Chapter 2

Truths

“U just tell her na, you had to take ur kid to school and didn’t take the staff bus” Roshan her colleague in Guest Billing department whispered over the aisle

They had uniforms, a lovely peacock green blue saree, a cotton version and a crepe version. It rained 10 months in Mumbai, she didn’t wear hears today out of sheer irritation

She had walked two blocks in rain to pick up the six sarees from the dry cleaners last night, she rubbed her eyes, the contacts in her right eye bothered her real bad

Her eye was quickly turning bright red

She dabbed it and continued working

The delivery guy had crashed his scooty she was told

“Shhhh, don’t say it loudly” Mrunal just stared at her screen

She was the head of Billing and Credit, she mainly worked with large multinational companies’ Accounts departments to reconcile unexplainable charges

She had 7-9 people on her team at any point

She didn’t have a stellar resume, she went to a party school, St Xaviers in Mumbai and barely scraped through a IHM Diploma.

The last 10 years had taught life and career the hardest way possible

“Sahara team we were going to transfer the credit to the Goa resort”

“No that was only 7 people out of a team of 142 people” Roshan reminded her

“Neeti ko kehna padega” Mrunal reminded herself about the charge

“How many did we credit?”

“27” “Reverse it before you pull the afternoon reports” Roshan whispered

“OK I am down two people today, I cannot pull the reports and do the recon yaar” she whispered

The boss was a tyrant, Mr Debashish Sen, he darted many glances outside, to check on Roshan and Mrunal

He was on to Mrunal

Maybe he wanted her fired, she did not know

She was Credit manager, Roshan was Manager of Customer Billing

She needed to keep her act straight and was not

Jaidrith’s school called at 11ish to report he had thrown up, she panicked and stood in the stairwell and talked to the school nurse 

She had accidentally added jeera instead of ajwain in his besan pancake

He was allergic to jeera

Her face paled, she could go pick him up

She had two “acquaintances” but no dear friends

Both lived in Khar, one was the nurse in her labor and delivery room, same age as Mrunal… her name was Sai Holkar

She texted Sai “Tumhi aata Jai gheu shakata?”

“Nakko…mee feri maarat aahe” she texted back immediately

Mrunal didn’t know if it was truth or a lie… she was suspicious and untrusting and skeptical of everyone

She called the school again after pacing the stairs for 10 minutes, rubbing her eyes and pressing her contact down in her eye

“How is he?”

“He is fine” the nurse chuckled

“Oh?”

“He didn’t want to do PE” she laughed

“So he didn’t throw up?”

“He said he wanted to and did it one time bas wohi… abhi he is watching me post a video on school safety”

She was irritated by Jai’s absolute mortal fear of doing any group activity

“No pick up?”

“No” said the nurse

She heard footsteps, Database, report building team was on the 10th floor, Debashish was walking down the stairs after forcing that team to build a report secretly

The same report Mrunal would run at 2 PM

He wanted it NOW

So he could pick at it so when she presented at 2 he could tear her up

She almost dodged him, too late

“Ms Ghatge” he nodded

“I thought of getting steps to go to my car to get another pair of contacts”

“And waste 40 minutes?” he nodded

“I would have worked late” she nodded

“Sure” he cackled sarcastically.

“You think I will leave at 5?” she smiled hoping to make small talk

“I KNOW u will Ms Ghatge”

“U cannot make such confident statements so casually Debashish”

“I can when I know the truth” he nodded giving her a sharp look, tapped his iwatch and left her

He knew she left at 5 SHARP she had to run to Jai’s school, after school day care was only until 6:30

She had gone over 6 times already in the 3 months of school

The fine was Rs.250 for each time

They only allowed 20 a year

She ran to the bathroom carrying her purse she always had multiple extra pairs in there, and removed her contacts, To reveal the MOST beautiful blue eyes, nobody in this office had seen her real eye color… Madhao Rao Ghatge, Sagar Ghatge’s father had the same eyes… They were Deshahasta Brahmin or as they say DEBRA, hence the blue green eyes.

She knew her eyes… she never looked at her reflection in the mirror even at home she wore her contacts without looking

She took them off at night with no bathroom lights

That was the first thing people noticed about her

He was drunk? Smitten? Stricken? Infatuated? With those eyes as well

She quickly bend down and rinsed her face and pulled out a new box hurriedly