Mohabbatein

The teachers of Hill Mount International School had been watching Chiranjeev Bajaj since he joined back school sans a wife. They had been waiting for an opportunity to pounce, smother him with love, ply him with many cups of tea or coffee – whatever he preferred really, they were prepared with expensive looking pomegranate green tea thingamajig as well – to get the story out of him.

This Wednesday was the perfect opportunity. Wednesdays were usually staff meeting days and since Jaya was on leave, they would have a token staff meeting before dissolving into a pool of gossip. Swati sourced the chips and cookies, Hiral brought in the cups of beverages and Anjlee had printed two sheets of paper that contained fifty questions on how to deal with a colleague who was going through some loss.

The fifteen teachers were armed to the teeth when Chiranjeev walked into the library, their preferred spot for meetings when Jaya was not around.

He knew, as soon as he stepped into the room, that today would be the day of reckoning. His fellow teachers, friends more like, had been shockingly patient with him and after the message he had received from Chanderi just that morning, he was more than ready to be reminded that he was in fact a lovable person.

The group pretended to do serious staff meeting business for ten painful minutes before Anjlee announced that she had enough minutes of the meeting to satisfy Jaya. Then, collectively, everyone turned to him and he took a fortifying sip of his – pomegranate was it – tea before spilling everything that had happened.

*

Chiranjeev reached home by 5. It was late, by far, but talking to everyone at school had helped him to not obsess over his message thread with Chanderi. But now that he was back home with nothing else to distract him, he couldn’t help but reread her last message.

When they had been leaving, Anjlee had taken him aside to give him a piece of advice. He hadn’t minded because she was the mother hen of their primary school division. As such, she gave the best advice, the kind of perspective that one needed.

If you want her back, become her friend, show her your true and vulnerable heart and fight for the future you see with her. If not, let this…and her go.

He had thought of nothing else since. 

It was only when he was in bed, unable to fall asleep, did he realise he wanted to give them another shot, even if it was a foolish hope. He picked up his phone. He did not want to touch that last message so he sent something random. He hoped she would get the hint that he no longer wanted to discuss the what haves.

I had a staff meeting today. It ran a little late because primary school teachers are huge gossips.

When he saw she was typing back almost immediately, he smiled.

Hilarious. You haven’t met my clients then. Half the time, they want me to design something that looks exactly like what their nemesis wore but different and superior enough that it looks new.
Why are you up so late?

Nemesis? That’s a bit much.
I’m up because I had a very weird tasting tea during our meeting.
Why are you still up?

I am up because I got this idea for a dress that would look just spectacular and I needed to get it on paper immediately. Hashtag life of an artist.

You’re the only person I know who uses hashtags on WhatsApp.

Hey hey hey Meta owns WA so who knows. Maybe the algorithm gods will prioritise my messages.

That makes no sense!

Can you imagine WA prioritising all those good morning messages from all the family groups *shudders*

Stop! You’ll give me nightmares.

As much as I’d love to chat, you need to sleep and I need to get back to this design. Sleep tight my friend, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Good night, friend.

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Chapter 13 of 26 of the ongoing series Chanderi. You can read all posts here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z.