You want the truth, now listen, we both are very different, you are an introvert and I’m an extrovert, you don’t have any self-confidence, you stutter half the time while talking. Now tell me, who would like you? Except for me, no other girl would even talk to you”.
“Shut up! I don’t need you, I don’t need your friendship. To hell with you. Good bye!”.
“Sid! why are you doing this?”

I left the place immediately without even looking back.

Lesson in life: Don’t get carried away by Bollywood movies which portray that friends can be partners as well. They are wrong.

For the next 2 days, I was constantly checking my mobile phone hoping that she would call me. Right then, when I was about to give up hope, I got a text message “It was really nice meeting you after such a long time – Priya”.  Now she did two things by sending that text message, she gave her number to me, and then she indirectly showed her intent to meet me. But obviously, being a girl, she didn’t ask for it explicitly.  I immediately wanted to ask if she wanted to meet me, but felt that it might actually sound a little desperate.

I replied, “You haven’t changed a bit, as beautiful as ever”. I’m yet to see a girl who wouldn’t be flattered, when praised of her beauty.
“Stop lying, you have changed a lot though”, she replied.
“Yeah, had to, too many girl friends, anyway do you have sometime tomorrow for a coffee”.
“4:00 PM at Barista”, she responded.
“Cool, see you tomorrow then!”.

I was so ecstatic that I started dancing around in my room. My mom came into the room right then, and I had to stop in embarrassment.

I couldn’t sleep that entire night. I woke up in the morning and went for a jog, then came back and worked out again. I ironed my clothes for the first time in life. I had to iron almost all my clothes as I wasn’t sure which one I would wear. My mom thought living in the US has had some positive effects on me.  But to her shock, I took a shower at 3:oo PM in the afternoon just to be fresh. Then I went into my room and came out ready to leave.  My mom would later know that all the clothes that I’ve ironed in the morning are back to their original form.

I took an auto to reach the coffee shop. I was there right on time. I looked into the glass wall of the coffee shop to check how I looked, and then in a hurry slipped over one of the steps at the entrance. I somehow balanced myself without falling but tried to make sure no one has seen my clumsiness, but the damage was already done. She saw it and was laughing already. I had to manage a dumb smile.

We exchanged pleasantries formally, but as we talked for a few minutes, the tone of our conversation became more informal and it felt like before. It’s amazing how soon you can connect even after a long gap, if you were friends at certain point. Within no time, we started laughing so much remembering all the silly things we did when we were friends.

Suddenly, she changed her tone and said “I missed you Sid, missed you a lot. I missed my best friend. You never called after that day. I know I said some nasty things, but I really always thought of you as a friend and I was completely taken aback when you proposed to me. I was going through a bad phase in life and I didn’t have any friend. Why did you do that?”. I put my hand over her’s and told her “All this may be, happened for our good.  I was really immature back then and had you not rejected me, I wouldn’t have changed for the better. I felt humiliated that day and in rage, I decided to never meet you again. Nothing motivates one more than humiliation. That day I vowed to myself that I would change everything you didn’t like about me. I never forgot you, not even a day. Over time my rage turned into thankfulness. I thought about contacting you a couple of times, but I never mustered the courage to talk to you again. But now I promise, I will always be there as a friend for you”.

Over the last couple of years, I went out with a couple of girls, but nothing ever went far, as I was always looking for Priya in them.  Though I know I still love her, I didn’t want to spoil the current moment and just decided to go along with what destiny holds for me.

We left the coffee shop after a bit and I said bye to her and was on my way looking for an auto. She insisted that she would be around until I find an auto. Soon an auto stopped nearby.

Me: “Basheerbagh jaana hain” (I need to go to Basheerbagh)
Auto Driver: Sau rupya dedo saab (It will cost Rs. 100)
Me: “Meter pe chalo bhai” (Turn on the meter)
Auto Driver: Aaj kal meter pe koi nahin chalta saab. (No one turns on the meter these days)
Me: “Chalo theek hain” (OK, lets go!)

I turned around to say bye to Priya and her face was red with rage. I was trying to think if I did anything wrong. She immediately stepped forward and said “Thees rupya, us se jyaada kuch nahin milegaa(Nothing more than Rs.30)”, she told the auto driver. There was a certain authority in her voice.

