LOVE OVER COFFEE

N. Shetty Amrit

Description

Rajni blew her hair away from her face.My heart skipped a beat.‘I love you!’ I blurted out.Her cheeks turned a deep pink.I could sense that her anger had completely disappeared.Anup; a happy-go-lucky boy next door; finds himself a misfit in an IT company. On the bright side; he has great friends in office—Chetan; Subbu and Parag—to help him out of sticky situations. Also; in the same office is the love of his life; Rajni. But Rajni’s strict family and her paranoia of tongue-wagging colleagues play villain in their love story forcing him to be satisfied with clandestine meetings; secret phone conversations and emails. Just as Anup decides to turn over a new leaf; sinister happenings at work force him to take some life-changing decisions—to quit his job and pursue his long-cherished dream of becoming a writer; and also; to marry Rajni.For more info on new series Metro Reads; please visit www.metroreads.in

Sujets

• Love
• Love (disambiguation)

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd
• Date de parution: 19 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184750140
• Langue: English

Extrait

Rajni blew her hair away from her face. My heart skipped a beat. 'I love you!' I blurted out. Her cheeks turned a deep pink. I could sense that her anger had completely disappeared.

Anup, a happy-go-lucky boy next door, finds himself a misfit in an IT company. On the bright side, he has great friends in office Chetan, Subbu and Parag to help him out of sticky situations. Also, in the same office is the love of his life, Rajni.
But Rajni's strict family and her paranoia of tongue-wagging colleagues play villain in their love story forcing him to be satisfied with clandestine meetings, secret phone conversations and emails.
Just as Anup decides to turn over a new leaf, sinister happenings at work force him to take some life-changing decisions to quit his job and pursue his long-cherished dream of becoming a writer; and also, to marry Rajni.

Cover design and illustration by Maithili Doshi Aphale
PENGUIN BOOKS LOVE OVER COFFEE
Amrit N. Shetty is an IT professional working with a multinational company. He has worked with various IT companies including ones in Austin, Dublin and Edinburgh. Besides writing, Amrit enjoys reading and watching movies. This is his debut novel.
He lives in Delhi with his wife. Read his blog at http://amritshetty.blogspot.com/

PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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Penguin Group (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Penguin Books India 2010
Copyright © Amrit N. Shetty 2010
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-01-4306-608-8
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This digital edition published in 2011.
e-ISBN : 978-81-8475-014-0
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this e-book.
For My mother and her dream for her son …
Contents
Copyright
CHAPTER 1: THE BEGINNING
CHAPTER 2: OF POTATOES AND ONIONS
CHAPTER 3: THE COFFEE MACHINE
CHAPTER 4: THE BLUE WORLD
CHAPTER 5: AT SHIVA’S
CHAPTER 6: THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY
CHAPTER 7: JUST ANOTHER MANIC MONDAY——I
CHAPTER 8: JUST ANOTHER MANIC MONDAY——II
CHAPTER 9: THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
CHAPTER 10: BHAU
CHAPTER 11: THE COMMUNICATION SESSION
CHAPTER 12: THE SHINING STARS
CHAPTER 13: CHICAGO
CHAPTER 14: THE PERFECT SCENE
CHAPTER 15: NIDHI
CHAPTER 16: THE FINAL CUT
CHAPTER 17: THE ROLL OF THE DICE
CHAPTER 18: THE EVENT
CHAPTER 19: A TWIST IN THE TAIL
CHAPTER 20: THE LAST STONE
CHAPTER 21: THE NEW DAWN
CHAPTER 22: THE FINAL CHAPTER
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 THE BEGINNING
It was a warm day. The sun was already high in the sky and even though summer was still a few weeks away, one could already feel the heat. We were driving down National Highway 8 in our metallic silver Santro. Dad was sitting next to me. It had been this way ever since I moved from Bangalore to live with my parents in Delhi.
Every morning I would drop Dad to work before driving another few miles to my office. In the evening I would pick him up on the way home. This arrangement not only saved Dad the effort of having to drive through the irrational Delhi traffic but it also gave me a valid excuse for not using the company transport. Taking the office bus meant that apart from having to abide by the strict timelines it also limited my movements during office hours. Having a car gave me and my friends the option to drive around when work at office was slack; an occasional run to the movies, shopping malls or for a drink, were always on the cards when our manager was out of office.
I was wearing my Ray-Ban sunglasses, a gift from Mom on my last birthday. I am usually bad at selecting things, but with these sunglasses it had been different. I had known which ones to pick the moment I had entered the store. It was probably Will Smith of Men in Black, who was instrumental in my selection. For the first few months I had worn them practically everyday while driving come rain or shine. The only time I drove without them was at night.
The fact that Rajni loved my glasses only helped their cause.
There were fewer cars on the road that day. Dad seemed happy. ‘One of his contracts must have come through,’ I thought. I was eager to start up a conversation, to kill time and to make the drive interesting.
‘Dad, Neeraj got married last week. He married a colleague.’
‘Neeraj! Is he not the guy you worked with in Bangalore?’ Dad responded, still sounding happy.
‘Yes Dad. His parents were initially against the marriage, but they finally relented,’ I added.
‘You kids in software—always travelling, falling in love and getting married with least regard to your parents’ feelings. Taking the plunge when you would not have the maturity to understand what is best for you!’ Dad retorted all of a sudden. I was taken aback. There was a slight annoyance in his voice.
I started concentrating on the road; the conversation was not such a good idea after all!
I began to think about Rajni instead. It was her birthday the next day and we were planning to organize a surprise party for her in the office. Well, to be honest, it was just me at the moment, but I was sure I could convince the others to join in too. There were so many things we needed to do, I thought with a sigh.
It also struck me that very soon I would have to tell Dad about Rajni. And if I had learnt anything from the conversation minutes ago, it was that Dad was not going to be so easy to convince. I braced myself for the future before shifting my concentration back on the road.
All of a sudden, the black Accent in front of us veered towards the left. To save us from an accident, I hit hard on the brakes, bringing our car to a screeching halt. A few seconds later, we were jolted by a loud jerk. The Maruti behind had rammed into us. What ensued was an argument between me and the owner of the car; it took a good one hour to resolve the issue and get back on the road to the office.
This was not how I had intended my day to start.
Meanwhile, Bhau had called in twice wanting to know the reason for my delay. Bhau, whose real name is Chetan Pardikar, had joined our company around the same time that I had. We got along like a house on fire right from day one. Chetan was from Maharashtra, where it is common to address a comrade as ‘bhau’. What started as fun soon caught on and within a few months’ time, no one bothered with his real name. He did not seem to mind either.
Chetan was a mentor for everyone around the office. He was like a tough coach who played things by the book. A stickler for perfection, efficiency and orderliness we found it hard to satisfy Bhau; he always ended up finding things to complain about. He had transformed himself into a parent-like figure, who would not bat an eyelid before chastising kids for their mistakes.
Every morning, Bhau waited for us to gather in the office, before heading for our daily tea in the cafeteria. Rajni, sometimes joined in, but usually it was just Bhau, Parag, Subbu and me. Rajni loved the pohe that Bhau occasionally brought for breakfast. There would be a squabble between us to get a bigger share, but it was always Subbu who walked away with the most.
Rajni worked in a separate team which sat around the corner from where our desks were. I avoided meeting her inside the office, because she was paranoid about the rumour mills of our company. I would have continued trying to convince Rajni against her paranoia but for an incident. Rakshit, a member of Rajni’s team, had gone out on a date with Anjali, another girl from the office, over the weekend. They were unlucky to have been spotted by some people from the office. On Monday the news about their rendezvous was all over the company like jungle fire—there was nothing more important than the talk about the two love birds.
I doubted if Bhau knew about my relationship with Rajni. I was sure he suspected there was something going on between us, but he never came out openly with his thoughts. Subbu and Parag, however, were in the know. Subbu knew because of his uncanny but unfortunate ability to appear at all the wrong places at the wrong times, and Parag, because I had told him.
I am not quite sure why I had disclosed our relationship only to Parag. It wasn’t like I was closer to him than I was to Bhau and Subbu. We all were great friends and always hung out together. However,