"May I speak with Pooja?" It was 11:15 pm on a Friday night in San Jose. I called her number from my Google voice account which says 0.02$ per minute for calls made to India. I don't know why I came to office so late on a Friday to speak to another girl in India. Well, my heavy and lofty principles was only one of the reasons. The other was that I had gotten a real dressing down from Papa for not following up with her a few days ago. And the dressing down was pretty fresh in my mind. "What do you want us to do? We keep looking for matches and you do not have any responsibility for following up with them. I am not going to look for another girl for you if you do not speak to her." roared Papa over the phone. "If he stops looking for matches, then you are done dude. You will stay alone for the rest of your life. Do you want to die alone? Do you want to die a virgin?", spoke the inner voice and spoke the truth. "What virgin and all dude? Shut-up!! I am not that kind of person. I am more interested in personality of the girl. The other things are not all that important now", squeaked my uncomfortable saner counterpart. Were those the only reasons? Ok, I am lying now. The third was that the girl looked beautiful in her profile pictures. However, depressed soul one has, no man turns down an offer to speak to a beautiful girl. It's in the DNA of most men. Speaking to any girl, in first place, gives men a high. And when the girl is beautiful the high gets better. And when the beautiful girl sees you as a future partner, then its an absolute ecstasy.
I digressed a quite a bit. The call got answered from the other end. "ZZZZ Who.. is.. this?" comes the reply.
"Its Gautam. We had an appointment to speak over phone regarding our matrimonial proposal. Did I disturb you?". I thought I woke her up from sleep.
"No problem. we can talk". comes the acknowledgement. She seems courteous enough to speak despite someone disturbing her Saturday sleep. Now starts a sequence of longer pauses where my brain freezes and I cannot talk. "Say something, before she disconnects the line", my inner voice is egging me on. "Say hello again if nothing else is making out of that stupid brain of yours", my inner voice is now castigating me no end. Its not funny as I forgot the set of questions I usually ask girls at home. "Are you there?", finally Pooja breaks the awful silence. "How was your week, Poo..ja?", finally something came out. "It was busy. How was yours?", Pooja answers well even after just waking up. "Mine.. was..... busy", I reply. I am usually a copycat when I am nervous. But the initial hiccups were taken care of, mostly by Pooja.
So we finally got talking. We start talking usual stuff like what is our work profile, what is our day like and what our hobbies. For a girl, who holds a prestigious MBA degress and an engineering degree from my university, she seemed fairly humble. She complains that my voice is not clear. Thanks to my office laptop whose speakers and mic are not all that good. "Which college are you from?", asks Pooja. "DCE", I reply. Didn't she read my profile? "Your voice is not clear. Can you say that again?", complains Pooja. "Its Delhi College of Engineering", I reply with a little bit of annoyance. "Oh.. Ok. I spent my first semester in DCE. So there will be no NSIT/DCE rivalry between us. I warn you", pat comes her reply.
We exchange notes about our family. I had not gone over her bio-data in detail but she had not gone over it at all. For a moment, I thought, she may mistook me for someone else. "Tera credit koi aur le jayega. Well works both ways. She may reject someone else. You may still get to speak to her one more time", the inner voice is so aggressive. I sometime wished, my personality was more like my inner voice, aggressive and bold. But as they say once a pot a molded it cannot change its own shape.
"Do you have any entrepreneurial skills? Do you want to open a company of your own?", asks Pooja. Two questions back to back. "Now is the test dude. Good luck. I will get a cup of coffee", remarked the inner voice and fled. Its always like that. When the going gets tough the my inner voice is of no use. " Well, I am not among those who have huge reserves of energy to open a company of their own. I am simple person who works hard and makes things happen on daily basis. But entrepreneurial skills aren't just limited to opening a company. It could also mean an author publishing his book, an engineer designing a new circuit or coming up with some innovation which generates revenue for company or a cook coming up a brand new recipe", hoooh, that came out well. "So do you not like taking risks?", asks Pooja again. Another tough follow-up question. "I am not a risk taking person by nature. I plan and execute things. But with experience and age, I have started taking adequate number of risks. I now know where to take the risk and where not to" , another safe answer. "Dude, I bow to you. You killed it", my inner voice was showering respect to me for the first time, though it was sipping hot coffee nearby.
"Sahi hai, so, you always dreamt of working in Silicon Valley in US?", asks Pooja again. She is surely not inhibited by anything. "Well, I was lucky to get a job in Silicon Valley. But I spent enough time in extreme cold weather to realize that I could not survive in snow and ice. I just wanted to get out of that place ASAP out to a more comfortable climate", I reply. This time the answer was very genuine. Its been two and half years in San Jose but I am still so fed up of snow that I do not want to go anywhere near it.
"I want to make it clear... I do not want to settle outside India", remarks an assertive Pooja. By now it was clear that she will be the one who will express in any of her relationships and the other one will have to abide by her or add to her ideas. "I am not planning to settle in US for long term", God knows I may have answered this question a million times to all the girls I have spoken to so far. So this one was easy-peasy. "We seem to be doing okay here", remarks the inner voice.
I was too tired of thinking of any questions for her. But like a fast train, she took off and ran the whole conversation. For the first time, I did not have anything to do to understand a girl. She was trying to understand me and in turn helping me understand her. Speaking of trains, the last train to home leaves at 12:25 am. Its a 10 minute walk to the train station, so I must leave by 12:10 am. What time is it? It's 12:12 am. "Need to run dude, unless you want to turn into a vampire yourself!!! You know vampires suck blood and turn the victim into one of their own.", remarks a smiling inner voice. I cut Pooja in between of one of her verbose sentences. "Pooja, let's speak some more later.... I need to go. It was nice speaking to you", I try to hasten the call to an end. "It was nice speaking to you as well", came a courteousness reply from Pooja. I end the call and close my laptop and run to station.