Auto Driver: Memsaab, thees rupye mein koi nahin aayega. nahin hoga. (No one would come for Rs. 30).
Priya: Sid niklo, aur koi auto lete hain. (Sid, let’s find another auto)
Auto Driver: Chalo theek hain, sat rupya dedo. (Ok fine, give me Rs. 60)
Priya: Pachaas, usse jyaada nahin milega. Sid chad jao. (Rs. 50 and nothing more than that, Sid get into the auto).

The auto driver mumbled something to himself, but started the auto nevertheless. I was probably the dumbest participant in that conversation, but I felt good for some reason.  Probably, because she was taking my side and fighting for me. I got a message in a bit  “Just because you are earning in dollars doesn’t mean you need to throw away money just like that”. I replied “OK Madame, point noted”.

Next day, we decided to meet for breakfast. I was to meet her at her college after her class at 8:30  AM.

I would normally wake up at 8:30 AM, but that day I had to be some place by 8:30 AM. I woke up in the morning at 5:30 AM, went for a jog, came back by 7:oo AM and left my place by 8:00 AM. My mom was totally confused as to what’s going on in my life. I never woke up before 8:30 ever. I was there at her college by 8:20 AM. The women’s college seemed like an eerie place to me. I was definitely not in my comfort zone, I never had to do this before in my life. There are so many people staring at you, as if they know what you are up-to.

A few minutes past 8:30 AM, I saw her coming out of the college on her bike. I thought I would take her to a fancy place to woo her. So, I suggested that place to her. She gave a disgusted look and said “Don’t worry about it, I will take you to a better place”. I was waiting her to give the bike to me for driving, as if it was obvious. She didn’t get what I was waiting for and said “Let’s go!”. I confirmed with her, “Do you want me to sit behind you?”.  She saw the hesitation in my tone and blasted me for a bit “So, you don’t want to sit behind a girl? What a chauvinist you are?” . I quickly had to do some damage control “Ok, ok, I didn’t mean it that way, what are you waiting for? Start the bike.” It was probably the toughest test in my life, to sit on a kinetic honda without making any body contact at all, even accidentally with the driver.

She took me to one of the popular breakfast places in that area. She ordered something for both of us. That day I realized what a foodie she was. Anything made with paneer was her favorite. I don’t know how she manages to maintain her figure in spite of eating all that stuff. As for me, I was just thinking about how many hours I need to spend in the gym to burn these calories.  I asked for normal water, because I didn’t want to order bottled water when I’m with her. She immediately said as if she was reading my mind “No need to get normal water, you will get sick, you are an NRI now”.

We started going for breakfasts almost every other day for a couple of weeks. We went to an occasional movie. Going to a movie with her was a different experience. Though she seems very sophisticated on the exterior, she is a lover of bollywood masala movies. And she gets annoyed whenever someone starts talking on a phone in a movie theater. One instance, she actually started a fight with a guy who was incessantly talking on his phone after the movie started. Once when we were watching a movie, she asked me what I thought of the heroine in the movie. I didn’t know that was a trick question and said “She is hot”, I could immediately sense disapproval in her facial expression, so I quickly improvised to say “Of course, not hotter than you”, but the damage was already done. Everyday, she continued to surprise me and I was having the best time of my life.

I didn’t see this coming, but one day she asked me to come along with her for shopping.  She said she just needed to buy one dress, that’s it. I said to myself, “How much time would that take, may be a couple of hours?”. But I was totally wrong, I was introduced to her whole new world of shopping. She would first take me to a mall, spend a couple of hours trying out all the outfits she liked, but she wouldn’t buy anything. Then we would get a quick snack and then head over to abids/koti, the paradise of all female shoppers. The real shopping begins here. Going to the mall was just to check out what kind of design she would like. Then she would find the exact material in those shops at the best price possible and then get it stitched at a tailor’s place after explaining him very minute details of how it needs to be done.  The toughest thing in these shopping trips is to have  an opinion on what looks better or which one matches better. There is no right answer and no matter what your answer is, it will be wrong. I would answer her questions with a counter question, that’s a trick I learnt. It only succeeds 50% of the time, but that was good enough. What I thought would be a two hour trip to the mall, ended up being a 12 hour trip to literally every shop in the abids area.

I reached my place at 10:30 PM in the night that day. I went straight into my room, lied down on my bed and thanked God for life seemed beautiful once again. I didn’t know where this relationship was going, but I was totally enjoying the moment. Time was just flying by in her company. Right then, I realized I just had a few days left in my trip.

