One Seven

There were more than a hundred well dressed young people waiting for their turn. When I had started from my home, I had thought this would be a cake walk. And here I was, once again trapped between complacence and destiny! I took a corner seat, trying to avoid as many close sitting candidates as possible. I tried to ignore stares from quite a few of them, and innocently sat with my bio-data file on my lap. In these kind of situations, my behavioral patterns always tended to go a bit feminine, my voice turning softer, tone a lot sweeter, and ass trying to occupy as much little space possible wherever I was sitting. Although after a few minutes, things started becoming more masculine. I felt a part of the group now, and my body language was improving every second. And just then, a girl sitting next to me spoke
“Are you applying for journalism?”

“No, I’m for advertising. Why?

“Oh, just like that! I get very nervous when I see so many people appearing for the same thing as me. So was just checking how many am I really competing with!”

“I see”

“By the way, I’m kaushiki”

“Hi, I’m Norton”

“Antivirus??”

“Oh common, Norton Desouza! I’ve heard that antivirus thing a thousand times. Its not even funny anymore”

“So you are a Catholic?”

“Yes”

“You don’t look like one!”

“Then how do Catholics look like?”

She couldn’t answer as the invigilator called out her name aloud – “ Kaushiki Dasgupta….Room number 4”

She got up from her chair in a bit of disarray, and almost pushed me while asking-

“Wish me luck!!”

“All the best, you’ll be great!”

“Thanks so much man”

She left as I saw her get into Room number 4. She looked confident while entering the room though. “Kaushiki Dasgupta” I thought. “Bengali….hmm…..doesn’t look like one”, I spoke to myself. She had typically north Indian features, and then the complexion to go with it. If it wouldn’t have been my nervousness for my interview, I would have had a crush on her by now. And also she didn’t carry that irritating Bengali accent with an ‘o’ instead of an ‘a’ wherever ‘a’ exists. The way she introduced herself, was very non Bengali, or else she would have pronounced it like “Kowsheeki”, but she didn’t

Anyway, I needed to get back to my advertising frame of mind. My turn would be very soon. In a couple of minutes, kaushiki came out of room number 4, stood next to my chair and said

“It was good, I think I’ll make it. Chal, I’ll be going now, my boyfriend is waiting downstairs!”

“Ok great, goodluck, bye!”

“Goodluck to you antivirus, bye!”

We had both made it to the institute that year, and were in our respective courses for the next 2 years. We kept meeting each other every now and then in college, even though we had different set of friends. We remembered each other’s birthdays & wished right at the stroke of midnight, a new age trend of wishing birthdays that had cropped up recently that time. We passed out, she got placed with CNBC, I was free lancing initially. But then for a lot of years, there was no correspondence from either side. Both our cell numbers had changed, hence it was even more difficult to now find out about each other.
But then yesterday, after 17 years, we crashed into each other at an awards function. My ad-film was nominated for the best ad-film of the year. Although I didn’t win, I got rave responses, including kaushiki’s! She said

“Wow! You’ve become a big shot, antivirus. Fabulous film!”

“Oh my God, Kaushiki? Where have you been?”

“All around the world! But hey, nice meeting you after almost 2 decades!”

“Same here, are you back in Mumbai?”

“Yes yes! Listen..i need to leave right now, my husband’s waiting, can I have your number, I’ll give you a call soon!”

“Sure man, 9728093611. Give me a miss call, I’ll save yours!”

“I’ll in a while. Sorry I need to rush, bye!”

I waited the whole night, and it’s almost 17 hours now, but she hasn’t given me a missed call.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

My cell phone valiantly vibrated till I picked it up.

“Hello…”
“Antivirus, kaushiki here. How long will it take you to reach Infinity mall? I’m getting bored, let’s catch up!

“Alright, I’ll be there in a while, wait!”

“In how much time?”

“Around half an hour”

I reached in 17 minutes.