Friends on chat Chapter 5

A chat window opened with a hello sprawled on it from him.

‘Hi’ she typed and began to check the emails simultaneously. The chat window popped open again,

 ‘Busy?’ he asked.

 ‘Sort of’ she replied.

‘What’s sort of?’ he questioned.

 ‘When you are not that busy but you got to pretend to be busy’ she clarified.

‘Got it. You, had lunch?’ he questioned.

‘Nopes,’ she wrote back, ‘but I am going for it.’

’Okay, do you eat at office canteen?’ he was eager to discover details about her.

‘No, I eat what I cook,’ she said. 

‘What about you?’ she enquired.

‘Oh! I live on office canteen, no one cooks for me,’ he said

Just then, Laily hollered for her at the lunchtime and Ashmi typed a quick bye to join her gang of girls for lunch.

In thirty minutes, she was back at her seat.

There were two messages from Mathias waiting for her.

She was lapping the attention. It had come after ages. Akhil had got so used to her. 

The messages read:

‘Did you have lunch?

’What did you eat?’

‘Let me just see who this man is?’  Ashmi clicked on photos to have a glimpse of his life.

There were just two pictures of his and both the pictures were the same.

‘Hi…you are back,’ he sent her a quick message on the chat window.

‘Why didn’t you put pictures on Facebook?’ She cornered him.

‘So, you are keen to know more about me,’ he flirted unabashedly.

‘That’s not true, at least I should know whom I have befriended,’ she sanitized the conversation.

‘What did you have for lunch?’ Mathias asked switching the subject.

 ‘Me, we ate so much that my stomach hurts. It was quite a spread: biryani, raita, bhindi aloo, chole, puri and aloo paratha’.

Mathias chuckled as he read this and typed, ‘You eat a lot, isn’t it?’

‘That’s not true baby, I eat with friends and we share lunch together,’

The moment she hit the enter button, she realized her fault.

‘You seem to have taken a fancy on me,’ he teased her.

‘That’s not right, I am a mother of two young girls, and the word baby is always there on my mouth.’ She was trying to rectify the error, but the mistake was already done.

 ‘There is no need to explain, I liked it,’ he said.

 Ashmi felt happy for no reason. She had never felt so much buoyant in a while, as if sadness was getting evaporated and the mundane also seemed appealing. She looked forward to chatting with him.

Now she was excited to go to work, because someone waited in the online world to talk to her. Around 11 am in the morning, a pop up on her computer screen would remind her to connect with Mathias. By that time, he would be up and awake. And they would chat, endlessly on everything under the sun.

It continued for solid one month and then dispute arose. It didn’t need rocket science to figure out that she was unhappy in her matrimony for Mathias. Who else chats and accepts friendship of strangers?

He advised her to work on erasing boredom in her personal life. Ashmi felt insulted. How could a stranger advise her? She had given solid 15 years of her life to it. She needed to talk and not chat with him to set it right.  

 ‘Can you share your phone number please? I will give you a call and talk.’ Mathias couldn’t trust his fortune. He was getting terribly attracted to her.

 He did a quick jig before he keyed in the number 9084734580. Fortunately, he had the privacy today.

 Minutes later the phone rang and an unknown number flashed. Ashmi was dialing his number going against logic. After all there was no harm in just one call. She was behaving like an addict, for whom a dope is harmless.

‘Am I talking to Mathias?’ asked a mellifluous voice.

‘Yes,’ answered Mathias.

‘Hi!’ said she, ‘I am Ashmi on this side.’

 Mathias was overjoyed, blank and nervous at the same time. He never thought that Ashmi would call back and that too so fast.’ How are you?’ asked he.

‘You know well, we have been chatting throughout the day,’ she reminded him.

’ Yes,’ he said albeit sheepishly.  ‘Niharika, did you send the designs for approval?’ she asked her colleague on a design concern that had been bothering her since morning, with her handset glued to her ears.  ‘You are talking to someone else too,’ he complained.

’Yes, baby, it’s called multitasking,’ Ashmi chuckled. She could feel that Mathias was embarrassed while talking to her.

‘Where is your office?’ Ashmi asked,

‘It’s near Sohna road, in one of the concrete jungles. And where is your office?’ he said.

‘You have to drive on the rickety road towards Manesar to reach my office,’ she said.

‘Okay! how do you go?’ he huffed.

‘Don’t you know, me and Laily take turns to drive?’ she spoke.

‘Yes,’ he stammered.

‘You take care, I got to go to join friends for the lunch,’ Ashmi said and disconnected the phone.

‘Why did you take long? Whom were you talking to?’ Laily, Jain’s secretary and her best friend got in the inquisitive mode.

‘I was talking to Akhil,’ she lied to her for the first time in the last three years of friendship.

It was kind of precious and no one would understand the bonhomie she was sharing with him and for the first time in her life, she had talked to a male who was not a relative or a colleague, who was a friend and with whom she could talk.

He fulfilled her desires to be heard and to talk.  Immediately after she disconnected, he sent a message, ‘Thanks for calling, dear, by the way, you have a lovely voice.’

‘Yes, I know, but don’t send me so many messages, Albert,’ Ashmi wrote all scared.

‘What if Akhil would read the messages,’ he might smell a fish and technically, he was just a long distance friend. 

Her phone was like phone of the house. Though, they had two landline connections at home, still, if anyone had to make a call, her mobile was fetched, immediately. Not only that, when the extended family gathered, they would even check her phone. She found it quite humiliating, an invasion on her privacy. She waited for Akhil to object on it, but he, chose to ignore it.

