My Sweet Story: 01 The First Encounter

Friday, May 27, 2005

01 The First Encounter

An encounter it was, though not a very pleasant one; one that I wouldn’t have tried to remember had somebody else been involved in it. However, it was one encounter that I shall cherish for the rest of my life. After all, it was the first encounter with my to-be soul mate. As we are aware of, "Truth is stranger than fiction." With these words, let me reflect back upon that day which changed the course of my life.
Well, it was just another day of my busy schedule. I had a demanding PL making me aware of the deadlines to meet and reminding me that we had a lot of ground to cover. To be factual (though numbers and dates hardly mean anything), it was Thursday, the 7th of July 2004. I was in a meeting (Status Update Meeting) related to my Project (Infosys Recruitment System then known by the jinxed name of ORBIT). A lot of brainstorming was going on and that was adding to the heat of the room. As is the normal case in Infosys, it was one of the ‘Critical Projects’ that we were supposed to complete in an impossible time frame.
It was in this meeting that my eyes chanced upon a dilapidated phone lying on the floor near one of the legs of the discussion table. On seeing the phone, I quietly covered the phone by turning my chair in such a way that nobody could see it. I have this habit since childhood of grabbing easy opportunities and becoming a quasi hero. I wanted to return this phone to the owner and get the easy accolades and associated gratitude.
I was eagerly waiting for the session to end and it seemed to last eons. At last, the session ended and I had my first feel of that lucky charm. It was an overly used phone. Even the numbers on the keypad had been erased owing to extensive use. It was the type that girls would use (it was curvy and had an antenna). Guys generally tend to use models without the antennae jutting out. I was hoping that it belonged to somebody I knew so that I could spring a surprise on that person. I softly asked everybody around me, if the phone belonged to them and I was not surprised to get an answer in the negative from each one.
The first thing I tried was calling my own number to get the number of the cell phone. However, it was not to be. I couldn't make any calls as it didn't have any balance left and I didn't get the number either. There was only one thing I could do. I left the phone nicely perched on my desk next to the keyboard and waited for the owner of the phone to call up on his/her own phone. I expected the person to realize that he/she had lost the phone and then call it up.
I had one look at the Infosys Bulletin Board. Not finding any "Lost my Phone" message there, I posted a "Found one Phone" message with my contact information. Thinking that the phone might belong to somebody on my floor, I also sent a general mail to everybody on my floor about the phone and asked the owner to come and contact me. Thereafter, I restarted my official work and went on debugging a piece of code which had been wracking my head since morning.
The first call didn’t take long to come. However, it was a prank call from one of my friends. I realized it very fast and cut the joke short. There were a few more of such calls and then the phone calls died down.
Meanwhile, the phone had been lying constantly in my sight. Soon, I had to go for lunch. Since I didn’t want to carry the phone with me for lunch, I gave the phone to my cubicle partner, Praveen, hoping that it would not be there when I returned. Then I leisurely had my lunch with Aditya and Pardeep, my regular lunch partners then, and came back an hour later.
To my dismay, no one had either called up or had enquired about any phone. I thought the person to be ultimately absent minded. After all, a mobile phone is not something that you can forget for more than an hour; and this one was lying with me for around four hours now. My frustration with the person kept on increasing and I kept on cursing that imaginary person. In due course, all my enthusiasm about getting a treat had sapped away. Now all that I wished was that the person would come and remove this burden from my sight.
Since it had taken too long, I began to contemplate about handing the phone over to the Infosys Security Desk. However, at last there was a vibration in the phone and it started ringing. I picked up the phone as if I had been awaiting this call for ages.

