A proposal - PART4

Links – PART1; PART2; PART3

PART 4 - The Sunday (Last Part)

Next morning there was an uneasy silence between us. We were lost in our own thought. As we reached the Koramangala Sukh Sagar Jovin and Mithun were already there. Jovin had become more handsome. Mithun had put on a some weight. But for a second it was old times again.

We sat around a Table in one corner. There were six chairs around the teak wood table. I, Jovin and Mithun sat on one side, Arun at one corner on other side. He was lost in his own world. Priya was the last to join. She took the other corner, with an empty seat between her and Arun. Priya was as beautiful as ever. That ever lasting smile, at times I too fall in love with her. Especially like that day, when she does not over do it. She looked a bit tense. Arun was concentrating too hard on the menu card, his mind was else where. I saw him stealing a few secret glances at Priya. Only Mithun and Jovin were taking unaware of the smoke and fire in the minds around them. Priya was looking at her phone very often, like she was desperately waiting for that one call from prime minister of India.

“Don’t you think these 3 guys are unnaturally quite” Jovin asked Mithun.

They had noticed that only two of them were talking for a quite long time. Among the rest there was an uneasy calm. The silence was most conspicuous on Arun. He was looking drained out.
All three of us looked at each other for a second. And then Priya got a call and she got up and moved out to talk. She looked more excited as she came back.

“Dear friends …” Priya started, clearing her throat and holding an imaginary mike infront of her. She did this at college to catch our attention.

“This is to help our friend Arun who is chocking with all the secrets he is holding within him. For your information, I proposed to Arun day before yesterday …”
Atleast 2 of us were surprised and shocked.

“And the bigger shock is …” she continued, today she was at her best.
“Our Arun is in love with his colleague called Neena, and is planning to get married…”
Now atleast 3 of us were shocked.

“And Vishnu came to know about this from Arun’s parents just a few days back. Since Arun had kept a big thing like his love story a secret from us, his best friends, he decided teach him a lesson. So he decided to play a small practical joke on him …”

“A joke that had become too serious…”. I thought silently. Arun was sitting shell shocked.

She continued “So Vishnu called me up and told me the story and the plan of action. As per the plan I called up Arun on Friday and proposed to him. And that is the reason for this embarrassed face …” she said pointing to Arun’s face. Arun was staring at me dumbstruck. He quickly signaled me to silence.

There was a moment of silence on the table and then every one burst out laughing, including Arun and me. But I could see the tears in Arun’s eyes. I could see his heart, feel his pain.

“And the surprise is not yet over. I introduce you to Neena” and then Priya made a call and Neena walked in, she took the seat between Priya and Arun.

On Saturday night I had got Neena’s number and send it to Priya.

It appeared like a perfect get-together then on. Arun and I kept a bit abnormally quite.

As both the Girls left after breakfast, as four of us stood silently, I remembered what Arun had written secretly on the last page of Priya’s final year project report on the last day at our college.

When the tiring sun sets
When the wandering mind is set free
When you think of the people you love
Please remember me.

Priya or Neena never knew about the Saturday night discussion. Ever

A proposal – PART 3

Links - PART1; PART2

PART3 - A Long Weekend, Saturday

It was a long weekend as Monday was May 1st. All four of us were to meet in Bangalore that weekend. Mithun and I reached Bangalore on Saturday morning by bus and Jovin was to reach Bangalore from Hyderabad by 6.30 am by Bangalore Express.

I was staying with some school friends for the first day, Jovin and Mithun were meeting up some family friends and our plans together were from Sunday morning. Around 6’Clock I got a call from Arun. He wanted to meet me it was something urgent. He sounded different, he always sounded different when his brain was working. Only other time he had sounded like this was in college, when on way to hostel from city market on his bike, police had stopped him for a routine license check and caught his favorite movie collection (a bunch of pirated movie CDs and DVDs) and demanded Rs.200 bribe to let him go. This was sure urgent. In one hour I was with him in his 2nd floor 2 bed room rented apartment. Two of his other 3 flat mates were in Kerala for the long weekend. ) One was in office

