Just Another Office Romance

First encounter

It was the first week of August in 2014 when Mumbai monsoon had reached its peak. It was work as usual for Raj. He had just finished working on his presentation, which his Boss had wanted. After turning it in with his Boss’ Executive Associate, he started thinking about his Mundane Job.

It has hardly been a year since he joined his current organization – a well known foreign bank, after graduating from a premier B school along with 3 other students. They were tasked with assisting the CXO in strategy related projects. It was a roller coaster ride for Raj in the first year, working on multiple projects and getting to be in the same room and interacting with various Board members in various meetings. These were some of the privileges available to him being in the CXO’s core team.

But things began to get monotonous since the last couple of months and Raj began to lose interest in his work. It was already 4 in the evening that day and Raj was joined by Jack and Aditya from the Process Improvement Team who worked with the Startegy Team and shared the same bay in his office. Raj and Aditya were lamenting about their work life and how their Bosses were taking them to the dogs.

When the discussion was just getting heated up, Jack interrupted them and asked Jack what he thought about the new customer relationship team that had just started in their floor pointing at a group of girls who were having tea infront of them. Jack is the self appointed Casanova of the group. That was when Raj first set his eyes on her. She was the most beautiful girl he had seen in a long time. She wore a simple white dress. Her hair was long, wavy, and black, falling brilliantly over her chest. The girl’s face was mesmerizing, with large dazzling chocolate brown eyes. The girl was stunningly gorgeous, like a painting of a goddess brought to life. She smiled sweetly at Raj’s group realizing that they were looking at them, her eyes sparkling like stars. Raj felt he needed to talk to her at any cost.

It was day 2, Raj was thinking about different ways in which he could interact with the girl. But to carry out his scheme, he needed a wingman. He tried to ask Jack for help. But Jack chickened out stating that he would be in trouble if he misbehaved with any girl in office. During tea, Raj could not gather the strength to talk to this girl when she was with their group. The biggest problem faced by Raj was that he still did not know the girl’s name. Raj devised a scheme to get her name. He knew where the girl’s workstation was located. And all the office landline phones had the names of the employees to whom it was allocated to. Raj waited till everyone from the floor left for the day. He then inconspicuously moved towards the girls desk and looked at her phone. He finally got a glimpse of the text written there. It spelt Vaishali Mehta. Raj left home that day along with a sense of achievement.

 

The howling Wolf

Almost a week had passes since that eventful day. Raj still could not speak to Vaishali and silently waited for an opportunity. He also kept pestering Jack to accompany him during their tea break, so that he could go and talk to the girls. As usual Raj was lost in work that day and was absent-mindedly staring at his monitor. He sensed someone was standing behind him. He turned back and he got the surprise of his life.

Standing behind him was Vaishali who seemed confused and lost. Raj was immediately nervous, he brought a facade of some confidence and asked the young lady “May I help you”. The girl replied stating that she wanted to take a printout and her team did not have access to the device. Raj helped her out with the print. Vaishali thanked him and quietly went back to her chair.

Jack who was quietly observing this event smirked at him and told raj “Dude this is your opportunity to interact, why don’t you  go to the girl’s desk and help her configure her printer”.

Raj felt that it was a great idea . He immediately went to her desk and helped her configure the printer. He smirked at her and said “Now Vaishali, you really don’t need anyone’s support to help you take a print.”

The girl was really shocked as she has not given her name to him so far while Raj had casually thrown her name in the conversation without realizing the same. Realizing his folly, Raj quickly left the place in embarrassment. That night Raj could not get any sleep, he was still thinking about the incident. He thought to himself, would the girl be now thinking of him as a stalker as he knew her name without her actually telling him. He thought he should immediately clear the misunderstanding with her.

He found her on facebook immediately and messaged her “Hi Vaishali” “This is Raj from Office” and was waiting for a reply. Later he realized that the girl was hardly active on Facebook. So he went back to sleep in disappointment.

