The first green light.. Episode 18

Pavan was waiting for that reply back from the past 20 mins, though her status was green all the while, Ananya wasn’t probably in the mood to ping back her new follower! He had finished checking up on all his unread newsletter emails, cleaning up his mailbox – yea, Pavan didn’t have a lot of emails needing attention, I am sure you have guessed it by now! Having spent lot of time Pavan gave up on a reply and a disappointed himself thought of shutting out and calling it a day, just when a sound buzzed on the laptop and the window started being highlighted.. He quickly opened the window to see a pop up window in the right bottom corner saying…

Ananya: Hi

A perplexed Pavan on what should be his reply, went ahead with the standard without any delay..

Pavan: Hi, how are you?

Wondering if she is going to take similar time as the first one to reply back.. but she was quick this time

Ananya: m dng well, hw bout u?
Pavan: Very well thank you

Knowing that it was ‘her’ chatting, Pavan was keen to maintain the decency in the chats with full use of the written english language as compared to the cool chilled chat lingo by Ananya.

P: Thanks for acknowledging the friend request here.
A: no worry, i knw who u r

Eyebrows raised with the statement, Pavan was keen to know how was that.

P: Surprising to know that, how do you know me?
A: lol, we wrkd fr d sam co, i saw ur linkd profile – well ya i knw somthn bout ya
P: Yea of course, that’s how I added you on linkedin, its good to know you here as well.
A: Yea, gd to knw u too

A silence gripped on the chat as Pavan wasn’t sure of how to take the conservation ahead – asking anymore questions would be like invading privacy on the first chat itself, neither can it be like asking any other stuff – can make it too boring! To keep it going and realizing that it was about 1 am in the night he posted one question just to see if he can get any reply..

P: How come you are still online and awake, isn’t it pretty late?

For a moment, Pavan thought it was a little overboard for the first chat, but some things can’t be undone, can they?
After a brief pause came a reply..

A: Na, nt really, it’s my usual time to be online

Well, it isn’t common to be online at 1 am unless someone has real good interests to stay online, thought Pavan, like he did for now. Does she have a boyfriend? is she committed – maybe she has some very good friends whom she chats with so late. A Thousand things went through the train of thought but he had to wait sometime to be able to unearth these details..

Next, he saw was the green light turning grey.. indicating that she had gone offline! A disappointed Pavan, didn’t get a chance to say a goodbye and turn the first chat memorable! 
He optimistically said to himself that after all ‘it wasn’t a bad start’. A smiling Pavan went off to bed with these running thoughts..

Lights off..

Life is a social page.. Episode 17

“Pavan….PAvan…. PAVAN!” one of his colleagues was trying to get his attention calling his name out persistently. Pavan was long-lost in the new profound invention of his – the profile he wanted to go through, an opportunity to know more about the girl and that had come after such a long time. Grinning to his ears Pavan looked up to check who was evading his sanctum. He gave cold stare and shouted “Will join you in a minute”

The Info section on the Facebook social profile listed a couple quick facts like Mumbai, St. Francis School 2005, Marketing at Bluestone Inc. Phew, Pavan jumped at the moment that now he knew ‘a lot’ about the girl who was ruining his attention for so long. The scroll continued… Pouties, besties and some check in’s were just flashing up on the profile. With the check in’s he could also ascertain that she has done a couple of international trips by now – his mind quickly ran through a direct compare with his passport pages for Pavan – which had just one visa stamped on it. Though it was a visa from the US, which he had collected for a visit to his family – his elder brother. Anyways, he guessed that it was least of the concern. Scrolled to all the last of the page, which mentioned ‘Born in 2009’ which plainly meant there were no posts prior to that – the only concern that Pavan had in his mind was yet unsolved! Relationships??? A couple of revisits to the ‘About’ section unveiled no new information. There was absolutely no information if she was committed or seeing any one and was quite a conundrum to be true. Only hope that he had, was that ‘if she doesn’t want to talk about it, there’s nothing to talk about it’, with a wide smile he logged out of his account. In a couple of minutes, Pavan knew half of her story through her social account! Wasn’t a predicament as thought.. Isn’t it?