Somewhere, she realized that Akhil had ceased to love her or may be if he loved her, he didn’t care for her. ’Cold,’ Laily phrased him. Ashmi seemed to agree.

  ‘Sorry, but I thought we could connect better in this way,’ he responded bang on.

‘Let me know when can I call you?’ she texted back.

Writing fractured English was never her cup of tea. That evening, she had to work till late. Around at eight when she left from office, the office cab was there to drop her down.

 Epicure Exports allowed women who worked till late, if they were in Gurgaon to be dropped back from work.  ‘Small mercies of Paras,’ she sighed, as she sank in the comfortable seat of Tata Indica. The driver had turned the ac on.  She texted to Mathias, ‘Can I call?’

‘I am in a conference call. It will get over in next ten minutes,’ he emailed her. She checked it on her Blackberry and calculated that she would reach home in next ten minutes.

 ‘How would I call then?’ she wondered. There was no need to explain. It was just the beginning of the friendship.

Just then the Indica jerked to a stop in front of her home. She offered a Rs. 50 note to the driver, a young guy as a tip. He took it hesitatingly.  She bursted inside like always.

Once inside she scanned the home to check if everything was in order. ‘What took you so long, mom?’ asked Rajul, the elder one. ‘Something unexpected came up and I had to sort it,’ she spoke while hugging the younger one. Rajul disliked getting touchy. A peck was just fine for her. ‘You got printouts of foods for my General Awareness homework,’ Rhea asked clinging to her. ‘No, baby, I didn’t but we will get it tomorrow,’ she tried to pacify her.    ‘From tomorrow weekend begins, and I didn’t want to go to office on a Saturday, under any circumstance, she spoke only to herself as the girls were back to the world of cartoons.

‘Good, you finished it today,’ Akhil commented, as there was an ad-break in the cricket match he was watching.   

‘Michelle, please give me a glass of water. What’s this, the moment someone comes back in this sultry weather, she needs water,’ she reprimanded the girl, who was working with her for the last two years. What she needed the most was solitude to chat to Mathias. He had already texted her, ‘I am free.’ She desperately wanted to talk to him.  ’How was it possible with Akhil around?’ she wondered and then the dinner had to be cooked for which she was already late.

Come, what may, Akhil, would eat only when Ashmi had cooked the veggies. At times, she would get irritated, but then she had reconciled to his whim. ‘After all, he was the man of the house and his wish must be respected,’ her mother’s nuggets of advice for matrimonial harmony.

But, she had to talk and right now.

‘Shall, I go in the bathroom and talk?’  she thought?

‘Why am I behaving like a teenager?’ the next moment she admonished herself. Akhil had a telecon meeting with overseas clients at 8.15, which meant that he would be imprisoned in the study for the next forty minutes. The girls anyway had expressed the desire to have pizza. She immediately ordered two medium size pizzas: Double cheese margherita and veggie supreme.

Once done, she shut her   bedroom, turned on the ac and sank in with a glass of chilled vodka on the bed. Throwing her dupatta on the couch, she kicked off her shoes and dialed Mathias. He picked the phone instantly, just after two rings.

‘You took so long, to call,’ his voice filled her ears.

‘ I just came back home and couldn’t call you immediately, she explained to him.

‘Where is your husband?’ he enquired knowing well that she wouldn’t call with he being in vicinity. ‘He has a meeting and will not be free in less than an hour,’ she assured him.

‘Why you took so long at office today?’ he questioned.

She didn’t answer that, rather asked him, ‘When will you go home?’

‘I will have dinner and then go home,’ he said.  ‘Don’t you eat at home?’ she was surprised now.

‘I do eat, but the cook has gone on leave. He is getting married. I am in no mood to wrestle with pots and pans at nine in the night,’ he explained.

‘Come over to my place, and I will cook meal for you,’ she invited him.

‘It’s an irresistible offer, but what would you say to your husband?’ he said.

‘I don’t know,’ Ashmi admitted.

‘Why don’t we meet for a coffee?’ he said.

‘Today! Are you crazy?’  Ashmi laughed.

‘Come to my home. I make good coffee,.’ she extended her invite once again.

’What do I do with your six foot husband?’ he didn’t hide his fears.

‘You are a friend, I will introduce you to him,’ she said.

‘Have you ever had male friends before?’ he delved in history.

‘Never, but that doesn’t mean I can’t meet and like someone and he can come home for a coffee,’ she was at her argumentative best.

’ Why get into unnecessary explanations?’  Mathias reasoned.

Ashmi agreed.

’Who all you share your flat with?’ she asked.

‘There are two more guys. This way at least you have someone to talk to, but these days I am quite alone.  One of my flat mates has gone to Egypt,’ he said.

‘Egypt’, interjected Ashmi.’ It’s a beautiful place; I have just seen in movies, she spoke.

‘My other flat-mate has gone to Pune,’ he finished.

‘So you are all alone. You have a girl friend,’ she said as a question.

‘I broke off with my girlfriend,’ he spoke.

 ‘You didn’t find anyone new,’ she questioned.

‘Nopes. I was scared of the heart break,’ he shared. It touched a chord in her heart.

‘Tell me one thing, is Vodafone to Vodafone talking free?’ she asked out of the blue.

‘What does it mean?’ he stammered.

‘My phone bill, ’she explained.

‘Should, I call?’ he offered.  ‘Leave it, I was just joking,’ she waved her hand as if he could see it. ‘Tell me when can we meet?’ he asked.

‘You seem to be in a hurry,’ she spoke.

‘Yes, you sound sweet, and I want to meet you, is there anything wrong? I want to take the friendship to the next level,’ he elaborated. The statement scared her and she said a quick bye.