Today was finally a relaxed day at work, logged off the system already at six and didn’t even have to take my laptop home. I grabbed my keys and walked towards the exit corridor. After the reconditioning, the office space was quite baroque and the management was still getting positive feedback from the team members. No one complains any longer about the broken water cooler or whatever came out of the coffee machine before. There were more washrooms, and a new changing room with showers incorporated. While walking through the corridor, I realized so much has changed in the last three years during my stay here. Lots of new faces, collapse of the higher management, changing of the CEO and takeover by a MNC. By the time I reached the exit, it was pouring cats and dogs. I just had to make it to the parking lot, but the monsoons don’t even spare you for 30 seconds. I decided to wait a bit and started talking to the door man.

Lots of people triggering their umbrella and running out the door like school children, while I was smoking one from the doorman’s stash sitting next to him. I was wondering what a strange feeling it was to watch people running in and out for the whole day while being ignored most of the time. I asked kaka when is he retiring, to which he replied hopefully never. He was still the only working person in the family and he won’t find an easier job than this, given his age. Some of the people like me waited for the deluge to calm down a bit, which created a small crowd and you could hear a multitude of conversations at the same time mostly about food, sex and money. To everyone’s relief a young guy completely drenched in his shorts came for selling tea. I knew the kid as he was the son of the tea seller across the street. He offered me the first one, not to the amusement of the impatient ones in the crowd. Suddenly a glass filled with tea fell down splashing on my shoes and trousers and also on a girl’s salwar kameez. I looked up to the girl’s face and I recognized her. I knew she was working here and she was new. She was undoubtably beautiful and I could not miss her face, if she was in the neighborhood. I knew couple of guys in my department and a girl asked her out, but they never spoke about it again. Sometimes we made fun about our teammates that they became spellbound after they asked her out. The glass which fell was meant for her but it slipped from her fingers. I agree the glass was quite hot and wet, but it was no reason for everyone to scold and blame the poor tea seller. He said “madam, sorry sorry!” She seemed to be quite upset about her dress, but she said “ok, no problem”. The crowd was starting to disperse as the rain slowed down, but she was still waiting for someone or for the opportune moment to leave. I was about to leave after talking to kaka about my car problems and asking if he knew some garage where I could fix it at a cheap rate.

Before I was stepping out, she asked if I could drop her to the nearest bus stop. It wasn’t a whimsical request, but somehow I too was spellbound and could not utter a word for 30 odd seconds. I don’t exactly know what I tried to say, but I sounded like “a…a…a….a…a….yes, sure”. We both walked to the parking lot already getting quite wet. She offered me to share her umbrella after probably realizing my stupidity of not carrying an umbrella during the monsoons. I said, “I left my rain jacket inside the trunk of my car” which after saying I realized how stupid it made me sound. To which she smiled, confirming my previous assumption. We got into the car and I realized that luckily I cleaned it last week which saved me some embarrassment. I started the engine, wiped my windows and started towards the direction of the bus stop. Meanwhile she already made herself comfortable and was using the mirror in the sun visor to adjust her makeup. I was wondering why was she doing that since the bus stop was just a kilometer away and it was still raining which would again undo her efforts. I broke her deep concentration while she was redoing her eye brows by asking “where do you live?”. With utmost calmness and minimum movement she replied instantly “Gariahat”. I told her that I live in Golpark, so it would not be a problem for me to drop her at her place. That finally broke her deep concentration and she turned at me and said, “are you sure? We can share the fuel cost.” I was a bit annoyed and replied “Why would I ask, if I am not sure? Sharing the cost is not necessary, it’s not that far.” She realized, I was a little annoyed and kept quiet.

I took an U-turn at the next junction due to the change of plans. She seemed to have finished her makeup and ready to jump into a party, whilst we just planned to drop her home. She asked “you are Aakash, right? I am Nikita.” I was again spellbound and this time, nothing came out of me, except a blank expression and an open mouth. “Avantika told me you are a nice guy”, she said. My expression failed to change, since Avantika was my boss and this was the first time I heard her saying something nice about me. I finally broke my silence, “That’s good to hear that my boss thinks I am a nice person”. She frowned and asked “she is your boss? I thought you were peers”. I understood the confusion, and I replied “She was my batchmate in the university, but here she is my boss.” She smiled and asked “what went wrong? you failed a year?” I didn’t reply to that question, and she kept on laughing. I started to realize that in my own car I was the less comfortable one. She was the persistent type and kept on asking questions about Avantika. I was trying my best to avoid them, but she was good at what she was doing. I broke the monotonous nature of the conversation and asked her, “Do you mind if I ask you, what you do at the company?”. I tried my best to make a bold statement, but her reply made my boldness go away. “I am the new HR manager and Avantika was also my batchmate at IIM”. I looked away from her, stared at the road filled with traffic, and realized it’s going to be a very long trip.

