An official matter episode 4

Ruhi went to her desk. She was happy that apart from her, there was someone in this office who liked Vikram Kumar. Mohit had told her that the book ‘Path of Love’ was gifted to him by someone. Is that someone Shobhit? If yes, it would be great. Why? Amidst office blues, there was someone who would talk about Vikram Kumar’s stories. Kirti is a super cool buddy but then, she never read Vikram Kumar and she could not relate to the stories. Well, all the same, Ruhi’s emotions for Vikram Kumar had changed. She had fallen in love with Vikram Kumar, not Vishaaka Khatri.

Ruhi’s headache started getting worse. She is a chronic headache patient and plain paracetamol barely helped her. She usually needed a medicine which had aceclofenac with paracetamol. However, that medicine was not available in office. She could hardly focus on her work. She was nauseous. The moment Kirti saw Ruhi she knew Ruhi needed to go home and she needed proper medicine. She told Ruhi, ‘ Ruhi, go home. Can you drive or shall I ask someone to drop you?’. Ruhi said, ‘ It’s my head. It feels someone is hammering all over my neurons. If I get the tablet with aceclofenac and paracetamol I will be fine in an hour. However, plain paracetamol never helps me.’ Kirti said with concern, ‘ Let’s do this. You go home. Keep your car here. This place is pretty safe. I don’t want to send you in a cab. Let me ask someone if he/she can drop you. You can get the medicine on the way.’ Ruhi said, ‘ Kirti, it would not be wise to ask somebody to drop me at lunch time. I mean he/she will have to come back all the way to office after dropping me. If there is a pharmacy near by, if someone can get me the tablet, I will be fine in an hour. In fact I can go get it.’ Kirti said, ‘ Yes, there is one across the road. I will go get your medicine. You can’t go in this pain. Text me the name.’ Ruhi texted the name of the medicine and Kirti was about to leave for the pharmacy when someone came and put a zerodol p tablet on Ruhi’s desk. Ruhi and Kirti turned around. It was Shobhit. Ruhi and Kirti looked at Shobhit surprised and Kirti said, ‘How did you know? Where did you get it?’ Shobhit took Ruhi’s water bottle from her desk, went to the water dispenser near by , filled up the water bottle with water, gave it to Ruhi and said, ‘ Have the tablet first, feel better and then if you wish, you can go home. If the pain subsides and you can manage to wait till 6, I can drop you home.’ With her pain hitting her bad Ruhi could not smile but she gulped down the tablet and said, ‘ I don’t know how to thank you Shobhit. This medicine works for me. I should be fine in an hour. After that I can drive home.’ Shobhit smiled and said, ‘Get well soon. By the way, I carry painkillers with me because while playing lawn tennis, I do get bad sprains occasionally. I heard you girls talking about pain and hence got this. By the way, trust me, I didn’t eavesdrop.’ Kirti and Ruhi laughed. Ruhi then said, ‘ Thanks again!’. Shobhit said, ‘ Cheers! See you!’

Ruhi started feeling better. Within an hour she was fine. At lunch, as always, the entire team came together. Ruhi then casually asked, ‘ So guys, how many of you are avid readers. Kirti said laughing, ‘ Not me’. Sneha said, ‘ I read only text messages.’ Everyone laughed. Shobhit did not say anything. Ruhi then asked nonchalantly, ‘ I am an avid reader. My all time favourite author is Vikram Kumar.’ Kirti giggled and said, ‘ Yes guys, she fell in love with Vikram Kumar and then couple of days ago, she came to know Vikram Kumar is Vishaaka Khatri’s pen name.’ Everyone laughed out loudly including Shobhit. Ruhi slapped Kirti’s shoulder and said, ‘ Can’t you keep quiet?’. Ruhi then asked everyone, hoping Shobhit would say something, ‘Seriously? You guys don’t know Vikram Kumar?’. All of them said in sync, ‘No’. Shobhit too said no.

Ruhi was perplexed. She told herself, ‘ Maybe I am overthinking. It could be that Shobhit just stumbled upon the page or was I hallucinating because of my headache? Or is Shobhit hiding something?’

