CHAPTER TWELVE
I LOVE YOU
Life was changing slowly. After Naina’s surprising and sexciting return to Bangalore, I was slowly feeling comfortable again in the American MNC. This was the problem with the MNC’s. To earn a decent sum of money, all one needed to do was to sit in front of a laptop all day and check a few mails. I did not know about the others but that was what I had to do to receive a decent paycheck at the end of the month. Now, there was an addition in the form of Naina Iyer which made coming to office exciting and fun. In a period of one month, we had made out in every corner in the office. I was quite scared about it though. Naina somehow felt we would not get caught, and if we did get caught, we could always lie saying we were married. That instilled confidence in me to turn on some sexy moves inside the office campus.
Valentine’s Day arrived. It is a big day in each and every girl’s life. I didn’t even know if we were in a relationship. All I knew was that Naina was back and we are having a ball doing all the crazy things possible in the office.
[My phone beeps]
Message [Naina]: 8 PM, 13th floor Dinner. Be there on time. Do not make me wait.
Was this a date? This meant that I was in a relationship with Naina. Oh my god! I did not know how I was going to handle her this time. Before I could ponder upon the future, I needed to get a gift for her. I had one hour to pick up a gift from MG Road. I quickly got into the Volvo to reach the Garuda mall. After a normal Bangalore voyage from Whitefield to Richmond circle, I ran towards Garuda. I knew what I had to get her. Swarovski crystals; she loved them. It was easy. I picked up the first pendant that my eyes fell on, swiped my card and here I was waiting at the 13th floor for my queen. She looked beautiful. I think I should start with sexy rather than beautiful. She looked so delicious in the red dress. I could spot her long hair which fell in front of her eyes. Her stilettos made a tapping noise at every step she took to reach me. Her lips shone from a distance. Her whole body was moving in sync.
‘Hi, happy Valentine’s Day,’ she said and kissed me on my cheek.
I did not know how to react. I was still blown away with her beauty and appearance.
We walked in together with her arm curled around mine. We took a seat at the corner of the open air restaurant. It was a beautiful sight - the tall building, the UB city and the shining lights. The 13th floor was, is and will be Naina’s favourite restaurant. To an extent it was mine too, quite obviously because of her. I could not stop looking into her eyes. The dress she was wearing was ‘the perfect dress’ - one which makes a girl look classy yet keeping the sexy factor alive. The perfect dress can be judged very easily on a dinner table. One slyly looks at the girl’s cleavage. If the dress manages to show the cleavage in a subtle manner, then bingo, but if the assets are just too overwhelmingly appearing onto your face, then that’s a fail. Naina had passed and in fact, scored a distinction with the dress she was wearing.
‘Happy Valentine’s day,’ I said and handed over the gift to her.
‘Armaan, you actually got me a gift! I think I know what the gift is,’ she said and opened it patiently.
‘Oh my god, I love it! I knew it was going to be Swarovski,’ she said and jumped up to come and kissed me again. I had given her Swarovski for the last three years almost on every occasion which included birthdays, Valentine’s days, Diwalis and New Years. I made her a collection by now. I sent Swarovski crystals to California last year when she was doing her Masters degree. I guess she was quite pissed due to the break up because I had not received any kind of acknowledgement. Knowing Naina I did not expect either.
‘I love you, Armaan,’ she said and sat down again.
I remained silent. ‘I said something,’ she said and gave me a sheepish look.
‘I love you too, Naina,’ I said. I had finally said it. With great power comes great responsibility. This is the only point in life when a guy feels the opposite. With less power comes great responsibility. We started with some classic red wine and left the damage for later. To be truthful, I liked the whole atmosphere even though I was a tough critic when it came to the celebration of Valentine’s day. I liked the fact that I was with Naina across a table amidst the shiny Bangalore sky and staring into her beautiful eyes while she repeatedly chanted I LOVE YOU.
‘So, how does it feel to be on a date with me?’ Naina asked in a sarcastic tone of voice.
‘Are we on a date?’ I smirked.
‘Armaan, you are so mean! I hate you,’ whined the drunk Naina.
Wine gets anyone high. It’s a classy drink they say, but can be nasty at times as well.
‘Are we dating each other again?’ she asked with the cutest face ever. How could someone say ‘no’ to her? Only a fool like me could have let go of her a year ago.
‘Yes we are,’ I said confidently. I knew I would not let go of her this time. At least I thought so.
