Friday afternoons are generally very boring. Sloth prevails to its best. Sometimes it seems even time has become lazy. Boredom and laziness... OOF!!
It was a similar Friday afternoon. People were around but liveliness was missing. Their eyes didn't have the usual spark. But an element of mischief was present in everyone's eyes, after all weekend was about to start.
But Madhur was a complete exception. He was deeply immersed in the work, even on that fine Friday noon. When others were discussing their weekend plans, he got only his pc to talk with. And he actually liked it. Some people called him loser, the biggest loser! Did he mind? No, never! He knew what he had to do and every time he achieved that successfully. Friday evenings were no different for him from any other evenings, except those ones when it rained. He liked eating Garam Pakodas when it rained, he liked going out in the rain, getting drenched... that always took him into his past.. when he was a child, he with his friends used to dance a lot in the rain. They used to make small paper boats and ... they used to keep those water boats in the small water streams and used to run after them. It was great fun...he had so many friends at that time. And he was their favourite.
One among them was her, Khushbu. She lived next door, very calm, very sweet and very witty! He couldn't have asked for more when she came to his neighbourhood. Next day when their parents introduced them, he had seen into her eyes the first time and that was the first time she smiled at him. He also passed a cute smile. And then for the next few days, he kept smiling. He had felt something, he had never felt before. He was 13 and she was 10. He tried to forget that first look of hers, that depth of her eyes but the more he tried to forget, more of that persisted in his memory.
He had got no idea of what was happening to him. He wanted to talk to her, to play with her, to say her how pretty she looked when got soaked in mud. It was his 14th birthday when she came to his house first time. It was raining outside. She gave him a chocolate pack as the present. She didn't even know that he hated chocolates. While coming to his house she slipped in the way, fully soaked in the mud. Ohh.. god! she was looking so pretty! In the party, he kept wandering here and there holding that chocolate pack in both his hands, looking towards her whenever possible but never did say a word to her except a feeble "Thanks for the chocolate". The Party got over, so did that year and another and yet another...like that three years passed away. He kept smiling and waiting for the right moment but that moment never came. What came was the day when she left his neighbourhood. That day changed him a lot. He became a loner.. he forgot how to dance, how to sing, how to appreciate rain.. all he knew is how to achieve what had been told. And today after 18 years of hard work for achieving the goals set by others, he has acquired a reputed position in a reputed Multinational. One can see him busy with his pc, always and can easily observe the respect for him in other's eyes. He actually liked it, from when that he doesn't even remember.
Its again a boring Friday today, he has got the list of the new recruits. He has lots of work to do. Before that he just wants to go through the list once. And there is this name, Khushbu, in the list. The girl is exactly three years younger than him. Her picture is missing but he now has her number. He made a mistake long time back... he can't repeat the same mistake now... so he dials that number and asks for Khushbu. Answering machine says nothing except asks him to call back in the evening.
This, again, is a similar Friday noon. He should have been indifferent and busy with his work but now he is bored, frustrated and restless. He is looking towards the clock more frequently than the minute's hand is completing the rounds. After all, he has again encountered the same thing which, for him, is still tough to resist!