Next day I woke up and tried to call her. She picked up the phone and said “Sid, don’t call me ever” and hung up the phone. I tried calling her again, but she switched off the phone. I was clueless.

To be continued …

This is my first visit to Hyderabad after I took up my new job in Bangalore. It’s been 6 months now, and my folks really wanted me here for the Dusshera festival. Dusshera is that time of the year, when all your relatives get together and have a good time.  I wasn’t in a mood for such a thing at all, after all I left the city for a reason.  My brother picked me up from the bus stop and we started driving home. He told me one of the main roads was closed due to some event and we had to take a roundabout route to get to our place. When my brother started driving towards one particular road,  I said to myself: “No, not this road”. I pulled the windows up immediately and tried not to look outside. Places oddly have memories attached to them and I didn’t want to recall these particular ones. My brother switched on the radio and it was blaring songs about love, heartache and memories. I was definitely not in a mood for those, I leaned over to switch off the radio. It seemed like someone up there was playing a joke on me.

So far, my return to Hyderabad has been greeted with all the things I wanted to avoid, but nothing could beat this one. My phone started ringing and when I looked at the number, my head started spinning. I thought for a bit to ignore it, but somehow I couldn’t. So I picked it up and here goes the conversation.

Me: Hello
Voice on the phone: Hi
Me: (Trying to stay cool) Wassup?
Voice on the phone(VoP): How are u?
Me: I’m good, how about you?
VoP: I’m ok.
Me: So what made you call me.
VoP: I’m moving to Mumbai.
Me: That’s cool! That’s where you always wanted to be.
VoP: I want to meet you once.
Me: But I’m in Bangalore.
VoP: I know you came to Hyderabad, Neha told me.
Me: (What a bitch, how could she tell her) But I don’t want to meet you (In my mind I know I wanted to meet her as well).
VoP: This may be the last time we will ever meet.
Me: Ok let’s meet at ‘our’ coffee day (we met at this coffee day 7 years ago) and only on the condition that we are not going to talk about what happened.
VoP: Ok 6 PM today?
Me: Fine see you there.

The entire day I was thinking hard about how to keep my cool and not get emotional when I see her in the evening.  As I was going through these debates in my head, my conscience started talking to me.

My Conscience(MC) : So, you are all set for the evening, how do you think you are gonna handle it.
Me: I think I will be fine, I will try avoiding any topics from the past and I should be good.
MC : What if she reminds you of something from the past?
Me: I will try to avoid that topic. I think I have that much control on myself to not get carried away.
MC: If she asks you to forget everything and start new.
Me: I don’t think she would say something like that.
MC: Then why does she want to meet you now.
Me: She is leaving and she said she wanted to meet me for the last time.
MC: Do you like the idea that she might want to say that.
Me: Now, where is this going, I don’t want to answer that.
MC: I’m your conscience and you can’t cheat me.
Me: I’m trying to be sane, and you gotta help me, than pester me.
MC: I’m what you are. I reflect what goes on in your mind.
Me: Forget it!

It was 6:10 PM by the time I reached there. She was already there and from what I know about her, she would have been there by 5:55 PM. Dressed in white, she was looking like an angel. She was seated at our favourite spot in that coffee shop. That particular table gave a sense of privacy as it was located a little distant from the rest.

As I was about to say hi and take my seat, she quipped at me saying “Some things don’t change do they? Your punctuality hasn’t for sure.” Punctuality had always been one of the constant themes in our arguments. She was very particular about it and I least cared about it. Every time I was late, I had to make it up to her with some thing. This time, I didn’t have to. I decided to irritate her a little bit and said “I somehow feel good this time for making you wait. Actually, I don’t feel guilty about it at all, such a relief.”

“Ok, now stop being so mean to me.”, she said clearly irritated by my response. And then it was her turn to retort “You are looking good, whats *wrong* with you?”

“Actually, I’ve read an article somewhere, apparently you look better if you have fewer mental tensions. In the last 6 months, seems like I didn’t have a lot of tensions”, I responded immediately feeling too good about my spontaneity. She didn’t particularly like it when she didn’t have an upper hand in the conversation in terms of retorts, so I know something much more stronger is coming at me.

