After Lok sabha election results, MNCs freeze campus hiring

Taking a cue from the fresh electoral mandate pouring in from every nook and corner of Indian television like greenhouse gases, the Association of IT Companies decided to shy away from campus recruitments from immediate effect. It was more or less the drubbing of Aam Aadmi Party which has prompted such a step. “The campus hires have absolutely no experience about the industry, they talk a lot of ideologies, want to change the system by making it more streamlined and efficient, something which we don’t really need at this hour” said one of the premier associate member of this elite group on conditions of anonymity.


Over the years, most of IT Conglomerates depended on Tier-2 and Tier-3 Engg. College which provided them enough quota of bench strength. Not only these new hires were recruited for peanuts, but they also led to an increased work force or rather say resources and man power. However, a not so independent survey conducted by AC Nelson Mandela, 40-50% of these new hires either left the company for higher studies or for better packages. The parent companies spent lakhs of rupees on appeasing these new low paid hires by conducting random and occasional events like fashion shows, Independence day celebrations, etc. . The survey proved the market pundits wrong yet again. The severe losses made by the new party AAP in Lok sabha 2014 elections was the final nail in the coffin. “That is it”, said Aziz Shah, CEO of Bata Consultancy Services(BCS). ”We spend a tremendous amount of capital recruiting these new hires, most of our experience managers who donot have any work take only interviews for this purpose and then training(read appeasing) them. And the end result is preposterous. One of campus recruits left us saying she was getting married, the last heard she switched her loyalties to our competitor”, he added later.


The engineering students all over the country, which has been hit hard by this sudden move has joined hands and promised a national movement followed by dharnas. “This whole system is flawed.. Freshers being fickle minded is just a pretext used by the MNCs, instead they have their own interests in it. We(freshers) tend to do better than their experienced lot and that leads to EPs(exp. Professionals) being expelled. They are just being protective about their own jobs and trying to cut down the competition. And the whole idea is illegal and biased. And this is what we are fighting for”, said Anand Kejriwal, popularly known as AK among this batch mates. He continued further saying “This is not my fight, its fight of all the common engineering students who cannot afford to be entrepreneurs, both financially and intellectually”. Our correspondent had to literally pull away his microphone, to stop him from saying any further.


With campus hiring coming to end, there is sense of jubilation among experienced lot. “There has been a sudden surge of more than 30% of people uploading their resumes on our sites”, said the spokesperson from Shine.com, whose only source of traffic otherwise was spasm mails sent to an individual. Narad Moody aka NaMo who worked up his ranks from a software engineer to Delivery Head uploaded his selfie on his official twitter handler showing a victory sign. “These kids(freshers) were never a competition. A lot of hoopla had been created around them. I am happy that finally we have won”, he said with a broad smile on his face. When asked if even he was a fresher at some point of time, he cooked up a story saying how he served tea to professionals early in his career and move up the ranks. We found his story a mere fiction in our internal verifications.


Whatever the intent may be, AK has decided not to sit back and relax. He admits that his batch mates have made mistakes in past and they should have taken their peers in confidence before making a switch. He said that there is a wide spread resentment among his and other college students, and they are ready to take on people like NaMo. However, he never clarified how they planned to do so despite of our correspondent probing about it. “We are engineering students, we never plan this in advance, it would be an impromptu act”, said someone feebly from the crowd, but was hushed up by AK.

It was never about money !!

