Hi All. Before I start to continue I will like to thank all of you who took their time out to read my previous story "Weird Weird ..." and also left your comments whether via mail or comments. A lot of you have requested a change in my writing style. Someone even branded me a male chauvinist as my stories never have a female character, so I have decided to give it a try. This one may not make you laugh like my previous ones. It is my first attempt to try a sort of serious story, so You may not like it specially if you have been accustomed to my previous writings. But still give it a patient read and let me know your rsponse. Regd. the previous story, I got a lot of mails that it was not as good as some previous ones. Thanks to all who have actually taken the pain of comparing the stories, and I will take your feedback into the account next time.
Life it is said is a great settler. Nothing could have been closer to the truth now for Praveen Sarkar. Some time back he had nothing except a few friends for whom he would have given his whole life and a dream to make it big in his life. It was with these dreams and some money he had earned that he had moved from a small town in West Bengal to the glamorous city of Bangalore to try his luck in a small enterprise. If Mumbai was the city of dreams for every small town Indian few years back, this place is now slowly being taken by Bangalore especially for the budding entrepreneurs. Praveen had never liked the concept of working under someone and he always wanted to start a business. His father didn’t like the idea but still he supported him by providing him a sum to start up his venture. Once he came to Bangalore his luck has soared. Whatever he touched had turned to Gold. He started with a small coffee shop and soon turned it into a restaurant. He tried his hand in a travel agency and soon that too hit success due to the IT boom and the increasing number of Call Centers and BPO’s in the city. After 3 years he also tried his hand in the construction business and that too worked. In a matter of mere four years he had made himself quiet a name. While his restaurant chain named “Swad” had become a hit among large number of north Indians living in the city, his “Sarkar travels” boasted of more than 20 cars and provided pick up and drop services to some of the Top MNC employees in the city.
But today all his employees were finding him unusually quiet and lost. He sat himself down on a small bench outside his restaurant placed conveniently on the always busy ITPL road. It seemed he desperately needed to talk his heart out to someone but then everyone realized that he actually has no friends there. He had never felt the need to have one. He didn’t realize till now that he has become a loner. That is the dark truth of this city. It can give you everything you want, but for all that it will take away your life. But that generally is a small price to pay for most people. He looked down on the rushing traffic below. He vividly remembered that this was the place where he first opened a small coffee shop and hired four persons. A person who made the coffee, one who took the order, one who did the cleaning and the fourth one was he himself, who managed the accounts and the markets. The other three were nowhere in sight now and the small coffee shop named “Relish” was also nowhere to be seen. The sun had set and dusk had fallen over the city. He at times showed a strong urge to go back to his home town, but soon he rejected the idea, as he knew that was not an option. He had disagreements from his parents following his decision to try his luck in travel business and he hadn’t talked to his parents since then. He remembered it had been more than 1 year. He stood at the railing and looked into the far horizon. It was beginning to get dark and rush to his restaurant was increasing. Friday night always was one of the best days of business. Husbands and Wives, Small families, a group of friends or a boyfriend and girlfriend and at times an occasional loner visited his restaurants and seemed to speak their hearts out over meal. Although he had four restaurants in Bangalore, he preferred to spend his evenings at this one for it always reminded him of his roots. He wanted to take a puff but he could not break his own rules. He took out his cell phone to look at the time. He didn’t prefer to keep a wrist watch and even his phone was a primitive model. He had once tried a Nokia N97 but found it too complicated and he had gone back to his good old Nokia 1600. There are some people who take to new technology like fish to water. He certainly was not one of them. It was 18:45. He took a corner seat on the restaurant and took out his balance sheet with a hope that it will keep him engaged. It didn’t. His staff mostly consisted of waiters from different corners of North India and only one female was her manager Reema. Reema had been his best hire whom he had hired last year following his last manager’s Deepti’s decision to quit the job. Her skills of dealing with uncomfortable and embarrassing situations were exemplary. Just some time ago a man in a black suit had walked in complaining that why has his table not been booked. Once again she dealt with the situation nicely. She went and politely asked a couple sitting on a table to move to a smaller table in corner, which they agreed and then got two tables joined to meet the black suit’s requirement and all the while she managed to keep smiling. Someone had once told Praveen that this skill was called interpersonal skills and for sure Reema Sahay had it in her. He was initially skeptical about hiring her for this job. But as it turned out, it was a great decision for she was highly efficient and even some rowdy customers behaved better in her presence. Reema was also beautiful and her cheeks formed a naughty dimple when she smiled and there were many customers who came to hotel only to get a chance to fall in those dimples. But her boss never seemed to notice her. Reema had also noticed his boss looking glum since last day as if he was still thinking about what transpired the last day.