Just then, the waiter came by the table to take the order. “I will get a latte, and a potli for the lady”, I said. She burst into laughter for a bit and said “No way!”. The waiter was confused as to what was going on, then I immediately corrected the order: “A latte and a hot chocolate”. ‘Potli’ is a samosa like snack available at that coffee shop and the last time she tried it, it upset her stomach very badly.

All of a sudden, we heard some noise in the coffee shop, and turned out to see there were a bunch of kids from the nearby coaching centre, probably just done with their class. She asked me, “Remember, when I took that class a few years ago, you came here everyday to pick me up.”

“Ofcourse, how can I forget that, I had to wake up every morning get ready and be here by 8:30 AM to pick you up. Even the watchmen and the sweepers on that road knew me back then”

“You tried your best to woo me back then, but once you took up your job in that company, everything changed”.

I sensed the conversation moving towards avenues I didn’t want to explore today, and I was looking for a way out. Just then the waiter came back with our drinks.

I used that as an opportunity, to quickly change the topic. “So, you are moving to Mumbai?”

“Yeah, moving next Monday”, she replied.

“Is all your move shopping done? Thank God! I didn’t have to come along this time”.

“Look who’s talking, you have always been impatient with my shopping”, she said as she took a sip of her hot chocolate.

“Come on! I’ve always been patient with your shopping”.

“You were nice only when you were doing it to make up for something. Talking about shopping, where’s your wallet?”. She was already reaching out for my wallet on the table. She took the wallet and tried hard to find something.

“I know what you are looking for, if it’s that photo, you aren’t gonna find it, I’ve removed it a few months ago”.

I could see the expression on her face turn to rage. There was silence for a few minutes. I acted as if I didn’t care. I sipped my coffee as if nothing has happened at all.

She broke the silence, “How could you do that?”, she asked me. When I looked at her, I only saw her glistened eyes. This was the one thing I feared the most about this meeting. I could never see her cry.  She continued, “What went wrong between us, why did things turn out that way. Just an year ago, we were happy.”

I didn’t know how to react, but I didn’t want to get emotional. In a very mellow tone, I tried to explain to her “Whatever happened between us, was destined to happen. We could deny and take the blame upon ourselves for what has happened, but we can’t change anything about it. I’ve moved on, and I expect you to as well. We shouldn’t meet again. The 7 years we spent together were the best part of my life. I have no regrets.”

“I’m sorry for everything”, she said trying to control her grief.

“Don’t be, both of us had a part to play in whatever has happened”.

The waiter left the check at our table. I thought it was a good sign to leave. “I should get going”, I said picking up my wallet.

She came around and gave me a tight hug, she had tears in her eyes. There was a lump in my throat, but I didn’t want to react at that point. Instead I just whispered into her ears, “You are not helping me, now all these girls in the coffee shop think that we are together, and that doesn’t help my chances”. She smiled and said “look at you”.

I watched her as she got onto her scooty. She turned around and I wished her good bye. I hoped time stayed still at that moment.

After she left, I drove straight to a secluded place near the lake. Tears were rolling off my eyes, the truth is that I would never see her again and I wasn’t ready for that.  The one wrong decision I took in my life cost me everything. I spent at least an hour there thinking about all the things I could have done, only to realize that it was too late already.

I pulled up the photo from my pocket and as I was trying to put it back into my wallet, a sudden gust of wind blew it out my hands  and within a moment it was gone.  Destiny!

Sometime in January this year, when I was in India on a short trip after an year long stay in the US, I happened to meet a few of my B.Tech. batch mates at a get-together organised by a close friend ‘H’. Because it happened to be organised by a bachelor at his residence late in the night(starting at 9 pm) and the menu being limited to drinks from the local liquor store and food from ‘Cafe bahar’, all the married junta from our batch opted out.

The first half n hour went by with everyone talking about what they are up to in life and general updates about the batch mates they are in touch with. It didn’t take a long time for this group of bachelors to start discussing the topic of marriage. It should be noted though that a bachelor would never discuss marriage with his married friends. Married folks would have as much fun poking their bachelor friends as an EAMCET/AIEEE top ranker would have, while bombarding a guy who just failed his intermediate examination with questions like:  ’Whats the problem? Why is it so hard for you?’

At 27 or 28, love marriage is mostly ruled out, which leaves with the default Indian option of ‘arranged marriage’. When you are young, you think that arranged marriage is only for the socially inept, but as wisdom(most importantly in the form of age) looms on you, it becomes the only viable option.

