Roshan's Love Life
Ep 2
Roshan and Dhruv were smoking just outside the office gates. A small shop, if you would like to call it a shop, which sold all kinds of cigarettes and “guthkas” was their favourite hide out. They were half way through their cigarette when they heard a females laugh across the street. Both of them instinctively looked without even thinking.
“What is that hot girl doing with that buffoon? He is ugly.” Dhruv asked jokingly.
“Yeah she should be with some handsome and smart guy.”
He added after a pause, “She should be with me.”
And he burst out laughing. They were genuine laughs which most people did not understand. When Roshan joked like this people usually thought he was proud of his looks. But the truth was he thought of himself as ugly. So, whenever he referred to himself as handsome he would laugh out loud. It was a habit of his to call beautiful girls ugly, thin ones fat, intelligent people dumb, tall people Shorty and the like.
Dhruv on the other hand thought Roshan was very handsome and took the jest seriously.
“Yeah man, she would suit you.” Dhruv said.
“Hey don’t start about girls and ruin my ‘Smoke break’ otherwise I will have to light another one. And you know how bad this is for my muscles.”
“Chod na, one cigarette will not kill you.”
On their way back to their contiguous cubicles, with mints in their mouth, Mr. Rakesh (their boss) asked them how the report was coming.
Dhruv who had not done any work at all was quick to respond.
“Sir, most of the work has been done. I will submit them whenever you want.”
“And from where have you collected the data?”
“Sir, I just searched it on the net. I don’t remember the sources. It is all in the report.”
“And what are the topics on which you found the data?”
Dhruv began a rant about all the topics he could remember from the seminars he had slept through. He had to give a report on GPRS system in India the very next day but he did not even remember on what subject he had to prepare the report. Roshan in the meantime had swallowed the mint and sensing that even a 12th grader with little technical knowledge would see through Dhruv’s discursive rant interrupted,
“Sir, I have got some interesting data on the new optical fibers. I found the latest data on underground cables for 2008. No one has data this recent.”
Roshan too had of course not done any project writing on Data Transmission but had collected the data, at least.
“Well I would like to have a look at the data. Mail it to me.” Mr. Rakesh commanded.
“Yes sir, I will.” Replied Roshan and moved on.
Dhruv thought it was pretty dorky that Roshan had collected the data but did not want to even think of his friend as dork his friend so did not say anything. They were the cool ones; they were supposed to do everything just before the deadline. Roshan sensed Dhruv’s thought as people who know each other very well do and explained,
“Pinky had come to my cubicle. I was reading ‘Peanuts’. But, she would have had a heart attack if she saw that I was having fun in office hours. So I pretended as if I was collecting data and actually ended up collecting the data.”
Pinky was a very dedicated office worker, like most of the others in the office. She believed that work is worship. And hence she believed that everyone was as dedicated to work as she was. She could never in her wildest imagination imagine that Roshan did not want to spend his every waking moment in the welfare of the company.
Pinky was quite beautiful and she dressed very smartly. Her hair was pulled behind in the latest fashion; she wore a stripped white shirt and a black skirt which fell to knee. Half the office would have had a crush on her if it hadn’t been for Julie, who was the hottest girl on the floor, but more about her later.
Roshan had a soft spot for her, as he had for any girl who did not hate him. And he had a soft spot even for girls who hated him, if they were beautiful enough.
“Where is she?” asked Roshan.
“Why are you getting so excited? She must be having lunch somewhere else today.” Dhruv replied.
“Mr. Singh might come on inspection today. I had better go recheck my presentation to make sure there are no mistakes.” Sudheer said.
Sudheer was the official geek of their floor. He finished his projects at least two days before deadline, spent time with boss and his family regularly and was always reading books, which he had read well enough in college, in free time. Roshan would have liked him, even admired him, had it not been for the fact that he always referred himself as the laziest, most uncaring and coolest bad ass dude of the office.
“I finished the project this morning in a hurry. There must be lot of mistakes.” Sudheer said getting up.