It was still dark outside. The dawn was yet to begin its short lived journey when she woke up from her sleep. No, it wasn’t the chirping birds nor the wailing children, which made her forgo her slumber. She had planned this for a long time now, but never found the courage to execute it. The anger deep within continued to build up over the 7 long years and it was time, it spilled out. The incidents of last night further fuelled her determination and now she was all up for it.
In a haste she moved across to her 1 year old daughter’s room and clung her to her shoulders, who was still fast asleep. She planted a fond kiss on her daughter’s head as she saw herself in the dressing mirror. She never left this mirror unless she glanced herself in it for a second time, but now the time was running fast. She did not even bother about her unkempt look and the smudged kohl, which certainly made her look awful. Without wasting a second, she tip toed out of the house, and opened the car's rear door. She laid her still asleep daughter on the seat, hopped onto the driver’s seat and ignited the engine. As she moved her car in the 1st gear and was barely 10 meters away from the house, she stopped.
Something was not done, she realized. The trauma she had tryst with for the last long 7 years, she never retaliated to it. She took a long breath, and rolled down the car windows to catch some fresh air. She knew she had to finish off the unfinished business. Without it, she would always repent for the lifetime and would be in spot, when her daughter asked for the reason when she grows old. She opened the door, and ran towards her house.
Without making a noise, she stepped in her husband’s room . He was still asleep and snoring loudly. She knew what she had to do as she moved towards her husband’s wardrobe. She slowly pulled out her husband’s service revolver from his uniform’s holster. She closed the wardrobe with a big thud, with clear intentions to wake him up. She could not kill him without letting him know what it was all about. He woke and stood up in a state of shock from his hangover. “Wh..whaatt the hell are you upto”, he shouted and the smell of whisky spread in the air. She stood mum with the gun pointed at her husband. The anger in her eyes was very much evident and this made him froze in time and space. Realizing the eminent threat, he folded his hands in a gesture to plead for forgiveness. “I was drunk the last night, I will never hit you again”, he said. It was not about the last night, it about the numerous nights, and it was not the physical bruises she bore, she bore the brunt of staying and sleeping with the man, she hated the most for the last 7 years.
“You take all the money you want, you take this house”, he mumbled and cried in unison. The time was up and the day light was about to break. “It was never about the money”, she said for the last time to her husband, as she pulled the trigger. The bullet pierced though the body and hit the wall at the opposite end. The gun-shot did wake the birds who started to chirp all of a sudden. She felt vindicated and exhausted at the sametime. She cleared off her fingerprints from the gun and kept it back in place. She moved out of the house. It was amazing that a city never rises from its sleep, no matter someone is being beaten or killed in their neighbour.
She put a hard foot at the accelerator peddle and sped off the place. As the daylight broke, the first rays of sun fell on her face and she adjusted the rear view mirror to look herself in it. She looked way better and had smile on her face. While still looking in mirror, a small tear rolled out her eyes.

Ek short lived love story - I

A blip on my phone woke me up from my sleep. I sneek-peeked in my smart device from one eye. It was a facebook notification. I was momentarily excited , though wary of the fact that somebody could have dared to send me a Candy crush or Farmville request at this hour. I fumbled around to find my glasses and swiped on the screen to see the notification bar.

“X,X has accepted your friendship request, Write on X’s timeline”. OK, it was a girl who had accepted my friendship request, so that meant I would have sent her the request at some point of time. I tried hard to recollect if I knew her by name and “now visible” profile/cover pictures. No, there was no chance I could have known her. We had no mutual friends either. She did not even belong to my school/college and beyond everything, I did not know someone as pretty and photogenic, as she appeared to be in her profile pictures.

I pressed hard to recall when was the last time, I went on the spree of sending friendship request to any and every random girl I came across on facebook. It was a social thing, trying to connect to as many people as possible, the core idea how the social network came into existence (pun intended !). I nudged my friend to wake him up from his sleep, and asked him if he know anything about the damsel in question. My friend did not disappoint me. His impeccable memory impressed me to an extent that I gave him a hug. It was more than month back, when we were trying to look for my friend’s college crush, that we stumbled across her profile. High on couple of vodka shots, my ego went for a toss, and I sent her the friendship request. One more shot later, I sent it to almost every girl we found thereafter.

“You lucky dog”, my friend said, as we were still glued to her SLR shot photos which had a water mark reading “X,Y’s photography”. “Its bloody photo-shopped”, I re-iterated trying to make a point. “I believe in what I see and I trust God!”, my friend replied, still staring at the pictures and was certainly more fascinated than me. I gave a puzzled look to him and asked him to stop leching at the lady who chose me over probably many others and privileged me by accepting my request. I hopped on to my profile picture and thought “Do I really look like someone who could befriend such a hot chick ?”. I was assertive and perplexed at the same time.

I press-locked my touch phone trying to catch some sleep, which I had completely lost by this time. It really didn’t make sense. Why would a lady of this “genre” even look at my profile, something was asmiss, or worse the profile could be a fake one. Perturbed I got up, switched on my laptop to look at the larger picture, and de-mystify the issue.

The Sherlock Holmes within me came out in full force and we figured the link in a matter of 10 minutes. She happened to be my colleague’s friend’s friend’s friend. “Wow, you drilled down so many levels to find her and send her a friendship request. You would have been drunk like a pig, but hard work pays off you see”, my friend quoted trying to be profound and sarcastic at the same time. I gave him a smirk, pulled over my blanket and crashed off to sleep with a smile on my face.