‘Let’s dance,’ she said and pulled me onto the dance floor.
As usual, the drunk Bangalore crowd was going berserk by now trying to jive to the hip music. Naina loved dancing; I could bet my entire bank account on her moves. Dancing with her felt special, romantic and breathless. I could see her hair cover her beautiful face while she jumped in front of me in her red dress trying to bring excitement into my legs. I danced as well. I was not that bad; in fact, when I was drunk, I could dance quite well. This was the first time I drank liquor after Varun’s death. I had quit every substance that took me to the other land. I stopped at wine until Naina coaxed me into vodka shots which were brought by a fancy waiter. We gulped a few. The high set through the body. We danced like there was no tomorrow. I had not felt this way for a long time. We were sweating like pigs.
[Loud Music: Tonight’s gonna be a good night]
‘Are you tired,’ Naina screamed into my ears falling all over me.
‘Yeah, can we get out of here?’ I said looking into her eyes.
We paid the bill and got out. The sudden silence after the loud music felt soothing. I held her in my arms as we walked down the stairs to get to the basement. She had a thin waist. I loved it. Anyone would. It was sleek.
‘Are you drunk, Naina Iyer,’ I whispered into her ears.
‘No, Armaan Rodriguez, I love you. Can you drive?’ she asked.
‘I think we should take a cab, Naina; it’s not safe to be driving now,’ I said as we finally got into Naina’s luxury car. The Mercedez S-class. Yes, she was my Tech Lead. Yes, her dad was one of the biggest politicians from Bangalore. Yes, she was filthy rich and yes, she was independent and still chose to work in an American MNC and not be dependent on her father, except for the Mercedez S-class. Who would not want a Mercedez S-class? Being independent can go take a hike. I placed Naina like a baby in the car and put her seat belt on while she held my hand tightly. I was quite drunk. I had not touched liquor since a year. I had also not driven a car since a year because I had decided that I would be INDEPENDENT and earn my own bread and butter like they say. I sat in the driver’s seat and tightened my seat belt. My eyes suddenly fell on Naina’s face. I kissed her on the cheek and whispered into her ears, ‘I love you Naina.’
I got out of the basement and was bombarded with lights on my windshield. I knew I was too drunk to drive the car all the way to Whitefield. I parked the car just outside of MG Road and decided to call a cab. The cab arrived and I placed drunk and sleepy Naina in the back seat while the driver gave me a stare. ‘My wife,’ I said and gave him the disgusting look back.
I got into the cab and put Naina’s head onto my lap as we started our voyage towards Whitefield. I had taken a really mature decision of not drinking and driving, I felt. Naina would be proud of me when she would wake up in the morning in my arms.
‘I love you, Armaan,’ she said in her drunk drowsy voice.
The next minute all I could see was the cab sliding across and moving towards a huge divider on the road. A truck driver had hit us from behind on the Old Airport Road. I held Naina tightly. The cab hit the divider and the driver fell out of the car through the windshield shattering it into a thousand pieces. I was outside the car half conscious. Naina was beside me and her head was bleeding like a river. I could see blood everywhere. I could see a group of people shouting and approaching us while my eyes closed.
[Manipal Hospital]
I opened my eyes. Everything seemed blurry but I could spot my dad, mom and sister through the glass wall which read ICU in red. My mom was delighted to see my eyes open. She ran in after asking the nurse for permission. She came and hugged me tightly. My dad walked in calmly behind her and so did Nidhi, my elder sister. I had no idea what happened. I suddenly recalled the entire accident that happened yesterday. The picture of Naina and blood flashed in front of my eyes.
‘Naina,’ I shouted at the top of my voice.
‘Armaan, please control yourself,’ my dad said as I tried hard to get out of the bed as my mom and dad tried holding me back.
‘But, how is she now? Is she okay?’ I asked looking into my dad’s eyes eagerly.
‘Armaan, you need to relax first. I can sit down and tell you everything,’ my dad said to comfort me. My mom sat beside me holding my hand and Nidhi walked out with tears in her eyes.
‘Armaan, after yesterday’s accident, you both were brought into the emergency department of Manipal hospital. When we reached here from Mumbai, we met Naina’s parents as well. They informed us that Naina and you were travelling in a cab and it met with an accident. The driver died on the spot. We are lucky to have you alive,’ my dad said and started crying. I had never seen my dad cry.