After badgering me for information, I finally gave up and told her that, “since you are HR, I can tell you in confidence, right?” She nodded like a five year old innocent kid. I knew it was a mistake, but who cared. “In college, me and Avantika used to date each other. The only thing she did not like about me was my lack of ambition. I was satisfied quite easily and that bothered her because she was the ambitious one. As you mentioned, she did a MBA and I settled for the first job I got after my bachelors. Multiple other things went bitter and our relationship ended very badly. Recently, after the takeover, the management changed and you, Avantika and others have arrived. It was a shock for both of us that she happened to be my new boss, but luckily we did not have any issues so far. She is quite professional and I just stay away from her business after work. We did not talk about this topic, but we understood mutually that it’s better not to discuss it at all, especially amongst peers. Nitika, if you tell about this to anyone, I am the one who gets screwed. If you tell this to Avantika, she will never forgive me and it might reflect in her professional behavior towards me.” She was still giggling as she said “relax, she will never harm you. I think she still likes you, but now I know why she avoids your topic all the time.” I responded “my topic!”.

She completely ignored my response and asked “are you not hungry? I smell eggroll. Are you a vegetarian?” I said “I am a Bengali, and it not in our nature to be vegetarian.” “Good”, she said, “My family is veg, but I can’t live without meat”. I proposed that we could stop at the corner shop for a bite to which she acknowledged. I brought two rolls and we ate in the car. It was still raining and all the tissues they supplied with the rolls got wet, which did not really help to take away the grease between my fingers. Whilst my struggle to eat in a less clumsy manner, she was eating in the most graceful way possible. I had no clue how she was doing it, but it seemed as if she was raised in a family with too much etiquette. She finished and cleaned every crevice of her fingers and lips with the limited supply of tissue they provided. I quickly stuffed the rest of the roll in my mouth and went in the shop again to wash my hands, since I didn’t want to grease my steering wheel. I came back and asked her if she wanted something to drink to which she replied “where can we find beer?” My face was stolid. “I cannot drink and drive”, to which she replied “but I can.” I bought a bottle of water for myself and started driving again. I stopped next to a wine shop, which I knew from my university days and told her, “here we are your highness, please go get yourself a beer”. For the first time she looked a bit shy and asked “can you get one from me, people look at me if I go and buy alcohol in this city”. She was not wrong, but I really had no mood to queue amongst drunk people for a beer I was not going to drink. Then, I thought may be its better to be in good relationship with the HR, and I asked her to wait in the car. After 45 odd minutes of misery I came back to not find her in the car. The car was locked, since I left the keys in it and she was gone. Both my temper and temperature were rising beyond a degree I would lose my patience. After 10 minutes she returned and gave me the key. I didn’t say a word and handed her the beer and got into the car. “I am sorry she said, I had to go to the washroom, I was waiting for you for a long time but you didn’t come back, and I could not hold myself any longer.” I said its ok and concentrated on my driving.

There was an awkward silence for some time only with raindrops on the car creating a sober ambience. The rain did not seem to withhold and the traffic didn’t seem to move. The vendors taking this opportunity to try and sell some of their products with little success. In the technology driven age no one settles for print media or retail shops. You can check whatever you have in your mind anytime in your 4G enabled phone and buy any product online which is delivered for free at your home. Nikita was doing something similar while sipping her beer. Probably chatting with her friend or looking up something online. She broke the silence by asking a very stupid question “Do you call yourself Okash or Aakash?” I wanted to laugh at that but with all seriousness I said, “it not funny!” She ignored me completely and said, “but you said you were not ambitious, yet you were the first of your class, here it says in your cv” pointing at her phone. I was starting to get the feel that I was getting into deep shit. This time she was talking more to herself than to me, “if you don’t want to talk to me, I can still check everything about you in your file, that’s the perk of being the HR manager”. I wanted to say a lot worse but settled saying “doesn’t that violate your work ethics, since you are misusing your power.” I think that was probably enough to ignite the bomb waiting to explode from a long time. She pointed at my face and said, “as an engineer, you are the last person from whom I want to get a lecture on ethics. All guys who study in an engineering college are basically scoundrels. Never met a decent engineering guy with manners.” I made several attempts to try to say something to interrupt her but all was in vain. She continued, “do you think I locked the car on purpose and left. I really had to pee and I waited 40 damn minutes, I didn’t even have your phone number. You think I am using you? That’s why I said lets share the fuel price and you said no. I am an independent person and I don’t have to tiptoe around guys with a fancy car.” I finally managed to intrude but ended up saying the less relevant and stupid stuff which came to my mind at that instant. “You said as HR manager you have access to my files, you could have checked my phone number”. Her face was getting red, when I realized she was olive and had dark silky hair covering her ears. The problem is you can’t go back, once you have said something stupid knowing it would piss her off. However, it did stop her ranting to my surprise as she ended by saying, “I don’t stalk people by going through their personal files.”