Getting back to the topic, on that day each of us in the group had a different ‘problem’ with regards to marriage. One of them couldn’t find a girl who would understand his career aspirations, one of them just got out of a relationship and is taking a break, one of them couldn’t find a girl whom his parents would approve of to start with and so on. Most of us though didn’t understand how much you can know about a person in a few interactions and yet make the most important decision in life. That’s just when H came up with the most logical approach to the NP hard problem of arranged marriage.

To give a brief introduction about H:  H is the kind of guy who can take any side in an argument and convince you about it. The amusing thing about him is that he can switch the side after proving a point on one side of the argument and then start the process all over again for the other side.

Given his MBA background, H approached the whole arranged marriage concept as a hiring process for a job and he started out by listing the primary and secondary stakeholders: yourself and your parents. He made a list of competencies on which you can evaluate the various candidates(girls) on.  H goes on to list the key competencies:

1) Looks: I don’t need to say much about this competency, but I will provide a perspective on how things change over time. When you are still on the right side of 25, you would give 80% weight-age to this category, but then over time, again as wisdom(read age) looms on you, the weight-age goes down. You would also come to a realization that the guy you see everyday in the mirror is no super model

2) Career: Compatibility in terms of careers is one of the most important things. If your partner’s job requires her to work from locations where you can’t have any career, things might not work out in the long term. ‘A’ pitched in with his experience when he asked a girl he met as to whether she would be willing to move to US, if he gets an opportunity onsite and the girl almost immediately said ‘no’ and that was the end of the discussion.

3) Compatibility of thought: Overall compatibility in terms of thought process, approach to different things etc.  Some guys are nervous and not sure what to talk about in their first meeting with the girl, so end up asking lame questions like ‘whats your favorite color, who is your favorite actor’ etc, but that’s not at all what compatibility of thought is about.

4) Dowry: As much male chauvinistic as it gets at this point, this is a key criteria in some cases for the secondary stakeholders in this process especially if you belong to certain castes in South India.

5) Family compatibility: This is another competency which is more relevant to the secondary stakeholders in terms of how her parents get along with your parents and the potential for any compatibility issues as such.

Though mostly intuitive, H captured the attention of everyone by organizing all the information this way. He went to the topic of adding weight-age to each of the competencies and the actual selection process. Each of the stakeholders gets to vote on all the prospective candidates on a 1-10 scale. How much weight-age each of the stakeholders gets for his/her vote on a competency is pure negotiation between the two stakeholders. For example, your vote might get more weight-age on competencies 1,2 and 3, while your parents vote might get more weight-age on competencies 4 & 5. H took this to the next level by putting everything in an excel sheet with the right weight-ages added as rules in excel. (As much geeky as it gets )

Right when everyone thought H nailed the problem of arranged marriage, A asked what if there’s a tie. There was a wicked smile on H’s face as if he knew this question was coming, and he took his time to reveal a cheat code. He said he added a competency called ‘Feel’, which had the most weight-age and is based on how you feel about the girl after a few interactions. Making this vote is the most difficult thing indeed. The moral of the story was that you have to make some decisions in life yourself and you can’t apply logic to everything.

In a very objective and inhumane sense, arranged marriage is like shopping for something you don’t even know yourself for sure. And the constraint is that you can’t go back to something you rejected in the past in the hope/greed of finding something better. And it shouldn’t definitely be treated as a race against time.

Thanks to H, everyone had a lot of fun that day.

My introduction to superstitions and the adverse effects of not believing in them, happened when I was back in school. I used to ride a bicycle to school,  along with a few of my friends. One day, when we were about to start, one of my friends happened to sneeze. Sneezing before starting anything is considered a bad omen. So, my friend suggested that I drink some water and wait a min before we start. We were already getting late, and I thought there was no point in doing all that stuff. On the way to school, a car sped away next to me, spilling some of the stagnate water on my uniform. If that was not enough, my bag was loosely hung from the carriage of the bicycle and it fell down soiling all the books. To top it all, a nail managed to get into my cycle’s tyre puncturing it. I was so annoyed with the series of events. Right then, my friend comes to me beaming with a wicked sense of joy, and says “I told you something like this would happen”. Though I argued then, that it had nothing to do with the sneeze,  I have always tried not to be indifferent to the superstitions from then on.

