The Singapore ConneXion

Hey folks, yet another regular story from my side on the same plot – boy meets girl! The only new thing is that, this time the girl has narrated the story. And of course, no intimate details here between the girl and the boy. This story is global and suitable for everyone out there. Hopefully nobody will ask about my intentions this time!

Let’s begin…

Nikita was coming out of the boss's cabin. She came to my cubicle and said “Boss is calling you”. It was not new to me any more. I had been working with that account in the organization for the last two years and very much familiar with the whole account and the projects running there. That was not a big account and twenty odd people used to work there. There were other two senior guys in the team but our new boss always used to call me to get updates. He had joined just last month only. There were some male bosses in the world, who just couldn't lose a chance to talk to woman employees (I didn’t know if he wanted more than that!) for any purpose. My senior male colleagues already started to envy me as they thought I was using my feminine qualities to go up fast with the corporate ladder which surely I was not. It was okay with me as long as there was no indecency from the boss’s part. After all who didn’t want to get promoted?

“Hi Payal, please have a seat” said boss without looking at me as I entered his cabin. He was typing something with the keypad.
“How is your work load next week?” he asked after few seconds.
“It is routine work sir; I have to make a project status report for last month and then we have a conference call with the client, scheduled on Wednesday …”
“Would you like to go to Singapore?” he asked before I finish describing my work schedule for the next week.
I love surprises but didn’t expected that from boss. Our client was based in Freemont, California in USA and visiting that place might look feasible, but Singapore was surely not in the cards.
“Yes, why not?” I replied in anticipation of more inputs from him.

“Good, one of the leading semiconductor companies will be launching their new product line very soon. They have arranged a seminar in this connection in Singapore where all other major embedded product companies from all over Asia will be participating. I want you to go to Singapore and attend the seminar. We are already using their chips in some of our projects. I think this is a good opportunity for us to get know about their new portfolio of chips in details, which would be very useful in our future projects. What do you say?” he asked.
“Certainly sir. It will also enable us to offer better solutions to our clients using cutting edge technology” I replied as I thought that I was becoming little bit more proficient in using the technical jargon words while communicating with the boss. If you could speak in their language, interaction with managers didn’t seem difficult.

The seminar was scheduled next week for three days – Wednesday to Friday. I had to leave on Tuesday night. I was more than happy to go to Singapore, not because it’s my first visit their, but I had a chance of meeting someone special in that place. My parents were over actively searching for a guy for me. Although I didn’t take part in that exercise but didn’t wanted ruin their enthusiasm either, after all I was 28 and some day I had to settle down. It was my fault that I didn’t able to find a match for myself in these long 28 years, especially in the last 6 years since I stated my corporate journey. I was not alone, many girls (and also boys) of my age didn’t find suitable match themselves, our life had became so fast, and hardly there is any time left for romance. I got regular updates of this problem from any newspaper Sunday supplements.

Anyway, what I wanted to mention here that, my parents had short listed one boy (read candidate!) who also had similar problem like me, not finding a match for him in the first 30 years of life. He looked really cute in the photograph he sent across us and I re-verified with my parents that this was his most recent photo as he even looked younger than I. Frankly speaking; I was also impressed and wanted to go forward this time.

I started to speak to Ajay over the phone one month back and our daily conversation time increased to hours from minutes within 15 days. He was a well mannered, sober, good looking boy, working in one of the worlds leading investment banking firm at Singapore. He had all the qualities that a girl like me looks for. We were close to finalize our engagement date. My parents also liked it as they had finally convinced me for settle down.

At this point of time I got this unexpected offer to visit Singapore. I was very much excited and took no time to accept the offer.