Nothing seemed to have changed in the last 30 mins and I literally mean nothing. It was still raining, we moved only 2 km with the jam packed traffic and the mood inside the car was sill explosive. It seemed we both wanted the trip to be over but the situation was not on our side. She knew she wouldn’t go to the extent of getting out of the car and catching a cab. May be if my patience was tested I would have done it, but she was the one with people skills. She suddenly looked at me and asked “do you still like Avantika?” I didn’t know what to say but I replied “Doesn’t matter, we have too many differences which makes it impossible to have a social relationship.” “Doesn’t it make the thing more interesting?”, she said interrupting me. “You were trying to say something, sorry I interrupted you.” “No, I have nothing to add, I don’t want to talk about her.” She started browsing her phone again, I didn’t know for what. The traffic was moving slowly and it was already dark. The water seemed to smear over the city lights, diffusing ‘light’ everywhere. The tension, the struggle, the fatigue of a city had called its day and the mild breeze and rain washed it all away. Indistinct chatter all around about pujo, the holy festival in Bengal and specially in Kolkata which makes a significant difference in the mood of the city, the people and even the clouds. Every year ma comes to fill us with joy and bids us goodbye with the promise of coming back next year. So far she never broke her promise.

“Can you drive a bit faster?”, she said breaking my deep thought. The traffic was getting lean and people were getting impatient. Everyone was trying to squeeze in between to save a few seconds in the hope they add up to save hours they lost in the traffic. For the first time I ignored her, and actually it didn’t feel so nice, I had no idea how girls manage to do it professionally. She looked a bit confused, since I think she was not at all used to being ignored. Well, if you are that beautiful people usually obey you all the time, but eventually that stops because other aspects of the human interaction start to matter. Her mood was changing for some reason. Either it was the beer or the fact she had to tolerate me in the traffic. She said “I don’t know anyone at work except Avantika. There are not many women in the company to form a gang. I should hire more women. The guys who come and talk to me, either want to sleep with me or cannot muster enough courage to ask me out and end up stalking me. I added, “if none of this was happening, that no one asked you out at work, wouldn’t you feel that something is wrong? Even if you might disagree, girls seek attention, and pretty girls seek even more, otherwise they don’t consider themselves attractive.” She interrupted “you think I am attractive” with a frown on her face. I advocated “that is not what I was trying to say.” “So you think I am not” she said with a smile. “Attraction is relative. Everyone has their own taste and I would be stupid to say you are not pretty”, I added. “Why are you being so diplomatic, are you afraid I will tell Avantika that you were flirting with me”, she giggled. “Why do you bring her in every conversation, I don’t give a damn about what she thinks of me outside work. I am just cautious, since you are the HR manager. I like my job and you are the last person I would try to flirt with”. She burst into laughter and at the same moment the cars paced up a notch. I too was losing my patience and decided to push through.

With some bikers cursing in Bengali I managed to gain some distance in the next 15, 20 minutes. “Do you understand Bengali?”, I asked. “Not really, except a few words. If you guys speak slowly and use words which actually exist in the dictionary, I will probably understand”, with a sense of disapproval. “I think colloquial Bengali is impossible to catch up for a non-native speaker like any other Indian language, but its not very far from Hindi”. “Were those guys you overtook, making fun of me?” she asked. “Well you don’t want to know. That’s why I asked. It was vulgar.” She suddenly became exited and asked “please teach me some vulgar Bengali words. I want to know”. I was not surprised and retorted “I cannot say those words in front of a colleague, in Bengali these words sound extremely bad. You say these only amongst friends”. “So are you trying to say, we are not friends yet?”, she remarked. “I did not mean to say that, but we just met today how can we already be friends?” I added. “If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t be sitting in your car for the last 2 hours”, she said.