 

“The oldest Trick in the Book”

Raj usually drives to work. But since the girl travels to office by local train, he decided to take the train as well. He believed that this would give him an opportunity to meet her at the station. Raj’s office was very close to the station and it would take him 10 mins to walk from the station to his office. Raj’s plan was to use this 10 minute window to make some small talk with the girl.

Raj did not know which train to take. To be on the safer side, he took an early train and started waiting outside the station for the girl to arrive. He felt like a fool, looking at all the young girls coming out of the station hoping to see his girl. He purchased a new paper from the nearby shop and pretended to read, while in reality he was just looking at the girl’s passing by. After a 10 minute wait, he finally saw her crossing him. She walked past him briskly without noticing him. Raj ran behind her as fast as he could so that he would not loose her among the busy crowd. After he got as close to her as possible he yelled out her name. She looked behind and was a bit taken aback after looking at him.

Raj: Hi

Vaishali : Hello

Raj: So you come by Harbour Line as well.

Vaishali: Ya

Raj: So where do you stay?

Vaishali: I stay in Chembur.

Raj: oh really I stay in Tilak Nagar, just next to your place. I generally come by car. But today my car was giving me trouble, so i had to take the train.

Vaishali: oh ok.

Before she could say anything further, she was interrupted by one of the guys from her team and Raj could not interact with her more. Raj was cursing the guy and also he sensed that the girl was not much interested in him, since she did not talk to him much.

 

A pleasant Surprise

A week had passed since that eventful day, Raj was slowly trying to forget her. He consoled himself saying that maybe she was very shy or maybe she already has someone in her life and does not want anyone else in her life or maybe she just does not like him. The next weekend Raj along a couple of office friends went to Aditya’s place for a daru party. That’s when it all happened, that changed Raj’s life forever.

The group of friends were discussing about their work life and lamenting about how horrible their bosses were. That’s when Raj felt his phone vibrating. Raj ignored it thinking that it must be some Whatsapp forward from one of his friends. Within a minute there was another message. Out of curiosity Raj unlocked his phone to look at the message. He was both surprised and delighted to see that Vaishali had finally replied to his message in fb, which he had dropped in her inbox about two weeks ago. It read “Hi Raj . How are you”

Raj was nervous and he asked his friends (who already knew about everything as he had already narrated everything to them over last week’s drinks) what he should reply. Aditya asked him to be himself and reply naturally while his other buddy Arya asked to play it cool saying “Dude girls always like the cool guys”.

Raj replied with the mandatory message “ I am gud, How are you doing”.  She replied Going Fine. After exchange of the pleasantries as per social convention, Raj asked her why she did not frequent Facebook that often and why it took her two weeks to reply back anything. She told him that since she was a customer service executive, some unruly customers started pinging her in Facebook asking her out on dates etc.

Raj hypocritically thought to himself “Yuck who would behave rudely with a lady and that too with someone you had barely spoken to” , while Raj himself was approaching her with the exact same notion.

They both were having fun until Vaishali asked Raj a very tricky question. “By the way Raj tell me, why did you find me in FB and messaged me all of a sudden. “.

Raj felt like the cornered Jerry mouse from his favourite toon. He did not know what to say. His friend Arya’s word lingered in his ears “Dude play it cool”. Gathering some confidence from these words, Raj typed “Well when i first talked to you in office I felt that you were sort of innocent and naive girl, that made me a bit curious about you”. He further added “This made me want to know more about you, so I tried to get in touch with you here”.

Vaishali said “Good answer”.

Raj was now a bit relaxed after dodging that trick question and now it was his turn to corner Vaishali or “It was Jerry’s time to tie the bell on Tom cat”. He asked her by the way why did you to reply to me , you could have very well ignored me like the guys who ping you randomly on FB.

After a couple of minutes Vaishali replied “Well when I first met you I felt that you were a very serious guy, so I thought you wanted to ask me something related to office.”