Changi International Airport, Singapore.
Tuesday evening:

I had just reached the airport and was waiting for luggage as the conveyor belt was not started yet. Lot of people was standing around it to collect their luggage. As it started rolling, I looked for my one. The suitcases were started to coming and I could see few of the names written on the baggage tags. As I was waiting for my baggage, I read a familiar name on one of the baggage tags. To be precise ‘Sugata Chatterjee’ was written on the tag and surprisingly the man beside me picked up that one. The surname was a Bengali one and name was even more familiar to me. I looked at the man but only managed to see a part of his face as he was looking to other side, probably looking for another luggage. “Height is matching and so the skin color, only the hair style has changed” I told myself these words.
I got my sole luggage and took out the trolley from the side of conveyor belt. I just wanted to see the face of the man as he was still waiting for another luggage.
“And yes, matched! There he is” I told myself as I had just found out ‘Saggy’ at an alien place.
I just could not hold up my excitement and went straight to him and asked “Excuse me, are you Sugata Chatterjee of KGEC, 2002 batch ECE?”
He turned to me and said “Yes, you guessed it right, but how do you know me?”
Now that’s strange. You were meeting with an old college pal after five long years at a foreign place, and you already recognized him but he couldn’t; five year was not even a decade. But it was not all his fault. I had shred 10 kilo in the last 5 year and was much slimmer than I was 5 years earlier. Though I could not compete with Shilpa Shetty with my figure, but certainly deserve second glance from the boys. Also I had changed my hairstyle and hair color which certainly added to the confusion in his mind.
“Do you remember any girl called Payal, in your college, 2002 batch, and ECE department?” I asked.
There were multiple folds on his fore head as he tried to recall me and said “Payal…yes, but wait… are you Payal? No way, it’s not possible!” and strangely looked at me.
I started laughing and said “Hey man just look at my face, I guess I look like same as Payal five years ago”.
“Yes, it is matching, but I can’t believe, you have changed so much in just five years and please forgive me for the comment, you are looking damn gorgeous” he replied with a smile “can’t believe, we are meeting after five years and that’s also in Singapore”.
He had not changed a bit in last five years as he called me “damn gorgeous”, always speak right from the heart!
“Anyway nice to meet you and what are you doing here?” I asked as I forwarded my hand towards him for a handshake.
“Don’t be so formal, I am here to take part in a seminar of our company” he said while handshaking with me.
“Now please don’t tell me that the seminar venue is Hotel Continental” I said.
“Yes, you guessed it right, but how do you know it?” he asked with a question mark on his face.
“Because I am also participating there” I replied.
“That’s great, but you will be on the other side of the dais as I am the part of the delegation conducting this seminar, we are releasing our next generation of chips in very short time and hence we like to introduce them before hand to our customers. I will have one session each day for the next three days” he said.
“Very good, but let me ask you one question, have you shifted to Bangalore? Because as far as I could remember, you were working in Mumbai, then how did you land here from the flight from Bangalore?” I asked.
“Seems that you have very good knowledge of my whereabouts; I am now working in Pune at the chip designer’s subsidiary. I went to Bangalore to visit our headquarters to prepare for the seminar, any more questions?” Saggy replied with a smile.
“Yes, the last one, where are you staying here?”
“Hotel Hyatt, I guess they have sent somebody to receive me from the airport” he said as we were getting out of the airport and he found the person who was already waiting with a car to take him to the hotel.
“Ok, see you tomorrow” he said to me before boarding the car. I took a cab to reach my hotel.

Seminar hall, Hotel Continental
Wednesday morning:

We were busy at the seminar and I only manage to catch him at the first tea break. I didn’t know anybody there as I was participating alone from my company and was feeling lonely at the break. He had come with a team and was busy in chatting with them.
I found him at the corner of the hall and went straight to him.
“Hey Saggy” I called him.
“Hi Payal, good morning, how are you finding the seminar?” he asked.
“Ya… it’s very good and informative also”
“Ok, come with me, I will introduce you with my colleagues” he said as we were approaching the group next to him.
After the introduction formalities were over, I requested him to join me at lunch as I didn’t know any known person here. Girls just can’t want to be alone.
He agreed.