After 8 minutes of huffing and puffing, I managed to reach the train station. I was relieved to see a man waiting for the train. As I breathed heavily, I try to recollect what we spoke about and how did it feel. But mind was too tired to think anything. If anything that I felt was a feeling that it was over. That I knew a bit more about myself today, thanks to her. That I forgot, who I was in her presence. That she was not too bothered about profession and my shortcomings. That maybe I wanted to speak to her one more time.
I digressed a quite a bit. The call got answered from the other end. "ZZZZ Who.. is.. this?" comes the reply.
"Its Gautam. We had an appointment to speak over phone regarding our matrimonial proposal. Did I disturb you?". I thought I woke her up from sleep.
"No problem. we can talk". comes the acknowledgement. She seems courteous enough to speak despite someone disturbing her Saturday sleep. Now starts a sequence of longer pauses where my brain freezes and I cannot talk. "Say something, before she disconnects the line", my inner voice is egging me on. "Say hello again if nothing else is making out of that stupid brain of yours", my inner voice is now castigating me no end. Its not funny as I forgot the set of questions I usually ask girls at home. "Are you there?", finally Pooja breaks the awful silence. "How was your week, Poo..ja?", finally something came out. "It was busy. How was yours?", Pooja answers well even after just waking up. "Mine.. was..... busy", I reply. I am usually a copycat when I am nervous. But the initial hiccups were taken care of, mostly by Pooja.
So we finally got talking. We start talking usual stuff like what is our work profile, what is our day like and what our hobbies. For a girl, who holds a prestigious MBA degress and an engineering degree from my university, she seemed fairly humble. She complains that my voice is not clear. Thanks to my office laptop whose speakers and mic are not all that good. "Which college are you from?", asks Pooja. "DCE", I reply. Didn't she read my profile? "Your voice is not clear. Can you say that again?", complains Pooja. "Its Delhi College of Engineering", I reply with a little bit of annoyance. "Oh.. Ok. I spent my first semester in DCE. So there will be no NSIT/DCE rivalry between us. I warn you", pat comes her reply.
We exchange notes about our family. I had not gone over her bio-data in detail but she had not gone over it at all. For a moment, I thought, she may mistook me for someone else. "Tera credit koi aur le jayega. Well works both ways. She may reject someone else. You may still get to speak to her one more time", the inner voice is so aggressive. I sometime wished, my personality was more like my inner voice, aggressive and bold. But as they say once a pot a molded it cannot change its own shape.
"Do you have any entrepreneurial skills? Do you want to open a company of your own?", asks Pooja. Two questions back to back. "Now is the test dude. Good luck. I will get a cup of coffee", remarked the inner voice and fled. Its always like that. When the going gets tough the my inner voice is of no use. " Well, I am not among those who have huge reserves of energy to open a company of their own. I am simple person who works hard and makes things happen on daily basis. But entrepreneurial skills aren't just limited to opening a company. It could also mean an author publishing his book, an engineer designing a new circuit or coming up with some innovation which generates revenue for company or a cook coming up a brand new recipe", hoooh, that came out well. "So do you not like taking risks?", asks Pooja again. Another tough follow-up question. "I am not a risk taking person by nature. I plan and execute things. But with experience and age, I have started taking adequate number of risks. I now know where to take the risk and where not to" , another safe answer. "Dude, I bow to you. You killed it", my inner voice was showering respect to me for the first time, though it was sipping hot coffee nearby.
"Sahi hai, so, you always dreamt of working in Silicon Valley in US?", asks Pooja again. She is surely not inhibited by anything. "Well, I was lucky to get a job in Silicon Valley. But I spent enough time in extreme cold weather to realize that I could not survive in snow and ice. I just wanted to get out of that place ASAP out to a more comfortable climate", I reply. This time the answer was very genuine. Its been two and half years in San Jose but I am still so fed up of snow that I do not want to go anywhere near it.
"I want to make it clear... I do not want to settle outside India", remarks an assertive Pooja. By now it was clear that she will be the one who will express in any of her relationships and the other one will have to abide by her or add to her ideas. "I am not planning to settle in US for long term", God knows I may have answered this question a million times to all the girls I have spoken to so far. So this one was easy-peasy. "We seem to be doing okay here", remarks the inner voice.
I was too tired of thinking of any questions for her. But like a fast train, she took off and ran the whole conversation. For the first time, I did not have anything to do to understand a girl. She was trying to understand me and in turn helping me understand her. Speaking of trains, the last train to home leaves at 12:25 am. Its a 10 minute walk to the train station, so I must leave by 12:10 am. What time is it? It's 12:12 am. "Need to run dude, unless you want to turn into a vampire yourself!!! You know vampires suck blood and turn the victim into one of their own.", remarks a smiling inner voice. I cut Pooja in between of one of her verbose sentences. "Pooja, let's speak some more later.... I need to go. It was nice speaking to you", I try to hasten the call to an end. "It was nice speaking to you as well", came a courteousness reply from Pooja. I end the call and close my laptop and run to station.
After 8 minutes of huffing and puffing, I managed to reach the train station. I was relieved to see a man waiting for the train. As I breathed heavily, I try to recollect what we spoke about and how did it feel. But mind was too tired to think anything. If anything that I felt was a feeling that it was over. That I knew a bit more about myself today, thanks to her. That I forgot, who I was in her presence. That she was not too bothered about profession and my shortcomings. That maybe I wanted to speak to her one more time.
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