(To be continued...)

Ek short lived love story - II

I overslept after this incident and woke up alarmingly late for my office the next day. A late start to a day means, you get delayed for everything which happens that day. The mid-day crisis made me forgot the incident till late in the afternoon. Aanother facebook notification stole my attention. “Do I know you?”, said a message from the lady I befriended officially few hours back. “Wow, this is what education and evolution does to you”, I thought. “You accept a friendship request from a random stranger and ask if he knows you, offcourse not”, I mumbled . However, I replied her the opposite. “ Yes I think I do know you. You pose a striking resemblance to someone I met in Rashi’s marriage”, Rashi being one of the newly married friend of hers, which I checked out on her facebook page the other night.

“Oh, did we. Wow, I thought the same. I have a poor memory. How do you know her ?” she probed further. “Shit!”, I thought and quickly opened facebook on my browser to figure out more about Rashi. I hurried up when she tried to do a post mortal analysis by asking “You there ?”.

“I used to work with Tejas(her friend’s fiancée) when he was working with TCS in Bangalore”. This was the best lie I could come up with on such a short notice . “Niceeee!!”, she said. “And now you have moved to Hyderabad and working for XYZ” she continued further. She was smart and certainly looked to have done her homework. I could only muster a “yeah, I like Hyderabad and mostly the people who live here ”. The later part of my last reply was derived from the fact that she was born and brought up in Hyderabad (again the information was courtesy “About me” on facebook). My work took a back seat and my deliverable took a toll as I continued this for the next 2 hours. It was probably the only day I left my desk in evening with smiling face and content heart. “I had a really nice day at office”, I announced as I stepped in my room. My room mates looked amused and shell-shocked. One of them went on to the extent to ask “Did you go to a pub? Are you drunk?”. I ignored him completely.

Yes, love was certainly in the air. The technology for me took a giant leap, and I evolved from facebook to watsapp and continued with hours on cellphone. For the 1st time in 5 years of post paid experience, I took another look at my mobile bill, which had risen exponentially from the previous month’s. Getting a girlfriend is like buying a first car, you are excited at the mere pretext of getting one, then happy for the fact that you are one of the privileged few who owns one, but repent later owing to increased inflation, rising expenses and less savings. And added to it, its monthly servicing (read shopping) and maintenance becomes a vicious cycle in your life. Like a teenage girl facing puberty issues, I encountered a plethora of emotions, all at the sametime. The sense of mystery always prevailed, and I was ever unsure of what was to come next, obviously from my lady. 3 weeks into our relationship, I started to see a different phase of her. Actually I wasn’t sure, if it was her or me changing and evolving. I strongly doubted myself going by my past rendezvous with women.

My relationship with XYZ was like laws of thermodynamics, though it was indispensable, but it grew complex with every passing day. For me it was a disarrayed deviation of the love life from how its showcased in books and movies. “Where are we heading to”, “I am not sure if this will go on long” questions like this, became FAQs of my life. However, my innate habit of encountering any question posed to me with extreme ambiguity, often intended to confuse the other person always saved my day. If at all I had to answer her question, I never knew from Day 1 where I was heading to. I never had anything in my mind except for the fact that I felt happier when she was around, which went missing 2 weeks into our relationship. However, 4 weeks and 3 days when it all started, and when I was still not sure of why it all started, she decided to call it quits. She changed her number, refused meeting me and also unfriended me on facebook. I was severely distraught with a reduction in count of my friendlist.

There’s something strange with internet, though it doesn’t give you back what you have lost, but always brings up an alternative. After, trying to reach her again, I had a sudden urge of using my eloquence in speech, to abuse her via messages on facebook, and that was when I saw a friend liking her friend’s latest selfie. “Whoooa, she’s hot!!”, I exclaimed. A minute later, I had gone through the entire photo album and realized perhaps, she is the one I have been looking/waiting for. I paused and thought for a second if it was too early to get over someone and hitch with that someone’s friend. The next moment I sent the friendship request to new lady and kept refreshing my page anticipating an acknowledgement of acceptance. 6 hours after I broke up, I was completely over my “short loved love story”.