At the coffee table in the canteen, Pavan’s face was more of an ‘accomplished’ blush with which of course he had gained a confidence of knowing the one who had bumped into her inadvertently in the same canteen  a while ago – gone through with her quitting the company and of him finally achieving a real world contact with Ananya.. ‘Oh boy! It was a journey’.. ‘It’s going to be a good night’s sleep’ he guessed. Day passed by and with Pavan being a total social addict, he had a his customary checks on all his social logins before hitting the bed. As the day had been extra-ordinary for his being, he had one more scroll on the profile he couldn’t miss for the day. As he was scrolling down, he saw a small green dot by her name in the Facebook messenger which lies by the main page. A mixed bag of emotions ran through Pavan’s spine not knowing of the conclusion – should I drop a ‘Hi’ or should I not? Wouldn’t I be introduced as a pervert or a desperate if I had a dropped a note so soon of being added. Several thoughts ran through his head giving a mixed opinion of that first word to be sent across to Ananya..

He was quick to go on a google search to look up for some good introduction lines to make a good impression or so he wished for. Lines like ‘Which is your favorite coffee place’ ‘Do you like Shahrukh more or Salman’ and some more, none of which he thought is going to elevate his impression. Without having met her, without knowing her Pavan thought it wasn’t good to flirt around even if he wished to..

With much deliberation and 15-20 minutes of google search no yields, Pavan gathered all the courage to drop a note to Ananya.. and it sounded like..

Pavan: Hi

Better luck next time may be.. Episode 16

Next morning, it was investigation time with Mom throwing questions to Pavan to understand what his opinion was and if it would be a ‘nightmare’ (rejection) or ‘Party time’ (acceptance)! Pavan was trying to dodge the questions that were being thrown right left and center, but for how long can he preserve, he finally said a ‘No, Mom’ ‘It cant work out between us!’. Mom was disappointed to that answer as she had pretty much liked the girls profile but Pavan had stupid reasons to just reject that girl for marraige ! Well, Pavan still listens to his heart – thats what he used to say all the time. “Shouldn’t it be like there are bells ringing when you see someone, or you would die to just be with that lady??” – Pavan opined always regarding his interpretation of Love, or Marriage. Oops, Did I just differentiate between Love and Marraige!! Woah… No comments as of now.

Well.. So life goes on for Pavan, as usual, his work and the daily commute. The only thing that was probably interesting at work place had probably diminished somewhere. All he could say to himself was better luck next time. Though that had been his motto always in life as his status read ‘Single’ from the day he opened his eyes in this world.

There was a visit everyday to the best social networking website, Facebook, not because Pavan was anticipating something – maybe that had just flown off his mind that he had sent across a friend request to Ananya some time back and there were no reply on that !! Facebook was, quite surprisingly, the most visited website in the firm (I better not mention the company name huh 😛 ) and most taunts and comments flew better on the website between the colleagues rather than face to face!!

Two months had may be flown by the time since Pavan had sent a friend request to Ananya and had forgotten it completely, but destiny had some other plans for this chap on this earth ! Right about the tea time, Pavan received a mail and his eyes just sparkled and there was a big smile on his face. The mail subject line read ‘Ananya Sharma has accepted your friend request..’ You by now know what would Pavan’s next step would be – yeah, he is quite predictable – click that link and go straight to her profile on Facebook!!! Suddenly a boring mundane regular day had turned into a great happy day. He probably remembers that day even today – that’s 2 years down the line !

Is it really a match??.. Episode 15

Pavan was scanning through the profile that his mom had handed over to him at lunch. There were a couple of pages in the profile and was built similar to what a job resume/CV would look like! They are strange and funny but thats how it is done in here. This profile would start with one’s name and go on to list down details like blood group, interests, hobbies and blah blah. The profile Pavan was sifting through also listed what her elder sister’s elder son was doing somewhere deep down in the States.. Phew!! that was quite a detailed CV.. oops Profile must say.. thought Pavan. Overall, Pavan wasn’t too impressed.. Baah as if he had a super profile and there would be huge queue for him someday.

On his mom’s insistence, he had say yes atleast for a first meet and then he can decide if he wants to go ahead on it or otherwise. So the standard operating procedure was to grab his cellphone and dial a number that would directly reach the girl. Pavan dialed her cellphone number the same evening and spoke “Hello, Hi, this is Pavan here” to which a soft and very polite tone responded from the other end. Pavan was finding it too funny as the voice was very polite and was like as if she had received a call from God almighty himself. Well, being too polite and nice can also be scary sometimes, I’snt it? So the next step in the process was to fix a venue and meet up at a mutually suited time. Bargaining and compromising can be very good verbs for this decision !!