Both, Roshan and Dhruv, knew that he must have finished the project at least a week before. And they also knew that Mr. Singh, the supervisor, was not coming that day because his secretary was a girlfriend of Dhruv and always tipped them before his surprise inspections.
Dhruv made a big show of swallowing of his spit and said in the most obvious patronizing voice,
“Haan Yaar, if Mr. Singh saw your presentation the way it is you will be in big trouble. People like us rarely do any work. By the way listen, I have got some work out here so just collect data for me on GPRS. It will be too late for me by the time I get back and I have to submit the report tomorrow.”
“You mean GPRS and how it works, etc?” Sudheer asked.
“No actually how it has been implemented in India and its future scope.”
“Ok. Just come by my cubicle later.”
“Sure thing.” Replied Dhruv very much pleased.
Somebody was always there to do Dhruv’s work for him. And if on some rare occasion no one did it Dhruv would just give some excuse to Mr. Rakesh. Dhruv mostly got away without doing any work. Roshan found this very odd though he too did little work. But when he did, he worked very hard. Going out of his way add details to the project on hand. Even if he did not do the entire work himself he had to understand what he was working on unlike Dhruv who did not care what he submitted to his superiors.
“I don’t think she will come today.” Roshan said, giving up.
“Give it some time,” said Dhruv “here have a cigarette till then.
They were waiting for the unanimously chosen hottest girl of the building, Rakhi. Everyone knew her bio-data by heart. Where she lived, where she sat, where she had her lunch and most importantly when she left office for her home. Roshan had a minor crush for her and though he couldn’t say for sure he thought he had often caught her stealing glances towards him. He had this feeling that she too was interested in him.
They were sitting at their favourite spot near the fast food joint. The spot offered everything shade, privacy to smoke and an unobstructed view of Rakhi having lunch with her girlfriends at her favourite spot. This did not look like their lucky day though as Rakhi had not shown up at her favourite spot at the usual time. Soon Roshan would have to return to office to reimburse the money he had spent on petrol, food and accommodation during a recent tour. Though he had nothing to do at the moment and was getting quite bored it was unspoken rule between him and Dhruv that break times could not be used for any work even remotely associated with work. The staff would probably have been on lunch at the moment any way.
So when the lunch break was finally over Roshan headed for the managerial section and Dhruv headed for the office. The managerial section was in the ground floor and accounts on first floor. He would have to get the signatures from managing staff and then collect the money from accounts.
There was small crowd near the Mr. Abraham’s office to whom Roshan had to give all the bills. Even Rakhi was there. As he reached Mr. Abraham’s desk he heard Rakhi request,
“Sir, could you please go over my application.”
“Just a minute.” Mr. Abraham replied.
In the ensuing silence of a few seconds Roshan said,
“Mr. Abraham I needed to reimburse these bills.”
“Let me deal with these people first.” Replied Mr. Abraham addressing both Rakhi and Roshan referring to the four five people already there and pointing to the sofa for them to be seated on in the meantime.
They sat on the sofa. Rakhi with the familiar awkwardness that one feels when he or she comes across a person whom they feel they know because they have been seeing them across the hall daily but never spoken. Roshan joined her with the thoughts “Thank you, god!”
Roshan looking for an opening said,
“Hi! What are you here for? “
“I am to apply for change in department.” She replied handing out the application she was holding. She had a very beautiful face, was around 5’6” and somewhat voluptuous. She was wearing a blue Salwar suit. Her head was tied in the traditional long ‘choti’. She was wearing a blue bangle in her right hand and a golden wrist watch in her left. On the whole she was very comely. For a moment Roshan got too engrossed in the blue bangle and almost missed the application. Catching himself in time he took the application from her.
“Dear Sir,
Regarding: blah..blah.. blah
I would like to request for change in.. I wonder what I should say to her next. .. I have already submitted.. I wonder if it will be too early to ask her for a date. I will be very grateful if…. But if I don’t ask her for lunch Dhruv will kill me.
Yours sincerely,
Rakhi Patel
“Oh! So your name is Rakhi. Huh!”Roshan said thinking “Duh! Like everyone in the building knows that.”
“Yeah!” she replied.
“Why are you applying for change in department?” Roshan ploughed on.
