Episode 22

I never thought I would be admitting this.I am probably in love. I don’t think I can define the love that I feel for Karthik. All I know is that it is different from what I feel towards my mom and dad, different from what I feel for Naren or Anitha.

Sometime in the last week, when I was busy trying to fight and trying to get Karthik to understand, I realized I am doing this because I more than just like this guy.

I expected that the realization would feel like a burden, like carrying something heavy on my back. Being in love is difficult work people. Surprisingly, it feels right, in fact, I feel like I am soaring, just a little bit. I don’t want to sound corny, but, yeah, that is how I feel. I am a tiny teeny bit worried about Karthik though. He hasn’t said the words or said anything remotely like it. But, actions do speak, I don’t need the words, yet. It is not as if I declared my intentions, right?

The list of things we like about, rather love about Karthik, keeps growing. Apart from being thoughtful and understanding (I mean, I don’t understand myself, but he does), he is also caring and always says the right thing. Let us not forget just how good he looks and how romantic he is. I am not romantic enough for him, but that is fine, one of us needed to be romantic and he was, which took off a huge chunk of work from my back. Don’t narrow your eyes, you know I am lazy.

Anyways, this is what I have been thinking about in a loop since last week and I also played interesting incidents (like multiple kisses) over and over again in my head. This is hundred times better than last week when I was obsessing about him not talking. Wheels of time, if I may say so. What I am currently doing is staring blankly at my screen at work and trying to get work done.

We had good news today. The proposal we had submitted for the library project has gone to the final stages and Sukanya and co will be making a final presentation. Since I am still way down the ladder and just helped with the project, I won’t be part of the presentation. This is a bummer. But I get it. I am still on the last rung of the ladder, so. They are trying to come up with a prototype for the finished product, a sort of mock up, and a small team of three has been formed, me being one of the team for obvious reasons.

The other two in the team are guys with more experience for this stuff and have worked together before on similar tasks and they have been treating me quite obnoxiously. First, they already decided what they are going to work on and then asked me what I want to do, like for the sake of asking. Since they had already split most of the interesting work among themselves, like coming up with basic style sheets and the look and feel and things like that, I am stuck with just wiring the different screens together. Basically, they will build all the awesome looking user interface or pages and I am supposed to write the piece of code which just brings up those pages based on actions. Like they would do the kickass home page and the essential login page.

My job is to ensure that once you login, the home page appears. This is a mock, so there is no login checks in actuality, so just need to bring up the home page. Bleh.

I have been arguing the whole day with them and they haven’t relented. Apparently, they are the “experts” or so I have been told. This just sucked.

Well. I am going to do something about this.

‘So, what you say is, Sanjay and Vinay are doing most of the work…’, Shan says, preceding a smirk-smile.

‘Yup. I mean, I need to….’

‘Good. It is going to turn out good then. Those guys know what they are doing.’

Grrrr.

‘I want to do something interesting Shan.’

‘We want this done quickly Priya and for it to look great. It is a mock-up. We don’t have the time.’

‘Shan but..’

‘Priya, there is a time to learn and there is a time to do. You can contribute the next time..’

Asshole.

‘Is there anything else?’, he asks and I shake my head.

It is like he read my mind, because he smirk-smiles. Jerk too.

Right. So that was absolute fun. I was tricked into feeling like work could be interesting.

‘So.. The point is?’, Karthik says.

We are sitting in an ice cream parlor, having just ordered ice cream. I have been complaining about his dear friend Shan for some time now, from the time he picked me from work and all through the way till the ice cream place, up until now. He had been patiently listening, but now looks like he has reached his limit.

‘Grrrr… Karthik, you have to listen. Your friend is a jerk’.

Karthik just shrugs. ‘I don’t know, looks like he is just doing his job..’.

My jaw drops and I look at Karthik with my mouth fully open.

‘What? He is doing what is required to get things going on…’

I reel with shock for about five seconds. I lean back in my chair, fold my arms on my chest and give him a skink eye. I expect him to drop down on his knees and apologize with earnest. That would have been the preferred execution of the events.

‘Well.. Get over it Priya. You don’t always get what you want when you are in a field where there are thousands of people too. You gotta….’, he keeps talking completely undisturbed by my stink eye. So I send out a look of smolder, really intense, he should be shaking in his shoes.

Karthik stops his lecture, but doesn’t look like my smolder mattered to him either. ‘Anyways, let’s not talk about Shan. Doesn’t seem like the right use of our time.’

What? No apology? No epic declaration? You gotta respect the smolder. I get pissed by the lack of respect towards my smolder. So, apart from folding my arms over my chest, I also turn away from Karthik and start observing the posters with colorful, yummy ice creams blown up with happy families enjoying.

‘Priya?’, Karthik calls me. I would have left the place. But I had ordered Death By Chocolate. So, nothing is going to stop me from eating my first Death By Chocolate of the year. You see, DBC is the best there is. Super rich chocolate brownie chunks topped with vanilla ice cream, topped with hot chocolate fudge, topped with peanuts. DBC is indeed to die for, but if you lead a sedentary life sitting in front of a computer and then sit around and talk with friends the rest of the time and the extent of your physical activities is the occasional run which you claim as a fitness activity worth a month, you eat DBC only twice a year. This is going to be my first time in this year.

‘Priya?’, Karthik attempts again. I look at the table next to ours. There are a group of girls laughing and chatting and having fun. I also see a couple of girls looking at Karthik and smiling among themselves. I give them the stink eye. They laugh it off too. Great.