If you think of it, superstitions are just one of the many means through which your mind fucks you. No matter how much you try to not correlate the consequences, if any, of not believing in a superstition, you always either end up being conscious of them or at least try to be on the safe side, by acknowledging them.

A couple of years ago, I came to know of this particular superstition related to the flickering of one’s eyelids. Supposedly, if your right eyelid flickers, something good is going to happen to you. Alternatively, if your left eyelid flickers, something bad is in the offing. I haven’t noticed this much, until sometime last year, my right eye started flickering. Now, the greedy self that I am, I was hoping atleast for a while for something interesting to happen. I don’t particularly remember anything out of usual happening to me, so I just ignored it.  All was well until after  a few months, when the tide turned and my left eye lid started flickering. Now I started telling myself that nothing wrong is going to happen, but my mind continues to fuck me over, trying to make me correlate anything remotely bad to it. So, to counter my mind with a good reason, I tried to find the actual cause for the twitch in the eyelids. As it turns out, it is caused by excessive caffeine, which is indeed true in my case. It also makes me think of our psychology in general: We never question the good things that happen to us. We only feel bad or have the ‘why me?’ question when things dont turn out in a way, we expect them to.

I feel my left eyelid flickering, oh wait, I didn’t even have any coffee today. Damn it!

I first started with a cappuccino, because that’s the only item on the menu that seemed a bit familiar and the one which I could order with the least number of questions asked by the person behind the counter. One thing about US, I found a bit different is that everything on the menu in any coffee shop or restaurant can be customized  to death. Once when I heard a guy before me in the line order something like “Double Tall, no whip, soy cinnamon dolce frappuccino”, I was dumbfounded. Also, to add to my woes, the first time I tried to order a coffee, I asked for a ‘small’ size and the lady on the other side, with a rather weird look on her face, asked me if I wanted ‘tall’. Now, how on earth would I have guessed that the shortest size in a starbucks is called ‘tall’. So, I insisted ‘small’. She again repeated ‘tall’ and this time she seemed irritated, at that point, like any confused desi would do, I just nodded my head. And I got a huge glass of coffee, of which I managed to barely finish a fourth.

That day, I decided to know more about what I’m drinking. So, I asked the same colleague of mine, to tell me about coffee. And he gave me all the gyan about coffee. He explained the difference between coffee and espresso, the different variants of espresso drinks like cappuccino, latte, mocha, americano,macchiato and so on. Now, when I go to a coffee shop, I really know what I’m getting . And of course, I try to show it off to my friends by ordering something like ‘double short extra hot latte’. (And yes, ‘tall’ is not the shortest size in starbucks, there is ‘short’ but its not advertised).

At this point, came the realization that starbucks actually doesn’t have the best coffee in town. Its actually no where close to good.  Some of the places where I had good coffee are actually local stores : Zeitgeist cafe, Top pot, Zoka, umbria etc.

After all this, when I look back, my relationship with coffee was destined to happen anyway, as Seattle as a place has coffee all over it.

I have benefitted a lot from other people’s time and that’s the reason I have learnt to respect people for their time, rather than anything else.

A few months earlier, I had to visit a particular city for a week and I have called up a friend of mine in that city to let him know about my trip. Then my friend could have reacted in one of the two ways: 1) He could have just given me a list of all places I can visit with proper directions and help me with all the information needed,  or 2) He could take time out of his schedule to show me some places. My friend chose to do the latter. I really value him for the time he has spent, to show me different places and be a perfect host. I will always be thankful to him for that.

In a totally different situation, when I was working in India, I had a mentor in the US. It was a lot of time investment from him, and he had no immediate benefit in doing it. It was important for me that I make the best use of his time, though I don’t really know if I always did. I learnt a lot from those mentoring sessions with him and I can’t thank him enough. I always owe the success in my career to him.

I moved to the US about an year ago, and I still don’t own a car. I wouldnt have been able to manage without it so far, if not for all my friends and colleagues here, who have taken the time, to help me in different ways, by giving me rides and involving me in their plans (for dinner, movies) etc. Though I never expressed my thankfulness to them for their time, I know how much these small things mean to me.

