He was the Calm before the Storm.!

“I BELIEVE”

Everything is prewritten and nothing can be rewritten the only thing that we do have power over is how we react to a particular situation.

Do we give up? Or do we keep fighting? Do we choose to be brave and have courage? Or do we run away like a coward?

While I was feeling hopeless and helpless as i could do nothing to help myself, I did one thing “I believed”. I knew I didn’t come all the way to Bangalore just to see the face of disappointment and go back. I believed that everything will be alright. I believed I will somehow make it. I believed I’ll find help in the end. And I did.

It was end of the month and I was just 3 days away from being kicked out of my PG.

PGs in Indira Nagar ranged from 3 sharing 4 sharing to a hall full of beds like some general ward of a hospital. There were hardly one or two human friendly PGs but their rent made me feel they were the BMWs of PGs and I was neither Ambani nor Birla. With my salary not credited there was no way I could afford to pay advance to these Hi-Fi PGs with Wi-Fi. After my failed attempts, tired, I sat on the divider by the CMH road in Indira Nagar lost in my thoughts and it started pouring heavily. But I sat there with people staring at me which bothered me the least because all I cared about was that “It felt good”, after a long time.

It was a day before my last day in my PG, and as I sat carefree cracking jokes and laughing with my colleagues I happened to be told by one of them that a friend of theirs is looking for a roommate. That was it. I knew it was the universe helping me. Wasting no more time I spoke to the concerned person finalised the PG. Relieved!!! Yes can u believe that?? Just a day before my last day in PG.!! I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t found shelter. Though my backup plan was to dump my luggage at someone’s house and live in office.

Ha done with the PG Hassle. That’s what I thought but Hell no. This PG was the beginning of another worse ending.

I had shifted from Indira Nagar to Cooke’s Town which felt more like shifting from New York to an Indian Village. Along with new PG and new place I also found a new friend.

He was the unexpected solace before turbulence.

It was on this particular day of the induction session which always meant a nap time for me that I happened to hear a very sensible question being raised and I was like Ok let me take a look at this wise man and that's when I realised a guy like him existed. He was cute but I was too sleepy to continue admiring his cuteness. Ha! Did I know back then that he would be an important part of my life in coming days? No! No definitely I did not. While I was continuing my sleep in the training room after the induction he came up and asked for me. I was too sleepy to process anything so I just went with him and then I realised he was a messenger sent by our training manager to summon me. After talking to my manager while I left I looked at this guy and he was smiling very vibrantly and I was like ‘why is he smiling so much?  Was I looking weird with my face swollen from sleep? ‘, not giving it much thought I went back to sleep.

A few days passed and one evening I was highly bored, even bored of sleeping and I found a badminton racket lying ownerless in the corner of some random cubicle at my colleagues building so I took it and told my batch mates I’m going to play. They made fun of me saying “You just have one racket  what will you do? Catch mosquitoes?”.

I did feel whatever they said made sense but luckily i found a bunch of people who let me play along with them and it was after years I was playing Badminton and it felt great, I would play the whole evening but then I had to catch a very rare bus to Indira Nagar so I decided to leave .As I left the court I saw the induction guy looking at me and I was like ‘should I smile or no?’ and then before I could even decide he came up to me and we had a little chat and we happened to realise that we were two workless souls and decided to play badminton from the next day together. As we walked to the bus stop we exchanged numbers and the next day he helped me shift my luggage. So while on the way to my PG we happened to discuss about vegetables cooking etc. and he asked me to come over to his place for dinner. I was in bit of dilemma, I mean come on I barely knew this guy and he calls me home for dinner! Well after thinking a lot I just decided to go over to his place. Cooking seemed riskier than going to is place. It was not a bad decision after all. I liked his company and since I was having a good time and good food at his place my visits to his place became quite frequent for the dinner as my new PG had no food facility and I was someone who didn't even know to light stove so I always ended up having dinner at his place which we cooked together in other words he cooked and I gave him moral support.

It was just 6 days since I had known him that  we went out on a Sunday and after the dinner when we were planning on how to go back as it was pouring heavily outside did this weird idea had come to his mind. He said "I'm feeling like going to Mysore” and then I had this crazy look in my eyes and I was like "Let's go ".