‘What about Naina?’ I asked looking at my mom eagerly.
‘She is my best friend ma, how is she?’ I asked her again and tightened my grip on her hand. This was not the right time for me to tell them that I was in love with her immensely.
‘Armaan, she is in a temporary coma. Doctors are trying hard. It is due to the internal bleeding that she has slipped into a coma. She is unconscious and doctors say she might take a lot of time to regain consciousness,’ my dad said and held my other hand. I could not take it anymore. The thought of Naina being in coma made me die within. I held my dad’s hand and cried.
‘I am responsible for this, dad; I should have driven the car instead of travelling in a cab,’ I cried loudly.
‘No Armaan, it is not your fault. You were responsible enough to travel in a cab rather than drinking and driving. It is not your fault.’ It was Naina’s father.
I could not stop blaming myself. My parents were in tears to have seen me in this condition after eight months. Nidhi could not even look at me. I had a severe head injury and had fractured my left shoulder and right knee in the accident. I requested Akash, Naina’s father, to take me to Naina’s ward. I entered; I could not face her. She slept in peace. Her head was completely bandaged. I waited for her to wake up but she did not. I held her hand and cried. I tried recalling all the happy moments we shared over the past years. Akash pulled me back to my ward. I was heartbroken. I started feeling a vacuum again in my life. After Varun’s death I had never touched liquor. I explained this to my dad. He understood, so did my mom. I regretted every drop of liquor I had last night. Akash tried convincing me that it was mere bad luck but I could not stop blaming myself. I had not expected Naina’s father to react so peacefully being a high profile politician of Karnataka. Days passed. My mom stayed back in Bangalore to take care of me. I recovered completely in two months. I felt dead. I was lost forever in thoughts. I blamed every god possible in the two months. First it was Varun who went away and now it was Naina on the verge. Why was this happening to me? I just could not figure out an answer. My mom, after a lot of coaxing and convincing, went back to Mumbai. My dad called me every day to ask me if I wanted a car to travel around. I did not want one. I was happy with my red Volvo bus journey. I still had not lost the zeal in life to make it big. The first time Naina had to leave me and go was because of my stupid filmmaking dreams which I had not pursued yet. Instead I was still working at the American MNC. It had been two months since I was on sick leave. I kept enquiring about Naina everyday but alas! It was the same answer every day. After my recovery, I went every day to Manipal Hospital to visit her and every single time I saw her face, I felt like killing myself. The guilt of not driving the car and hiring a cab irritated me. I was not over the incident yet. I guess I would never be over it. After accumulating a lot of courage I decided to go to office.
[AMERICAN MNC]
It did not feel good even one bit. I walked into the office like a dead man and sat with my Thinkpad in my cubicle. I recalled the month at the American MNC when Naina came in as my Tech Lead. It was the only thing I loved about having worked here for the past year and a half. Otherwise I felt the MNC was a shithole with no innovation for the years to come. I started feeling like bonded labour again. I always felt like that. Only Naina’s presence made me forget the feeling. The next two hours I sat down to answer all the questions from my colleagues and my manager Vishnu about the accident, Naina, her health and my entire love story. Vishnu seemed quite disappointed after learning about my romantic affair with Naina. He had surely fallen in love with Naina over the month. Naina complained about the way he looked at her. I had chosen to ignore it. I missed her immensely. Naina’s chirpy voice, the sound of her earrings and bangles, the way she blew kisses to me secretly from her cabin and the cute kisses we shared in the balcony… I could not stand this office without her. I continued walking in and out of the office for the next one month. In the meantime Naina had still not come out of the coma. I was depressed. It was really tough to make my parents believe over the phone that I was fine in Bangalore. My dad insisted on me quitting the job and going to Mumbai. What would I do quitting the job and moreover, I could never leave Naina. Amidst all this, my attendance to office became irregular. In any case, it was not like I was working on a major R&D project on remote controlling of a NASA space shuttle. I was still walking into office only to access Google, Facebook and reply to a few mails in the American MNC mailbox. After a month of this regular non-productive situation at the office, an incident took place which changed my life; it was a start to something revolutionary.
