Sugarcane Juice: Episode 06

Chapter 8 

‘It is not about winning, boys,’ Pritam and Anish were silently listening to their Manager ‘it is about giving your best and trying to win! I am sure, you both, have done that and proud of you! After all, they say, the real enjoyment is in putting efforts, victory is just a bonus! Better luck next time!’ she finished her nice little speech. Pritam looked at Anish with slight smile as she turned towards her phone to join in some project-status call.

Both of them were back in office from their Bengaluru trip. Their visit to ‘garden city’ was not fruitful as their presentation had had little impact on judges. Nevertheless, they had won their manager and team-mates’ appreciation for the efforts they had put in.

But, for Pritam there was one more thing to worry about! It was the message from Sanika, while he was on his trip, which left him bit downcast. Sanika had told Pritam that, she had seen the grey-eyes only once in the campus since his birthday. Sanika had observed that, his special-one was alone even on that day and appeared to be waiting for him near Sweet Zuse.

‘Don’t worry she must be on leave! She will be back soon!’ Sanika tried to put some logical angle to the thinking.

‘Hmmm. Hope so’ Pritam replied unconvincingly.

Days passed. Time kept running. It had been almost three weeks since Pritam decided to wait during lunch time, for her to appear again, near Sweet Zuse! But the situation was unfair to him!

‘I should have at least talked to her on that day’ he said to Sanika with a fake smile to hide his obvious disappointment.

She chose not to say anything; which she thought was the best option she had.

For Pritam, it was jumbled up in terms of his thought process. He was not able to understand why he was missing a person; even her name was not known! Was that because he started to love even before he realized it? Was it because of her positive response? Or was it just a feeling of affection that was not good enough to be called as love? It was getting frustrating for him.


Chapter 9

Pritam, before giving up the hope of seeing those grey-eyes again in the campus, had tried all the options he could think of to find her!

During lunch time, he strolled around the food courts, with a slim hope of finding her there. He visited the training center and searched in notice-board to find out any clue about recently recruited batch. He also searched for the grey-eyes in company’s intranet page where they usually put new-joiners details. Hard luck greeted him everywhere!   

Did she leave the company? Had she got transferred to some other location? Similar kind of questions kept floating over his thought flow. But it was difficult for him to digest the fact that he would not be seeing her in the campus anymore.

But, after all, it was not that his life came to a halt. When in office, it was business as usual. And what happened to his lunch group? It was still there. They visited Sweet Zuse almost every day. All in all, they were having nice time, including Pritam.

However, he felt incomplete without the presence of those exciting pair of grey-eyes in the area! Though he continued to involved in the fun, more often than not, he was seen looking for someone – that ‘unknown’ someone!

Every short-statured girl in formal wear reminded him that he was missing somebody! Curse his fate, but he regretted the missed opportunity when he had those clear moments to approach her.

It had been a few months since all these incidents happened in his life. He started to have a laugh when his friends, including Sanika, teased him referring to ‘grey-eyes’ and that ‘special someone’!

Though he took those things sportively, his inner self cried out loud to himself about the end – the unimpressive end of a romantic story even before it had started!

But professionally, he was going to have some great time ahead. His VISA to work from United States got approved! So, he was informed by his manager that he would be working from ‘onsite’ for the next project! He was excited to hear that he would be flying abroad in about two weeks.

Finally, that most awaited day came in! But, to gain something you have to lose some. He was going to miss his awesome friends, the lunch group, and importantly, that Sweet Zuse – though ‘the end’ was not that sweet there!

‘I am going to get busy. So, I will not say I am going to miss you guys!’ Pritam with his usual outspoken demeanor continued ’but all I can say is that, I cannot forget the nice times we had together!’ 

‘Are you done with your formal speech, Sir?’ Raghav, without a hint of smile, echoed the feelings of the group at that statement. Sanika stood silent, arms folded.

‘Hey, don’t get me wrong! I thought that was less formal than saying ‘thank you!’’ Justified Pritam, packing those nice little gifts and greeting cards received on his last working day at the campus. He was to leave India that weekend, to start working at Covina, USA.

A new start was waiting for him! New start!

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Sugarcane Juice: Episode 05

Chapter 7

‘Good luck for Monday!’ said Sanika taking the juice-tray from their familiar Aunty of Sweet Zuse.

Next day – Saturday – Pritam and Anish were to catch train to Bengaluru for their paper presentation event. 

‘Thanks!’ acknowledged Pritam, clad in new t-shirt on his birthday. But he was quickly searching for grey-eyes!

Surprise again! She was sitting alone, without her regular companion, near the sandwich shop.