“Actually I was working as a trainee. Now that I have completed my training I have to join some other department as a full time worker.”
“In which department were you working till now?” Roshan continued not letting there be any pause in the conversation.
“I was working under Mr. Shah, the senior architect.”
“That’s nice. You are an architect then. I am an engineer. I work on the second floor. By the way how did you get the internship here? It is quite tough to get an internship here.”
“Mr. Suraj is a distant uncle of mine. He lives near my house in Sardar Patel Colony. He helped get the internship. By the way what’s your name?”
“Wow! She is asking my name!” thought Roshan replying,
“Roshan.”
“Hi! It’s nice to meet you.” she said extending her hand and flashing a smile which made Roshan’s heart skip a beat. And his heart skipped two beats when he got to shake her soft hands. He hoped that she did not find his hand too rough. He liked to work out without gloves which had made his hand callous.
Mr. Abraham took a long time to do the work of the guys who had come before them. And in the meantime Rakhi and Roshan came to know all about each other’s residence, family, bosses, a few habits and I do believe even favourite colours. Though I don’t clearly remember how they came about discussing their favourite colour they certainly did not find it odd to discuss favourite coulours and discussed about colours at length.
Finally Mr. Abraham called Rakhi and immediately signed her application, Roshan was very glad because his cheeks where beginning to quake from having smiled for such a long time and his mouth was running out of spit. She took leave of Roshan and left the room. Sparing him the dilemma of whether he should ask her out or ask her number as it was their very first conversation.
The next day Roshan and Dhruv waited for her during lunch. Dhruv was as excited as Roshan, which made Roshan quite suspicious, but he need not have worried as she did not come. Roshan would have left the matter as it is. But Dhruv forced him to go to the architectural department. On enquiring other trainees they found out that her application had been accepted and she had shifted to another department in another building in another part of Delhi.
Roshan saw her three months later at the company’s annual party with three other girls. Roshan and Rakhi looked at each other but too long a time had passed between their first and the last meeting. She did not show any sign of recognition. He too felt too awkward to talk to her. Unfortunately Dhruv did not see her otherwise he would have shook Roshan out of prudence and made him go over to greet her. Matters standing as they did, they never saw each other again.
“What is that hot girl doing with that buffoon? He is ugly.” Dhruv asked jokingly.
“Yeah she should be with some handsome and smart guy.”
He added after a pause, “She should be with me.”
And he burst out laughing. They were genuine laughs which most people did not understand. When Roshan joked like this people usually thought he was proud of his looks. But the truth was he thought of himself as ugly. So, whenever he referred to himself as handsome he would laugh out loud. It was a habit of his to call beautiful girls ugly, thin ones fat, intelligent people dumb, tall people Shorty and the like.
Dhruv on the other hand thought Roshan was very handsome and took the jest seriously.
“Yeah man, she would suit you.” Dhruv said.
“Hey don’t start about girls and ruin my ‘Smoke break’ otherwise I will have to light another one. And you know how bad this is for my muscles.”
“Chod na, one cigarette will not kill you.”
On their way back to their contiguous cubicles, with mints in their mouth, Mr. Rakesh (their boss) asked them how the report was coming.
Dhruv who had not done any work at all was quick to respond.
“Sir, most of the work has been done. I will submit them whenever you want.”
“And from where have you collected the data?”
“Sir, I just searched it on the net. I don’t remember the sources. It is all in the report.”
“And what are the topics on which you found the data?”
Dhruv began a rant about all the topics he could remember from the seminars he had slept through. He had to give a report on GPRS system in India the very next day but he did not even remember on what subject he had to prepare the report. Roshan in the meantime had swallowed the mint and sensing that even a 12th grader with little technical knowledge would see through Dhruv’s discursive rant interrupted,
“Sir, I have got some interesting data on the new optical fibers. I found the latest data on underground cables for 2008. No one has data this recent.”
Roshan too had of course not done any project writing on Data Transmission but had collected the data, at least.
“Well I would like to have a look at the data. Mail it to me.” Mr. Rakesh commanded.
“Yes sir, I will.” Replied Roshan and moved on.