Lane Driving on roads of Hyderabad

In a sudden move, that is bound to raise a many eyebrows, Hyderabad Traffic police made it mandatory to drive in lanes and was also audacious enough to announce that it would fine those not abiding by it. The city which boast to have a part of its family in US and other western countries finally seemed to have got it right with its haphazard traffic patterns.
The IT crowd which makes the most of the cosmopolitan seems to be the worried lot."The only way i can reach my office on time is by overtaking autos, cycles, water tankers and RTC buses. And i need to change lanes every second to do that, i think now i need to start an hour early to cover a stretch of 1.5kms", this was what Mr. Zigzag singh had to share with us. On conditions of anonymity, a resident of so called posh and litter ground Ayyappa society in Hitech city said that they were contemplating to form a huge group and represent their owes of lane driving in front of the Traffic police next week. Their group called as "Local Area Network Enthusiasts(LANE)" found many takers. The latest update from our reporter says that they even have a user case ready with a high level diagram with a ppt clearly specifying the ill effects of lane driving. They are even going to propose a business case of making a software for HTP(Hyderabad Traffic Police) which would simulate more efficient un-lane driving, making the travel adventurous for all stakeholders(read drivers, passengers, pedestrians, hawkers and traffic police).
The bikers were another worried lot after this announcement. The only way hyderabadi youth knows to impress a girl is by criss-crossing the lanes of hyderabad. Mr. Yusuf Bahargaon, a lane changing enthusiast felt that his basic right of wooing a girl was violated and he found the new law extremely demeaning. However, he found some solace when he heard that his idol Salman Khan was still a virgin.
The RTC bus drivers however had a different take on this. Though available for comments, by and large they preferred not to as they thought it was a hoax call by Hyderabad traffic police. They said that like other rules introduced by HTP like cycling lane, following traffic rules, this new rule would be a squid too. The RTC bus drivers did not give a rats ass to this law, as they did to anything which travels on Hyderabad roads.
Meanwhile, the HTP is all prepared to take on this massive drive. They are planning to rope in BSF, CRPF,RAF,NSG,ITBP or any police force in the country to counter any defensive measures. They also plan to hire some raksha kawach (protective suits) to prevent being mowed by overs-speeding high end vehicles. The inspector in charge gave us all these details over phone as he drove his Qualis though busy corridors of Hyderabad.

Love at first sight ? Really !

It was never a love at first sight; it could never have been so. I have known her from the 1st day I stepped in my school in lower kinder gardens. We literally grew together along with 20 other class mates of mine. Though her presence was imminent all through the primary and secondary school, I took cognizance of her only today. I thought of all this lying on bed and staring at the defunct fan which rotated with least possible momentum. The analgesic had done its job, and the beads of sweat made sure my fever had diminished. Though I felt better, I did not want to get up from the bed. It was liked a slow motion dream sequence and I wanted to feel all of it. I closed my eyes again, to recollect the timeline of events which transpired a few hours ago. As I sub-dued myself in the memories, a mild smile sprang on my face, and guess what, That said it all.
If you were born in mid-80s and brought up in middle class family in a sub urban town, you were bound to be bitten by the bug of pursuing either engineering or medical as you future career. I too joined the band wagon not knowing what actually I intended to do if I become one. Studies and career path were fed with daily course of meal at my home and mild deviation from the ideality (read scoring low in exams) often led to severe melodramatic sequences which not only bored me but also baffled to a certain extent.
Upon reaching my early teens, when a male specie in charged up with sudden secretion of testosterone, I instead found my solace in books and studies. I belonged to rather sexually balanced class, which boasted of a higher female population. I often felt that by stacking more girls in my class, my principle wanted to address the gender imbalance of the country. There was not a single day in school when I did not share my desk with a female. Contrary to other co-ed institutions, my school encouraged a healthy interaction among different genders of society right from primary classes and I think that’s what a co-ed institute is supposed to do. But all these never made me any closer to women, I liked them as friends but never thought beyond that. Even the life sciences classes in secondary school failed to drive my attention until the very fateful day.
It was business as usual at school with morning assembly and a flurry of classes thereafter. Contrary to other days, I was drowsy and my plan to study late the previous night started taking its toll on me. Things took an ugly turn as we entered into the 3rd class of the day. I could feel my body temperature rising up and a sudden bout of fever overtaking me. I am a male and that too a rigid, and egoist one, so asking for help at this juncture was not in my plans. The fever soared with every passing minute and I could feel my body shiver to maintain its heat. I ducked myself to hide my desperation from others and that is when she, the lady sharing my desk noticed. “Are you alright ?” she whispered trying hard not to garner the teacher’s attention. “hmm, yeah” I replied. I thought I answered in affirmative, but she held my hand the next second trying to feel my pulse. A chill ran down my spice as she touched me. Startled I looked at her. Though I was the one who was in a peril, I could sense tension writ large on her face. The curls on her forehead made it very clear that not all was fine with my pulse. I knew it the moment she touched me. “You aren’t alright. You have a high fever, why did you lie to ME”, she snapped back at me. Women ask you some real tough questions though they very well know the answers. Not sure of what to answer I kept looking at her. It was for the first time that I noticed her kohl lined eyes, stands of hair touching her face and glossy lips. Is this the fever or something’s abnormal?, I thought. My “lost-in-love” looks did puzzle her and further worried her. Without wasting a minute, she stood up and informed the teacher about my condition. The teacher on noticing the same asked her to company me to the Sick room. She held my hand as I stood up and kept hold of it till we reached the sick room.
I was immediately administered an analgesic and was made to lie down on a vacant bed. The drug made its effect and I started to fall asleep. I tried hard to keep my eyes open and see her for the one last time.