The guidelines and the policies of the American MNC irked me. Half the time I was sitting and replying to mails which were process oriented, including following of dress code and integrity of the organization, or I was undertaking stupid training sessions on six sigma, basic English grammar and shit like that. I had completely lost interest in the organization. I failed to understand how more than a million people in India were enjoying working for these companies. In fact, I believed that no one enjoyed it; they were forced to do it. India did not have any other growth story. The only thing we could boast about except for the inherited Tata’s and the Birla’s were the famous IT companies originating from the Silicon Valley of India which did nothing but sold young minds of India for cheaper rates to do lame work for organizations from other countries. I literally began to hate the system in these MNC’s. My friends did not complain much. They were either happy with these shitty jobs or they flew nations to attain a masters degree, which according to me, is merely brain drain. This mindset of the youth being desperate to work for an IT company can be blamed on the mindset of Indian parents. Entrepreneurship has been highly discouraged by parents at every level. Every parent in India wants a stable MNC top job for their son or daughter. The son or the daughter now has an emotional turbulence to withstand before he or she can start thinking and doing something innovative, creative and challenge the status quo.
[My Cubicle]
‘May I know why you are not dressed according to the dress code?’ asked a short lady pointing her finger at me. I knew her very well. Mothi Sharma was her name. She was the Business Area Manager for a set of projects. One of the projects was mine. Vishnu, my timid project manager, reported to her. The whole floor in the office felt she was a freaking blood sucking work extracting monster just so that she could make double profits out of the project and bill the clients a lot more than what she would give her employees. They hated her but they could not say anything because appraisals, ass licking and on-site beckoned them. Life ends there for all software professionals in India. The main problem lies with the way the old generation Indian heads of the American MNC functioned. They themselves treated junior employees like slaves; why would an outsider treat us any better? I literally hated Mothi Sharma because she would stare at me as though I was a criminal when I walked in with a pair of denims on a Monday morning. Denims are not that bad. She probably needed to buy one or needed one when she stared at my legs in a weird manner.
‘I do not have a pair of trousers because the salary you pay me is not enough to feed myself so it is fair to say that I cannot afford a pair of Allen Solly trousers,’ I replied instantly.
‘I do not want to see you in this attire ever again except on Fridays,’ she said and turned around.
‘I am sorry; I cannot wear a freakin shirt and do nothing in front of this Thinkpad,’ I said loudly.
All the employees on the floor started popping their heads up to witness the argument between me and the Business Area Manager. She turned around to respond but chose not to, and I knew what would be the aftermath - meetings, stares, no appraisal, no on-site opportunity. The HR department of this American MNC can be categorized as an entity which had no relevance at all. They recruit the youth of India as machines with idle time and labour time tags, and sell them. It’s a shame that India has one of the worst HR departments in almost every organization possible, which is the reason why half the companies are fundamentally wrong. It was not the dress code. It was the ego of my Business Area Manager, Mothi Sharma, which was hurt. She felt that I couldn’t question the system and her; instead, I felt she should be the one who should be questioning the bull shit system on behalf of us. However, she chose to do otherwise. I could not believe that on the mere pretext of dress code, such a huge company would be after an employee. This basically meant that there was no meaning to such companies even if they were hundred years old or two hundred years old. The dress code made no sense to me. I somehow could not understand the mindset of Indian IT companies setting rules for the attire to be worn at a workplace. The reasons given to wear such clothes in an organization is utter bull shit. I could agree with the dress code when you are scheduled to be meeting a client or attending a business meeting. I somehow did not feel it was highly essential to clothe myself in formals when I was facing my Thinkpad in a small cubicle which I used for Googling or Facebooking. Why were these companies promoting this dress code only in India? People who go on-site to other countries like the USA and Europe come back with stories such as how they went to office in shorts and stuff like that. If the counter argument of these American Companies located in India is going to be: “The Indian Culture is different”. I would sincerely say: “Balls to you” because our culture promotes dhothis, lungis and sarees more than skirts, trousers and shirts. I had enough of this American MNC, the work culture and the freakin slavery! I walked upto Mothi Sharma’s cabin, placed my ID card and the Thinkpad on her desk and walked out of the tech park like I had no tomorrow. I knew I might regret this decision in future. The salary which I got from the American MNC was the only way I could pay my bills. I had no idea what I had just done. I quit my job. I boarded the Volvo. I felt this was the last time I would be doing this. I felt relieved that I would not be wearing the dog tag from the next day but my thoughts switched to my parents. My dad would be baffled with my decision. My mom would surely turn red and Naina, if not in coma, would have murdered me. I felt good but the future was going to be a rough journey…