Episode _ 1

2

‘Hey!’ I waved my hand from the lift lobby.

She looked, ignored my frantic hand movements across the hallway and went back to the

computer screen. I walked slowly through the cubicles on both sides, and smiled at people

who knew me and they smiled back at me. Most of them knew where I was heading to.

‘Good morning,’ I said. Her perfume wafted into my nostrils. The perfume was my third

anniversary gift, three bottles of it, and she had vowed to wear it every single day. She had

made the fragrance her own. Three days in a swampy tent in Ooty and she would still smell

the same.

‘What the hell were you doing there?’she asked angrily, not sharing my enthusiasm. Her

frown and her wide open eyes didn’t scare me; it just made her look more adorable. It’s as

cute as a puppy wrestling a rubber ball.

‘I was just excited to see you.’

She turned away from me and flicked her hair behind her ear, ‘You don’t have to show the

entire floor that you were excited.’

‘What? Everyone knows that we are together,’ I argued.

She had got fairer, if that was possible. Her nose looked a little red from the chill in the

air; her lips a little more red and cheeks a little more pull-able. She looked gorgeous.

‘Not the bosses. They don’t know about us and they don’t have to.’

‘So what? What if they know?’ I asked, as I pulled up a chair from the nearby desk.

‘They are old people, Deb, they don’t understand all this. Office romances are not seen in

a kind light, Deb.’

‘First of all, we are just interns here. And second, this is not a romance,’ I said. ‘This is

just a fling. All I bear for you is unprecedented lust.’

She caught me in a gaze, her lips slightly parted, infinitely sexy. ‘Is it so?’

‘It sure is,’ I said.

‘Then you really don’t mind,’she turned away from me and tapped on the keyboard, ‘if I

check out other guys’ profiles on Facebook … Oh, I think this one is hot. Should I send him

a friend request? He would be hot in bed too, I guess. But why look outside, when I have

Kabir right here in the office?’

My heart shrank. Even as a joke, it wasn’t funny. It didn’t help that Kabir was taller,

fairer, handsomer and more accomplished; also he had always harboured a soft corner for

Avantika.

‘Why, why, why would I mind? Go ahead. Sleep with him for all I care. I don’t mind. Did

I tell you about last night? Last night was awesome. Malini is incredible in bed. I mean, she is really good.’

Avantika looked at me, her eyes quivering and still big, ‘Never say that.’

‘You started it.’

‘Never.’

‘Okay.’

3

Avantika and I had been going out for quite a few years now, and except for one break-up

that lasted a little while, it had been a smooth ride. Well, not really. The days were smooth,

the nights … rough. I wasn’t complaining. Three years and empty classrooms, hostel rooms,

secluded roads and movie hall: things like these still excited us. We still couldn’t keep our

hands off each other, and we still acted like teenagers on a hormone overload. A girl like

her had no business to even kiss a guy like me, but she did, and I was thankful for that.

‘So, season eight?’she asked, fiddling through the rack of CDs.

‘Whichever would do.’

‘The Man with the Long Stick?’she asked.

‘No, that is a little boring.’

‘The Turkey?’

‘No, that we have seen a million times.’

‘The Gas Burst?’

‘Umm … no.’ I shook my head. ‘Why don’t we watch the fifth season, the third or the

fourth episode?’

‘Why didn’t you say it in the first place?’she said, a little miffed.

‘I like it when you ask.’

‘Drama queen.’

She hit the play button. It was probably the hundredth time we were watching this

episode, but I didn’t mind. Every time, it was funnier than the last time. I had tried watching

those sitcoms alone, but they were never as much fun as they were with her. She snuggled up

to me, passed on the popcorn and closed her eyes. ‘What do you think will happen

tomorrow?’she asked.

‘You will get the job, that’s what,’ I said.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. There’s absolutely no competition. You have worked nights on an internship. No

one does that. You will be their first choice, Avantika.’

She felt a bit relaxed and hugged me tighter.

The next day was pretty exciting for interns like her who were expecting a pre-placement

offer. Which meant a few interns will go back with an assured job in hand with still a year

to go for college to end.

Avantika fancied her chances.

I couldn’t wait to go back to college. It had been two months that I had been going to that

monstrous building made out of steel and glass, wearing a suffocating tie, and I couldn’t take

it any more. Avantika, on the other hand, had been hyperventilating since the morning. We

didn’t exchange a single word till the time we reached office for the last day of our

internship.

‘It will be okay,’ I assured her.

It wasn’t until afternoon that the managers called all of us and gave us an extensive

review on how each one of us had done during the internship. The reviews for Avantika and

Kabir stood out and their managers couldn’t stop gloating over their dedication and the hard

work they had put in. I slept through most of it. I just wanted to hear whether they would

offer Avantika a job or not. That’s all I cared for. The conference ended and we all walked

out. We had expected that they would announce the names of the interns they had chosen for

a job but they didn’t. They said they needed more time to decide since everyone was so

brilliant. Obviously, they weren’t talking about me because my manager described my

performance as ‘he didn’t miss deadlines’. He was a prick anyway.