Dhruv thought it was pretty dorky that Roshan had collected the data but did not want to even think of his friend as dork his friend so did not say anything. They were the cool ones; they were supposed to do everything just before the deadline. Roshan sensed Dhruv’s thought as people who know each other very well do and explained,
“Pinky had come to my cubicle. I was reading ‘Peanuts’. But, she would have had a heart attack if she saw that I was having fun in office hours. So I pretended as if I was collecting data and actually ended up collecting the data.”
Pinky was a very dedicated office worker, like most of the others in the office. She believed that work is worship. And hence she believed that everyone was as dedicated to work as she was. She could never in her wildest imagination imagine that Roshan did not want to spend his every waking moment in the welfare of the company.
Pinky was quite beautiful and she dressed very smartly. Her hair was pulled behind in the latest fashion; she wore a stripped white shirt and a black skirt which fell to knee. Half the office would have had a crush on her if it hadn’t been for Julie, who was the hottest girl on the floor, but more about her later.
Roshan had a soft spot for her, as he had for any girl who did not hate him. And he had a soft spot even for girls who hated him, if they were beautiful enough.
“Where is she?” asked Roshan.
“Why are you getting so excited? She must be having lunch somewhere else today.” Dhruv replied.
“Mr. Singh might come on inspection today. I had better go recheck my presentation to make sure there are no mistakes.” Sudheer said.
Sudheer was the official geek of their floor. He finished his projects at least two days before deadline, spent time with boss and his family regularly and was always reading books, which he had read well enough in college, in free time. Roshan would have liked him, even admired him, had it not been for the fact that he always referred himself as the laziest, most uncaring and coolest bad ass dude of the office.
“I finished the project this morning in a hurry. There must be lot of mistakes.” Sudheer said getting up.
Both, Roshan and Dhruv, knew that he must have finished the project at least a week before. And they also knew that Mr. Singh, the supervisor, was not coming that day because his secretary was a girlfriend of Dhruv and always tipped them before his surprise inspections.
Dhruv made a big show of swallowing of his spit and said in the most obvious patronizing voice,
“Haan Yaar, if Mr. Singh saw your presentation the way it is you will be in big trouble. People like us rarely do any work. By the way listen, I have got some work out here so just collect data for me on GPRS. It will be too late for me by the time I get back and I have to submit the report tomorrow.”
“You mean GPRS and how it works, etc?” Sudheer asked.
“No actually how it has been implemented in India and its future scope.”
“Ok. Just come by my cubicle later.”
“Sure thing.” Replied Dhruv very much pleased.
Somebody was always there to do Dhruv’s work for him. And if on some rare occasion no one did it Dhruv would just give some excuse to Mr. Rakesh. Dhruv mostly got away without doing any work. Roshan found this very odd though he too did little work. But when he did, he worked very hard. Going out of his way add details to the project on hand. Even if he did not do the entire work himself he had to understand what he was working on unlike Dhruv who did not care what he submitted to his superiors.
“I don’t think she will come today.” Roshan said, giving up.
“Give it some time,” said Dhruv “here have a cigarette till then.
They were waiting for the unanimously chosen hottest girl of the building, Rakhi. Everyone knew her bio-data by heart. Where she lived, where she sat, where she had her lunch and most importantly when she left office for her home. Roshan had a minor crush for her and though he couldn’t say for sure he thought he had often caught her stealing glances towards him. He had this feeling that she too was interested in him.
They were sitting at their favourite spot near the fast food joint. The spot offered everything shade, privacy to smoke and an unobstructed view of Rakhi having lunch with her girlfriends at her favourite spot. This did not look like their lucky day though as Rakhi had not shown up at her favourite spot at the usual time. Soon Roshan would have to return to office to reimburse the money he had spent on petrol, food and accommodation during a recent tour. Though he had nothing to do at the moment and was getting quite bored it was unspoken rule between him and Dhruv that break times could not be used for any work even remotely associated with work. The staff would probably have been on lunch at the moment any way.