All these experiences, not only made me realize the importance of one’s time, but also helped me change my perspective on different things. Just to quote an instance: One of my friends, at a certain point in his life, didnt have a job, yet worked for NGOs in return for nothing. He used to spend a lot of time on them. I always thought that he was not being practical in life, but now if I look back, I think it takes a lot of guts to spend time on others, when you haven’t had things figured out in life for yourself. I respect him now, for whatever he has done at that point.

That brings me to an interesting topic: GOD.God is the creator of this world, He knows everything about everyone. And most importantly, He has the power to give or take anything from anyone. And this matters to a lot of people. Now, what would a God with no powers be of any use to people.

For everything you want to acheive in life, the outcome as an equation of your efforts can be represented like this:

Outcome = (0.8 * Efforts) + (0.2 * Luck)

I define luck here as any factor that is not under your control, the only thing under your control is your effort.Now, I’m not good with the luck factor and that’s when I approach God to buy some luck for myself. Now, my equation with God is pretty simple: give and take. I do some favors for Him, and I expect him to fulfill my wishes.  By now, you might have realized that I’m a bit shameless in this aspect. But so are many of us

I believe in the notion of a balancing act that happens in all of our lives. So, if you are going through a bad phase in your life, it has to stop at some point and things will start improving for the better. And if you are going through an amazing phase in life, reminding yourself of the balancing act will make sure that your success doesn’t get to your head.  Now, there has to be someone who is doing this balancing act and I’m ok to believe that it’s God, unless someone comes up with a compelling explanation to prove otherwise.

This is again just a matter of faith, so when you are down in life, you can have a little chat with God and say  “Hey dude, now it’s enough, I’ve been through a lot already, give me a break”.  I’m sure God might be saying to himself:  “Every Raju, Ramu and Shyamu thinks that he can buy me with a coconut or agarbathi.”

Here, it’s us who are denying ourselves our privacy, by feeding all our information to the internet. The amount of information we are making available for someone else to interpret, by using the social networking sites or other internet applications is huge. I have seen movies like Eagle-Eye and I-Robot, where a computer takes over control from the humans and becomes a dictator.  I feel this kind of a scenario is not far from reality.

Let’s take the simple example of photo tagging feature provided by most of the social networking websites. Lets take Orkut for now. By tagging your photo in Orkut, you were giving away your photo id to Google. Now let’s say Google comes up with an advance face-detection algorithm, which can identify your face in any photo, by using the photos in which you were tagged.  Assume you were in a party and you were clicked in one of the photos. And that guy uploads the photo into his Orkut account under an album 09/09/’09 party. Now, Google knows where you were on 09/09/09.  This is just a simple example. Combine this information with your emails, blogs, search trends, the stocks you regularly check etc, the extent to which Google can know about you might be mind boggling.

I’m not making a judgement here on what is right and what is wrong. Probably, having an online identity might be a way of life  going ahead and there might be some good things that can come out of it as well. Google might come up with an app, which would provide recommendations on your social life based on your activity on the internet Sounds interesting isn’t it.

P.S.: I just used Google as an example in this post. I don’t necessarily mean that Google is planning all this stuff behind our backs . I’m a great fan of Google btw.

I managed to watch a couple of movies and read a book recently. The movie I watched was ‘Dil Bole Hadippa’. Though the reviews weren’t great, I felt it was an ok movie.  Especially Rani’s performance (specifically as the Sardar) was amazing. One of the reasons I chose this movie was ‘Wanted’ was that I didnt feel like watching the latter, as I’m not a great fan of Salman. Added to that, I was also put off by the ‘Wanted’ promos, when I heard one of the punch dialogues of Pokiri in it’s Hindi version. Obviously, the hindi dialogue is no match for it’s telugu counterpart. The telugu version is crisp and short, while the hindi version looks forced.

Pokiri: “Okkasari commit ayithe naa maata nene vinanu”
Wanted: “Ek baar jo maine commitment kar di, uske baad to mein khud ki bhi nahin sunta”

The other movie I watched this week was ‘The Hurt Locker‘.  It’s about an elite US  bomb squad in Iraq, and the various emotions each of the officers in the squad go through, while doing their job of disarming the unexploded bombs. It’s terrific.

And coming to the book I read this week: it’s ‘Wise and Otherwise’ by Sudha Murthy. The book is a collection of anecdotes from the author’s life experiences. Some of the stories are really touching. I would recommend this book.

Happy Dussehra to everyone.