The loveliest Stranger !!

As the train breezed through the rural indian setting, the usual city feel seemed to diminish. I gazed through the tinted window of my AC 3 tier compartment, and all I could see in mirror was me gazing though the window. Apart from my symmetrical image, I could see someone who sat at the side lower berth, hardly a meter away from where I sat. I could’nt help but stare at the starking similarity the lady possessed with someone I have known for in past. It seemed as if time has unbound itself, and I thought time was undoing what it had done. As the “Ankahee” song blared though my earphones, and in an attempt to kill the next few hours, I tried to recollect my 1st meeting with the “loveliest stranger” I had ever known.

It was more than 2 years that I have had a “more than decent” paying job and it was my usual planned trip to home. Unlike a few years back, I could afford the luxury of traveling in AC compartments now. Though all my journeys are over-hyped with most of my colleagues knowing about my travel plans, the anticipation goes for the toss in the actual travel. A train travel in India(even in AC coaches) mean a severe melodramatic experience. You get to face elder-lies/aged people who have an opinion in whatever crap happens in, around the journey, you get to hear family sagas, wailing children and free advices. What you get to see in movies/tele-serials, but that never happens in reality, is a good company(of-course I mean beautiful too). I often spoke in lighter vein that only Shahrukh Khan gets to meet beautiful women in train travel. My past experiences have taught me that train travels in India are mostly travails, and a travesty of what you anticipate or expect of.

I was in for a surprise that day. Perhaps it was the 1st instance, that I was just in time for boarding the train. It has never ever happened in past that I had boarded the train without scanning the Chart pasted next to the front door, looking mostly for F18 to F25s. As I settled in on my side upper berth, a voice startled me from my rear. I hated and still hate the side upper berth, they are short as compared to normal berths, doesn’t have a window or a charging point and worse puts you in lone corner with no one to talk to or look at. “Excuse me Black t-shirt, That’s my seat and I have a hell lot of luggage to keep in there”, the voice said from my rear. “Damn it.” I murmured. Another aunty cribbing for luggage space and who was it that called me Black t-shirt. It was not black, it was a dark grey. I was more offended with someone calling me by names than anything else. As I looked back, a young lady in her early 20s was trying hard to pull her gigantic trolley bag. What could be in there, I thought. “Wow” I said to myself and got on to side to let her get in the compartment. I was still in appreciation of her kohl lined eyes, glossy lips and her neatly tied hair when she snapped at me yet again. “Could you pull you bag out from here mister?”. One of the few instances when somebody called me a “Mister”. I completed her by saying “Uhmm…Its Mister Gaurav. In case you wanted to know!”. All I got was frowning smirk on her face which clearly and bluntly said “I am no interested”.