After lunch, the day just flew by. Ruhi had to catch up with all the work she could not finish in the morning. She looked at her watch. It was 7:00 p.m. Kirti said, ‘ Not going home Ruhi?’. Ruhi said, ‘ I will finish the tasks and come. You carry on.’ Kirti left. By the time Ruhi finished her work for the day, it was 10:30 p.m. Her phone rang. It was from her dad. He was worried. Ruhi said, ‘I am going to leave for home in another 10 minutes Papa. Don’t worry.’ Ruhi took out her car keys and was about to leave for the parking space when Shobhit came and said, ‘Let me drop you home. You can keep your car here. It’s late.’ Ruhi smiled and said, ‘ Thanks Shobhit, but I am fine now. I will go on my own.’ Shobhit then said, ‘ Maybe we can talk about Vikram Kumar’s stories on the way.’

Ruhi stared at him for straight 10 seconds. Shobhit gave a pleasant smile to Ruhi. Ruhi still looked at him confused and said, ‘ B..b..but, you said…’. Before Shobhit could say something, his phone rang. It was Rajat. Shobhit looked at Ruhi and said, ‘ I am sorry Ruhi. There is an error in the new environment. Before transition I have to fix it. I will have to stay back. I will ask Rajat to drop you.’ Still in a dazed state of mind, Ruhi said, ‘ It’s absolutely fine. I will drive home.’ A voice from behind said, ‘ We usually don’t allow female employees to stay back after 10:00 p.m. I will drop you home.’It was none other than Mohit. Ruhi was startled. First, she did not expect Mohit to come and say this and second, she wanted to know why Shobhit did not talk about Vikram Kumar at lunch?’ While she was engrossed in thoughts, Mohit said, ‘ I think we should leave now. You can keep your car at the parking lot. Tomorrow morning you can take a cab and come to work. Company will reimburse the amount you pay.’ Ruhi was about to say something, when Mohit said, ‘ Shall we go?’. Ruhi knew it was futile telling him anything. He wouldn’t listen.

In the car, Ruhi did not know what to talk. Had it been Shobhit, she could have talked about Vikram Kumar or any topic under the sun. How is she going to talk to this Khadoos? It was usually a one hour drive from work to home for Ruhi because of traffic menace. But today, it took only 30 minutes. Through out the drive Mohit did not utter a single word. The radio played all the romantic music of bollywood. Ruhi looked at the night sky and enjoyed the music while Mohit just drove without any expression. When they reached her home, Ruhi warmly said, ‘Thank You!’ Mohit said, ‘ Welcome!’ with zero warmth. That was pretty much expected. Ruhi went home. Before Ruhi entered the gate of her society, Mohit had already left. Ruhi thought, ‘ Such a khadoos he is. A gentleman usually waits for a girl to enter her home before he leaves. No one leaves a girl at the gate and leaves. Why am I even expecting this from Khadoos?’ Thinking so, she rang the door bell. Her anxious father was relieved to see her.He hugged her tight and said, ‘ Sweetheart, tell your boss that you will finish your work from home if it is late. Don’t stay this late at work.’ Ruhi smiled and said, ‘Roger that!’.

After dinner, Ruhi checked her phone. She went to Vikram Kumar’s page. There was a new video message from Vikram Kumar aka Vishaaka Khatri. She had addressed her fans and said, ‘Being a writer, there is one thing, I would like to tell all my fans. Writing, like any other job, is never easy. Nonetheless, when we have passion, we do it, we find it easy. All the same, in following your passion and your duty, never neglect your health. Any health issue, right from cold to headache, means your body wants you to take care. So, please take care.’ Ruhi was stunned. What a coincidence! Today morning itself, she had suffered from headache and today Ms. Khatri sent this video message. Ruhi replied to that message and said, ‘ You are right maám. Today itself I suffered from this bad headache because of lack of sleep. I am going to take care of myself henceforth.’

Next morning, there was a ‘like’ from Vishaaka Khatri in Ruhi’s message. At the stand up meeting at work, after all the updates, Mohit said, ‘ Guys, this project is very important for us. However, I had said this before and I am reiterating this, no female employee should stay back at work after 10:00 p.m. If there is something important, she can work from home. That’s fine. Although we all feel it’s safe for women to commute in these parts of the city at night, we need to understand that the risk is always there. Moreover, family members, specifically parents do get worried when their daughters are late from work. You can understand the anxiety and worry of the parents when you look at them.’ Ruhi was flabbergasted. Parents, anxiety, worry? Did Mohit see her father’s anxious looks? That means he was waiting for her get home safely before driving back to his home…….

To be continued……..