I hardly knew him for 6 days and I was off to Mysore on a Sunday bunking office on Monday. It was a hell of a Sunday. I was sure the plan is not going to work as the last bus was at mid night and we had to go home pack bags and reach the bus stand and with Bangalore traffic plus the crazy rain it was impossible yet half drenched completely crazy we somehow made it to the bus stand and then to Mysore. We explored the entire city in one day and all the time I was like if this is a dream I don't want to wake up. After a troubled month this was like bliss especially to me who is a travel freak. Well if you’re thinking that there was anything romantic between us then you will be disappointed. We were just two crazy souls who liked each other’s company plus even if I did wanted to have a crush on him the fact that he called his girlfriend at least 3 times a day made me think otherwise. “Just because there is a goal keeper doesn't mean you can't make a goal!” LOL! I could have used this logic but I knew he wasn't my goal to make.

After this trip we had become pretty well acquainted and his flat was almost like mine and he was like a shadow always with me, except for work hours we were always together and at times he used to even come to my work place or I use to go to his. In a very short period of time my world started revolving around him not because I liked him or something but it feels good to have someone to take care of you in a completely new city with no friends and family.

Had I known back then how all this care and affection would end? No! Definitely I did not.

Office felt more homely than PG ever did!

As the days passed my life in PG started turning into a hell. If you are someone who needs silence to sleep then you can connect to this. I had somehow got adjusted to the creaky noise the fan made to which I could never adjust back at home.(Your mind automatically starts adjusting no matter how hard it is when it knows there is no other option)But there was no way I could adjust to being awakened at 3AM every morning.

My roommate had her shift from 5:30AM, so she used to get up at 3:00AM with her alarm buzzing out loud waking me up as well. I somehow could put up with that too but then there she was with her “I’m getting ready noises”. BANGGG!! She opened the cupboard, BANGGG!! She opened the room door, BANGGG!! She shut it back, BANGGG!! She came in again and BANGGG!! She went out; never knew why she was so BANGGY early morning!!!! And yes how can I forget her phone ringing every 10mins and her melodious voice over the call that was like Suprabhatam for me every morning. I couldn’t sleep till she left and it would always be around 5AM when she would finally be gone. So every day from 3:00AM to 4:30AM all I did was curse her and pray for some sleep to come.

Finally when sleep would come my other roommate would shoo it off with her “I’m getting ready noises” at 6:00AM and when all her banging’s would be done it’d be 7:00AM in the morning and I would have to get up and be ready to make a run to the washroom at 7:30AM.

I never fell into the typical girl category so I never understood the mentality of girls especially when it came to not being able to have a harmonious co-existence with other girls. These girls who were so sugar sweet to their boyfriends over call were hardly even close to highly adulterated honey in reality. If you are a guy and reading this then let me tell you something, if you want to know about a girl then no one can tell you better than her PG mates. I always felt majority of the girl’s population is annoying but I had not known that some of them even lacked common sense and courtesy. They had this rule that no one could use the washroom when it’s their time slot even if shit’s going to come out of a person.

I was definitely not someone who would tolerate being treated like the way I was, but I had to as I was all alone and on my own and I din wanted anymore trouble than what I already had. I kept my anger at check and avoided getting into row with the b*tches. I think one could still survive in a PG filled with a**holes if one had good roommates but to my bad luck I had really big dunderheaded dumbf*cks for my roommates. I used to try talking to them and being nice and making a conversation but yes you can’t expect senseless and retarded people to reply sensibly and reasonably. I never realised what was their problem with me. I mean was it my face or was something wrong with their brain. To my bad luck I happened to be sick one day and my bed happened to be right under the fan so every time I lowered the fan speed and slept my roommate used to get up and set it to high! This went on until one of us slept off. As a result of lack of sleep and the cold weather and waking up shivering as the fan would be set to high in my sleep, my health saw no improvement and when I could no longer take it I finally decided to take refuge at a friend’s place, even though it was too far from my office I was ready to give anything to get one night of sound sleep. It had been 15days of not being able to get enough sleep. Things just kept getting worse. To add to the annoying behaviour of PG girls, there was the owner’s wife who was no less annoying. She did not like it when I washed my clothes after 7:00PM. Like seriously?? I leave from office at 6PM and reach by 7:30PM, how on earth will i wash my clothes by 7PM? She expected me to wash clothes on weekends. I mean there were more than 20 girls in the PG and if everyone washes their clothes on weekend where are we going to put it for dry?? On her Head??