I quickly obliged her. I sat down closeby and watched from my corner of my eyes as she tried hard to fit in the trolley below the side lower berth. I could have helped her lest she asked for it. I never wanted to look desperate. She kicked her bag after another few attempts proved futile and looked at me in utter despair. “It doesn’t fit in” she said. Had it been a guy I would not have bothered to continue the conversation any further or worse would have replied “so, what should I do”. I smiled at her and offered a quick solution. “Why don’t you put your luggage on my seat, anyways the compartment is not much occupied, so I can sleep elsewhere”. Oh my God, this was the fastest I ever came with a plan, and I sounded like Buddha, forgive and sacrifice were what I was willing to do for the lady in despair. It was month after the incident, that I realised that she never thanked me for my masterplan. “Okay” was all that she said and lifted her luggage to place it on the upper berth.
“Damn, what did I get?” I thought, with my seat occupied by the “Lady is need’s extra heavy baggage” and I got to look for a seat to sleep on. I laid awake until midnight rolling over from one side to other cursing me for my benevolence I showed earlier. I was still trying to pursue myself justifying what I did earlier, having said that, I also felt disgust for the arrogant behaviour of the lady in question. Its funny how a perception of seeing or judging a person changes its sides in matter of few hours.


I was woken up very early in the morning by the TTE(train ticket examiner). His 1st question :”Do you have a reservation”. I was groggy, half asleep and this question made me go nuts. “Do I look like someone who would travel in AC without a reservation”. He was prompt to reply “Yes, youngsters like you try to do this all the time”. I explained him the situation earlier and he advised me to go to my berth as the occupant of that seat would be there shortly. “Who takes train so early in the morning?” I thought as I carried my affairs(read glasses, my phone and bottled water) to my original seat. I walked along the aisle as people snored and slept merrily. I swore to myself to throw that woman’s luggage off my seat and have a good nap. I didn’t want to look creepy when I reach my home. Now, the AC compartments have something which non AC coaches do not have, curtains. Apparently, they are meant to give its occupants privacy and keep others at bay. Am sure they never fulfil this purpose, but instead hide the seat numbers from someone looking for it. It would be a huge embarrassment if I would have pulled a curtain and found a different lady over there. More trouble if she thought I was a pervert and called out for help. I quickly made my calculations and figured where my seat was supposed to be. I took a deep breath, prepared myself to be straight onto matter and ask her to pull off her luggage and keep it elsewhere.

As I pulled the curtain, I saw her clung on to the sheets neatly with only her face popping out of it.”Wow, is she the snowhite I had read about in textbooks in Lower kinder gardens” . She was deep asleep and I guess even me checking her out went ignored. I didn’t knew how to wake her up. I felt stranded. Couldn’t wake her up, couldn’t sleep either. After hovering around the coach for 10 minutes, I lost my sleep, felt as if I had morning jog, and headed straight to the pantry coach to have my breakfast. I have always believed and felt that hunger is the cause of most distress in the world and a good food can resolve any problem, be it corruption or match fixing (depends entirely on the type of food one’s looking for). A sumptuous morning meal made me feel better, and I strolled back to my seat. “Oh, my God! Looks like she’s awake”, I said to myself on seeing the pulled apart curtains. Sun shone brightly off the tinted window panes and I saw her as she looked out in the east.

