Kanpur-Gandhinagar-Bangalore-Calcutta

"Excuse me? Is this the Strategic Inputs team?"
I stared at her. She was beautiful. She look lost. The blue butterfly clip on her head was shaking ferociously- as she was trying to look in all directions, trying to find her newly allotted team.

"Yes.There is the manager. You can talk to him"

I saw her going to the manager. They were talking and I saw two completely contradictory persons in same frame. Yin and Yang , Devil and the Angel.

"Guys she is Nikita. She will join our team. Let me introduce you to them".
Somehow the manager failed to introduce me. It was pretty obvious too. I was junior most member of the team. Pretty much non existent. I cursed my small town upbringing. I sulked in the corner of my team's cubicle and got back to coding. World was pretty small for me.

"Hey can you help me out. I need to attend a party today and I'll be really late."
I thought to myself-"Dude she is way out of league. You are just going to make a mockery of yourself. Don't harbor any feelings for her".
I helped her out and saw her leave. It felt magical talking to her. I shrugged myself to not to think any further and got back to work.

Life went on. I saw her little disturbed at times but I didn't ask her. It was none of my business.

"Oye kal kyon nahin aaya! Atleast inform to kar diya karo agar nahin aa rahe ho to!" I was shocked. I don't think anybody else from my team would have even noticed that I was absent yesterday. "Yaar thoda tabiyat kharab thi. Office ka khana " "Koi nahin. Kaam khatam kar lo. We'll go to McD for lunch".

"Hey! Why you did not came to office yesterday. I wanted the part of code you were working on", shouted my manager. Sigh!

Gradually we became close friends. I really loved her company. If you wanna label that as love,I really don't know and it didn't matter. All I know was we had good time.

A year passed.

"Hey I want to tell you something. Let's go for a tea". I wondered what it is. My codes were not running and the devil would be hunting me down soon. "I got an offer from ZS. I am quitting. Next week would be my last. I'm so excited. They even doubled my pay". I was shocked. All I could say is "Awesome! Let's have a party".

The week passed by. I felt helpless. Should I disclose my feelings? But she is just a good friend. She obviously had no regrets. The final day came. We had cake cutting ceremony, she got her relieving letter. Everybody said goodbyes. I came down to see her off. "Good Bye. It was nice to spend some time with you. Best of luck", I said.

She wanted to say something but then stopped and left. I would like to believe there was a tear in the corner of her eye. I came to my team cubicle, sat in the corner and started coding again.

============================================================

Fictional story inspired from life of one of my very close friend.