It Wasn't Love at First Shalini and I Read Free Page B

ready for another five days at work.
    There are some things that do not change no matter at what level
you are at work. You still have someone to report to, you still have
deadlines which cannot be met, you still feel that the year end
increments are not high enough, you still feel that you and not your
colleague deserve the promotion, you still feel that some other job
would pay you much more for what you are doing, you still have a
bunch of people who start off as office colleagues and then become
friends, you still have a bunch of people who start as friends and then
become colleagues, and you still have the long cigarette breaks where
you vent out all the frustration, even if you don’t really smoke.
    My office was no different. I no longer worked as an engineer. In
fact, I now worked in the marketing and distribution channel for
one of the big FMCG companies which used to sell all kinds of
things. I was responsible for one particular brand. My work, like
most other jobs, was monotonous for the most part wherein there is
a set system and you just have to fit in. But there were chances when
you got to show your creative ability and that was the part which
kept me, and millions of other people like me going. Plus, the money
was good, and money was needed to pay the bills, and with the
impending marriage, it was also needed to pay for the honeymoon,
the new furniture, the new wardrobe, the new house etc.
    I was pretty satisfied with my job. I had been in this job for almost
3 years now, right after finishing MBA. There were some office
flirtations and some sort of flings in the beginning when everyone is
new to work and do not really know what to do. But that had now
settled and I fit into the office like old furniture. I used to hit the
gym after office hours, or at times in the morning, for my marriage
and then used to go back home, cook some light food, watch some
television, chat on the phone with Kriti for some time and then goto
sleep. A usual boring routine followed by every office goer who has a
fiancé or a girlfriend. For the (un)lucky few who don’t, the talking
on the phone part is replaced by watching more television or drinking
beer. But at the end it’s all the same. You get used to it and it stops
making a difference.
    In my case the ‘chat for sometime on the phone’ had recently
started becoming ‘chat for a hell lot of time’ on the phone. Kriti had
so much to tell about office. Either that her office was too happening
or that she just liked talking too much. She would tell me everything
that happened in her day. She would reach office late every day- she
needed some extra time to get ready, and then she would try and
confuse her manager and make him believe that she was indeed on
time. She said he would agree but I knew he had a similar problem
like me, he could not say anything to those fluttering eyelashes. She
would then login to her computer and check the first mails of the
day. She would then have breakfast with coffee. She ensured that I
ate a healthy breakfast but she herself would gorge on the oiliest and
fattiest food possible. She would then gossip around for half an hour
with her colleagues and as all of them were that age, their favourite
topic used to be marriage. After that gossip session, she used to call
me to fill me in with what all who all had bought and what all we
needed to shop over the week. She would then go and actually work
for some time and have more gossip sessions etc.
    I would generally lose interest in what she was saying after around
15 minutes, and she did not even expect me to respond. There were
no questions in between, all I had to do was show some surprise at
times, pity at other times, and happiness at some other. I used to do
this while watching reruns of ‘Friends’ and after around 45 minutes
(it had started with 5 minutes) she would call it a day and
    goto sleep. She needed atleast 8 hours of sleep to keep her skin
glowing. I really did not mind that. I