The Proposal Design of Love

Part 2

The Love within, the Hate without

He looked at his watch as the lift started ascending. 9.00 am. Half an hour early. Prakarsh wondered why he was so punctual. But then his house was 47 kilometres away from his work place, and he always had his father’s advice with him, “If you respect time, time will respect you.”

The lift door opened as soon as the electronic display on top of the lift door showed 10. He wished the receptionist good morning. His eyes almost instantaneously fell on the display board in front of the receptionist’s desk.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

Half the problems in our life happen because we say things we don’t want to , the other half because we can’t say things we want to.

“Naaiceee.” He exclaimed.

His eyes fell on the painting mounted on the wall just above the display board . The portrait almost looked life like. It was rumored that Seth Ramniklal had paid the artist 7 gold coins and a diamond necklace for his wife after seeing his painting. Seth Ramniklal , CHAIRMAN , ANM. Prakarsh’s thoughts hovered around the enigma.

……………………………..

Ramniklal’s started his first business when he sold smuggled coal from the mine fields of Jharkhand. But when one day he could not wash the dirt of his hands while taking bath in the nearby pond (because he could not afford to waste money on soap), he decided it was time to shift trade. At that time a local cinema hall was struggling to break even because of the bad location it was in. Ramniklal told the guy, “If in the next two months I don’t double your footfalls don’t pay me anything, otherwise I need 33 percent of your profits.”

“Why 33?” The owner asked .

“Because the village master threw me out of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan because I got 33 in mathematics. “

Although the owner could not make out the link, he agreed.

In two months, Ramniklal had tripled the profits of the cinema hall, add to that he was allowed to watch all the movies first day, first show. But what turned out to be a bigger bonus was that he struck a friendship with Radhika , the daughter of the cinema hall’s owner . Every day he would stealthily sneak into her house and talk with her while her father was busy counting the daily earnings.

At the end of the slated period when asked how he managed this feat, Ramniklal curtly answered, “The first rule of a trade is never to divulge your USP.”

The cinema owner didn’t probe further. He handed him 3200 rupees as part of the deal. As Ramniklal was about to leave, the owner asked, “What is the first thing you will buy with this money.”

Ramniklal didn’t even think twice before answering, he just looked at his hands , blackened by coal and the rigors of time ,and remarked, “A bar of soap. “

It was then that the cinema hall owner realized that this village was too small for this 17 year old. But even he didn’t know that one day Ramniklal would end up being the chairman of the second biggest Advertising agency of India.

They say that if you are the chosen one, the heavens write your destiny. In case of Ramniklal , he had chosen his destiny , the pen as well as the paper…. And then he had written his own destiny … the way he had wanted.

……….

Prakarsh came back to the present only when the computer beeped because he had entered the wrong password.

He checked his mails. 4 UNREAD MAILS. All from his team leader. His team leader. Everybody who were a part of Anushka’s team knew that something just wasn’t right between their Team leader and Prakarsh . Prakarsh had almost resigned himself to the everyday torment that was destined for him.

“The chemistry between you two is bad.” Avishek opined.

“Our history is even worse.” Prakarsh replied.

A month after their training program FINETUNE had ended , each of the young recruits were allotted different divisions called ROOTS . Each ROOT catered to a set of clients. Prakarsh and his team were part of ROOT 1. Two of the major clients that they handled were PINEAPPLE, the electronic conglomerate whose chairman Steve Jobless was known for his whacky innovations. The other big client was BALLS, British American Ludhianvi Lollypops, the chocolate giant. In the first few days, Prakarsh found out he had very little work, so much so that he thought he could avoid Anushka . But when one day Ansuhka called all the four of her team into her cabin , and briefed them about Project EyePhone 5 , the latest upgrade of the already hit smartphone from the stable of PINEAPPLE , he knew this was his opportunity to show what he could do .

“It’s a really huge project, we expect the Go – ahead from the clients in the next two months.”Till then, I want you all to wrack your brains and come up with a positioning strategy for this upgrade.”

As Prakarsh left her cabin, he told Ramesh , “Finally the project I was dreaming of .”

One day, Ansuhka mailed Prakarsh to come to her cabin. When two people hate each other email seems to be the best way of passing the message, because the non verbal vibes are filtered out.

Prakarsh entered her room and took a seat. She didn’t look at him. After a while, she remarked, “Prakarsh , you were supposed to submit the storyboard for a project , weren’t you ?”

“I have already mailed it to the client.”

“You didn’t mark a copy to me?” she asked?

“Probably not.”

“Next time please ensure that all the mails that you do send, you mark a copy to me. Do I make myself clear?”

Prakasrh stared at her, “Should I say, yes , or perhaps you would prefer Yes mam.”

She didn’t reply. He left.

Next day Anushka found her inbox flooded with 73 mails from Prakarsh to all his friends wishing them all happy friendship day. He had taken her advice of marking a copy of each email pretty seriously because he had marked her in all the mails he had sent to his friends. It took her half an hour to unspam her inbox.

