Part 5: FC-18 (Chapter 4)

I went behind her and put my arms around. I lowered my head to rest my chin on her shoulder and pleaded “Please don’t leave me… Please don’t go”. She chuckled at the obvious and rare display of my affection, even though she was surprised by my outrageous demand.

Yes outrageous. Mom is a workaholic. I assume she is the best gynecologist in the city based on per her workload …. Her working on off days in wake of emergencies is a more common site then taking an off. Actually I don’t remember the last time when she stayed away from work…

she suddenly turned back…while I was engrossed in my thoughts and asked mocking at me” trouble at workplace or girl trouble…” “No trouble…” I was prompted to say as expected from my adult, all-in-control persona….

Wait a minute …As per the last status the girl I love in marrying someone she don’t want to marry and I am her shoulder to cry on. Another girl confesses “to the whole world” that she loves me, besides me.

Oops!! I hate these thoughts!! they caused enough delay for mom to get her answer. She teased ”Let me know which mandap to make it to and when. I wont like to miss your wedding even for a complex hysterectomy.” The last part was true … I chuckled at my scalpel-crazy mom.

It was obvious that she knows more than what I had told her and also that she does not take my troubles seriously. May be for a person not living the agony this was all very immature and dramatic

Yet, the blanket of fear engulfed me as I saw her leaving the house, I was very scared that voice of my head would drive me crazy on a lonely Saturday. Today was one of the rare juncture when a weekend with no plan seems to be a very bad idea.

She turned back at the door and tried to appease me with her words “You are too young to take this seriously. It will all sort itself out”. I wanted to reply “ yes I know it will all sort out, I just want to know where I will be at the end of it” but I kept silent and smiled.

As I closed the door behind her my mind started chalking the combat plan. How quickly and for how long can I sleep? Should I eat and then sleep so I don’t wake up around lunch time or should I sleep at the earliest without taking the risk of my mind loosing itself in its imagined maze? Phew…

My mobile rang. I dreaded that this would be Anjali. Her pain and agony was unfathomable but the biggest problem was that somehow her talks stopped me from making peace with my loosing her. More then her disinterest in the marriage, her need of my presence and approval kindled hope…

The phone was from office. There was production bug. The team member who called sounded like he was the last man drowning after the titanic had already sank. His message should have been recorded and used by the English professors to teach how to make a complex sentence using the words “shit” “screwed” and “dead” more them once.

When I reached office the work area at office had no resemblance with any other day. Today the air was heavy with stress. The palpitation and throbbing of the team members thoughts resonated all around. The whole team including boss was there. Root cause analysis, salvaging the situation, damage control, face saving, earliest restoration … such things were on mind …Honestly a morning gathering would have had more life…

All members were not in position to fix the issue, actually the real cause of the bug was still unknown but still each of them pretended to be the sincerest, most important, most impacted and most motivated in the room. As if the solemn aura they brought to the environment itself would find and resolve the issue.

Hey issue, by the way the issue was not meteor-showing, hurricane or earthquake… some values on our site got wiped out… Duh!! Real serious stuff… see dollar amount disappearing from a godforsaken website was not my idea of a crisis. I would love to tell the idiots using my site … all the weird issues it silently housed… huh!! Big deal if one came out in open… I have personally coded thousands of logic bloopers when I worked half asleep, disillusioned and at times plain disinterested…

While I though all this… I behaved like all. I talked little, frowned a lot. I generally stared my comp and in sudden outbursts typed prolifically on my keyboard. Heavy sighs and occasional murmurs of disappointed “oh shit!!” were fashioed to remind that I was still around and still trying.

The drama was somehow endearing today … may be because it saved me from myself.