“Hello”, I said very warmly. The voice that followed was not very confident. It was kind of shaky. There was a guy on the line who seemed to be pretty confused. He kept silent for a trifle as if he was wondering something, and then muttered “Who’s this?” “I am Abhinava.” I said. “Who Abhinava?” pop came the next question. A train of thoughts flashed through my mind. “Hey, mate!! Rather than wasting your time and mine, you should come and collect the phone from me” was what I wanted to say; but I controlled myself. “I am Abhinava from the IS department and I am on the third floor of building 33. I sit near the conference room 5” was my controlled but informative answer. I was wishing so much that this guy would now say “Okay, I’ll come there.”
But it was not to be. “Okay! But what are you doing with this phone. Isn’t it 98XXXXXXX?”
I was almost on the verge of losing my temper, but I said that I had found the phone lying in conference room 3. Thankfully, for the first time, the stranger didn’t ask a question.
He said “Oh!! So you found it lying somewhere within Infosys. I’m not from Infosys. The person, to whom the phone belongs, is a good friend of mine.” “Okay!” I said, “”I have posted messages on the Infosys Bulletin boards, but haven’t got a call from the owner so far.” “Her name is Anindita, Anindita Das. She works for Infosys. Actually she has just joined here in Bangalore.” The guy seemed to be better now. He was divulging information that would help remove this burden from me. “Oh thanks for the information. I’ll find the rest and return the mobile to her at the earliest. ” I was a bit thankful to this devil now. I thanked him and ended the call.
The next thing that I did was to search the Infosys Telephone Directory. But alas, it didn’t help much. I sure did find this lady. However, there was no extension number, no location, no team name, and no nothing. The MS Outlook could just provide me with her email id and that she was in the PU called APAC.
Anyways, I had no option but to wait again. I emailed a note telling her that her mobile phone was lying with me and asked her to come and collect it. I had explicitly mentioned my location and extension number in the email. I hoped that the person would call me back immediately and seek to get her phone back.
However, it was (once again) not to be. I had waited for another hour or so, and had cursed her for another hundred times, before finally I got her call on my extension. Her voice was neither pleading nor interrogative. The tone was a very confident, accented (maybe American) one. She told me that she had got my email and would like to get her phone back. There were no questions asked about the finding, and no words like sorry, thank you or anything of that like. The message was terse. “It’s time to return my phone, buddy.” was all that she wanted to say.
I bore with her. Giving the phone back to its rightful owner was now a responsibility which I had to perform. After all, it was I who had picked it up. Even though I had clearly mentioned my location in the email that she was talking about, I repeated it once again. Then I politely asked her where her seat was.
“Oh, so you seat on the third floor. Actually, I too am on the same floor.”
“Okay. So where do you seat.” I politely asked, standing up and looking around me at the same time. There were people from APAC on my floor and I knew which direction to look for.
“Well, I’m near the coffee machine” she said.
“Can you please stand up, so that I can recognize you?” I requested.
“Well, I’m already in a standing position” she curtly replied.
Despite my best efforts, I could locate nobody standing up in the direction I was looking for.
“Well, I can’t see you. Can you see me in front of the Conference room 5?” I asked soberly.
“No” she said, “but I don’t know where this room is either. Actually I’m very new to this place.”
“Okay, then. I’ll come to the coffee machine with this phone and you can then take it from me. “I offered my best possible solution.
“Okay” she said, and it was done.

I left my debugging session and ambled towards the ‘Coffee Vending Machine’. I reached there in less than a minute and looked around. There was no sight of any lady there, leave aside the fact that somebody should have been waiting there for me. I waited there for another two minutes, drank a glass of cold water and began wondering why the lady hadn’t turned up. Then I remembered that there was another Coffee Vending Machine on the floor on the other side. However, people from APAC never sat in that corner. Actually all APACers were confined to this particular side of the floor. Hoping against logic, I decided to give the other Coffee Vending Machine a try.
Now I arrived on the other side of the floor at this other Vending Machine. Needless to say, it was futile. There was nobody waiting for me there either. I went back to my seat and restarted that wait for the phone call. I got back to my work, but couldn’t focus on my work.
Unlike before, this call came quite fast, i.e. if you allow for fifteen minutes to be termed as fast.
“Hello, Abhinava, I am actually on the second floor and not the third.” she said.
“Then please come and collect your phone from me. I hope you should be able to locate me.” I retorted.
“Well, you see, I’m new and it would not be easy for me to locate you. Moreover, I haven’t seen you. Can you...” she was explaining her plight.
“In that case,” I cut her short, “Can you come to the lift area of the third floor? I’ll be waiting for you there and I’ll have your mobile phone in my hand”
She agreed and I hoped that this wasn’t some prank played on me. With so many things happening, I seriously thought that this was some prank being played upon me by my friends.
Anyways, I had to go and hand the phone over. This time I took a bit more time to get up from my seat and casually moved towards the lift lobby. With the phone in my hand, I perched myself on the couch and started reading the newspaper kept there. I kept looking towards the elevators, to see if somebody was coming. The elevator doors opened in around five minutes, and I felt my expectations go higher. However, as usual, it was somebody I already knew and I knew that I had to wait longer.
As already mentioned, I had a tight schedule and it was not nice to be noticed reading a newspaper when other members of your team were slogging hard. In fact, I became a bit uncomfortable in the couch within the next minute and got up. I moved towards Aditya’s cubicle and started chatting with him. I tried to act as if I was discussing something serious and with him. The fact was that from his place, I could keep a steady eye on the lift and meanwhile act as if I was discussing work. I hadn’t waited for two or three minutes when the lift came up once again.
This time I knew it was her. She came out looking all over the place. She was a lady of short height and thin build. The most striking thing about her was her hair. Well, it was reddish brown and seemed to match her Salwar suit which was red and black. Her roving eyes finally rested inquisitively on me when she saw me approaching her. Then she saw her phone in my hand and the question mark vanished from her face. We met and I forwarded the phone towards her.
“Is this your phone?” I said, simultaneously showing her the phone
“Well,” she started off as she took her phone from my hand. “I am new to this place and you see…”
“It’s okay. Just be a bit careful with you phone next time around.” I advised.
Actually, I was too relieved to finally have returned the phone and I desperately wanted to get back to the pending work.
“I’m actually very sorry that I gave you all the trouble.” She wanted to add on.
“It’s okay. Such mistakes do happen and you are new to the place.” I said.
“Bye… and be careful with your phone.” I said as I abruptly ended the conversation while moving towards my seat.
She also said bye and disappeared into the lift from which she had emanated two minutes back. I cursed this stupid girl once again and I got back to debugging the program that had been the other thing nagging me that day.
I didn’t think about her again that day. Infosys and the tremendous work load takes credit for that. Not even in my wildest thoughts, did I imagine that day that I was going to go on a date with this girl in two weeks time.

# posted by Abhinava Pratap Singh : 5:59 PM