Do Nadiyon ka pani -2
Karthik
I am excited! There is a new batch of marketing interns this year and I cannot believe I will be guiding one of them. Gaurav, our creative head, told all of us to pick one of the juniors each and our desperate Heteroes, fought over the hot girls in the batch.
Yep, we were checking out the Facebook profiles to see who they were.The others finally settled for the hunks and the only one whom no one was picking was Aman Tripathi. His Facebook Profile, had non-descript poetic quotes from Gulzar and Rumi, Some of his pictures with Family.I felt bad these people judged him by his ordinariness. I picked him. He could be interesting and even if not, we will be fine.
I am in one of my moods, the happy one. I took a bouquet of flowers, that basically had every flower that the florist had. I simply couldnt decide. And it became a huge ass bouquet, but I took it anyway. I know for sure that no one bothers to greet the freshers with flowers, so what's wrong in showing some extra-large love.
I realized that it was indeed too ridiculously large bouquet as I walked into the office. People in my office ducked alarmedly out of my way, guffawed at my stupid gesture. I shrugged, anyway, most of them thought I was legit crazy! So why should I care!
Another amazing realization is that my extra-large bouquet would not fit the door straight. Just like my extra-large ahem heart would not fit the world straight. I smirked at my own stupid joke.
I entered the room where interns were waiting quite dramatically, I couldnt help it. It's my life and the drama just happens. And that's when it happened, the feeling that breath had been suddenly knocked out of me.
I lowered the bouquet from the eye-level and looked at the first person across me. I knew him to be Aman Tripathy, but he looked nothing ordinary. His coffee-brown eyes were wide and had a beautiful smile on him as he stared at me.
He shook his head ever so slightly as he realized he straightened for me. Thank god! for my autopilot singing, I was not making a fool of myself in front of him. Because I never felt like this before, nervous and anxious to impress, I barely registered the others in the room. I set the bouquet on the table, Thank God I picked it.
No Thank god I picked him. Shit, I shouldn't be thinking this way!
I finished my song with a regular flourish and pirouette, hoping desperately that he must not think of me as stupid or something. I looked at him and he stood gazing at me with his big eyes. A thrill shot through me as I realised he was impressed, his eyes were tracing their way towards my tattoo, and jacket.
Those eyes were really speaking volumes. I must do something before I get lost in those eyes and do something stupid. I joked something for the heck of it, thankfully that worked the other interns, who were in the room started coming towards me to introduce themselves.But Aman looked down and stepped back, I was already hyperventilating. Was I looking too overbearing? Was I too dramatic? Now what?
I engaged myself introducing myself to the others, I didn't get any of their names. But then I noticed out of the corner of my eye, that he was nervously shuffling his collar, looking so lost that my heart went out for him.I smirked at him, to gauge his reaction, maybe it was too weird for him that a guy was eye-balling him, he swallowed and shuffled his collar.
Damn! I should not make him feel uncomfortable.
So I stepped forward to shake his hand. Alarm clear in his eyes, he too raised his hand to meet mine.His hands were shaking, yep definitely nervous. Unconsciously, I brought both my hands to reassure his shaking hands. And I realized that too late. Thankfully, Aman didn't mind and actually felt comfortable with my gesture.In a hurry to make a good impression on him I picked the most cheesy lines of the century.
But they worked! Aman laughed, and for a moment I was distracted at the silky hair that bounced on his face. Ok now! Damn!
"Aman" he replied sweetly. Time to misdirect my wit yet again!
"Main soch raha tha, Shahrukh, tum toh Salman nikle yaar!"
Aman being really sweet, played along, "Main bhi soch raha tha Ranveer, aap bhi toh Shahrukh nikle".
I was shamelessly impressed by him, and we were still holding hands, I don't want that to turn awkward so I did yet another goofy, cliched ShahRukh gesture, with, "Kya Karoon unpredictability mera andaaz hain."
Aman laughed at that as well throwing his head back. Sigh! That hair!But then, he suddenly realised that the others were looking at him too, in a split second, his self-consciousness was back. His hand automatically went to his neck, he rubbed the back of his neck and shuffled his collar, looking like an adorable lost puppy.
"Aagaya Mera Star," Gaurav boomed from behind him. Aman looked at him across me. And an unexpected frisson of something shot through me. Gaurav was hunky and quite hot for a creative head and Aman looked at him in surprise. I didn't like that. I want his attention back, in fact, all to myself.
Strange!
Gaurav was commenting something on the flowers, and I replied, "Welcome, sir! Welcome! Phool toh mere ussool hain sir!"
And as if I was mentally retarded, I turned back at Aman to throw him a wink.Gaurav clapped my back as I reached him and turned towards the crowd yet again. For a second, Aman had a mesmerising smile, but then he quite suddenly his smile slipped. He looked away and swallowed. I looked away too, wondering what was wrong!
A welcome distraction came in the shape of my team, who walked in after a calculated twenty seconds after Gaurav.The general rounds of introduction and briefing were happening and I calmed my nerves. My Hetero team is already staring at the girls and doing stuff to impress them.
The poor girls always have it hard, too much attention all the time. Aman slunk into the background, probably I am the only one who noticed him. One of the girls from the freshers casually walked towards him and introduced herself. He looked up in surprise but quickly got through the introduction. But she lingered talking to him, he was uncomfortable and fumbled his words, which made the girl giggle and looked back. I understood the ruse. She was actually interested in the other guy at the end of the room. So this was her ploy.
Maybe he sensed that someone was staring hard at him from across the room, he looked away form the girl and his eyes met mine, but Gaurav boomed yet again and I had to look away.
So Gaurav started his speech with the same old marketing mix with a spice of his own, trying in vain to motivate good responses. He was facing the crowd from across the table, while we were to his left. I could see Aman at the other end drinking in whatever Gaurav was speaking, rapt in attention.Yet again, the pit of my stomach burned a little.
What! Gaurav was good looking, at least too good for a straight.
Gaurav ended his prep talk with the announcement that he will attach each of the interns to each one of us. But since our team were ten and the interns were only six, we have to share our resources. He had a knack of telling stuff as if he just had an idea to do this as if none of this is pre-planned.To tell the truth, I was nervous. I didn't know why I want Aman to be happy and impressed with me.Gaurav announced our names casually and attached the interns in a line. Finally, Aman's turn came and Gaurav called my name. Aman lit up for a split second as he heard my name! And here I was a nervous wreck. He caught my eye smiled, he was nervous as well. I smiled back, it's kinda hard not to, his smile is too infectious.
