The process of falling in love… and out of it.

Hi. I am Okendra. Okendra Dixit; Age: Twenty five years, height: 5’9, weight: 75 Kgs. I am a mechanical engineer by study and a software engineer by profession. And to tell you all, I don’t look bad, at least not to me and my mom, but never had a girlfriend in last twenty five years of my life ( and that’s my earnest confession!)

But I did fall in love, many times.

First time in class VIII. I was twelve, she was thirty two, or may be, thirty four or thirty eight (who knows and who cares?). Whatever her age was, she looked awesome… or rather… terribly awesome. Ok…ok… I am sorry my word bank… or rather vocabulary is poor. She taught us Geography. The only lesson I learnt in all the years of my geography learning was – my dear geography teacher had an awesome geography herself. And to an extent, I did believe that she remained unmarried just for me. I just can’t describe how heavenly I had felt when she had called me for a coffee at her home. Though most of that hour I was kept busy correcting the geography answer sheets of my junior class (of course by looking in the answer key that she had provided!), it was an honor to be called at her place. When I got back to my hostel, all my friends were extremely curious about what had happened. I said the truth… and some lies. Ok…ok… lies were more than the truth but you see, my friends, even though they knew I was lying, kept saying “Oh, Man!” And I was loving it.

That was school days. May be I was too young for all that. And after school, post a minor afterthought, I can easily say that it was infatuation, and not love.

But it happened. What happened? … Love, man!!

I was in my second year of graduation. She was just out of her post graduation and was in our college to teach us Information Systems. Boy! She was hot. Or I can say hotter than what all chicks we had in our class (you see computers don’t offer an interesting career to all those Miss Indias and we are left without any choice!). So I fell in love. She had an awesome smile, man! When I was watching that movie called Main hoon naa, I knew that your teacher can be hot. But she was a bad teacher, bad when it came to teaching. But how did it bother me, or for that matter, to many other guys in the class. Oh those other guys! You know what they did? They, sitting in the last bench of the class, imagined if she would teach us wearing a bikini!!! Bastards, I say. I never sat with them.

In third year, the worst thing happened. She got married. I wondered, “How can she do this to me?” And during my last days of engineering, those back benchers were my best friends.

That is all history now. I never liked history, whether it dealt with someone else’s life or my own (A history without a girlfriend, huh!!) So let’s get back to the present.

I joined this company in January, was sent for an initial training program for a month. That’s where I met her, or rather saw her. Oh man, she was awesome… or rather terrible awesome. You have to see her to believe me. When she looked at me and after a moment’s pause when she smiled - she kills! On almost all the days of my training, I had prayed to god, contrary to my friends’ prayers of getting a good project, to fix her up in my project, which ever it is. The quality of the project? What does it matter? I have learnt by now that every IT project is a… bullshit (Sorry was trying to use a better word but couldn’t find).

And god did listen. Now I know that he exists. When we were allotted cubicles (our own cubicles, you see), I had prayed god to let her be allotted with the cubicle next to mine. But I think god had gone to sleep by then. She was given the cubicle next to the guy who looked horrible (even his mom would have thought so) but had uncountable number of girlfriends. My heart sank. “No not she, please… I don’t remember which was the most prominent feeling, but I hated to see them together.

Somehow, I think my good looks had played their magic. She continued to smile at me, even though the length of the pause between our eye contact and her smile had increased. I thought she liked me. But when, even after a month in the same project, our only mode of communication was our smiles, I started believing that either god was dead or was seriously ill.

Another month passed like that, in exchange of those smiles. And one fine day she came, walking in the most elegant way she could ( I didn’t see her walk but I assume that she must have walked in an elegant way, as I have seen in almost all movies that whenever heroine walks to the hero for the first time, the walk is elegant).

“Hi. Can I ask for some help?” Man! That was the sweetest voice I had ever heard.

“Oh, ya… ya… ya… sure… why not… tell me.” I mumbled hesitantly. Anyone of those multiples options of affirmations I presented would have been all right but I did not wish to take any chance.

