"Who Is This Robert?..." was the first thing I heard, when I picked up the call of my boss. He continued his loud voice without me giving any answer to him. He was pissed off with Robert's calls as a few of his documents were missing which he needs to submit to him. My boss wanted me to submit his documents to him which he had left in his drawer.
I took some of Robert’s details, took the documents from his drawer, and went to search him in office as instructed by my boss. I reached at the place, but saw a girl sitting at Mr. Robert’s place. Her face was facing towards wall, and her back towards me. I waited for her to turn back and notice that someone was standing. But she was too busy doing something in the excel sheet that was opened in her desktop computer. Unable to wait for long, I spoke - excuse me, who is Robert? She turned around to see who has called. I was completely shock to see the girl; she was the same one whom I have been searching like mad in Mumbai, in Church and in Railway station. She was standing in front of me in my office.
For the little while I went completely blank seeing her in office. But where soon my senses were back, as she repeated again and again what it is for. I asked her again about Mr. Robert, to which she replied, He is not in office, is there anything with which she can help me. I handed her the documents and told her to tell Robert, to give confirmation call to my boss.
After talking to her, I first ran towards my two best buddies from office, who by now knew my entire journey of chasing her round the Mumbai cities. Faisal Kazi (FK) and Ajinkya Randir (AJ) the two very opposite personalities. I call them as my Tom and Jerry, reason though they work for the same team; they keep on fighting over any given topic like the cartoons. But I must say, they both have the hearts of gold, and whenever I fall into any kind of trouble they act like my good Samaritans.
In my excitement I narrated my entire conversation to them and pointed out towards her department and work station in office. AJ gave me a board smile while FK gave me weird look, I guess FK didn’t like her, or may be he knows her and didn’t like her that much. I ask Faisal, do you know her, in his strike voice he said No. I asked them to get me her full details in any case. And as usual it was expected, Faisal didn’t give any answer, but Ajinkya said give him two days, and he will get all the details for me.
After two days, Ajinkya, came in my department as soon as he saw my name in internal messaging box. “Mari, come in a side want to tell you something…”, his indication was more then enough for me to know that he has some news about my girl. He began telling about her… Her name is Nathalie Kelley (Name Changed), few months back she joined our office, stay near by Bandra and status is single… Well nothing pleased me as much as his last sentence did “Status Is Single”… A broad smile came on my face as we talk about her further. Ajinkya was going on talking about other things as well, while I was still smiling listening to him. He cut down his conversation and said we will discuss more at the tea break.
I was eagerly waiting for Faisal to come up with some more good news about her. My wrist watch strike 4pm, its tea break guys, I sent an internal message to both of them. An immediate reply was expected, but both replied me, wait for 10 minutes as too much of their works were pending. God knows these 10 minutes for the first time was so tough to pass. Finally they came in my department, and we left for the tea break.
While getting down from the staircase, Faisal spoke up, that he have seen her many times at the reception reading newspaper during lunch time. Ajinkya jump on the street, yes even I have seen her many times at lunch time. As far as I know in the history of our friendship, this was the first and the last time that they both have accepted each others opinion.
Our next aim was how we would make friendship with her and how we can know her more closely. To begin with, even I started reading newspapers at the lunch time. But for me, the snooker game which some of the office guys play, attracted me more then reading newspapers. So, I started playing snooker, while she sits right in front of me everyday. Sometime we just look at each other with blank face and sometime our eyes do the talking.
This went on for many days, everyday I use to run to the reception to catch her glimpses while she be present there reading her newspapers. I thought, our this act was hidden from all until one day a friend came up to me and ask is there something going between both of us. I politely avoided his question, just to concentrate on her.
Faisal and Ajinkya were still with me talking about the guy asking me about her. As we were talking, she got up from her seat, kept the newspapers at aside and begins walking towards the main door. Don’t know what happened but she turned back, and for the first time she smiled at us.
