Bhojan Ka Nimantran !

It seemed just like a normal day when I woke up (and how mistaken I was). I went to my parent’s room to drink my morning tea and also to watch news on TV. Though I am a big time critic of News-channels and the rubbish they dish out usually barring a few exceptions like NDTV, CNN-IBN and good old DD News .Instead of news I saw that mummy was watching a Panditji on TV (it was Sahara Samay ) and he was going on and on about various rashi’s (zodiacs) and what was in store for people belonging to particular zodiacs. After a while it was the turn of Vrishchik Rashi (Scorpio) and he said “ Aaj aapko bhojan ka nimantran mil sakta hai ”. I smiled at mummy and told her that lets see if I get invited today and she smiled back.
Around 10 am I was ready to leave for office and left home. On my way I had to drive on the wrong side of the road as cars in front of me were moving a bit slow and I was listening to an energetic Bappi Lahiri number from the film Suraksha (Mausam hai gaane ka ….) and then suddenly a scooterist appeared. I was completely oblivious of the fact that he was mighty pissed off at seeing me driving on the wrong side while I was trying to overtake other vehicles (it was not a main road).I added further fuel to the fire raging within him by using the dipper. He reacted just like a woman scorned (plz don’t mind the wrong use of phrase) and waved his arm frantically (just like a bowler shows the way to the pavilion to a batsman!) to indicate where I should be driving. Thankfully I did not hear the profanities he must have uttered.I looked at him in the rear view mirror and saw that he was also looking back intermittently and I started wondering whether he will take a u-turn and demand at least an explanation from me. After that I tried consciously to forget this incident but it kept haunting me till I reached office. Yes, I was on the wrong side but was his behaviour right ? No easy answers I suppose.
Since my boss was away for the first-half and I had some work pending ,I started in earnest. After some time I received a call from boss that some people would be coming from an NGO and putting up a stall in our cafeteria and I had to facilitate their stay and provide them anything they might need. I was working on excel sheets when a girl came accompanied by one office staff and enquired about the whereabouts of my boss. I realized that this girl might be from the NGO and introduced myself . She told me that she has come along with two other colleagues and they have already put up a stall in the cafeteria and she had come to ask my boss that why people were not coming to buy products from their stall. I forgot to save the excel sheet and went with the flow and her to the cafeteria. As we reached cafeteria which is on the second floor, we saw some people looking at things in their stall. She told me that I was lucky for them as customers had started to come. I humbly smiled and assured all three girls my assistance if required and came back to my seat where I received the shock of the day.The excel sheet which I had been working on for close to two hours had a different look to it.I tried to undo the damage but to no avail, I had to start afresh again.
A little later my phone rang , I picked it up and was greeted with the question “Are you sleeping ?”
I said no I usually don’t sleep at work unlike many of my good friends (which is a half-truth).Then he asked me whether I could come this Saturday to his place for dinner .I replied in the affirmative and my thought straight-away went to the prediction that I had heard on TV. My belief in astrology is getting stronger by the day :)

Since it was lunch time ,I went to the cafeteria to find how the NGO interns were doing. The girl who had come downstairs earlier to meet me turned out to be a documentary film-maker, the second was a MBA student and third was working full time with the NGO. The docu-filmmaker suggested that instead of all four of us having lunch together, we can have lunch two at a time so that someone is there to take care of the stall at all times (which made imminent sense to me). So myself and the docu-film director took lunch together and I hardly remember when was the last time (if ever) I had lunch with a person of the opposite gender all alone. Though I have lunch with my boss daily in office but then that is different. So it was a nice feeling , and the budding docu-film director seemed to know her craft well. She did complain that the two actors she has taken for her 15 minute short fiction film “Ishrat”(meaning jannat or heaven) ‘over-act’ a lot.
After lunch it was back to my struggle with excel sheets(which for the record is continuing still) and then my boss returned from her meeting. The meeting had gone really well and we were discussing it when the film-director entered the frame again with a shoulder bag. I introduced her to my boss and they exchanged pleasantries. She told that she had to leave a bit early due to some prior engagements(film shooting) and I thought it fit that I should see her off till the office gate. She had to go to Indraprastha Park for the film shoot and her actors were repeatedly calling her and she was requesting them to rehearse their lines till the time she gets there. As luck would have it there were no autos in sight, she said that she will walk and catch a auto or bus somewhere and I returned back to office.

Around 6:20 I left for home, and experienced the mother of all traffic jams which converted my 20 minutes drive into a 45 minute ordeal. And when I reached home I found the same two girls playing badminton. I tried to be strong and approached the dangerous situation with overt calm. I could not let any emotions show on my face and as I walked there was the sound of another smash and giggles.