In the first two days, we spoke about our college days and friends and their whereabouts. Five year was long time and discussing about it for two days is certainly not enough to cover the entire 2002 batch of our friends.
At the lunch of the final day, I told him about Ajay.
“Oh really! Congrats” he said in his first reaction.
“So when actually you will be tying the knot?” Saggy asked while putting salt in the soup.
“Date is not finalized, hopefully we will be zeroed on it very soon, and what about you man, what’s your plan?” I asked in anticipation.
“Not planned yet, I need to grow up more; no girl will risk their life by marrying me” Saggy replied in very sober voice.
“How long will you take to grow up?” I asked and started laughing at him.
“Why are you laughing? I didn’t crack a joke yet” he replied.
“I just recalled one incident at our college, you remember how you pushed Suman and wanted to dance with me at the college fest in our third year, you were not too much drunk I knew”
“How can I forget the slap that followed, I had already said sorry to you by then, but you didn’t take back your slap, it still pinch me” he said while resting his face on his left palm “You still remember Suman?”.
Suddenly there was a silence. This question remembered me about the bitter past and he knew that. This time also I wanted to slap him for this absurd question (read joke!), but I had no authority this time I guess. I actually wanted to slap Suman, hundred times.
“Ok jokes apart, why don’t you join us at dinner, today, hope that you will going back tomorrow only, I have already told Ajay about you and he also want to meet you” I said to ease the tension.
“Why are you inviting trouble between two love birds?” Saggy asked in reply.
“Would you please stop talking this nonsense and join us tonight for dinner?” I said in very low but firm voice.
“I am afraid, I don’t want to be slapped again, I will come” he replied as we started laughing.

We met at a local restaurant at evening. Ajay had already selected the venue. I introduced Ajay and Saggy with each other. We were talking about the just concluded seminar where Saggy presented three impressive sessions. Then we talked about our experiences in corporate life and our future plans etc.
“Why don’t you tell me some interesting stories of your college life, since both of you are from same college” Ajay said impulsively.
I and Saggy looked at each other; we just wanted to ask who will start.
“I guess Payal will describe better than me, and also girls are just love to talk” Saggy suggested.
Both of them looked at me.
“Ok, I will start, but this is totally my version of the experience though Saggy might not agree on some point” I said.

Flashback to College:

“Well… let me start from the beginning, the first semester.” I started with this. “It was our first day at college. I just reached in time. It took few minutes to find our class room as I was not familiar with the college building topography. The room was full of students and quite obviously, I knew none of them. The first two rows of the hall were unofficially reserved for the girls. But I didn’t like the idea as I was from a coeducation school and was quite comfortable in sitting beside boys. So I decided to skip those first two rows and went to the rear side of the hall and finally sat on the bench at the second last row, window side. The row was not full yet, and suddenly most of the boys find it interesting as I was the only girl who chooses to sit outside those two first rows. After I finally settled there few more boys came, but none of them had the courage to sit beside a girl on the very first day of the college. They skipped my bench and sat on the other seats. Our principal had just come in at exact 10 a.m. She was a lady. She welcomed the new batch to the institute and then started all those formalities like welcome speech from the principle and head of the department (aka HOD), formal introduction of each student to the batch etc.
Saggy had came exactly 20 minutes late on that day. He entered the class room when our HoD had just finished his speech and the formal introduction of the students was about to start. The principal ma’am and HoD gave him a strange look, but spared him of any disciplinary action as it was just the first day of the college. HoD just made a remark that he expected high degree discipline in the campus in future. All the college authorities were very particular about it, which we found quite disturbing and annoying in the coming days.

The principal asked him to introduce himself to the batch to start the introduction session. He was a smart guy and did that job quite comfortably. Then he came straight to the second last row of the hall and sat beside me even without asking. I thought he was just a little over smart. This was our first day at college.

From day two onwards, I shifted few rows towards the front of the class and sat along with another girl, Deepa. She seemed to be quite calm in nature and was also very intelligent which all the batch came to knew only after the six month, when the first semester’s results were out. She was the topper of the class. As the days were passing by, we settled down in the new environment and started to feel the heat of the engineering course. Everybody was busy with assignments, quizzes and short projects within few weeks.

The first mid semester exam was scheduled in three months time after our course started. It was the first exam in engineering college for all of us. The whole batch performed averagely except in one paper, mechanical science. In that paper, most of the students, I would say 95% of the batch, performed poorly. The class just somehow managed to clear the paper and few could not, but to the class’s surprise, Saggy had scored 90 in that paper. This reason was enough for all the students (and also the faculty) to take a note of him. It was not that he had scored very well in other courses and even scored poorly in one of them, but it was the mechanical science paper which actually introduced him to the class and the teachers.