‘What do you think of the chances?’she asked.

‘You will get through. Did you not hear what he said? You were brilliant, and I didn’t

hear him say these words for anyone else.’

‘You are just being sweet,’she said. ‘Even Kabir’s manager was so gung-ho about him.’

‘Why would I be sweet?’

‘Because that’s what you are,’she answered. ‘I’m so nervous. I think I will pass out.’ She

kept chewing on her painted nails. ‘Deb, do you think we can go to the human resources

department and ask for the cheques of our stipends?’

‘Is that what you want to do on your last day in this office?’ I asked.

‘What do you have in mind?’ Avantika asked. Silly question, I thought.

A little later, we were walking to the conference room, nervous and sweating. The people

in the cubicles who looked at us as we walked past them had no idea what was on our

minds. The walk of shame lasted an hour and my heart was thumping. We bolted the door

behind us.

‘What if we get caught? This is not good,’she said.

‘I know,’ I answered and she put her hands across me. ‘But this is my revenge for

whatever the internship put me through.’

‘They paid you while you sat at my desk doing nothing.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ I grumbled. ‘Don’t kill my anger. I’m really angry and I become a really

good kisser when I’m angry.’

‘Why haven’t I ever felt that?’ She chuckled.

I pulled her close. ‘Whatever.’

The projector of the room was still running. Avantika killed the lights and darkness

engulfed us. We were bat-shit scared, but the thrill of making out in an office conference

room couldn’t have been ignored.

Half an hour later, as we lay on the floor of the conference room, exhausted, she said,

‘Let’s go away, Deb.’

‘Go away? Where?’

‘Anywhere? Somewhere far from here. There are still five days to go for college and we

have nothing to do.’

‘We can just stay at my place and do nothing.’

‘That’s boring,’she said. ‘Let’s go to Goa? It’s not that far! I have been so tense with the

internship and the pre-placement offer. I deserve a break, don’t I?’

‘Are you serious?’ I asked her because in the past two months I had suggested the same

about three thousand times.

She rested her head on my shoulder. ‘I’m serious.’

‘Goa it is then! I just have a lot of packing to do,’ I mumbled.

We smiled. Soon, we realized that we couldn’t lay around ***** in the conference room

much longer. We got up, checked each other’s necks for love bites, kissed each other one

more time and headed back to our seats. A victorious smile broke out on my face.

4

I was really excited about the Goa plan, but packing weighed it down and I was more

hassled than excited. Packing is not a very cool or a masculine thing to do. I got irritated in

a while and called her up for help. My clothes were strewn all over the bed, the dining

table, the washroom … they were everywhere, and I didn’t know where to start. Avantika

had already packed and was on her way to my place. I panicked, grabbed hold of all the

clothes and stuffed them inside two suitcases, and there were still boxers, socks and

trousers, waiting to be folded and packed. Somehow my clothes had expanded during the

two-month stay and wouldn’t fit in the two suitcases they had come in. I gave up. It was a

lost cause.

‘How much more time will you need to pack, Deb?’she asked as the cab driver piled up

five of her seven suitcases neatly over one another in the drawing room.

‘Avantika? Exactly how many clothes do you have?’

‘Leave that,’she snapped and paid the cab driver.

She was positively shocked when she entered my flat; she looked around like she had

stepped in a post-war Nazi camp with bodies lying around, decomposing. It was a rotting

bachelor’s pad, and I had done well to keep her away from it during our internship.

‘This smells like a rotting crime scene,’she grumbled.

‘Why do you think I spend more time at your flat than mine?’ I asked. She was rolling up

her sleeves. ‘You don’t have to bother with that, Avantika. Let’s just pack and leave.’

It was already too late; she was already mopping. She was an obsessive cleanliness

freak. A speck of dust and she would rush to dust the whole room, one soiled pair of boxers

in one corner of the room, and she would make it her agenda to get my whole wardrobe

washed. The only reason why my room in the MDI hostel was probably the cleanest of all

rooms, including the girls’ rooms and excluding hers, was Avantika.

‘Deb, is this how you pack?’ She yanked open the suitcases and the clothes spilled over.

It was like the suitcase threw up all over her. ‘And you have mixed all your stuff. These are

so smelly. And don’t just sit around there. Come and help me with this.’

I walked up and pretended to fold clothes and jammed them into suitcases.

‘You are doing nothing, Deb. Just go and do whatever you want to do,’she said angrily.

Not wanting to piss her off more, I just sat there and looked at her as she neatly segregated

the clothes and then placed them in different bags and suitcases, her face constantly

crumpled due to the ungodly smell.

‘It’s insane that you can look so great even while you’re packing clothes into a suitcase,’ I

remarked.

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