I could adjust to everything but then there was an issue with the quantity of food that I consumed. I mean it’s not my problem that I have a healthy diet and I eat good amount of rice. I had to even cut down the amount of food. One doomed evening when I was all tired from office I came to PG and thought of taking a warm head bath which I anyways couldn’t take in the morning with the time constraint. I was half way through my bath and I heard loud banging on the door. I thought there was fire or may be someone died by the intensity of the banging. But then there was my roommate there yelling from outside that she needs to take bath. I mean seriously??? I get it you need to take bath but that doesn’t mean you will keep banging the door and I will come out half-done to allow her majesty to take bath!!! I mean it was 8:00Pm she could have easily finished rest of her work like having dinner and then had a bath. But no she stood outside yelling till 8:30PM and when I came out she had got the owner to fight with me. I mean I couldn’t believe human beings could reproduce something like her. First of all I took head bath once in a week to avoid washroom clash, moreover I made sure I didn’t disturb people in the morning by taking too much time in the washroom and when all I wanted was to have a head bath in peace people couldn’t let me even have that. That was it! My limit of patience and toleration was crossed and I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore. So yes there it was the War of Titans.

With my patience gone I could no longer live in that hell hole so I started hunting for Pgs. My life for the last two weeks of the first month was all about going to office coming back washing clothes hunting PGs having dinner hunting PGs and coming back to PG by 10:00PM (time restriction) and hoping to get some sleep. Hunting PGs walking all alone through strangest routes was not easy. Even Google maps failed at times. The more I searched the shittier PGs I found. I was at the stage of my life where I wanted to give up everything and run away back to my home but I just kept going on hoping to find solace at some point. I had already given the notice in my PG and it was my last week in the PG and yet I had not found a better place. If I couldn’t find a place I would be on the streets as someone else was already coming in my place from the next month so I had no choice other than moving out.

While I was having my downs in my PG life my office life went pretty good. I’m sure I’m the first IT person to say that I loved being at office. Life in office was awesome. Every time I came back from office I used to wait for the next morning to come so getting up early didn’t feel like a great task. We had sessions occasionally and rest of the time we played dumb charades, Antakshari etc. The best part about office was that I could take naps. Rest of the time I invested in searching PGs using the company’s internet facility which was indeed meant for learning. I won’t say that I did not have any problems at office cause I had to run around the entire campus everyday may it be to get my PSID active or my bank details as no one really knew who could help me and they kept sending me form one building to another, but it didn’t bother me much cause I was pretty jobless and running here and there was more like working out which I was missing from many days. Oh yes it gets interesting now. So I always knew I looked pretty good and there were people checking me out but I was too much into my troubled life I hardly cared. Then one fine day my friend happened to text me to tell that some guy in our batch likes me and is planning to propose. I wasn’t excited even 1% as the only thing I cared about was finding a PG and getting some sleep and peace. But life didn’t stop throwing guys at me.

While I was busy browsing for PGs a guy comes up to me asking if he could use the PC for a minute as he had to check some urgent mail and I let him use it as my PG search had no end. But yes I couldn’t resist being nosy and I peeked to see what he was checking and then I got to know he was planning for CAT and for IIM Ahmedabad which was my subject of interest and so I had a little chat with him and I kind of found him funny. After that I happened to talk to him during a session and he responded enthusiastically after which we started talking a lot, a lot and a lot, we used to tease each other and I kind of felt good in his company as he always got me laughing at one or the other jokes of his, even looking at his face made me laugh at times. I never knew what was going on in his mind but I did want to know him. As days passed we became pretty good friends and went on walks around the campus. I hadn’t realised it until next few days that he started liking me but I knew i did not like him in the way he liked me, I just liked spending time with him because he used to make me laugh all the time. This was not something I asked for I din wanted him to like me, I din want to hurt anyone or break someone’s heart or lose a friend like him who got me laughing even in my troubled times so somehow I handled the situation by not spending much time with him and whatever time I did spend I spent making him understand things so he didn’t end up getting hurt. It was not easy to let go of a friend like that but I just had to.

When I somehow managed and got out of this situation, life threw yet another guy at me, when all I had asked for was to be thrown into a good PG and get some peace of mind.