That was not the part of surprise, but her attire was! She was in a perfect ethnic outfit that day! It was surprising for many reasons! One, it was Friday and few people missed the opportunity to wear casual dress! Two, all these while, Pritam had observed very typical of her – she was seen wearing business-formal wear most of the days! So much so that he could not imagine seeing her in ethnic wear!

He looked at her; his eyes wide open! He was not good enough to understand the type, pattern, or design of the cloth. All he knew was she looked amazing! Rest did not matter to him!

‘That is Bandhani,’ said Sanika instinctively ‘her dress!’

Just a smile was Pritam’s reply as he continued to enjoy the sugar cane juice with renewed taste!

‘Happy Birthday, boy!’ Sanika started ‘Raghav’s trick seems to be working!’

He glanced at her once, before turning his eyes again towards Sanika.

‘Somebody knows that it is your Birthday!’ winked Sanika ‘and the best part, she is waiting alone there!’

‘It cannot be true!’ Pritam replied with mixed emotions, though he wished it was true!

‘Yeah, cannot be true’ faking a sad-look Raghav joined in ‘but I saw her glancing at you a few times already!’

Pritam could not believe with what was happening around. However, for inexplicable reasons, he was not ready to accept that she was waiting for him.

As they kept discussing the possibilities with all permutation and combination, grey-eyed beauty got up from her seat and headed straight to Sweet Zuse where they were standing!    

‘Aunty, one ginger-flavored’ she placed her order standing right behind Pritam and group. He heard her voice for the first time! Not sure how that sounded to others, but for Pritam, it was the sweetest he had ever heard! 

She kept staring blankly at the vending machine as the juice was being prepared. Sanika and Raghav seemed restless! 

Both of them gesturing to Pritam ’Talk to her, NOW!’ obvious from their body-language though they did not speak it out.

He was not in a state to react though. Various emotions were dancing down in his heart, making him physically stand-still! He failed to figure out what was he feeling at that moment – Happy that she responded! Nervous to talk to her! Proud that somebody valued him! Guilty of putting someone into this, without even knowing her name! Excited that all these were happening in real! Mistrust because of swiftness of the events!

Even before he could think of anything, he certainly lost those golden moments! She was having last sip and about to leave!

Sanika and Raghav were really puzzled at his response or the lack of it.

Just when they thought she was about to leave, as she was putting the used-cup into dustbin, she stood back and started checking out her phone!

Both of Pritam’s friends were growing impatient as if all these happening with their own lives.

Not them, but the level of rapport between them to be blamed for that!

Still confused and not into the normal self, Pritam started to move, signaling others to join, as if all these were not about him! Now they gave up and decided to leave the place.

While those grey eyes were still on the screen of her blue-cased smartphone, Pritam left the place without realizing that he would not be seeing her for next few days!

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Sugarcane Juice: Episode 04

Chapter 5

Days passed, but this new story of Pritam continued to bloom. He never missed an opportunity get a sight of her at office. But, all this while, he failed to notice one important thing. For Pritam, something that began just as an admiration to the special eyes, started to turn into something else, something more serious!

Subconsciously, he had started to like her! The fact, that the girl was occasionally returning the favor did not help him much either!

However, he did not pick up enough courage to confess this to her. Let alone confessing, he did not even try to talk to her – even once. Effectively, he was in love with some ‘stranger’! 

Nevertheless, from his perspective, he was just waiting for right opportunity to talk to her. He started to plan how and what should he talk to her for the first time; once he gets the opportunity to do the same!

Amidst all these flow of emotions, to his credit, Pritam did not lose focus on his office work! For most part of the day, his integral part of life – the office work – was ‘business as usual’; barring occasional shift of mind from present to the future!

The geek in him was not going to die any soon!

‘Congrats, Pritam!’ he paused the music-app and glanced back to see his senior colleague, Anish, standing behind his desk with a smile. Like most people, Pritam had this habit of listening to music while working, as it helped him to insulate from noise created by morning status calls!

‘Thanks,’ Pritam continued with a puzzled look ‘but for what?’

‘Our white paper made it to top-ten list! Check your mail box!’ said Anish offering a shake-hand.

‘Cool!’ removing the earphone and acknowledging the wish ‘Congrats to you too!’ said exhilarated Pritam.

Anish and Pritam had submitted a whitepaper to company-level competition, organized by their employer. The whitepapers which could make into top-ten category had a chance to present their idea in convocation at Bengaluru. It was a matter of pride for them as the presentation would be watched by big-names in the organization. Hence, essentially, both of them had to leave Mumbai that weekend to attend Monday’s conference at Bengaluru.

‘That should be a nice trip then!’ he knew that they would get three days off-work to attend the presentation! However, he did not realize that he was going to miss those grey-eyes for those many days! 

Chapter 6

‘Bhai,’ called Raghav ‘So what are your plans for tomorrow?’ with a witty smile and a voice level considerably higher than the normal tone. 

