Once back to Mumbai, the professional life started occupying most of their time. They could hardly meet over weekends. Tanvi had rented a flat in the meantime – at least till she married Guru. It was almost over a month when she visited her parents at Pune. She returned with a couple of volumes of photograph albums of their engagement ceremony. She was pretty excited and wanted to share those with Guru and Chaits.
They decided to meet up at Rustomjee’s. She had thought of a plan with Guru. They had decided to showcase eligible girls and tease Chaits, so that he feels the aroused and feel the longing to get married – to some girl of his interest.
They met up as planned and started flipping through the leaves of the first album. Whenever there was a pretty eligible girl visible, Tanvi excitedly started to relate all good things about her.
Within few flips, Chaits realized what the pair was up to and hid a smile. He started to flip the leaves with disinterest. He flipped over another leaf after hearing out Tanvi rave about a girl and how she could possibly be a good soul mate for him. He suddenly, flipped back a couple of leaves he earlier had turned over…
Tanvi nudged Guru thinking their ploy had worked. Chaits carefully looked at that photograph in disbelief.
“Tanvi” he said, his excitement suddenly soaring, “could you get a digital version of this photo?”
‘Yes! Why not?” she said, “The guy who clicked this album is a very good friend of mine. Wait … Let me check if he can send it over right away.”
She dialled a number and chatted with the guy. She looked at the photo id number in the album and gave it over the call.
“We will get the digital version in few minutes.” she said smiling. “He is at his studio and said he’ll email it right away.”
“Email?” Chaits wondered, “Why not any messaging app?”
“The bit size is large and those apps won’t entertain that size. Further, what I think is email will retain the quality of that photo.”
Chaits never had had a chance to count time with increasing heartbeat. He tried putting on a calm look but, deep inside, he could hear his heart hammer within.
Tanvi already had her laptop open and connected to her mobile hotspot. She was now sitting beside him and his complete attention was at the screen that displayed her inbox.
He let out a sigh of relief when he saw an email pop in. Never had been a moment been so long. He held his breath even as she clicked on it. He found his heart thumping inside as the photograph downloaded.
“Her name is Pooja” Tanvi started and stopped. She could sense he wasn’t looking at Pooja in that photograph. He was trying to search someone else.
“Tanvi – could you zoom into this corner?”
She obeyed and was curious as to who or what was he searching.
“Stop! – There she is …” he stopped short of screaming EUREKKA as he looked at the girl in that zoomed in photograph. She was partially hidden behind an erected pillar at the engagement venue.
Tanvi looked at the girl he was pointing and laughed, “She’s Anjali…”
Guru’s jaw dropped even as he heard Tanvi mention the name. He pushed his chair away and was standing behind her in a flash.
“Who’s Anjali?” he asked in an excited tone much to her confusion. She minimized the window showing them her desktop icons.
“Why do I feel that you both are hiding something from me?” she asked looking at them knowing that they were putting on the innocence of children caught in mischief, avoiding her teacher like questioning glance.
“Err…” Guru startled and exclaimed, “Lemme have a look and I can explain…”
“Okay” she said in a stern voice, “and I expect the truth.”
“I promise…” both hastily said in unison trying to sound solemn.
She maximized the photograph and watched Guru look at it in disbelief even as Chaits pointed her out to him.
“I can’t believe this … This is too much to be a coincidence.” he looked at Tanvi, “I didn’t see her during the ceremony. What’s she doing there? And … how do you know her?”
“I thought you guys are the ones who are supposed to answer me – not the other way around …”
Guru looked at stern look of Tanvi and then at Chaits. He told her the whole story from their college days and how Anjali was the only girl Chaits had fallen for “and … he still has same feelings for her…” he concluded.
Tanvi looked at the nervous expression on Chaits and burst out laughing much to his discomfort. She patted him on his shoulder as his mother would…
“Guys – leave this matter to me. I promise to get all the information in about 15 days when I visit Pune next. I don’t like my grown up boy to look so nervous” and laughed at his expression again.
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- Prasad Deshpandehttps://storiesandme.com/author/prasad/
- Prasad Deshpandehttps://storiesandme.com/author/prasad/
- Prasad Deshpandehttps://storiesandme.com/author/prasad/
- Prasad Deshpandehttps://storiesandme.com/author/prasad/