Great Expectations...

It was a typical summer Saturday afternoon at Hyderabad, hot as hell as it is always during the summers here. The temperature recorded around 42 degrees Celsius. I was sitting comfortably in Cast Away, our conference room at office with Prasanna sitting opposite me and both of us were doing some work and having a discussion....

I looked at Prasanna incredulously, the second time. I just could not believe it. I hate it when he was right. I just looked around uncomfortably. Both of us were working on Saturday. We had sneaked into a conference room and had the operations team switch on the air conditioner for us. It is heaven. Incidentally, my office, especially the third floor of the C block of Deloitte is my first home at Hyderabad.

My favorite place is the conference room titled Cast away, which seats six people and has a telephone and Internet connection just like the other rooms. I looked at my all time favorite IBM laptop which was connected to the Internet. It was around quarter to six. Our conversation was over.

I got up and went out to the break out area, contemplating on my last conversation with Prasanna. I took a cup of tea and stared outside the windows, to a pinkish orange sky. I have always loved that color combination of the sky. It was a mixture of pink and orange surrounded by infinite blue and white expansive skyline, a truly magnificent sight. I sat there unaware of the time racing ahead..

After what seemed to be an like an hour, I returned to the room and figured that it was time for me to leave office. Prasanna had actually left office after leaving a note on my laptop. I packed my bags, switched off the lights and after informing the Ops team to switch of the air conditioner, I found myself standing at the limited cafeteria on the second floor. I bought an appy and proceeded towards the “Den” on the D Block fourth floor.

The D block fourth floor consisted of an open space around 1000 square foot of open space. It was open on three sides like a peninsula and the view of the entire Hi-tech city from there is breathtaking. I looked at the sun on the sky, which had turn a reddish orange glow ball spanned across the pink and orange sky surrounded by blue and white sky line.

I sat on the small elevated platform and gazed up at the sky. “So, you don’t have any expectations from your partner? You won’t mind how she is? You won’t look into her past? You will be totally okay with the way she is?? You won’t mind even if she earns more than you??” The last words of Prasanna’s conversation came back to me. “You hate it when I talk on the phone with my friend, when I am talking to you. What will you do, if you get a partner who is like Farooq’s girl friend who is on the phone all the time? You know how much he frets and fumes about that to us. Your family is way too traditional to accept a modern girl. So you and your family will be okay with that??”

Will I be okay with that? I asked myself. I was expecting an answer from Inside saying, yeah buddy, we are okay with anything, as long as we are there with the person we love. But my heart still was silent. My mind probed deeper.. “Hello!! Anybody home?” it asked.. “Yeah buddy, I am right here”, a voice echoed from my heart. “So, did you hear my question?” asked my mind. “I did” answered the heart. “So what on earth is going to be your answer??” the mind asked. “I thought you know the answer!!” said the heart. “I do??” asked the mind positively appalled with itself. “Yes, you do, you crazy voodoo!” retorted the heart. “No, I don’t” replied the mind. “My my, playing dumb are we?? Sniggered the heart. “Can you both stop give it a rest??" I intervened. "And Mr Heart, would you mind answering the question? We both know that you’re the one where we get the true answers from" I added.

“I am okay with anything. You know me, but not you my dear centaur. I think, you have a lot of expectations from your future partner.” “I have??” I asked incredulously. “But marriage is far off for him” He has just completed twenty three years now, and he has three to four years of time ahead of him. I am definitely sure, that he will not love or be loved in the next three to four years, and arranged marriage is what awaits him” piped the mind. “Excuse me?” the heart interrupted. “How are you sure that he won’t fall for any body?? Love happens without your notice and with my permission. You’re just the logical part and more over the concept of Love is my domain. You better not interfere with that, young man” retorted the heart. “Oh yeah??” the mind asked. “As I recollect, you have put him through the worst of times with the three kinds of relationship he had. He should have been bothered about his career, his family, his life, and his studies” “Me? It was not me! And career, family and academics are no doubt very important. But they are not the end of life. His life would have never been complete without Love. What do you know about love? You know nothing about love. You destroyed his happiness totally. It was you!! You and your logic and thought process! I can prove that to you"