He was making sure that their conversation reaches that special girl, who was having sandwich, a few yards away from Sweet Zuse where Pritam and Raghav were standing with their lunch group. 

Even as Pritam prepared to reply, Sanika interrupted ‘What is special about tomorrow for him, Raghav?’ dramatically; as if she did not know that next day it was Pritam’s birthday!

‘Oh come on, it is his BIRTHDAY,’ Raghav trying to act dramatic but certainly overdoing it, continued ‘must be considering a treat for somebody special!’ slightly gesturing towards grey-eyed girl with his stance. 

‘Raghav!’ hissed Pritam, with mocking anger he continued ‘she is listening to all these! You are embarrassing me!’ 

‘Dude, I am just trying to help you out!’ winked Raghav. Pritam, out of embarrassment, was in such a frame of mind that he could not notice rest of the group laughing out loud on Raghav’s mischief! 

Though that ‘special girl’ was pretending to ignore all these from distance, Sanika was sharp enough to notice her darting few glances at Pritam! ‘This is going to get worse from bad!’ thought Sanika though she chose to keep quite at that moment.

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Sugarcane Juice: Episode 03

Chapter 4

‘Sanika…’ called Pritam, walking by her side making sure that nobody else in the group listens to him.

‘Hmmm?’ she replied, keeping pace with others towards Sweet Zuse – sugarcane juice shop inside their company campus. Sweet Zuse had become famous in the campus since it opened a few months ago. Sanika and group occasionally visited it. Though Pritam was not a big fan of the shop, he used to stick with the team till the end of lunch hour.

‘How does she look?’ he asked with a slight hint of blushing.

‘She…? Who?’, now she looked up wearing a confused expression, still walking.

‘Have you noticed that girl? Err… one with grey eyes?’ as a picture of her in sky-blue formal dress, that she was wearing that day, flashed across his mind.

It had been almost two weeks since he first saw her. Thereafter, it had become his routine at lunch time; silently sitting with the lunch group, glancing at the special-one every now and then, and getting back to work as if he had achieved some milestone for the day!

Even though the lunch timings of those two groups did not exactly match, Pritam had been lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her all these days!

‘Grey eyes…?’ she stopped walking ‘What kind of color that is for eyes? It could make sense if you say brown or blue? But grey?’ to tease him!

‘No… it is grey… the eyes are grey!’ with delightful expression he continued ‘Never mind, you could see that tomorrow!’ He was very sure that he would get to see her next day as well!

Meanwhile, the other members were enjoying the tasty sugarcane juice. Bindu offered a sip or two to Sanika from her glass.

They had a sandwich shop right opposite to Sweet Zuse. The shop, though comparatively small, had enough space to put some chairs in the shadow of one of the adjacent buildings. He casually looked at the people having their meal there.

Pritam, an ardent fan of Sherlock Homes, had this habit of ‘observing people’ trying to ‘deduce’ something out of it, though he invariably failed every time!

This time he had a surprise in store though. Yes, his grey-eyed girl was there with another female friend, sharing some light moment! Both of them were laughing. But she seemed to be considerate about other people in the surrounding; it was evident by the way she used to cover her mouth with hands, each time she laughed!

This made her look even better! With her hands covering those perfectly-aligned teeth, there was no distraction to view the shining grey-irises floating in the milky-white sclera! 

‘Nature really took its own time to design her, it seems!’ he was feeling bit poetic.

Suddenly he remembered Sanika! 

Sanika should see her! 

Or to be precise, he wanted to hear some nice words about the ‘grey-eyes’!

‘Hey,’ Pritam quickly reached Sanika ‘There she is…! Right in front of you, in the sandwich shop!’ he mumbled.

‘Which one of them, dude? Are you talking about the one who is looking at you?!’ Sanika flashed a witty smile.

‘What??’ thrilled to hear that! He did not need second invitation to check out what Sanika just said!

Yes! Sanika was right; he just caught the grey-eyed beauty looking back at him, though she tried her best to quickly look away! That was enough for him! Enough to assume that his admiration was not being mistaken for stalking!

Sanika saw him turning tomato-red. He stood there looking down, eyes wide open in amazement, smiling and blushing!

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Sugarcane Juice: Episode 02

Chapter 3 

Next day, the lunch group gathered in the canteen as usual. They were discussing something, some topic or gossiping about somebody.

It all did not matter to Pritam! He was preoccupied with that thought. That question which he was unable to solve yesterday! He eagerly waited for that ‘different’ girl who disturbed his routine lunch time.

‘What could be different about her?’ he kept looking at the entrance of food court, every now and then.