It was around the same time on previous day that a person wearing a light blue shirt and cotton pants had walked to his restaurant and got seated in a corner. He was talking to a waiter that he had reserved a table for two here. On asking his name he had replied “Deepak. Deepak Gupta.” Hearing this name had ringed a bell in Praveen’s ears. He looked at him intently. It was unmistakable; he was his old friend Deepu. Reema saw Praveen walked straight to him and said, “Hey Deepak! Good to see you. Remember me?” She was privileged enough to overhear all their conversations.
Deepak had looked lost. He strained his eyes and wrinkled his forehead, and after some time said, “Praveen? What the hell? Where had you been?” They embraced each other and sat down at a table.
“How come you are here?” Deepak asked.
“I should ask you that, for I own this restaurant.” Praveen said.
“Stop Kidding”
“I am not kidding. I am the owner of Swad restaurant chains” Praveen said with an air of pride in his voice.
“Unbelievable man!” said Deepak as he brushed his hairs and added “So I and my wife get some discount tonight.”
“Wife? You got married.”
“Yes. 6 months back. Love marriage” he replied.
“Asshole. You did not even call me?”
“What the hell. No contact of you was available with anyone. You had disappeared after college. Neither are you on Orkut.” He said.
“Orkut. What’s that?”
Deepak looked stunned. It seemed as if he couldn’t believe that Praveen has still not heard about the Social Networking site that had around 100 million users, despite living in the IT Hub but he did not want to go into detail and Reema knew that Praveen may not even know what social networking was.
“Forget it. You tell me why you didn’t get married or you have?” he said
“Cut the cliché. You tell me the name of the unlucky girl.” Praveen joked.
“Wait for it. She will be here in some time. You will be surprised as you know her. She has just left office, will be here in 5 minutes.” Deepak said.
“Oh where does she work? And do you work as well?” He joked again.
“For sure I do. I work in Flextronics and she is in Tata Consultancy services” he replied.
“Great” said Praveen. He didn’t want to talk more about technical things for his knowledge was severely limited in this field. Reema had noticed that Deepak looked much younger than Praveen but she was sure that Deepak’s salary would be no way even near to what Praveen makes in a month. They talked about their home town Asansol and their college and relived some forgotten moments until Deepak suddenly looked over to the gate and exclaimed, “Hey! Here she comes” and waved his hand. Praveen turned back instantly and once he saw her, Reema saw Praveen’s eyes froze as if some lightning had struck him. A lady entered the Restaurant. She was wearing a white chiffon kurta and blue jeans. She was slim and tall and her eyes were twinkling and she wore a mischievous smile on her amazingly beautiful face. Her hair was straightened and fell elegantly over her shoulders and some of it covered the side of her left cheek, and those eyes, well, they were just beautiful. Deepak got up, took her hand in his and placed his left hand on her back and said, “Hey darling! Meet him. Do you remember him?”
She looked at Praveen closely and her eyes got wider as she said “Praveen! Unbelievable.”
“You know my name, Priyanka? I thought you didn’t” Praveen said, trying to look away from her.
“Of course I do. The back bencher right?” she said and winked and both of them sat beside him. Praveen hadn’t bothered to get up all this while.
“You know Priya! This chain of restaurants is his.” Deepak informed.
“Is it?” Her eyes went wide again “You must be kidding” she said and giggled.
“I am serious.” Deepak confirmed.
“That is great. You really made it big in life. Congratulations” she said as she extended a hand to Praveen.