“Can I sit here. The place I slept is occupied now”, is how I literally pleaded to her interrupting her silent interaction with sun, just to sit on my legitimate seat. “Oh! Sure. Make yourself comfortable”. Comfortable? , did she ask me to make myself comfortable. I would be more comfortable lying down which would have certainly made her uncomfortable. I pulled up my legs and squatted looking out, though obviously gazing at her from the corner of my eyes. That’s the advantage of being myopic and wearing glasses. It’s difficult to make out where you exactly looking at. A women looks the most beautiful when she’s just out of the bed. The sun rays falling at her face, made her a photographer’s delight. Trying hard not to stare hard at her any further, I pulled out Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” from my backpack. This is the book I carried in every train travel of mine, with a intention of finishing in a single read, but 2 years and umpteen journeys later, I still lagged somewhere in 300 –some pages. It was like Ekta Kapoor’s extra long tele soap. I had no idea what I had read 7 months back, but continued further just for the sake of finishing it. I tried hard to concentrate in the book, red a single paragraph thrice, but the words didn’t make any sense. I was about to close the book, when she initiated our first informal talk “Hows the book, looks quite intense”. That was one interesting question, to a person who was trying to figure out the same. College has been a stepping stone when it comes to getting in some real animated conversation, even if am not drunk. I always had an opinion, no matter I didn’t knew a thing about it. In the current case, I had read more than 300 pages which I might have forgotten, but they remained itched somewhere in my memory lanes. “Well, it a story of an intransigent young architect, his violent battle again conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful women” , I said in a single go. This was the best I had ever spoken about anything and this came from a person who was critical of any living or non-living thing in the universe. “Hows the author, do you likes its style of writing?”, she probed further with a crafted smile on her face. “Amazing one” I said.” He wrote Atlas shrugged too, one of the best sellers of all times, you got to read it” I replied with extreme confidence. “Well, its not he, but she. Ayan rand is a lady”, she said and gave me one of the biggest shock of life. I laughed at my goof up and realized that this was the second time, I was fooled by these authors with western names. Way back in college, Sidney Sheldon who always had female protagonists, turned out to be a dude, and now this Ayan who write about a male turns to be a lady. What’s wrong with these people, I thought.
Taken aback with the disclosure of Ayan Rand’s gender, I preferred to cut my rant and silently drowned myself in the book back again. “Damn! You Fountain head. I swear I will not read anything other than Chetan Bhagat in train again”. “Its ok, even I thought she was a man until I read the Atlas shrugged”, she continued further. That was sweet welcoming gesture. I closed my book and said “So, what all do you apart from carrying heavy luggage and reading Ayan Rand’s classics”. She giggled and said “Yeah it is, but I always don’t have such heavy baggage’s”. I shot back saying “Don’t you have the bag stashed with cash and aren’t you a fugitive”, I tried being funny, but on seeing her reaction, I completed it “I am just kidding”. The literature’s best even invention, the word “Kidding”. You can literally escape of any dramatic, diplomatic and extreme situations, by telling you were just kidding. “I am a copyright intern at a law firm in Jubilee Hills. I just finished by masters and traveling back to my home with bags loaded with books” she said and smiled at me with a pride on her face. What the heck did a copyright intern did, but whatever it was it surely did damn pay well, i thought looking at her iphone, and Gucci bag near her. I nodded my head with no intention of telling what I did, as it was no way as smart as hers. However, she wanted me to blurt that out, though it was obvious just by looking at me. “Yeah, am an IT engineer, I work in Hitech city”, I mutely uttered looking down. I remember how my friends and relatives had asked me to do my masters after my graduation. I could figure out them laughing out loud pointing their fingers at me. She didn’t stop there, and said “What exactly you guys do on those computers, I never could figure that out”. Did I ask her what a copyright intern did. Damn! This woman’ curiosity!! Though I didn’t explain her with a keen interest, she tried following me whatever I spoke about code development and programming. “Wow, that sounds so very cool. You guys certainly are a productive bunch”. I felt as if somebody patted my back for my wonderful narration and I replied back with glint in my eyes “Isn’t it!. That is what we love about my job”. We laughed at it and for the next 4 hours we talked about almost everything, books, movies, actors, Indian railways, food servers in trains, IRCTC tatkal bookings, my and her friends, our college life, love life, future life and many more. What I still didn’t knew about her was her name, though she did tell me her mom called her “Nikky”, which I figured out was not her real name. She looked out for the 1st time in middle of our conversation and moved out of her seat. “Did you get so bored of talking to me that you are getting down”, I said. “No, nooo” she said. “I think my station is coming. I need to call my dad and freshen up before I get down. “Oh!” I said and there was sudden lull on my face as she left to “freshen” herself. She left her phone on the seat, and I had an unrelenting desire of looking though her phone. But the good vibes she left at me with her amazing talks, stopped me from pursuing my desires. The train slowed as the station closed in. She came just in time and I helped her with her luggage. I stood still as she started leaving. “I am Sneha. Look for Sneha Mittal on facebook and send me a friendship request. It was real good talking to you”. She said and shook hands with me for the 1st and last time. I stood like a jerk looking at her, without saying a word. I sat down preferring not to go out and confront her dad. I looked out of the tinted panes gazing her for probably the last time. Though I had hopes of finding her on facebook , but virtual friends never get real and I knew that for sure. As the train chugged, she looked at the window and batted her eye lids, bidding adieu. I sat there silently remembering the last 4-5 hrs I spent with her.

I don’t know if she lied or if I heard her name incorrectly, but I still search for her name every time I login to Facebook, yet hoping to find her. I certainly did not fall in love with her, but the time I spent with her, her talks, views made me fall in love with myself. She made me feel good and it was sheer selfishness of mine that I craved and still crave to find her.