I look back at Karthik to see him turning side ways to look at the same table and a smile is playing on his lips. Excuse me? He smiles?

‘Nice looking girls right?’, he says.

‘Are you trying to irritate me?’

‘Yes, it is obvious isn’t it?’

‘I am just waiting for my ice cream. Once I am done I am going to go my way, you go your way.’

Karthik laughs.

‘You are dramatic. I did not realize that.’

‘I am not dramatic. I am just saying what is going to happen since you didn’t get what happened.’

‘Ok.. What happened? Explain to me? Please?’

I shrug. The time has passed.

I bring down my hands, put my right hand on the table and start tapping away with my fingers. I hum some random tune to show him I am completely cool.

I should have known Karthik isn’t very fair. He picks up my hand, ignores my attempt at pulling it away from him.

‘Tell me.’

‘Well.. If you don’t know, no point explaining right?’

‘Are you not talking because of the Shan thing? I thought we were done with it.’

‘You took his side.’

‘I didn’t take any sides. I was just trying to explain to you that these things happen.’

‘Right.’

‘Priya?’

‘What?’

‘You can’t be pissed because I am saying something that makes sense’

‘I need to talk to Anitha. Telling this to you was a big mistake.’

Karthik sighs. ‘Babe’, he says.

No! He didn’t!

‘Don’t call me babe when I am pissed.’

Karthik gets up, pushes his chair towards my side. No no no. I will get de-pissed if he tries. I want to stay pissed. I move my chair away. He puts a hand out holding my chair and trapping me and pushes his chair and sits down right next to me. Crap. I hate it when guys can do stuff like that.

The chair wasn’t a light one either. Before I can recover from his display of strength, he has also pulled both my hands into his. Double crap.

He rubs the top of my right hand with his and since I am not looking up, uses the other hand to bring my chin up. ‘Priya, what is happening?’

I sigh. ‘I was enjoying my work, really liking it. Now it is boring again. I feel like I am not doing anything useful, again.’

‘Again?’, he prompts.

I nod. ‘I realized that, I can’t always like my work. I can’t look at work as the only means of feeling accomplished.’

I pause. He stays silent. ‘I want to do something that feels good and satisfying…’

‘But you said you do like being in software. Not a lot of people even feel that way. Most of them hate it, but still do it.’

I nod again. ‘You were right’.

‘I was?’, his thumb makes circles on my left palm and I feel myself calming down. Damn.

‘Yep. I am in a field where there are lot of people. So there are going to be such instances and they are going to occur frequently.’

‘But I also know, you have to enjoy your work. Else, you are going to be stressed and feel frustrated all the time’.

I nod again. I don’t say anything, I even look away. Looks like the waiter was just waiting for one of us to give a sign that we are ready for our ice creams, he looks at me and gestures about serving our order. I nod at him. Poor guy.

I look back at Karthik. I sigh again. ‘I am sorry.’

‘It’s okay’, he says, squeezing my left hand. The waiter comes and places my order of death by chocolate and Karthik’s order of some normal sundae. I try to snatch my hand away, but Karthik doesn’t let me. I wait for the waiter to serve us and leave.

‘I thought I will have to stop being a software engineer and start being something else.’

Well, I did. I was going to find another exciting career when I find myself and fall in love with this exciting new field. I mean, I didn’t do much about it. But I planned to. What really happened was, I found a part of my job that I liked and I just fell in love. Karthik still looks at me expectantly. Not a bad way to have an epiphany, I think, looking at him.

‘So, I need to do something else that is going to make me feel good when being a software engineer isn’t enough.’

‘Hmmmm’, he pauses. ‘Having a job that is soul-satisfying, is an old school thought.’

‘Really?’

He nods. ‘There is nothing wrong in making a living out of one thing, and living for something else. There are few people for whom both are same. There are few who see the first as a curse and complain all through life. There are few who see the first as a means for having the second.’

Wow. That actually makes sense. Do I have a second something in my life?

‘When did you become so wise?’, I lean forward, subtly pull out my hand and pull the ice cream to me.

‘I am always wise. You should always listen to me.’, he says drily.

Right. I mix the multiple layers on one corner to take my first bite.

‘You should not gloat. You should accept compliments graciously’, I say, using the same tone as he did.

He smiles. ‘I do not gloat’.

I snicker at him and taste the ice cream. Like always, the first taste of it sends me right to heaven. Mmmm.

‘Babe?’, he calls me again. I look up, with a spoonful of just the fudge and raise my eye brow in question.

‘Is it that good? You are almost moaning.’. I nod. He picks up his spoon and dips into my ice cream and tastes it.

He makes a face as if he ate something that is too sour. ‘It is too chocolaty.’

Well duh.

‘How are you going to have all of it?’

‘Karthik? Stop talking right now before I decide we have to go separate ways again.’, no one insults chocolate. Not even Karthik.

The infidel just laughs. God, he is irritating. I lean forward threateningly.

‘Stick to your boring black currant sundae. Don’t come near my ice cream.’

He ignores my threat. His finds his way to my ice cream again. I pretend being shocked. I want him to like it though.

‘Well.. It is not bad really’, he says.

‘Just Not bad?’

‘Yup’

Men.

‘You want this?’, he says pointing at his ice cream. I shake my head. ‘No thanks’.

‘Well I don’t want it either’, he says and pushes it away. What a waste.

He pulls my ice cream in between us and starts at it. Well, at least I can have DBC four times a year now.