“Thanks!” he told as he took her soft hands in his and added “and of course, congrats to both of you too. You look great together.” Reema understood he didn’t mean it. This was the way he was. It was very difficult for him to give complements. “So what do you suggest we can have in your restaurant? And I hope it’s free” Deepak said.
Reema wanted to kick Deepak out of her restaurant and show everyone how wretched this guy was to use his friendship to have a free meal.
“Hey!!! Where is your attention?” said Priyanka as she waved her hand in front of his eyes.
“Nothing” he said and smiled and suggested them some items. They dined together and talked about their past, but all the while Praveen remained mostly silent, just adding a word here and there. Reema noticed it but she found it rather usual as he had always been of a reserved and soft-spoken personality. After a sumptuous dinner they got up to leave and Praveen watched fixedly as Deepak put a hand on Priyanka’s waist as they walked out of restaurant.
Praveen went to the rather empty open air restaurant on the roof top and sat down in a corner. He wanted to smoke and for an instance decided to do it. After all it was his restaurant, and he can break the rules at least. He took a cigarette and placed it into his lips. He was about to reach for his lighter but just then he saw some people looking at him and also the No smoking sign behind him. Off course they did not know that he owned this place for going by his appearance, he was wearing a cotton shirt, black terry coat trousers and old fashioned sandals; he looked no more than a small broker. He took the cigarette out of his lips and threw it aside.
He took out his mobile again and looked at the time. It was showing 20:02. Two persons sitting at the near table had broken into a discussion about how his restaurant has increased prices.
Well, he had to increase prices as the price of all commodities had increased. One of them wondered how a poor person will afford food if food prices keep hitting sky high. Other end of the roof consisted of a noisy group of seven friends probably fresh college grads celebrating their first salary. They seemed to be having some real fun and some dirty jokes. He looked at them for some time and then looked down at the traffic which seemed to be settling down now. He took a magazine from the magazine stand, ordered the waiter for a tea and started reading some article. The rush was slowly decreasing in his restaurant. There were more empty tables to be seen. The staff looked more relaxed now. The noise levels had decreased. He looked at his cell again which was showing 21:32. In half an hour he would have to close the orders and 22:30 he will have to close according to some stupid government rule which wanted to stop dinner at a time when one should ideally have dinner. He roamed around a bit and finally stood at the railing again looking at the darkness.
After some fifteen minutes, he felt someone came by his side and said “Sir, Should we close early today? I don’t see anyone coming now.” He turned and looked at Reema standing beside him. She had taken off her coat and was now wearing the white shirt and knee length black skirt. The top button of her shirt was too low for his comfort and for the first time he looked into her eyes, which actually looked weary as expected at the end of the day.
He looked around and said “Yeah! I think so. Mubarak! Closed!” he said to his gatekeeper signaling him to change the label on door. He remembered all his staffs’ names.
“You will like to have dinner?” Reema asked him.
This was not the first time Reema had asked him. Every other time he will say yes and Reema will ask some waiter to give him food and take her leave. But his reply this time was “Yeah! I think so. Why don’t you join me for dinner? I will drop you to your house today.” It was then she realized that how desperate he was to talk to someone.
“Are you sure sir?” Reema asked.
“Yes! And stop calling me sir now. Work hours are over now.”
“Ok sir, I will get the food.” She said and went in and after some five minutes returned with a waiter carrying some food in a trolley and some plates. She sat down opposite to Praveen and the waiter served some food in plates.
“Bahadur! You can have food and leave now. We don’t need anything else.” Praveen said to waiter.
Praveen looked uncomfortable. Reema realized that it might be because it was the first time he was having dinner with a girl. He looked at Reema who was serving some curry on his plate. Her white satin shirt revealed her chiseled figure and her face glowed in the candle light. She had undone her hair which now blew loosely all over her face and covered the better part of her left cheek. He tried to look away from her but something made him look at her legs, nicely rounded and waxed. He turned his gaze quickly realizing Reema might be looking at him. Reema had finished serving and was waiting for him to start. He took the fork and spoon and signaled her to start.
