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!

Next>>