Aliya Aake kalip aayi… (brother-in-law its trouble…). He said

I couldn’t help smiling. After all three years the same opening dialog, reminded me of the hostel days.
It was then that he broke the news of his love with Neena and his upcoming wedding plans. I acted as if surprised. I had got the news a few days back. But the problem was not that. Friday afternoon Priya had called Arun and asked if they could meet to buy a gift for Jovin. They met after office at the Forum Mall. Priya looked more beautiful than ever. She was happy but a bit differently happy that day. She was chirpy like ever but her mind was somewhere else. They walked around Forum Mal, bought an iPod nano from Forum 2nd Floor Apple store (quite an odd gift for a guy going onsite to US) and a greeting card from the ground floor Archies store. Then they went for an early dinner to KFC. It was here that Arun first smelled the smoke of fire that was burning within Priya’s mind. She was tense and silent but the smile was intact on her face, it makes her look cute. And according to Arun what followed were the longest few minutes in his life. Priya said she had come to know of Arun’s love for her (through me) a few months back and she was pleasantly surprised. Right from college she too had a soft corner for him. Not for the silent, shy and reserved Arun he was when she was around but the talkative, cheerful and active Arun he was to all the other girls in the class. Priya’s love for Arun she said was a secret among her ladies hostel gang as his was in our gang. She had though about it over last few months and had lost hope that Arun would muster enough courage to propose to her and so she was taking the initiative. As Priya knew the kind of indecisive soul he was and she had given him a week’s time to think over it and give her a reply.

As Arun completed the narration a few minutes long silence followed. Both of us just sat looking at each other. I was more surprised by the Arun’s emotion and reaction, than by the news it self. It was for the first time I was seeing tear in his eyes, but it was not going to be for the last time. The silence grew unbearable.

So what did you decide? I asked
"I know dad and mom will go crazy. They were really not very happy with my plans with Neena itself. Now when they come to know I am leaving her to get married to someone else they are going to be mad. But it has to be so. I haven’t slept a bit since yesterday. But I realize that Priya is my real love, I have always loved her. It was Neena only because I felt Priya was impossible. I know I shall break Neena's heart. But it will be cheating if I still get married to Neena with full realization that I love Priya."

Now things were getting out my control. As I opened my mouth to say something, he continued.
"I need to set this right soon. First I will talk to Priya first thing tomorrow morning. I will tell her about Neena, and what my plans are. Then I go to meet Neena and explain everything to her. I want you to be with me when I talk to Neena. Hope she will forgive me for being cruel to her. If not today someday at least she shall understand that what I did was the best for both of us. Then I need you to talk to my parents, tell them I am sorry for being such a looser. I never understood myself well, then how could I understand a girl. I know my parents trust you for your practical and radical thinking. I trust your assertiveness and skills to convince people."
You sure have to trust in my skill at convincing people, for I could convince someone to get you in this mess, I thought silently.

Before I could open my mouth, there was a knock on the door. It was his roommate Jeevan who was back from office.

“No more discussing this infront of Jeevan” and he got up to open the door.

Damn his secrets. I thought silently. For sure none of his roommates had any idea of his plans. We did not discuss anything more that night.

“Don’t go ahead with your plan till tomorrow morning breakfast” I said to Arun as we wished goodnight and slept.

All four of us were to meet at Koramangala Sukh Sagar, A south Indian vegetarian restaurant. Priya too was to join.

A proposal – PART 2

Links -- PART 1

PART 2 - Life After

They say life is like a river, it flows on.

After college all of us stated with our software job. One year into our first job we all realized that a bunch of true friends, that was the all that we had picked up from the educational super market. After learning Electrical and Electronics for four year most of us were working for software giants, writing software codes in java and C for banks, retail chains, telecom majors etc. It had nothing even remotely electrical or electronic about it.

Good Friends change you when they are with you and but the best among them change you even as they leave you. Life had destined us to make more friends and change. In spite of sincere effort all four of us ended up in different IT companies different cities. As we parted company we changed in our own ways. Away from the careless, talent wasting and criminally lazy gang of ours Mithun discovered the genius with in him. Two years on Mithun was a well established expert and a genius in embedded software, often spotted in big conferences. Brought away from the romantically challenged, slightly jealous and female reflecting gang Jovin found the suppressed Casanova within him. Couple of years later when I met Jovin at Forum mall in Bangalore he was with three beautiful girls. That was not all, to his own good he was also a testing lead for a team of 6 girls in his company.

After college far away in different parts of the world, thanks to gtalk, yahoo, skype etc we still remained the same close knit gang. Meeting on rare occasions set by office needs or friends traveling onsite for long-term. Although far away, this circle of friends did have a huge but not often explicit impact on the thought pattern even career moves each made.