The rain had finally stopped, and I opened the windows to catch some fresh air. I asked her if its ok for her if I smoke. She nodded while scrolling through her phone. It was still cloudy and humid, the whole color of the city had changed to a lighter shade and me puffing the cigarette did not help. I could still see the full moon amidst the thin cloud in front of it. Usually the city lights overwhelm the moon light, but tonight in the misty weather, the diffused city lights seemed to have yielded. Her phone rang and she indicated that her dad was calling and I should keep quiet. She spoke in hindi with her father and was explaining her day at work and how long will it take to be home. Of course she was complaining about the traffic and told her father that her colleague is giving her a ride home. “Taxi kyun nahi liya”, her father shouted and even I could hear it. I could sense the embarrassment on her face and I looked in front and concentrated on my driving. She then explained multiple things which did not make a lot of sense but her father was still not convinced why she didn’t take a cab. However, she was a girl and she knew how to win a conversation by taking a random event in the past where her dad screwed up and everyone else was worried. I had no clue which references she was making but at the end her father said “bas ghar aja, take care”. I was starting to be curious about her family to which I never gave a thought before. “Are you the only child?”, I asked. She replied while texting “no, I have a younger sister but my parents are never worried about her. They think she is much more mature than me.” “Do you think, I am childish?” while looking at me. I said something which sounded quite idiotic when I heard myself “I don’t have enough information to come to that conclusion”. She smiled and said “you are cute.” I knew this was some kind of code which could mean anything, but had no idea how to decipher it. “Can you stop by the drugstore, I need to buy something”, she requested. There was this red honda civic I was trying to overtake for a long time and now I had a real chance, but I had to stop. I felt like I received a telepathic message from the honda driver showing me his middle finger. It didn’t take her long and she offered me a mint gum and said “I told you my family is strict vegetarian and no alcohol is allowed. If I don’t chew a pack of these, they will know”. I was still partially thinking about the red car and the idea of selling mine for a honda civic, but I replied subconsciously “you never got caught?”. She stretched her eyebrows and said “multiple times which postludes with a week long drama. I want to avoid it at all cost.”

I started to like her without any reason. We passed by the birla mandir, approaching her place in a while. Before the flyover she asked me if I could take a right turn towards the Mirch Masala restaurant. I just did what she said without asking. I went further in the not so bright alley. I asked “you live in this street?” She said “no”. I was still driving and then she asked me to stop next to the construction site. Most of the old buildings in Kolkata were being demolished by the promoters to rebuild apartments. They would offer the owner of the house a couple of flats to compensate for the cost of the land. This was getting quite popular as both parties were at gain, however the cultural heritage of Kolkata was at risk but no one seemed to care about it. It seemed she was looking for someone as she looked back and front of the street on which we were parked, but it was quite lonely. I asked “Are we waiting for som..” and in a split second she moved across the shift stick and was sitting on my lap facing towards me. Surprise would be an understatement as the only thing separating us was a thin layer of air and her open hair which was covering the right half of her face. I moved her hair with my fingers and parked them on her ear. I could feel her breathing and the moment was quite intense. Its always the timing of the first move and I could not resist, as my best friend says “tharak to apne khoon me hain”. Now I knew why the flavored lipstick commercials were gaining popularity, because it does matter. I lost track of time and eventually we ran out of breath and she moved back to her seat. She said “Can you drop me home? It’s the second alley on the right”. I obeyed her instructions like a robot without uttering a word. She asked me to stop in front of her house and placed her hand on my left hand which was on the shift stick. “See you tomorrow, take care” she said. I replied “good night”. I wanted to say a lot of things but nothing came out of me. I waited till she entered the house and I could already hear her dad’s not so happy voice.

I turned the car around and took the flyover back home. I was still thinking about the past 5 minutes, how everything changed. I was already missing her and I wished I had some more time with her. I did not even realize how explosive this situation could get in the near future, yet the only thing I could think of was the kiss. I reached home and took the elevator to my apartment. I ringed the bell and my mother opened the door and asked why I was so late? I replied “traffic.” While I was untying my shoe lace she said, look who is here. She is waiting for quite long, she didn’t have any traffic, you always find excuses, definitely you went somewhere else. I said “ma, please….” and then I got the shock of my day, it was Avantika sitting on the couch. I looked at her and then at my mother. My mother said “She told me that you are working in the same company, and you never told this to me. You don’t think I am an important part of your life anymore, if she didn’t come today I would have never known. I repeated “ma, please”. She said that she will warm up the food while we should settle our differences. She started giving examples of her fighting with my dad and how he would cajole her back. Of course she started complaining about the new generation which takes such impulsive decisions. I nearly shouted at my mother that it would take 5 minutes to warm up the food in the microwave and she was expecting us to settle it in that time. Avantika held me back and said “just calm down. Aunty we will talk and then I will help you with the food”. My mother left, but I didn’t want that somehow. Avantika looked at me with a smile after years and I could not smile back.

-The end.