“Actually… I am trying to convert a for loop into a while loop, buts its not giving me the same result. Can you please check it once?”

“Oh, yaa. Sure.” And I walked with her to her cubicle.

After solving the problem, I so badly wished to tell her that it was a simple, stupid mistake that she had done but avoided when she praised me as if it was the hardest problem she came across and I was some kind of Einstein to solve that. This definitely started our series of meetings, discussions, chatters and laughter.

Two more months passed like that. I was happy and had almost formed the idea that she was my girl, until Friday, the seventh.

That afternoon, I had finished my work and so had gone to the smoking zone to puff out a cigarette. I thought of her –

She was smiling, like an angel. I was looking at her, of course like a hungry devil. She looked away for a moment and washed the smile of her face and then, she pushed herself closer to me. The devil was taking over the angel. I took her hands in mine, and pulled them up to my lips. Then, I caressed her cheeks through her lips. We came a little closer. It was a moment before I could have kissed her and smooched her and…whatever, a bloody mosquito appeared, started hovering around our faces and giggled its rubbish humming in our ears!!

I still can’t figure out whether it was the mosquito in my imagination or her voice in reality that hampered our historical kiss to take place. It was rarest of the rare to see girls in smoking zone of our company and when I saw her, I felt happy and sad, both at the same moment. Happy to know that she had bothered to come to the smoking zone, just to see me; and sad to realize that she had to come to the smoking zone. Hey, but she looked sad… I wondered why?

“What happened, baby?”

“Nothing yaar, my module has to be delivered by EOD (End of Day). I would have completed it but, you know, today is my roomies birthday and she wants me to be in the party. Though I promised her to be there but doesn’t seems like I can.”

It appeared as if she would cry in any moment. So I said, “Hey can I do something?”

“Can you work on it, if you don’t mind? It’s just a portion left, just a few fixes here and there. And you can do it within no time. You know you are super!”

“Ok… .ok… don’t embarrass me now. You carry on, I will do it. Anyways I don’t have much work for the day.”

“Oh, Oku (she shortened my name for the first time, and even though I didn’t like it, I made myself to like it as it was from her), you are a sweetheart. Thanks a lot,” she said and kissed on my left cheeks. Man!!! She kissed me!!! A slight deviation in the placement of the kiss towards the left would have been better though.

While returning home in the office bus, I was still engrossed by the magic of that first kiss. Suddenly I realized Akhil was talking to me. He asked, “Do you know something?” I wished to say – I know many things. But it would have been a stupid reply to a stupid question, so I just asked, “What?”

“I think Richa and Piyush are seeing each other.”

Oh I think I never told you all that Richa is her name. Her? Arre, Richa, my girl… you see. Well I replied, “Well they have to. They sit next to each other.”

“Not that way, dude.” And he smiled. His smile appeared hundred times more villainous than what Amrish Puri had ever done in any Hindi movie.

I said, “What rubbish! Who told you this?”

“The whole office knows that.”

“Crap!!”

Just before he was about to get down at his stop, I asked Akhil, “Do you really think they are an item?” He laughed and stepped out.

Yesterday – Monday, the seventeenth, when Akhil said something about Richa in middle of a conversation, I said, “She is a dumbo!”

“I thought you had good feelings for her, man!” He was astonished.

“Good feelings, my foot! She doesn’t even know how to change a for loop to while loop. On what basis the company has recruited her, only god knows!”

“Hey, chill boy! What happened?”

“Nothing. What will happen to me? It’s just that she is an empty headed girl…”

“hmmm..” He sighed and looked out of the window of the bus.

***

You all must be wondering – why a sudden change in my opinion? Well, what Akhil had said about her and Piyush was true. Who Piyush? Richa’s ugly cubicle mate. Now I know why she always took so much of time to smile when we looked at each other.

Well, thankfully, I am out of love again. Thankfully? Do I have options?