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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