Anyway, let’s fast forward to the second semester when we actually came to know each other very well. It was the first day of the applied physics lab and I was late on that day. In the previous semester, all the lab groups had four students each and I was part of an all girls group along with Deepa. But in the applied physics lab, each team size was three. Since the teams formed in the very first day of the course and we had to register it, I was left out of my team as I was late and the other three girls decided to form a team excluding I. Actually one of us had to separate and in this case it was I. When I came to the lab, I found that Jayanta was also searching for a team mate. The lab instructor called us and asks to form a group. I had no choice but to register with the group. I didn’t know Jayanta very well at that tome. But the surprise of the day was still left as Saggy arrived almost an hour late for the lab and we had to accommodate him in our group as we had one more slot in it.

At first there were some misunderstanding among us regarding the lab assignments, but slowly we fit into our job. He was a nice guy but also a little careless. We had frequent fights as he liked to complete his part of project report at the very last minute. After few assignments, we agreed upon a compromising formula. At the start of a new assignment, we divided the work between us and each of us was responsible for our respective part of the project report. It really helped us a lot as we could conclude the assignments in real short time. Earlier we tried to do everything on our own which leads to chaos. Now everyone had a focus and knew about their scope of work, things completed faster. The idea was Saggy’s and I must confess that till now, I apply this in my work. He knew all possible tricks which made his work lighter. It was a smooth journey with him in the second semester.

Now came to the real story barring which none of the campus story would finish! I knew Saggy will still deny the fact, but as the semester progresses, he developed a crush on me. It added the much required spice in my campus life. I knew about it but wasn’t serious about it at all. It was all fun with him during the second semester.”

I stopped for a glass of water.
“What about the remaining years in college?” asked Ajay.
“Can I interrupt here?” said Saggy after so long time.
“Sure, I do want to know your version of the campus life.” Ajay replied.
“Actually after the first year, I had another crush on a new girl who had come in the next batch. I really had no time for Payal then.” said Saggy.
“Sorry Saggy, you don’t have to put any excuse, better luck next time!” I smiled as I knew that Saggy wants to divert the topic of discussion, rather I would say topic of Suman which I really didn’t want to put in front of Ajay at this point of time. It was a darkest part of my life which I surely want to forget.

My biggest mistake in life:

I met Suman in the college. He was a tall guy, was one of the brightest students of our batch and had a charismatic personality. These qualities made him very popular in the girls group. He was very helpful also. I could remember how he helped me solve the assignments and understand the courses in the second semester. That was just the beginning, and after few months, life was incomplete without him. We used to spend long hours after the classes, in the library or in any corner of the campus. I was actually felt like a winner after “winning” him, as there were others girls who tried lot to catch the attention of him. It’s a good feeling when you try hard for a reason and “achieve” it at last. I was born competitive and never loose an inch of land without careworn (I was wrong then. Winning is not everything in life…).

I was really fell for him and started to plan our life ahead without knowing how unkind the reality was. Since girls were tends to mature much faster, its easier for us to asses the future. But I was proved wrong.

How could I forget the Darjeeling tour, for which I had lied to my parents for the first time in life. They trusted me as our batch was about to go for an industrial visit in Hyderabad (in the final year of our engineering program), but I and Suman had other plans. We straight away went to Darjeeling and later joined the batch at Hyderabad. Those were the most inseparable memories, specially the time we spent together at the hills.

After that I was preparing about our marriage as that could be the only possible event in our life when we got our first jobs after completing engineering. But God had other plans for me. Suman got job in one of the top software firm in USA. It’s not that he didn’t get into any Indian MNC, but I guess he was more ambitious. He left the country and also probably me for the job. We did keep in touch, but it was “out of sight, out of mind” kind of situation. Our conversation and chats were started to shrink very fast. After few months it was like a formality only. Time hammered the last nail to my little hopes when I got the news of his marriage in USA. I didn’t believe it first, but would that change the fact? He even didn’t bother to tell me the news.

