Karma, Cupid & I

by

Nethra Ram

Published by Notion Press

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CHAPTER 01

A constant ringing in my ear from all the phone calls I had made during the day distracted me momentarily from the joke VJ was cracking. A second later though, I was in on it, and with a satisfied grin I headed to the coffee machine down the corridor. When I got back with my zodiac mug full of steaming caffeine, my phone was ringing.

‘Hello,’

‘Hi. Is this Madhumita?’

‘Yes,’

‘Madhumita, I am Raghu. We met at Surekha’s wedding, remember?’

Of course! I thought sarcastically. No, I couldn’t remember him. Because I don’t remember guys I meet. I remember guys I fight with! This one clearly wasn’t on my hit list.

‘Umm…’

‘We talked about outsourcing.’

Oh yes! How did he get my number?

‘I got your number from Surekha. Hope you don’t mind.’

Ok, he’s a mind-reader too?

‘Oh Raghu. Yeah, that’s fine.’

It struck me at that instant that I remembered him for something else, but I couldn’t place my finger on it.

‘I need to talk to you about something. It’s important. Can we meet? How about 6.00PM, the CCD near your office?’

‘Uhh…’

‘I know this is out of the blue, but it is really necessary that I meet you. Please.’

Ok, he won. He was polite, rare for men.

‘Ok, I’ll be there.’

‘Thank you. Nice day to you.’

‘And you.’

‘Bye.’

‘Bye.’

I shut the flip close on my phone. Three pairs of eyes were fixed on me, anxiety doing a Mexican wave in each of them. ‘You guys have work to do you know,’ I said.

‘Oh! Shut up,’ went Appu. ‘So who was he? What does he want?’ she cried, almost jumping out of her seat.

‘Well… his name is Raghu and he’s a FOAF and told me there’s something important he wants to discuss with me,’ I replied.

‘Did he say what it was?’ Danny questioned.

‘Nope,’ I replied.

Oh my God! I had agreed to meet with a stranger just because he was polite and supposedly had something to tell me. I seriously felt the need for common sense lessons!

‘So are you going to meet him?’ VJ asked.

‘I said I would be there. Looks like I have to,’ I replied. This was followed by a moment’s silence where my workmates ingested the fact I had supplied them with and tried coming up with something for or against it. My caffeine concoction had understood a minute ago that it wasn’t my priority anymore and had stopped steaming.

Finally, they let out sighs and shrugged. Their eyes held a clear message – conference call at 7.00PM for the FIR. I picked up the mug and headed towards my cubicle. The clock on my desktop read 11.00AM.

* * *

The morning zoomed by, or maybe it was just good ol’ Einstein’s relativity thing at work. I picked up my bag and prepared to leave at 5.45PM. CCD was just a couple of blocks away and I could make it in about five minutes even if I had to crawl on all fours! I looked across at my team. VJ held two thumbs up. Appu had her fingers crossed and Danny winked. I smiled at them and walked out towards the elevators.

I walked into CCD at 5.55PM pretty impressed with myself (I had to wait for an elevator). Sam gave me a good evening salute that I returned. My gang was as frequent there as coffee beans! Danny and I had downed the Devil’s Own so many times that if the devil were to pick his ‘own’, we would definitely be top of his list.

I scanned the tables to see if there were any occupied by a single guy staring at me. None. Good. I was early and that meant I needn’t have ‘clumsy’ on my behavior list for the evening and I could pretend like I had been waiting for ages and throw some attitude. I picked up a chocolate milkshake and headed to my favourite corner table for four.

I took a sip and resumed my people watching. I had hardly gone past two tables when a guy walked in through the door. He paused for half a second and located me. His face lit up with a smile of recognition and I returned half of it hesitantly. He didn’t wait for it though because he went on to hold the door open for someone. A moment later my sister Aditi walked in. Her face appeared flushed and her eyes dropped to the floor as he

took her arm and led her towards my table. I buried a stunned face in my milkshake for those few seconds, which confirmed Einstein’s theory yet again and stretched to ages!