Chapter 4
It was 8.00 AM and the hotel phone ran in Sri's room. Hi Darling! Time to wake up darling! That was the voice of the hotel receptionist and a person whom Sri hardly knew. And that wasn't an isolated salutation. When he arrived at the hotel reception it was the same tone and truly smiling faces - something that has nothing to do with professional obligations or impositions, but with a certain way of living and relating. It was a way of living for the Brazlian people a special way of facing life with a persistent and strange joy and intensity.
It has been over a week since he came to Rio-de- Janeiro. He thoroughly enjoyed the city and its people, everyone at work were friendly and he could relate to the people as they were very much family oriented like Indians. He had taken up a studio with a kitchen at the Copacabana palace overlooking the beach. Sri had a certain affinity to oceans and every night of his ended with a mile long relaxing walk along the beach ...just experiencing the cool breeze and musical sounds of the waves. There were two things though he never missed since he came to Brazil.
One was to view the sunrise every morning and the other was to chat with Soorya. Soorya was a morning person just like Sri was and she woke up everyday at 4.00 AM to do her school work. They had agreed before Sri left US that Soorya would send him an IM with a buzz sound to wake him up. They would both multitask by doing their work and taking breaks to chat. Sri made it a point not to miss the sunrise, he would sit near his Oceanview window and describe the colors and patterns of the sunrise.....Soorya would almost feel like she was right there at Rio-de Janeiro looking at the sunrise.
But today Sri overslept, he had worked late the previous night due to pending issues with his Washington office. Sri slipped on his robe and noticed that he had forgotten to connect the charging cord to his laptop. He booted his computer and impatiently waited to logon. Soorya had almost become a habit everyday, the first ever thing that he did everytime he logged on to his computer was to look for Soorya's email or message.
He logged on quickly and just as he thought he had numerous messages and dings and buzz from Soorya.
Soorya : Hey Krish Good morning
Soorya: Ding.
Soorya..Buzz..
Soorya: Wake Up Krish!
Soorya: ennada panra?
Soorya: aiyo naan assignment pannanum. Buzz me when u wake up.
Soorya: hey thoongu moonji! Wake up!
Sri smiled as he read on the numerous messages, some silly some angry and some funny! Just as he typed in his message for soorya he found that she had already signed out. He proceeded to write an email for her.
Apart from Rio-de Janeiro he was enjoying his life and the reason was soorya. He found her to be extremely sensible and sensuous person. Their conversations had taken a step further, now they had started discussing a lot more intimate subjects than what they did before. It was such an influence on Sri that missing a conversation even one day was a big deal for him. He started typing his message for Soorya.
Krish: I missed you soorya. Saw all your messages! Slept late last night. Will catch u soon. Cant seem to pass a day without chatting with you!
Sri hurriedly sent his offline message and jumped out of the bed to get ready. It was around the time soorya would be driving to school. She would usually logon once she was in school and by then Sri would be at work. Sri had become quite accustomed to soorya's chat timings, knowingly or unknowingly their timings co-ordinated well for them to chat.
It took an hour and a half for Sri to get back to his laptop at work and that was exactly the duration that took soorya to drive from her uncles place to school. But she had no complaints whatsoever as she put on her favorite illayaraja songs and hummed them all the way to school. Coming to US was a great stress reliever for her , school and her occasional volunteering at a carnatic music school helping in music and violin classes kept her at bay with her talents. She had conversed in detail about music with Krish and she was very much delighted about her common interests with him. Krish played the violin as well and he was trying to sing.
Soorya picked up her coffee and sat in her lab office. No sooner had she logged on to her messenger a message popped with a smiley face.
Krish: Hi Soorya! Sorry sorry!
Soorya: Its ok and that was quick! Were you just staring at the computer to catch me online.
Krish: ha ha, ok now can I ask you something.,
Soorya: what is it?
Krish: I asked you for your picture and you said no...thats fine. But can I hear your voice atleast.
Soorya: I am not sure if that's a great idea....krish. I will pass.
Krish: cmon soorya, this chatting all feels so virtual, I need to feel that I am indeed talking to a human in real and its just a phone call.
Soorya: well ok, I will call how about in a few minutes,
Krish: Whoa that was easy and I will be waiting. I will email you my number.
Soorya gulped her coffee and went to the basement of the building that had the phone booths. Her heart was pounding in excitement and her hands were cold as she dialed the Rio's international number
Edited by madumithas - 17 years ago