CHAPTER SEVEN
As I stand at the crossroad,
I see the sun sinking low...
With my cross of indecision,
I can't tell which way to go...
whitesnake
Life is like a huge crossword puzzle and every one of our lives are like unformed and jumbled words waiting to be formed,to be given a meaning.we live our lives meandering without a purpose and then love forms the word and purpose.Gone is the meandering and purposeless existence and we pour life strength into this new person and purpose.for heartbreak and pain is better than meandering like the undead do,neither here nor there but floating in limbo.
All of us at some point in life come and stand alone in the crossroads of life,the traffic junction of our existence and are stuck not knowing which way to go.The wise men will say protect yourself and so think with your head but do we all follow the wise men sayings and ancient proverbs.Where is the joy in living a sterile and safe life without any mystery,pain and heartbreaks.It is as if the soul craves for action and so you jump right ahead and straight ahead into the oncoming traffic of life and that too headlong into a one lane where everything is rushing towards you at great pace.But with your eyes open,heart beating fast you stand bravely even at risk of losing your life and sanity.why,why do we do this?.Simply for love,the excitement of being in love,the thrill love brings to ones life.Everything tastes better,everything is in balance but you when you are in love.you feel you can jump off a mountain,you can spread your arms and fly like a bird when this euphoria of love strikes you and in the end you are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for that abstract emotion and sentiment.
CROSSROADS
Just as assistant commissioner balasubramaniam was talking to mr.rajashekaran down in the security office of APRICOT TOWERS two lives up above were slowly travelling towards each other.Mani sometimes, actually many a time forgot to eat and just went about his work and life not giving much thought to it.But today he was really hungry and thought that he would go up to the 14th floor where the multi cuisine restaurant was and probably have a dosa or a plate of idlis.
Mani worked for a company called SHRIRAM LEGAL ASSOCIATES which handled audits and taxes for big companies.Well in reality they helped their clients evade taxes by using loopholes in the system.Mani's job was to transfer all the data onto computers and also look for any mistakes and problems that could come back later and get their clients into big trouble.
It has been just three years since mani joined this company and already everything worked through him and everybody came to him for numbers,calculations and solutions.When mani started working in shriram associates,his co workers did find him vague,strange and a bit irritating.But then they all realised that it was not mani's fault but their own bad and rude judgement on how a person should behave or should be.Soon they learned to appreciate his mild and innocent personality and also came to respect his amazing mind which could recall numbers and client's case history by just thinking for a splits second.The chairman Rangarajan had given strict orders to all employees that mani was to be left alone and anybody who messed with him would be shown the door at the very instant.This totally insulated mani from the rest of the staff and he sat in his cubicle at the back of the office lost in numbers and taxes.This largely suited mani for he did not want much nor craved for much.
He lived a quiet life without friends or even casual acquaintances and went about his work with his head down.The only person he spoke to was HER and even those moments were rare for they were just happy to be close to each other.From the time when he was a child he had known only HER and interacted mostly only with HER and he was content with that.But sometimes he did think about shalini for he did not why but he felt something melt in his mind when he thought about her.Mani's time at shriram associates was thus going smoothly although it was not so in the beginning months when he had started to work there.In the first month of mani's time at the company he had to endure a bit of nasty time from a colleague called Thiruvengadam.
Thiruvengadam was the one who was the go to man in the company before mani had joined them.But thiruvengadam was a bit slow on his feet and so the chairman had thought getting him an assistant would speed up things a bit.It did speed things up,not by a bit but by a whole yard more.Reports and audits that took thiruvengadam a week to prepare were done in a couple of hours since mani joined the company.
The best part was mani did not know the effect he had on thiruvengadam and the rest of the staff by his amazing work.In any other company a person like thiruvengadam would have been replaced long time back and surely immediately after a person like mani had joined the company since he was doing the work equal to ten thiruvengadam's.But then he was related to the chairman in a distant way and that would have been a bit unpleasant.This sudden change in thiruvengadams status did not sit well with him for everyone kept praising mani and his work.
Maybe thiruvengadam had been an unpleasant man before but since mani joined the company he slowly turned into an evil person who tried and deviced ways to humiliate mani before others.Since mani's work could not be faulted he tried to pick on mani eccentric habits of talking to himself when in reality mani was talking to HER.But the rest of the office staff paid little heed to thiruvengadams bickerings about mani and largely ignored him and soon people started avoiding him.This isolation made thiruvengadam more desperate and one day he confronted mani in anger and threatened him with dire consequences.But the matter was hushed up and it never reached the chairman's ears and forgotten.
But SHE does not forget or forgive those or anyone that threatened mani.The next day news that thiruvengadam had died in an accident reached the office staff and although it was a sad thing,many actually heaved a sigh of relief and work continued and soon everyone had forgotten about thiruvengadam.
After waiting in line and picking up his plate of dosa and a cup of coffee,mani sat at a table in a corner which had a window.Lost as usual he slowly ate his breakfast not knowing that the place was fast filling and soon every table was occupied.Shalini stood with her plate and irritatedly looked for an empty chair to sit down.Then she spotted an empty chair in the corner and walked quickly towards it for just in case before somebody else got to it before she did.As she walked towards the chair she noticed the other chair was occupied by a man who was staring out of the window vacantly lost in his thoughts.For the sake of being polite she asked the man if the chair was taken and if not could she sit down.Lost in his thoughts the man did not even turn and reply but just softly whispered "please".
Shalini sat down and started hurriedly eating her breakfast when the man turned and looked at her and just like that two distant worlds collided.Their eyes met and two roads,two lives which had separated became one.Time stood still and their eyes looked at each other diving deep into the soul of the other.In an instant a rewind button was pressed and both of them were back in the past walking together from school talking,smiling although it was shalini who had done most of the talking.Their eyes met and love,relationships shared over many countless births came together as one profound moment.And shalini whispered "mani" and mani in his own way looked at her and smiled as if he had smiled at her everyday of her life.He looked at her as if she had never been away and just like that they reconnected.
Many a time we stand in a place and think we have been here before.so many times we meet people and try to recollect where we have met them before.and sometimes rarely but sometimes we come in contact with a person whom we think we know but have no memory of.but the heart never forgets.who will live,who will die.who will kill and who will be killed and all this for love.MAGIC
Edited by s.satishkumar - 11 years ago
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