‘Has the bus E104 already left?’ I breathlessly reached the bus stop and asked the man standing there.

He was taken by surprise, as if I asked him for his wallet. After a pause he replied, ‘No.’ I heaved a sigh of relief. As I returned to my normal breathing speed, I asked again, ‘I see your tag, do you also work for Reuters Software Solutions?’

He replied ‘Yes, I do.’

His voice was strong yet polite. Dressed in neat formal clothes, he was clean-shaven and looked like a well-cultured man. I quickly glanced at his fingers. No rings. All this is fine but what’s with these short answers. I wondered if he was simply shy by nature or just plain arrogant. I was also not one of those who would give up easily. There’s something strange with women like me—when someone ignores us, we tend to get more attracted to them. It’s a classic flaw introduced by the naughty Almighty, but still I could not resist talking to him further.

‘Hi, my name is Naina, I joined RSS recently.’ I extended my right hand hoping to involve him in a conversation.

‘Oh, that’s good to know, I am Abhishek.’ He rendered a rather weak handshake and did not bother to extend the conversation.

‘So which department you work for, Abhi? I guess I can call you that, right?’ I continued, moving closer to him. Wow! He smelled great as well. I was hoping we at least end up having a couple of dates, if not more.

‘I am in the training department; actually, I am one of the coordinators.’ After a small pause, he continued, ‘And ya, Abhi is fine.’

With those words, he looked into my eyes for the first time. For me, that’s all it takes. Once someone looks into my eyes, they get lost as if they are hypnotized by a magician. The eye contact lasted exactly five seconds before our brief, interesting little moment was abruptly ended by the arrival of the bus. Needless to say, I sat next to him.

After the brief quixotic moment at the bus stop, I was sure that he would be the one to restart the conversation.

‘How about you, Naina? Which department do you work for and how do you find our RSS?’

There you go! It was the magic of my earthen-pot eyes and my charm that was putting those words in his mouth. I gave him more details than he asked for, talking about my department, work, colleagues—and I did not stop there. I also hinted that I am the girl to party with. He listened with great interest but I could also sense that he was a shy and quiet person.

Time is heartless. When you want it to move slower, it flies and when you are waiting for something important, it crawls. Though we travelled almost twelve kilometres for about thirty-five minutes, it felt like less than five minutes. We reached the office and went to our desks. For both of us, the day had started on a bright note.

Part 1