Moments must have passed, a gang of girls entered laughing out loud. Two of the girls were seen sharing a hi-five, celebrating a joke or something. A group of very senior employees, sitting near the entrance, stared at them to display the annoyance at all those noises.

However, Pritam did not mind that a bit! Not because his buddies were better than them in making noise. But because in that group he clearly noticed the ‘special one’ pushing her flicks back and fixing it behind her ears!

The group of girls directly approached an empty table to occupy. Most of them carried their tiffin-boxes that day.

‘But where is she now?’ in between complementing Bindu for the tasty Sabji that she had just offered, he had missed the sight on that girl!

It’s not that his friends did not get annoyed by his strange behavior, but they just decided to leave him alone and continued the discussion they were having.

‘Ah, there she is!’ sighed Pritam on seeing that girl re-joining her own group with that plate of ‘Health Menu’ in her hand. Never mind! She sat there and how! A few tables away and facing his group!

This can’t get better than this!

‘Eureka!’ he did not shout that but noticed the uniqueness about her!

It’s the eyes! Those grey eyes! So special and so unique, they seemed to dramatically improve the cuteness of her already endearing face!

He continued to stare at her! Looking at her, being an amateur photographer, he was feeling the real-life ‘Bokeh Effect’! In photography, bokeh means –effect of concentrating only on the subject and blurring out details in background.

Ditto! Unknowingly, he was focusing only on her. The surroundings seemed to be a fading mixture of various colors. She appeared to be talking in slow motion. While being in his own dream world, one of the friends in the ‘special one’s group noticed that somebody was getting attention!

That girl lightly poked grey-eyed one and said something. Then suddenly, the whole group turned to look at Pritam and started giggling! She could not hide the blushing, even though she tried her best to ignore her friends’ comment. 

‘Oops!’ he felt guilty as he fell down from his day-dreaming world, ‘Did I do something wrong?’ he wondered. He remained silent throughout lunch time that day, not even trying to look at her, and left the place with his group!

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Sugarcane Juice: Episode 01

Chapter 1

typing…

He is anxiously waiting for her to complete typing from her side.

‘Oh, why cannot this WhatsApp show me the text being typed, instead of just showing status?’

Each second is passing like minutes for him and longing to see the status change from ‘Typing’ to ‘Online’. Pritam had just got into Yellow Cab from Loss Angeles International Airport, as he messaged Sanika about that surprising incident! 

He is sure to get some exciting reply from her. After all, she has been his mentor, a guide, a philosopher, and not to mention – a genuine friend who always wishes for his good! Simply put, he treats her on par with his family members! 

‘Well, take your own time to compose it, madam!’ screen-locked his phone talking to himself. He leaned back in the comfortable backseat of the cab; beaming with that proud feeling of rediscovering the special day he unknowingly craved for!

Happiness triggers more happiness! As if to respect that unwritten rule of universe, his mind started to play-back those nice times! 

Chapter 2

It was about a year ago that life took a different turn for Pritam. Till then, he was just a normal Software Engineer, coming to office, doing what he knew best – work hard, and go home! That was all; a routine. 

Though he really liked to get glued to his computer, the best part of the day for him, unquestionably, was the Lunch Hour. That enviable lunch group had everything in it to revitalize the tiring brain.

Nobody knew why it was being called Lunch ‘Hour’. An hour, by any means, was not enough for them to finish all those chitchats, laughter, gossips and pulling each other’s leg; drawing others ire when they returned to their workstations!

‘Holding up that piece of roti won’t help you, Pritam. You need to eat it!’ Sanika was quick to shoot a light sarcasm. 

‘Arr... What...’ took his eyes off queue at food counter ’Well, You needn’t shout like that!’ he retorted as he came to his senses! 

‘It was the third time I called you, dear!’ Sanika responded with a winning smile. The group was at its usual best to laugh out loud; embarrassing him further. Pritam had few options but to concentrate on his food!

But he could not resist himself from stealing a glance, again, from that charming girl in the queue!

No, it was not ‘love at first sight’ or anything of that kind for him. It was just that he felt something different about that short-statured beauty. He was struggling hard to find out ‘what is unique about that young lady?’ 

The way with which she was consciously moving from billing-desk to serving-counter showed she was new to the place. ‘Wow, art of deduction is very easy!’ he thought to himself feeling really silly!

He wanted to keep looking at her to get an answer, for that newly popped up million dollar question – ‘what is unique about her?!’ 

In real life, circumstances could not favor you all the time. 

The group had already finished their lunch and getting up to leave. He was reluctant to even move from his seat then. 

‘Bhai, enough for today! Don’t scare her away now!’ it was now Raghav’s turn to take a lighthearted jibe.

‘What is wrong with these guys? I haven’t even spoken a word about that girl. Am I being so obvious?’ wondered Pritam as he joined the departing group.

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