The very next day , Prakarsh found 534 mails in his inbox . All the mails forwarded to him by Ansuhka . The original senders of the mail did have variety. From a Teleshopping network selling oil, to a matrimonial website offering free services for the first three months, she had forwarded them all. When he had managed to clear all the messages he received another one. This one was not a forwarded mail. It was written directly to him.

“Next time make sure you don’t use your official email id for networking. And yeah, a belated happy friendship day.”

Prakarsh never used the official mail id for anything unofficial.

The two avoided any badinage for a while. As such the rest of the team members started thinking that perhaps they had taken a liking to each other. Prakarsh , meanwhile worked on some small adhoc projects . Anushka avoided any confrontation with Prakarsh , she communicated with him largely through mail . Two months passed and Prakarsh almost started feeling at home. One noon he received a mail from Anushka asking him to see her.

He entered. She looked at him.

“Prakarsh could you just clarify on the brief that the clients gave us for Project Vanilla?”

“BALLS have launched the vanilla flavor of lollipops in Madhya Pradesh, and they want us to make a tag line for their promotional campaign.”

“Good.” she remarked,”Atleast we are clear on that. Do you think that your tagline is fit for the brand? “

“Suits me, I liked it. “ Prakarsh replied.

“I don’t think so. And if you take some time out, you will realize that too. You can leave.”

During lunch Prakarsh told Ramesh , “ I don’t know what is her problem . I mean now she doesn’t like my tagline for BALLS.”

“What was the tagline anyways?” Ramesh asked, as he sipped his cola.

“DO YOU HAVE THE BALLS?” Prakarsh said, and winked. “Cool eh?”

Ramesh didn’t reply.

In the evening Prakarsh was about to leave when he saw the mail.

“Dear all,

We have finally received the Go –Ahead for Project Eye Phone . Ramesh Sharma and Avishek Bose will handle the project from our group……

He did not read further. He just stormed in her cabin.

“You have started it again, haven’t you? Why can’t you allow me to live in peace .Why am I not a part of this project?”

She didn’t say anything for a while. Then she talked.

“Prakarsh , we will have other projects too. “

“Then why the bloody hell did you ask us to WRACK our brains and come up with the positioning strategies?”

“You can share your ideas with Avishek and Ramesh .”

“Yeah right ,in your dreams Anushka Mittal.”

He was about to leave when he turned back .

“You know Anushka , all this while I thought maybe things can change between us . But now I think I was a fool to think that way. I hate you, always have and always will.”

He left the same way he came, like a tornado.

Anushka stared at the glass door as it closed behind him. Then her eyes went on the paper infront of her. It was a brief from Zee Television for ZEE.C.S, the biggest project ANM had ever handled.

Her cell phone buzzed. She picked it up.

“Anushka ,” said Jitendra Batliwala , Anushka’s boss calling from Mumbai.

“Hi.” answered Ansuhka.

Jitendra continued. “Anushka we have finally received the go ahead from Zee Television for the project. You can tell that to your team.”

“Hmm.” She said.

“Anushka , it’s the biggest project that we have had this year. You think Prakarsh will be able to handle it? I mean … I just saw his tagline for BALLs… Do you have the balls? I mean...” he sniggered.

For a moment, no one talked. Then Anushka answered.

“He is the best that I have.”

“I know, I know Anushka , you studied with him. So you would know better. Tell him to work on the media selections. “

She didn’t reply.

“He must feel really lucky to be in your team “

You have no idea, she wanted to say. She kept quiet.

“Now lets’ leave work aside. Tell me Anu , have you….?”

She hung up the phone. She didn’t like being called by that name.

She tried to put her mind back to work, but Prakarsh kept intruding her thoughts. She picked up the phone and then kept it back again. The right words never seem to come out at the right moment. She shut off her system and decided to leave for home.

……………………..

In Shyamnagar, Prakarsh sat in his room and cleaned the dust off his personal diary. He noted the year, 1996, he was in standard five then, He turned over a few pages and then saw her name.

MY FIRST CRUSH: Anushka Mittal .

He looked for a pen. He wanted to strike off her name. He hated her, he told himself. Then he started crying.

53 kilometres away, in a rented flat in Behala , she sat on her bed staring at the Slam book , in those days SLAM books were the latest fad . It didn’t take a lot of time to find his name.

THE BOY I WOULD LIKE TO DATE: Prakarsh Tiwari

She looked at the name for a long time. Then she looked around, just to reassure that she was not in her office, because a team leader should not be seen crying.

Half the problems in our life happen because we say things we don’t want to, the other half because we can’t say things we want to

In Shyamnagar , a boy was repenting on the things he had said to her all this while । In Behala, a girl was regretting the things she could not say to him.

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Ok whatever limited readership my stories have managed to generate , I have so much work for a while at my workplace that I will be posting the third part only in the second week of December … Please do read that … Thanks for liking my stories and saying such wonderful things about it .. You have no idea what it makes me feel…