The day dawned upon and Pavan had to get ready for something he had never done in his life – meet up an unknown girl at a public place and decide in one meeting if she would be the one to spend the remaining of his life or not. Isn’t it like taking up a challenge, a daunting task thought Pavan, but this is how it works in arranged marriages, consoled himself and left home for the venue decided. Pavan was waiting for the girl to arrive at the decided time and place and was in the meanwhile checking out other potential candidates, if any, around! You know the typical guys.. !! Some time later, a girl with a very familiar face came up to Pavan and introduced herself.. Oh! Hi.. came a surprised welcome message from Pavan. So the introductions commenced and they started chit-chatting over a coffee, questions like “what are your hobbies?” “what do you do in your free time?” came to light. These sessions, thought Pavan, are interesting, because you hunt for some questions and at the same time wonder upon what should be the answer for a particular counter question. How boring would it be to say I have a hobby of internet surfing… woah.. sounds interesting for some but isn’t it too generic!! Well, it also gives a good introspection of yourself, did you ever think about your hobbies and what you do in your free time ever so seriously !!

The meeting did go well with questions atleast filling up 2-3 A4 sized pages and answers probably more than that! In terms of going ahead on it… Ummm… Pavan didnt know what to say when he was confronted with this question by his Mom back home! Mom expected an answer so that she could dial a couple more numbers and let know of his answer to her family etc etc.

All the time, Pavan was wondering why do people have to hurry in such cases, do they really have that urge to get that “yes” out from us and just start distributing sweets all around !! But Pavan knew very well how to buy time on this…

We got a match son.. Episode 14

After a good memorable trip of Ladakh and post all the comments and replies on the photos, Pavan was watching his favorite game, Football on TV the next weekend. Pavan was a die hard fan of Football and followed almost any damn football match, right from English Premier League to Serie A, La Liga etc etc!! Though his work did not give him time on weekdays to catch up with his sport Goal.com always kept him updated! Weekend was also one of the times when he and his family used to catch up on the latest happenings as other days were just touch and go – thanks to his work timings! His family was a sweet and small – An elder bro, married and settled in the US, Mom – housewife and Dad – was now retired from a big Indian based MNC.

Pavan’s Mom, as usual was on her task of finding a good daughter-in-law and used to catch Pavan for discussions on weekends as he used to easily get away on weekdays ! “Pavan, we have this girl match for you” said his mom over lunch to which Pavan thought “oh shit! Not again!” He used to very well enjoy his freedom as being single and never thought of that ‘marriage’ as completely opposed to his parents who probably thought about getting his son married 24 by 7!! More than marriage, Pavan hated the process of meeting up with new girls and starting that ‘knowing each other’ thing right from scratch. Till date, his mom had shown him 4-5 profiles to which he always had some or the other reason and bumped the opportunity even before meeting the girl! He had only met one girl, with marriage intention, along with his family and that wasn’t an interesting rendevouz for him.

Pavan’s bro had a love marriage done with full consent of his parents and the girls parents, probably the most peaceful love inter-caste marriage that his bro might have wished for! Pavan on the other hand… well I need not repeat what situation he was in. Pavan’s mom had trouble getting it out of him if he ever had any girlfriend and whether they should really help Pavan in finding the right partner for himself, but she never managed to get any answer from him – just because there was ‘None’ !!

Courtesy: Clipartof.com

“See her profile” his Mom continued “and here is her picture”. First impressions of the girl were okay thought Pavan and had a look at the profile. Though Pavan was apprehensive of the complete process he was obedient enough to follow his mom’s orders most of the times.. Why? I need not reiterate that at least in this case he had no option at this point in his life ! “You should go ahead and meet the girl yourself. Decide for yourself if you would want to go ahead on this”. Post lunch, Pavan had a brief look at the girl’s profile and read details like height, weight, education… blah blah.. “How does one select a life partner by seeing the height weight and educational qualifications!!” thought Pavan and continued reading the profile to the hobbies section.

Pavan’s mom never forced decisions on him, right from childhood, and continued it on that day too. It was left to his discretion on if he wants to meet the girl or wait till the next lunch session where his mom would have some other proposals for him…