Untold Story

"Damn!! it. Again the same compilation error. Today is the last date of the project completion. The date cannot be extended further as it had already been extended twice in the past. It has to be completed today. Damn you all engineers who could not find the simple bug since morning. They all are useless. My whole team is a burden, simply good for nothing" He was thinking all this since the time he arrived his office and was intimated that his team which he was leading had been stuck with a coding error.

Rahul is a project manager in one of an MNC in Powai, Indian-Silicon-Valley. Sometimes his MBA degree forgets him that he too was an engineer. He generally is a quite and a shy person but today he is different. Today should turn out to be the special day for him as today is his fifth marriage anniversary but he was greeted with the most tense situation of his life by the fate. What an irony he doesn't believe in fate, surely not after that incident. 

" I promised Richa that I won't be late today. How could I be late today? Today is our anniversary. I should spend the whole day with her. But I am stuck with these stupid engineers who could not resolve a simple bug. Had I not gone for an MBA and instead had joined some coding profile I would have easily sorted out the bug. But these fools are a total waste. Ohh!! damn it, they are gonna late me. Richa will kill me." Same idea again struck him.

"Chai, garam chai" Hari(chai wala) entered his cabin with a sharp routine pitch of his voice to gather his attention. " Kya sahab! kitni tension lete ho aap log? itni tension loge to zaldi baal safed ho jaayenge. Chalo ab garam garam chai peeyo, ab baad mei kaam karna"

" Hari, sometimes I think it is you and your chai that keeps me glued with this company otherwise I would have long gone. Your chai really makes me forget all the tension for a while."

" Kya sahab aap bhi na.". Hari departed with a smile on his face.

The first sip of the tea helped him off his attention from that project for a while and made him nostalgic. Those vivid images of his first encounter with her still freshen up in his memory. How could he forget that encounter? She was the first and last love of his life. That was the first day of college. He was the first time away from his parents. That departure from them was the real pain for him. He was never alone in his life. Now for the whole four years, he would be alone. He has to take all his life decision by himself. He was the only child of his parents. He never wanted to be an engineer. In fact he never had any dream. He just wanted to live with his parents the whole of his life and to play cricket with his childhood friend Sunny on his house roof. But you never get what you ever wanted. Due to society pressure, he had to opt for engineering and was lucky to get into one of the best institutes of the country.

"Today is the first day of college. I don't want to be late. First lecture is of the most terrifying professor of the Electrical Eng. department and you don't want to be late in his class. Seniors told me all about him. Rahul you really don't want to mess with him. Pack your books quickly there is hardly any time left". Gaurav, his roommate, advised him in a frightening tone.

"Dude, just relax. This is an engineering college, not any senior secondary school. Grow up now."

"Okay! you relax. I am going. Bye."

 "Okay Bye"

" Ohh, God! it's 8:15 AM. I am late." He skipped the breakfast and rushed towards his department. He thought if rumours were true about that professor then he was in real danger and he sure don't want to make any enemy on his first day of the college. With this thought, he literally skipped one or two heartbeats. He was thinking of the harsher punishment he might get infront of the classmates and forgot to see what was coming infront of him. He bumped into her. All the books in her hand fell all over the ground.

She shouted while collecting her books-" You idiot. Are you blind?"

Her hair covered her face so he was unable to see her. He was dumbstruck what to say.

She used her right hand to move back her long hairs and left to collect her books. At that moment he saw her beautiful face. Whole universe comes to a halt for a second. It was difficult for him to move his gaze away from her. All he wanted was to stare at her for the whole of his life. In that moment he decided she would be her future Mrs Jain. He wanted to call her mommy(after all he was a mamma's boy) and t

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old her that he had found her a bahu.

She shouted again-" You fool! have some courtesy and help me out to gather my books".

"Yeah sure" he responded sheepishly.

Tring -Tring, Tring- Tring- the irritating sound of the mobile phone brought him back to the present. Sometimes he thinks that humans don't need a time machine to travel. Human mind is capable enough to take them to their past and future. He picked the phone. It was his boss. His boss wanted to know at what time of the day would the project be completed. He assured him that the project has already been completed and has been sent to the testing team. He cursed himself for the lie but what is done is done. He called for a team meeting. There were four members in his team. Two I.T engineers, one MBA, one team leader and finally him the project manager. He enquired about the bug and got to know that the team has no solution for the bug. He told them about the phone call and that they have no option but to debug the code in an hour. With one hour ultimatum, he dismissed the meeting.

He knew one hour is not enough for the debugging. 

Desperate situation calls for desperate measures. He knew there was only one person in the world who could help him. It was Gaurav, his room-mate. Gaurav was the God of the coding in the college. He could find the bugs in the program even in his sleep.

He didn't want to call him, especially not after that incident. He swore in that he would never call him. But today...today is different...

" Dude! why are you so late? You are lucky professor is late" Gaurav enquired.

" Nothing Yaar, just bumped into my future Mrs Jain". He replied enthusiastically.

" Hello! Gaurav. How are you? This is Rahul."

" Dude, where have you been these years after college? You never contacted and answered my calls. Is everything okay?"

" Everything is okay. It was just I was busy with my work. Gaurav, I am sorry for your loss yaar. I know you have lost your wife two years back and I should have stood beside you at that time. But I was not there. I am sorry yaar"

" Hey, it's okay yaar. I can understand"

" Gaurav, could you help me? I am stuck with a programming bug and all my engineers failed to debug it. You are the God of programming. I am sending you the code, please find out the bug. It would be a great help."

"Of course yaar, otherwise what roomies are for?".

" What do you think? how does it look? would she say yes?"

" Ring looks fabulous and ofcourse she would say yes. How could anyone refuse you?"

" Thanks yaar. I don't know what would I do without you?"

" Don't thank yaar, otherwise what roomies are for?".

He got an email. It was from Gaurav. He found the debug and mailed him the error-free codes.

He called the team meeting again. Enthusiastically informed them about the fresh codes and told them to run them and then send them to the testing team. 

He left the office, it was 10 pm. He knew Richa was going to kill him. He promised her in the morning that he would come early from the office and spend the rest of the time with her.

He stopped at the shop. Purchased a bottle of red wine, her favourite drink, and a bouquet of white roses. Shopkeeper knew it was his anniversary. For the past five years, he regularly purchased the same items from his shop on the same date of every calendar year.

He put all the items in the car and hurried to the central park. The venue where he meets her on the same date of today for every past five years. 

He entered the park with wine on right hand and bouquet on left. He stopped at her grave. He placed her favourite white roses beside her grave. He apologised her for the delay.

Richa met with a car accident some two years back and left the world. She married Gaurav not Rahul after college. It was Gaurav with the ring. She even didn't meet Rahul after their first encounter. But for Rahul she was his wife at that very moment he saw her. He never told Gaurav that she was the very same girl that he bumped into that day. After the college, Richa and Gaurav tied the knot and Rahul moved away from their life.

He opened the wine and poured it into two glasses. He silently drank it and remembered that first day of college. Today was the same day when he first met her. For him, she was his wife since that day. He once again wished her their fifth marriage anniversary and sat beside her till dawn.