Reema ate slowly, as her mind was working fast. She had finally got the opportunity she had been looking for quite some time now. Belonging to a small town in U.P, she always dreamt of money, and to her the shortest way was to marry someone rich and famous. Right from the time she had joined the Restaurant she has been trying to get her boss’ attention but the person seemed to be a jerk, not picking any of her signals. She had almost given up, but today seemed different. Her boss appeared perplexed and it was in this time she had to pick her spot. She had to seize this moment. She had caught him looking at her body and she knew this was the time. But she had to be very careful.
“Don’t you think we should also start serving some south Indian cuisines? It will bring us more customers.” Reema knew she had to start conversation.
“No way! Have you seen the way they eat? They will piss off north Indian customers and anyway most of them never visit restaurants. They are the biggest misers on earth” said Praveen. He had his disliking for the food and life-style of south which had accumulated over the past, but this was the first time he had expressed it openly.
“Is everything ok, Praveen?”said Reema in very measured tone and the ‘Praveen’ was spoken even slower to leave some effect, which sir couldn’t.
“Why?”
“No you look very disturbed today? I haven’t seen you so dejected before.” It was going according to her plan now.
Praveen thought for a moment. It seemed he desperately wanted to speak out his heart but said “Nothing serious. Just a mood swing.”
“Come on! You can tell me. Consider me your friend.” She said, all the while looking very sympathetically and invitingly into his eyes.
Reema had played her move perfectly. Praveen seemed to have been caught off guard. Just half an hour ago, Praveen had been his boss, now he has become a friend. “Give a troubled person a good listening and then he can give you everything”, someone had once told her and that is what she did for other ten minutes as Praveen opened his life story in front of her. He told her everything about Priyanka. She had been love of his life but he had never dared to tell his feelings. He had fell in love with her right from the first day in college, but had never dared to approach her as he was an introvert who loved sitting on the back bench while she was the glam queen, popular and always in demand. He had hung around her many times hoping to get a word from her. But as fate would have it, she never quite noticed him. Every day he used to plan of a way to start a conversation from her, but as soon as he went near her, his diffidence got better of him. She never noticed him in all three years. There is a strange thing about girls, on all social networking sites and in every slam book they will enter their perfect match as someone who should be honest, mature, genuine and not fake things, but in reality they will never notice these guys and will often fall for guys who are loud mouthed snobs and pure attention seekers. Even after coming to Bangalore he kept thinking about her during the lonely nights. He would consider calling her, but he kept on procrastinating it, always planning to be a little more successful before he calls her. For some mysterious reason in the world he had imagined that Priyanka would still be in that small city waiting for him. But today it had struck him like a bolt from the blue. He told her about Deepak and their marriage. He told her about his parents to whom he was not talking anymore. He told her how lonely he was in the big city. He told her about his hate for this place and his longing to go back home. Reema heard it all patiently all the while not believing her luck. She had struck the iron just when it was red hot.
Praveen suddenly seemed much better as if a monkey was off his back. Reema knew that sometimes a patient ear works more wonder than soothing words. He relaxed down and Reema had noticed it. She just needed to get some soothing words out now.
“Why do you think you are wrong? Couldn’t you see that that girl did not even notice you in college? You say you didn’t call her but did you not notice that even she didn’t call you. She is a loser and she didn’t recognize your value. She fell for a man just because he is more suave. She just wasn’t cut out for you. You are worth much more.”
These words seemed to put things in a new perspective for Praveen. He seemed to just have realized that Reema was right. “Thanks! I think you are right. I didn’t think about it this way” He finally smiled and Reema had noticed that he slowly looked down at her again. Then they started talking about a variety of things. Reema told her a lot of things about herself that he did not know. They talked on every subject over the dinner regarding how he started an enterprise, how she came to Bangalore and lot more. Praveen seemed to relax more each passing moment and also it appeared as if he was getting more enchanted with Reema. Reema looked beautiful, she sounded childish and her ever inviting smile could have caught anyone off guard. He just didn’t take his eyes off her for all this while. Reema knew this had gone well. Now only one final nail in coffin was needed, that was SEX. This was going to be tricky and may well backfire. She was sure once they had sex Praveen would propose her next day and even if he doesn’t she didn’t lose anything as she had already lost her virginity when she was just 19. The problem was how to get him into that situation. Reema had thought her plan. She excused herself for going to washroom, and very silently called her roommate Deepti to spend the night somewhere else tonight as Deepti had often done with her whenever she brought her boyfriend home. Then she touched up her makeup, pulled her shirt a little lower and walked back to her boss who looked more relaxed now.