Anyway life is like that only. I was very much shocked but not devastated. Somehow I anticipated that well ahead of the day when I got the news. It was official; Suman was out of my world (I guess I had no other option!).

Back to the evening:

Actually I wanted to thank Saggy. He knew all the incidents and more importantly knew where to stop. Surely he saved me from an imminent embarrassment. Though I was planning to reveal all my past to Ajay at a suitable time, somehow I had a feeling of loosing him when he came to know about it, and I wanted to stop that at any cost.
After the incident, I totally got into the shell and was not prepared for any relationship. Also I want to confess that sometimes Saggy’s story had come to my mind quite a few times in the past years, but it was too late to consider him I guess. I wished I could return to college once more! But there was a reason to cheer as I could share a dream with Ajay now.

“Hello, where are you lost?” asked Ajay while moving his fingers in front of my face.
“Just lost in past.” I replied as I looked into Saggy’s eye.
He was looking very serious I guessed I never saw him in that mode before. God knew, he might have guessed what was going in my head.
“What time you will be leaving tomorrow?” I asked as we were leaving the hotel.
“2.30 p.m. Singapore airlines” he replied.
“Oh, that’s great. We can still meet once tomorrow. My flight is at 3 o’clock” I replied as we were boarding the taxi. Ajay accompanied me up to the hotel.

Changi International Airport, Singapore.
Saturday evening:

I reached in time to the airport and proceed for luggage scanning. The attendant guy was placing the stickers on the baggage as I was looking for Saggy casually. I guessed that as in college, he would still come at last minute for check-in and was rushing to the departure gate. But I was wrong this time. He was just sitting behind me and yes, still waiting for check-in.
“Are you mad? Your flight is about to leave in 5 minutes. What are you doing here?” I asked wonderingly.
“Actually I rescheduled my flight” he replied calmly.
“What! But why?” I asked in surprise.
“Actually I want to change my direction.”
Now that was really silly. But the silliest was still to come across.
“Actually I am going to Bangalore with you” he continued.
“I am privileged. But may I know what the matter is?” I replied as I guessed he may have some work left in his company in Bangalore.
“You slowly come to know my friend” he answered.
I was quite enjoying our conversation as it remembered me the college days. Saggy had the reputation of not asking his queries at one go in the lectures and we always made a fun of it.
We boarded the aircraft after half an hour. We reserved two consecutive seats for us while collecting our boarding passes. The plane was not full and the third seat in our row was empty.
As the plane was moving from tarmac to the runway, I asked “Can you now please tell me why you are going to Bangalore?”
“Wait, I will tell you once the plane is in the air.”
I had no other option to wait. These are the things you really enjoy when you reunite with one or more old pals. It seemed that the college life is not finished as yet. You might be a corporate citizen, but the old friendship remains same.
After the plane reached required altitude, he started saying…

“Payal, please don’t over react after hearing what I am going to say. Actually I had a wild idea last night after coming back to the hotel. I always wanted to do something crazy in life, but never able do that till now. I just want to ask you a question, will you marry me? Now please don’t say no right now, at least in the flight. You can give your opinion once we land at Bangalore. Whatever your response will be, I just wanted to say it to in college itself, but destiny has other plans for me. That’s why I thought it will be a last chance for me and hence I rescheduled my flight. It may be looked silly to you, but I am saying these words from my heart.”

He stopped after saying all these words at a one go.
Now that’s really crazy. I had no words to say. He was there with me in college for four years, after that though we had moved to our respective careers, we always had each others contact details at least. It took him 9 years and a maiden flight with me to propose. That’s amazing! This description only suits Saggy.

The present
00:24 hrs on the table clock:

I have asked him to wait for few days for my reply, I am a girl after all and can’t straight away accept his proposal without make him apprehensive. Nine days has past since then and I am writing down this story in my personal bog.
What should I do now? There are basically two big questions, Should I dump Ajay and go with Saggy? And what should I say to Ajay?
Or, just say no to Saggy? Anyways, he is surely going to get a girl in rest of his life.

Dear readers, your opinions needed…