Moving away from the gang did bring one positive change into Arun’s life. Arun and Priya were the in Bangalore. Thrown into a silicon valley of India, Bangalore, alone away from our prying eyes he got to slowly build on his friendship with Priya. The love part was well hidden with just friendship at the forefront. She too had a good impact on him. She helped him increase his confidence with girls and horning his romance skills. That influence could explain his new girl friend Neena. She was his talkative, straight haired, lean, anemic and ever smiling colleague. They were in different projects but on same 7th floor of their office tower. Friendship started when they met at a tree planting drive in a social service club in the company and grew over a period of 3 year over tea, lunch, weekend movies, shopping and travel to kerala for vacations. From a mutual friend who is also Arun’s and Neena’s colleague told even the office gang who were with the couple through out never knew of it and were surprised when they announced their marriage plans. The love was again a well guarded secret (There are a few who say Neena was the one to propose marriage). Even I got to know of this a lot later under some special circumstances.

That year the get-together was in Bangalore. Jovin was hosting the party, as he was going onsite to US for a year.

A proposal - PART 1

PREFACE:  This part is specifically for ones who know me personally. Please do not try to find any correlation with real life. I was curious if I could write a college based love story, so I wrote this. I selected 4 friends (not 3 or 5) because as you know 4 is my lucky number :D. All characters are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental. More over finding correlation is also doubting my ability to cook up stories :D:D

This story is to be posted in 4 parts.

PART1 - Four Years and a Degree

      It was his father that I noticed first, one of those dominating father figures who imparted their worldly wisdom even to unsuspecting strangers. His father told me “college is like a super market. It has a lot of things on the sale, but it is up to you to pick up what you want” It was then that I noticed Arun almost eclipsed by his dads imposing figure. He was fair, lean and tall with straight hair falling on his forehead, almost hiding it, in a pair of jeans and half sleeves shirt un-tucked. The only time I saw him dressed otherwise in the whole five year was for Infosys campus interview. Losers have an eye for other losers and with in no time we were friends.

The vast campus had a mixture of new modern looking and old colonial looking building. Buildings painted with yellow and white, class rooms with high roof, large wooden windows with broken glass widow panes and a larger than life history of a 100 year, the engineering college was intimidating for freshers. At the entrance was a big banner, in big red letters on white cloth it announced “College of Engineering Welcomes Fresheres”. Coming from different backgrounds and different schools with different dream, all we had in common was a bit of excitement and lot of anxiety. The men’s hostel was a three story building in form of a spanner. It was located at one corner of the college campus and diagonally opposite to the women’s hostel which was in shape of hexagonal nut.

At the college hostel we got to share the room with two other roommates. Ragging by seniors that involved various physical and cultural activities at odd hours formed the perfect glue that brought us together. The life away from home, hostel food and excitement of exploring the new city too was a catalyst in forming the lifelong bond.

Mithun was the brightest of us all. The curly haired, short, chubby guy from kerala’s culture capital Thrissur had nothing cultural about him. He single handedly was the reason for our grades in all exams, our project work, assignments or anything even remotely academic. It was our combined effort that kept him away from the brilliant grades he was capable of. Jovin was tall, fair and handsome, knew Bollywood dance and could crack jokes that made girls laugh (and only girls, we cried on his jokes). And the only reason he did not have dozens of girl friends was that we kept him busy with our extra curricular activities. Arun was the nearest to what we call romantically challenged. His heart went out to all girls in college, but somehow he seemed invisible to girls.

The first year involved a lot of ragging, football, kathi (Malayalam for knife, pet name for unending discussions) on girls, football, cricket and gossips, classes, assignments and studies starting couple of weeks before exams. The second year had lot of football, late night kathi, movies, copying assignments and studies a week before exam. By third year we had our own computer and it was a year of unending computer games, movies, kathi, football and very few classes and studies a couple of days before exam. Forth year Arun and Mithun bought motorbikes and there was a lot of roaming around, no classes with projects as excuse, kathi, football, movies and studies just on the day of exams.

One of the hottest topic for late night kathi was girls and love. In the early days Arun’s interest in talkative, straight haired, lean, anemic and ever smiling Priya, our classmate also formed the highlight of the late night discussions. Here too he lacked the incentive. She was the reason for all the activities he did which were very much unlike him. She was the main motivation when he joined a social service club in college where he never did any service. She was the reason he religiously attended all technical festivals and conferences although he slept through all of it. But he was the last among us to talk to her. The fear that if he opens his mouth, he may give away his feeling for her kept the most talkative one of our gang silent in her presence. Being in hostel and given the extrovert Priya was she did become a part of our gang, rather I would say the closest any girl got to the boys gang. This was more by chance than by design.

And This story began where most campus stories ended ...