The heart continued, "Lets journey back. The first, I made him fall for that cute girl in the call centre, and, you? What did you do?? You pulled him back stating that she is from a different religion and her physical features will not suit him to. The second one I put him through, yeah my mistake.. But you can't deny that. Almost everybody who saw her, fell for her, and none understood what she really wanted.. Atleast I made an effort and realized that she needed him as his friend and also that he was much stronger person, when she was with him. I also understood that she was too good for him. Just as I was about to convince him, you made matters worse by isolating him from her and put him into a company where he was never truly happy. I then forced him to go back to them and today he is happy again. Though the second was a failure, I made sure that he still has her around in his life, and you can see that she is a truly wonderful person who made & makes him happy whenever he is around! And the third? You should have made him go ahead with the third. They were so perfectly in peace. They were made for each other. You almost killed the both of them and me emotionally. Didn’t you?” asked the heart.

“My friend, she was elder to him by almost six years and was earning six times more than him and perhaps sixty times more attractive than him. Her society was different. You heard what her friends spoke of him the other day about him not being a good match for her. You heard how her mother had great respect and admiration for him. In the long run they would have never be happy” answered the mind. “You hypocrite, she was ready to quit her job. She was ready to leave anything for him. She was ready to be at home for him. She was ready to accept his family values. She was ready to change her appearance from being modern to traditional. She was ready to accept his religion in addition to hers. She never used to carry her mobile when they both went out. They would have been the happiest couple on earth! You stopped him from all that. Not me!!” screamed the heart. That was the limit. “Stop it the both of you. I don’t want you to fight over my past. Its done and dusted. They are all married and gone. Lets not talk about that. In fact I want both of you to shut up. We are not talking about that now or ever. Just leave me alone!” I screamed at the both of them. I realized my face was wet. I had tears running down my face and I had not realized. I removed my glasses, and wiped my eyes.

I swallowed a large gulp of apple juice. I looked at the sky line above. I could see that it was getting dark. The whole hi-tech city was ablaze with electricity. It was still looked beautiful when I looked thru it through watery eyes, I thought. It took few minutes to stop the silent tears gushing out. My tears helped me to release so much of the pain and frustraion of the events that had been long bottled up within me.

I got up and went over to the men’s room and washed my face and pulled my hair back into a minuscule pony tail. I headed back to the floor to pick my bag and leave office. I went straight back home and deposited my bag n the shelf. I found Ashok waiting at my door for me. He wanted to go to his favorite spot at the Secret Lake. It was a very small park (which belonged to a bar), situated before the lake. We smeared ourselves with Odomos cream and had the mosquito bat next to us, and we were off to the park on my faithful victor.

We both sat there in a stony silence. I looked at him a couple of times before I took a sip of my drink. He was lost in some other world and I was lost in my own world. What do I expect from my partner? I asked myself.

All of us have some expectations from our partner. Its not that all our expectation have to be met. A few perhaps? I definitely am not like the traditional guys. I d prefer if she stays at home and, after all she is going to be my queen. My horoscope states that my life will change (for the better) rather for the best with the entry of my wife into my life. My grandparents, great astrologers, state the same thing and also that she will be the best daughter in law in our family and her entry is going to bring our family status back to its original status as in the nineties, where my family was rolling in money. It’s not mandatory that she should stay at home, if she wants to work, I obviously will be supportive of her. Even if she wants to study, I will make sure that she does.

I definitely hate it when someone uses the mobile while I am talking to them. Again if the call is urgent you can’t help it. But not all the time! This is something that pisses me off and if its my life partner, definitely, it will affect me and her and our marriage.

