Just Another Girl!

 Chapter 1

            It was around noon and satvik was on schedule for his interview. He had randomly received a call a few days ago, from an executives at one of the leading private banks. He had not expected he would get a call from prospective employers just a day after he had submitted his resume to one of the numerous internet job portals.

The call had been as much a surprise as it had been cherished, for his sister had been nagging him to take up some work since he had finished his graduation a few months ago. He knew if he could get this job listed on his resume, he would not just be envied by his friends but would also be able to rub it the faces of all his teachers. Throughout his college life they had made sure he felt there was no hope for him or his future. He hadn’t had much luck with the campus placement cell either but was quiet optimistic about this interview. He knew a lot was at stake.

He stood at the foot of the gate of the building, and a massive structure surrounded by a vast garden with various breath taking landscapes and a small pool in the middle stood in front of him. He would often cross the building on his way to his college, but this wasn’t quiet the building he had thought he would have to enter everyday for work. He made his way to the exotically furnished lobby, too fancy and rich for his taste. It then occurred to him how easy it would be for people to come and deposit huge amounts of money in a banking concern that looked like this. With a sea of people swarming around him, he realized how hectic life was going to be. He remembered the articles from the newspapers and magazines which he had read about the bank, and was struck by the gravity of the role he might be able to play in its future.

He made his way to the reception, and was met with an acknowledging smile. After verification of certain documents he was given a roll number. He was then escorted to a huge room somewhere inside the building and was asked to sit at a bench with other young interviewees, apparently who had all come in for the same job profile.

The good news was that there were a handful of vacancies, but looking at the numbers that were turning up, he didn’t quiet think that it mattered. There was an air of nervousness which hung silently above the room. It was evident that the newspapers, coffee machines and the TV sets hanging on the walls, were not able to serve their purpose of making the young candidates feel at home. At the coffee machine more of small talk was being made than coffee, and small groups had started to form. With everyone nervous and clueless most talk was chit chat and blabber.

Satvik glanced up at the wall clock in front of him and the hands seemed to have stuck, they had hardly moved since the last time he saw them. By now the already crowded hall seemed stifling to him. A weird silence had griped the room, with talks in whispers, and the occasional call of roll numbers which had been allotted to them on arrival.

He was confident that he would bag the job once he got into the chamber with the interviewer, but the wait was too much to bear.

The fact that they hadn’t seen a single candidate come out of the interview chamber once they had been called scared everyone.  Even though no one said it, but they all wanted to know what was being asked in the interview. Just a look on the face of someone who had been interviewed would’ve been sufficiently reassuring. It seemed as if the room ate anyone who dared to enter it.

Satvik had started to get restless. His eyes began wandering through out the room. They were browsing through the group of people standing in the corner of the room and his eyes met those of a girl’s. It happened just for a second, and then she started going through some sheets she was holding in her hands.

Standing somewhere in the midst of the heard she didn’t seem interested in the conversation to which the rest of the crowd seemed to be bound by every word. She was what he would’ve said was an average looking girl, but something about her was compelling and he was dumbstruck trying to figure out what that was.

He wondered if it was the irony of her light green eyes, that gave her face a juvenile look and the innocence of a child all at the same time, he knew there were some secrets which those eyes withheld, or if it was her unkempt hair which gave her a girlish charm, it made her look more like a free spirit but at the wrong place, or if it were her lips which gave away a kind of sensuality, with which the rest of her body did not get along well.

Satvik started contemplating love at first sight and he knew that it wasn’t. This was something different. He had never felt like this before. He felt a need to take care of this girl. The innocence of her face inspired him to reach out to her.

He could feel a sudden rush of energy in himself. He had just acquired a need to know who the girl was, a name, an address, which college had she gone to, was she single, anything at all. He kept staring at her face he didn’t care if it seemed rude. He wanted her to see him. He didn’t even know if she had noticed him. He felt like walking up to her and talking to her, to ask her who she was, to ask her if she had felt the same connection.

It was a while before he realized that his roll number was being called out, apparently it was the 3rd repetition, the most times yet. He had to go into the interview chamber, but he didn’t want to leave yet. No, not before he knew she had seen him. He stood there, by now everyone was getting restless, the roll number had been called a fourth time, with a warning of it being the final call and then it happened.

She looked up and saw Satvik staring at her, her expression changed and she seemed more curious than offended, which later changed to awkwardness and a sudden realization of where they were. He gave her once last glance before both of them looked away. Satvik picked up his files and marched towards the interview hall knowing that something had changed.

***

P.S.: I'm publishing this on 27.04.2021 at 02:14AM as was pending as draft since 2010 without editing it. This was originally published on 20th Nov, 2010 at 01:26AM but when I logged in today after maybe 8-9 years it was pending as draft. The one thing I derive from the peculiarity in the timing of publishing over nearly a decade apart is that somethings never change like my love for late night work on my blogs.

P.P.S.: I could not have fathomed the prevailing Coronavirus pandemic, when I had first written this, but it is this pandemic that gave me the time to step back and reflect over who I am and what I stand for. This blog is but a reflection of 'I', merely the tip of the iceberg if I may say. Some of these poems I had written even before 2010, some I will find and update. These are funny, if not to you, then atleast to me. For they give me an insight into my own reflections of life. There are many, I can't say 'Answers' but advancements (maybe) in understanding of 'I', the most reflective of which is definitively #Chalteraho.