She saw Praveen had just washed his hands and looked much cheerful. She walked towards him and said, “I’ll leave now. You don’t worry I will take an auto.” This was another one which could have backfired, for knowing Praveen, he could well have said yes. She was relieved when he said “No no! I’ll drop you. It’s late now. You wait on the gate, I’ll get the car”
She waited on gate as he went to get the car. She felt nervous and could almost hear her heart beat. She had set this up perfectly. Her prey was in range now, but she knew just one mistake and that would be it. He got the car in front of her and opened the front door and signaled her to sit. To many people’s amazement Praveen still preferred to drive a Maruti 800 despite the fact that he could have afford at least Tata Indigo. But Reema knew he was down to earth. She sat down and fastened her seat belt. She reached her house in fifteen minutes drive. He hadn’t spoken much on the way but she had caught him looking at her from the corner of his eye on many occasions.
She got down and asked, “Would you like to come in and have some coffee?”
“At this time?” Praveen looked surprised.
“Ugggggghhhhhh!!!! How dumb?” Reema thought but added, “Yes! It’s rather cold out here.”
He took out his mobile, looked at time and said “It’s rather late.”
“Come on! It will hardly be 10 minutes” she said. As it turned out it took more than 10 hours before he left.
Reema lay triumphantly in bed after he had left in the morning. He had not proposed her and had looked rather embarrassed over what conspired the last night. But she knew it had gone well and there was no reason to panic. He was just like that. It would take some time for him to accept that he had fallen in love with her. She would help him do it. Moreover, he hadn’t been bad at all considering it might well have been his first time. She got up and took a pill, drank some water and looked at herself in the mirror. It had taken time but her plan had finally worked out. She stood some time before the mirror and admired her masterpiece of a figure. All those hours in the gym, the strict diet regimes had finally been worth it. She realized that she didn’t need to rush to her work now. After all, the restaurant will soon be hers in a few days. She went back to bed, pulled her blanket over her face and went to sleep totally at peace with herself.
Praveen drove back home and opened the door and sat down on a chair in his balcony. He felt tired but content. He took out his cell and dialed a number. After some time he heard a “Hello”
“Hello Deepak! Good Morning” Praveen said.
“Hey !!!Good Morning, Praveen. I didn’t expect you to call back so soon” the voice came.
“Just wanted to tell you something”
“What?”
“You know what! The Deepak and Priyanka story worked once again, for the third time in third year. 100% success rate.” Praveen said.
“Don’t tell me! So you had her?”
“Yes. Money has been transferred to your account.”
“Thanks man! Praveen, Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s bizarre man! You could have done that an year ago without any such long drama but you chose to set her up. I still don’t get it”
“It’s just a nice sport man. All the while she felt that she had set me up. It’s a great hunt when all the while the hunted feels that it is the hunter. She will feel that she had earned me. She will feel that she had pushed me into this, but in reality I just let her push me into it. Now, she will never be able to blame me for this and after some time she’ll rather feel guilty about it. She will again and again plot a similar night each time with the hope that I will give her that coveted ring and in course of time she will realize that I am rather dumb and will move on still unable to blame me. So while she will still believe that she had hunted a dumb rabbit the reality that she had been hunted stupid cow.”
“You are too wicked man. Riya, Deepti and now Reema. I wonder what’s next or rather, who is next?”
“I am not wicked. I just enjoy showing the schemers like Reema how much do they really suck, It’s they who plan and scheme and finally get trapped into it.”
“Ok buddy! Next time at least do find a better Priyanka, this one was a headache to train”
“Sure. Bye and take care” he said and hung up.
He made himself a coffee and just for a moment thought what Reema must be thinking now. He couldn’t help himself having a nice laugh.