So when the lunch break was finally over Roshan headed for the managerial section and Dhruv headed for the office. The managerial section was in the ground floor and accounts on first floor. He would have to get the signatures from managing staff and then collect the money from accounts.
There was small crowd near the Mr. Abraham’s office to whom Roshan had to give all the bills. Even Rakhi was there. As he reached Mr. Abraham’s desk he heard Rakhi request,
“Sir, could you please go over my application.”
“Just a minute.” Mr. Abraham replied.
In the ensuing silence of a few seconds Roshan said,
“Mr. Abraham I needed to reimburse these bills.”
“Let me deal with these people first.” Replied Mr. Abraham addressing both Rakhi and Roshan referring to the four five people already there and pointing to the sofa for them to be seated on in the meantime.
They sat on the sofa. Rakhi with the familiar awkwardness that one feels when he or she comes across a person whom they feel they know because they have been seeing them across the hall daily but never spoken. Roshan joined her with the thoughts “Thank you, god!”
Roshan looking for an opening said,
“Hi! What are you here for? “
“I am to apply for change in department.” She replied handing out the application she was holding. She had a very beautiful face, was around 5’6” and somewhat voluptuous. She was wearing a blue Salwar suit. Her head was tied in the traditional long ‘choti’. She was wearing a blue bangle in her right hand and a golden wrist watch in her left. On the whole she was very comely. For a moment Roshan got too engrossed in the blue bangle and almost missed the application. Catching himself in time he took the application from her.
“Dear Sir,
Regarding: blah..blah.. blah
I would like to request for change in.. I wonder what I should say to her next. .. I have already submitted.. I wonder if it will be too early to ask her for a date. I will be very grateful if…. But if I don’t ask her for lunch Dhruv will kill me.
Yours sincerely,
Rakhi Patel
“Oh! So your name is Rakhi. Huh!”Roshan said thinking “Duh! Like everyone in the building knows that.”
“Yeah!” she replied.
“Why are you applying for change in department?” Roshan ploughed on.
“Actually I was working as a trainee. Now that I have completed my training I have to join some other department as a full time worker.”
“In which department were you working till now?” Roshan continued not letting there be any pause in the conversation.
“I was working under Mr. Shah, the senior architect.”
“That’s nice. You are an architect then. I am an engineer. I work on the second floor. By the way how did you get the internship here? It is quite tough to get an internship here.”
“Mr. Suraj is a distant uncle of mine. He lives near my house in Sardar Patel Colony. He helped get the internship. By the way what’s your name?”
“Wow! She is asking my name!” thought Roshan replying,
“Roshan.”
“Hi! It’s nice to meet you.” she said extending her hand and flashing a smile which made Roshan’s heart skip a beat. And his heart skipped two beats when he got to shake her soft hands. He hoped that she did not find his hand too rough. He liked to work out without gloves which had made his hand callous.
Mr. Abraham took a long time to do the work of the guys who had come before them. And in the meantime Rakhi and Roshan came to know all about each other’s residence, family, bosses, a few habits and I do believe even favourite colours. Though I don’t clearly remember how they came about discussing their favourite colour they certainly did not find it odd to discuss favourite coulours and discussed about colours at length.
Finally Mr. Abraham called Rakhi and immediately signed her application, Roshan was very glad because his cheeks where beginning to quake from having smiled for such a long time and his mouth was running out of spit. She took leave of Roshan and left the room. Sparing him the dilemma of whether he should ask her out or ask her number as it was their very first conversation.
The next day Roshan and Dhruv waited for her during lunch. Dhruv was as excited as Roshan, which made Roshan quite suspicious, but he need not have worried as she did not come. Roshan would have left the matter as it is. But Dhruv forced him to go to the architectural department. On enquiring other trainees they found out that her application had been accepted and she had shifted to another department in another building in another part of Delhi.
Roshan saw her three months later at the company’s annual party with three other girls. Roshan and Rakhi looked at each other but too long a time had passed between their first and the last meeting. She did not show any sign of recognition. He too felt too awkward to talk to her. Unfortunately Dhruv did not see her otherwise he would have shook Roshan out of prudence and made him go over to greet her. Matters standing as they did, they never saw each other again.