I want her to be herself. She should be bubbly, energetic and love to talk. I want her to be open and honest. She should also be funny (to balance my seriousness & dumbness), playful and child like. After all, all of us love kids! She should love spending time with friends (I have one whole bunch of them) I am sure she would enjoy herself when she is around with my gang. I can vouch for them at any point of time. If she is in a job and if she happens to earn more, I will have a problem with that. I know that it is bad and I should be proud of her on the contrary. Perhaps, I have seen far too many women (who earn more than their husband) who treat their husband with contempt and that has affected me to a great extent. I have seen many marriages (inclusive of Love marriage) fail due to this where the guy loses his confidence and happiness. I just don't want to risk it. I have this big pride and ego within me.(I won't stop others from doing things as long as it does not affect my status. And if it does, I will not be there before they even decide to blink their eyes. That's one another thing, I cannot change)

She should have traditional values, must know about our religion, cause in my family, we always have some sort of a function or the other in our extended family and she might have to attend them. Of course my mum will be there with her. She must be creative and must know how to drive a car and a Honda activa or a Kinetic or a Scooty! (If she does not know, I will teach her!!!)

She should be clever, shrewd, with a strong personality, with very good self expression skills and should also have independent spirit. I really hope she should be strong in academics. I am rather weak at that, it will be good if he have a strong academician in our team. Example: my dad is an extremely good communicator and has excellent convincing skills, and he lacks tact and he was a first class holder in academics. However, my mum is very assertive and too excells in academics. I suppose I have just inherited my Dad’s conversation skills and my mum’s emotional nature, while my brother had the best of their combined skills.

I d be really happy if she is outgoing type, cause I would love to be out always. I always have friends who would love to have me around. I love going for movies, listening to songs, visiting friends, walking in the beach. I d be really happy if she has the same interests. I also want her to have a great attitude because I believe that a happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.

Perhaps, my greatest negativity is that I am possessive. VERY. I learnt it the hard way that I should and cannot be possessive with friends as I may lose them. This will not be the case with my partner. I would support her for many activities, but she has to put up with my possessiveness. I can’t help it and this is one thing I won’t change in my attitude under any circumstances. I don’t mind her having an active social life and I d be more than happy to participate in her social life. However, nothing is conditional here. Just that if she has at-least few of these, so that our life would be balanced and we would enjoy being with each other.

“Crazy kia Rey” sang my phone bringing me back to reality. That’s my favorite song and I have allotted that song as a ring tone for one amongst the most special person in my life: Jane, one of my bestest friend. When I am insane, I don’t know how, but she always reaches out to me. I can never comprehend how! She is always there at the right moments.

One thing I have also accepted is that, even if things go worse, I don’t get the partner I expect and my partner is not happy with me, my best friends are always there! That’s one thing great about friendship. Especially mine, which I share with my nutty gang: they are and always will be around, even if we don’t meet frequently, we always will carry a part of each other where ever we go! That’s the magic of our friendship.

I talked to Jane for an hour that day, catching up with her life and slowly diverted the topic about her life partner and was very happy to know that she is all set and ready to rock. That’s something I always admire and adore her for. Her independent spirit. Yeah, a bit untamed she is, but I love that in her, makes her original, you know.. No other piece of mind you will find. Just as Shaid Kapoor states about Kareena in Jab we Met. She is the only piece around. As a matter of fact, all six of us are like that! I also had a conversation with my another best friend and she is looking forward to her marriage (arranged by her parents)

One thing I have learnt is that being happy doesn't mean every thing's perfect. It just means that you've decided to see beyond the imperfections!

PS – About the heart and mind conversation, please note. I am not mad. I am just as sane as all of you. Its just that there were three different thoughts which popped up within, so I named them as mind, heart and my true self. As you all know, what we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.

Incidentally, the last few paragraphs, has some excerpts of the characteristics of my nutty gang. They are the characteristics of Jane, Preeti, Rupini, Prathi & Dolly. I am really lucky to have all of them in my life. Thank you girls! Because of you people, I at the least now what I want!!! I also thank my beloved friend Srini, for always being there. My discussions with him are never ending and boring for the man kind. After all.. You can never understand the conversation of wise men. We have similar interests which we follow in different paths. Thank you my dear man. I thank all my other friends and well wishers whose name I have not mentioned. However, all of you have made a significant impact in my life. Thank you all!

Cheers,
Centaur