Raj was ROFLing at the reply, thinking that was the lamest reply to his question. He believed that the girl was obviously on to him. The late night chat went for a long long time before they hit the sack.

 

The Sly Fox

The next day in office, Raj using his contact with a friend from the Human Resources, found out all the details about this girl right from her mobile number, Birthday, Residential Address, and even to the level of her monthly take home salary. He was eagerly awaiting for 9:00 pm when the girl came online on Facebook. He thought of toying with her with the details he had learned about her today.

He said to her   “Do you know I am really good at horoscopes. Some of my friends even believe that I am Clairvoyant”.

The girl asked him “In that case tell something about me”.

Raj began his game, He said you are not only innocent and naive but also have a very sweet personality. People like those are generally born in February. And your first name “Vaishali” has 8 letters. So if my prediction is true your birthday falls on February 8^th.

Vaishali was stunned by the statement. How did you know that Raj, thats impossible, a little birdy tells me that someone is feeding these information about me to you.

Raj was a bit uncomfortable, if someone knew about his little deal with the HR guy he could be fired. So he ingeniously tried to cover up stating that he was only toying with her and got the information from her facebook page. Lucky for him Vaishali fell for it.

Things were going pretty well in the virtual relationship between Raj and Vaishali. But Raj wanted to take it to the next level. He wanted to speak to her personally. So he had to get her mobile number. Although he technically had her mobile number, he could not message or call her as he did not officially get it from her. So he told her on face book that night, “Hey Vaishali wont it be more convenient if we talk to each other on Whatsapp instead of Facebook. Well I am just saying”.

He got  a reply stating “LOL. Very smart, you could directly ask my mobile number.”

Raj: If i asked, would you give?

Vaishali: Well, no way

Raj was now in a spot, he had her number but still could not call her or message her in whatsapp. So he tried to play the gentleman game. You know Vaishali, I can very well get your number from a mobile app called true caller but i don’t want to do that, I am a true gentleman and will not call you unless you give me the number yourself.

Vaishali: Hmm, then give me your mobile number. Btw you are an over actor, do you know that.

Raj: Well here you go 98########.

Raj got his first whatsapp ping from Vaishali that night. His feelings went skyhigh. He took his car out for a spin, shouting like crazy on the road. He was really excited with what had just happened. He knew that now he can talk to her whenever he wanted.

 

The Bear that came for Dinner:

Raj was a typical nerd right from his college days but since he started working he developed the hobby of Trekking in the wilderness. He loved walking along the greenery and climbing hilly terrains. It felt relaxing and helped him get some fresh air and forget about his busy office for once. On the other hand, Vaishali was the exact opposite. She was a plain and simple girl and hated adventure sports. She felt nauseated even if someone dropped the “Adventure” word in any conversation.

Time started flying by, Raj and Vaishali became really close both in office. After office, they would hang out together in the Dunkin Donoughuts stall which was in their office complex on a regular basis. But they never went out alone. They always went along with their office team. Vaishali informed Raj about a guy called Suraj, who had recently started working with their team. She said that he was after her and was flirting with her at every possibility. This immediately made Raj a bit angry. He warned Vaishali to stay away from him.

Vaishali retorted stating “How do you expect me to do that – I have to work with him you know.

But Raj advised her to limit her interactions with Suraj to only a professional level.

One fine Monday evening,  things were going as usual, Raj thought it has been long now, “I think I should ask Vaishali out for dinner or something”. “What if she rejects my proposal”, would I be able to handle something like that. As he was getting lost in his thoughts “Raj received a call from Vaishali, she asked him “Guess what happened with me today”.

Raj replied “Did that Suraj guy finally propose to you”.

Vaishali was in high spirits, she said “ Even better,  He has asked me out for dinner this Saturday night”.

At this point, Raj was fuming with anger. He advised Vaishali to stay away from guys like that any cost.

