Publishing below a 5 part short story The Cosmic Conspiracy that I penned a few weeks back. I hope you like it as you start reading the first part and the subsequent parts in the coming days. So, here's part 1 - an email from Rahul to Pooja...
From: Rahul
To: Pooja
Date: Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 08:13 AM CST
Subject: Hi....!!!
Hey Poo,
What's going on? How's life? Recently got to know from Abhi that you are in US. Wow!! Isn't that cool??!! From the kind of travel freak that I know you are, am sure you'd be making maximum possible use of this opportunity. So, tell me about your adventures - I'm all ears. Or better still, why don't you blog it? Well I happened to read your recent one and infact, that's what has prompted me to write to you after such a long gap.
The last I remember seeing you was in college. Once out of college, I hardly kept in touch with any of our batchmates, you as well, as I was trying to keep a low profile. Confused and upset over not being able to choose whether to search for a job, enroll for higher education, or pursue my passion for photography, I took an awfully long time to finally nail down on MBA and to convince dad for financial support. So, after 4 years of passing out from an engineering college when all you software engineers are going strong in your careers and earning handsomely, here's one bewildered engineer still stuck in his student life, patiently waiting to complete his internship and kick-start a career of his own.
Speaking of still being in college, I must admit there is no place like it anywhere on earth. Particularly our good old engineering college in the city outskirts surrounded by exotic acacia trees on whose shades many a love stories blossomed and faded - an epitome of the Law of Diminishing Returns. The fate of us new folks eventually would've been the same had it not been for you. You convinced us – Me, Abhi and Malu - that for our group to be infrangible, falling in love should be the last thing in our minds. We never broke that promise and the next four years became the most memorable part of our lives!!
Right from bunking boring professor's lectures, exploring every spot in the city, going on our bi-weekly treks, venturing on eating competitions (which you never won even though you might still want to argue) at a new restaurant every week where the winner's prize was free food, siting for combined studies on the night before every semester exam and finally stapling currency notes with the answer paper as a last resort 'SOS'; to the countless pranks that we played on our classmates - we were always together, fully involved and completely united. Those moments may be gone forever but their memories still stay.
Amidst all this fun and enjoyment that we had, you stuck to your promise and dutifully rejected every proposal that came by - from your seniors as well as from our batchmates. All of us and particularly myself – we felt extremely proud of your conviction towards our group. You easily became our role model and would've continued to do so but for your revelation in the blog.
You've written that there was no guy in college worthy to go on a date because you like to be pursued but none of the guys went beyond the first expression of crush or proposal - obviously you turned down all of them or never responded to any. And it's in your professional life that you finally found Mr. Right who persistently tried to woo and win your heart exactly the way you wanted - although it didn't last long and eventually ended up in a bitter break-up following which you pushed for a onsite assignment. I'm sorry for you but had you ever attempted to know who really pursued you the in the true sense, things would not have got so nasty.
I don't know if you remember but back in college there was a guy called Abhishek who was our senior and my roomie in hostel. One night I chanced to hear him sleep talking and amidst his mumblings, very vaguely I caught a name. On enquiring, he admitted that the name was that of a girl on whom he had a crush. I volunteered to help him out but he responded that the only help he needed was to be introduced to Malu. I gladly did that but am sure he didn't succeed as Malu never reciprocated any feelings for him. And I believe the reason to a larger extent was the no-love-in-college oath. She would certainly be feeling betrayed after reading your blog. You do owe an apology to her if not rest of us!
Well, that's all for now. Hope to catch up with you when you visit India.
Take care!
It's me,
Rahul
To: Pooja
Date: Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 08:13 AM CST
Subject: Hi....!!!
Hey Poo,
What's going on? How's life? Recently got to know from Abhi that you are in US. Wow!! Isn't that cool??!! From the kind of travel freak that I know you are, am sure you'd be making maximum possible use of this opportunity. So, tell me about your adventures - I'm all ears. Or better still, why don't you blog it? Well I happened to read your recent one and infact, that's what has prompted me to write to you after such a long gap.
The last I remember seeing you was in college. Once out of college, I hardly kept in touch with any of our batchmates, you as well, as I was trying to keep a low profile. Confused and upset over not being able to choose whether to search for a job, enroll for higher education, or pursue my passion for photography, I took an awfully long time to finally nail down on MBA and to convince dad for financial support. So, after 4 years of passing out from an engineering college when all you software engineers are going strong in your careers and earning handsomely, here's one bewildered engineer still stuck in his student life, patiently waiting to complete his internship and kick-start a career of his own.
Speaking of still being in college, I must admit there is no place like it anywhere on earth. Particularly our good old engineering college in the city outskirts surrounded by exotic acacia trees on whose shades many a love stories blossomed and faded - an epitome of the Law of Diminishing Returns. The fate of us new folks eventually would've been the same had it not been for you. You convinced us – Me, Abhi and Malu - that for our group to be infrangible, falling in love should be the last thing in our minds. We never broke that promise and the next four years became the most memorable part of our lives!!
Right from bunking boring professor's lectures, exploring every spot in the city, going on our bi-weekly treks, venturing on eating competitions (which you never won even though you might still want to argue) at a new restaurant every week where the winner's prize was free food, siting for combined studies on the night before every semester exam and finally stapling currency notes with the answer paper as a last resort 'SOS'; to the countless pranks that we played on our classmates - we were always together, fully involved and completely united. Those moments may be gone forever but their memories still stay.
Amidst all this fun and enjoyment that we had, you stuck to your promise and dutifully rejected every proposal that came by - from your seniors as well as from our batchmates. All of us and particularly myself – we felt extremely proud of your conviction towards our group. You easily became our role model and would've continued to do so but for your revelation in the blog.
You've written that there was no guy in college worthy to go on a date because you like to be pursued but none of the guys went beyond the first expression of crush or proposal - obviously you turned down all of them or never responded to any. And it's in your professional life that you finally found Mr. Right who persistently tried to woo and win your heart exactly the way you wanted - although it didn't last long and eventually ended up in a bitter break-up following which you pushed for a onsite assignment. I'm sorry for you but had you ever attempted to know who really pursued you the in the true sense, things would not have got so nasty.
I don't know if you remember but back in college there was a guy called Abhishek who was our senior and my roomie in hostel. One night I chanced to hear him sleep talking and amidst his mumblings, very vaguely I caught a name. On enquiring, he admitted that the name was that of a girl on whom he had a crush. I volunteered to help him out but he responded that the only help he needed was to be introduced to Malu. I gladly did that but am sure he didn't succeed as Malu never reciprocated any feelings for him. And I believe the reason to a larger extent was the no-love-in-college oath. She would certainly be feeling betrayed after reading your blog. You do owe an apology to her if not rest of us!
Well, that's all for now. Hope to catch up with you when you visit India.
Take care!
It's me,
Rahul
3 comments:
This is awesome.
You have started a whole new genre.
PERFECT!!!
I did not really know and neither could have I guessed that you would ever start up with the writing thing in a whole new dimension. I am so proud of you.
I am too happy to see this fianlly coming to be a reality.
ALL LUCKS FOR YOU~~~~
Hi
Lot of nostalgic thoughts running in my mind as I read the post. Simple and sweet... will be waiting for more to read.
Wow, a very, very interesting start Punam.. I thought it'd b tht Rahul wud propose to Pooja in the end but no, n u introduced two new characters too.. yup, I wanna go to the next part of the story... :)
Lovely writing skills Punam :)
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