Vaishali and Raj went together to office cafeteria for  lunch. They were having a good time as always. They were discussing about their office work and gossiping about various characters in their office. When suddenly Raj dropped the A bomb, “You know I am thinking about going on a trek to Igatpuri this weekend, would you like to join me”.

Vaishali immediately chastised him for this and asked him never to do something dangerous like this. Raj was still trying to persuade her. Vaishali was absolutely livid and left the lunch table in a fit of rage.

Raj was also really angry and felt that Vaishali was trying to control him and taking him for granted. So he stopped talking to her for the next couple of days. But he realized soon that it was really difficult for him to avoid her, as he was missing her a lot. He tried to call her but she neither picked up the phone nor returned his calls. He got as sms from her stating that she hates him and she had accepted the dinner offer from Suraj for Saturday night. Raj was heartbroken.

 

Crying under the rain

Raj thought of a brilliant plan to stop Suraj from a pursuing Vaishali. He sent a bouquet of red roses to Vaishali which will be delivered to her office on Friday. He believed that if Suraj saw the same, he would know that Vaishali already has someone in her life and would back off. He executed the plan and was pretty sure that it would work for him.

It was Saturday night and the clouds were really dark. It felt like it would rain at any point in time. He still was not sure if Vaishali went for dinner with Suraj or whether his plan had worked. He tried calling her up on Saturday night while Vaishali continuously started to disconnect his calls and replied on sms stating that she was outside with someone and would call him back later.

Raj was now paranoid, he believed that she must have gone for dinner with Suraj. He decided to confront her head on. He already had her address, he drove his car, parked the same in her area and went and sat inside the park which was facing the connecting road to her apartment. He waited there for almost an hour, it even started drizzling that night. Finally he saw her getting off the taxi from the main road and there was Suraj sitting next to her in the Cab. Raj felt like he had to go and slap him right there but he controlled himself. He also did not expose himself to Vaishali and continued to stay in the park. Vaishali without noticing him went straight into her apartment building.

 

A Happy ending?

Raj called her and started an altercation with her. She confessed that she had gone out for dinner with Suraj. Raj literally started crying on the phone and finally confessed to her. He came out of the park and stood below the Vaishali Balcony and said looking straight at her brown eyes  “Vaishali, I don’t want to loose you to anyone, I like you more than anything else in this world, Can’t you understand that”.

Vaishali started consoling him as well and said even she liked him but was waiting for him to make the first move. “Listen Raj , its late and its raining like crazy, better go home and we will talk about this tomorrow.

Raj said goodbye and started walking towards his car. He felt really relaxed as he had confessed his feelings for her. After a brief second , he heard a female voice shouting at him from behind “What the hell do you think you are doing” and someone placed their hand on his shoulder and pulled him back.

The entire picture began to vanish and Raj was feeling really tired all of a sudden with the Sun Ray’s blinding his eyes. He looked at his phone and it read 9 am in the morning.

“So it was all a dream, how anticlimatic” he thought to himself. His beautiful wife was shouting at him from the kitchen “. What are you doing, don’t you have to go to work”.

Raj shouted back saying I can work from home for today. His wife said, even so you now have to drop our little Priya at school today. She is already dressed up and is waiting for you, don’t disappoint her and make her bear the punishment at school for late coming. You have already done that twice this week, she said.

Raj was vexed, he carried little baby Priya on his shoulder and started walking towards his car. Raj thought to himself, Ten years had passed since that eventful night when he stood under the rain before his first girl friend’s window. In reality that’s when he broke up with her and quit the company in which he had worked, in order to get away from her. He could not believe that the ghosts of his past has come back to haunt him again. He was happily settled now with a wife and Kid in the largest city in the eastern part of country and was the Head of the supply chain division for India’s leading e-commerce firm. May be things would have gone differently for him, if he had been with his first love. But still he wished if he could meet her again at some point in his life.

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