Thanks everyone for all the support and encouragement. Sorry to have you all wait. But assure the next part not only sooner but also better. Hope you enjoy this update. Do leave in your comments.
PS: PMs will be sent later.
Part 7
Back to present
Standing by the window, Maan curled his fingers into a tight fist as he tried to shake out her images from his head… The pain was too much to contain… He wanted answers… He wanted to know why? But he knew he'll never get them. He was too proud to go back and ask her why? "No!" He banged his fist on the wall as he bellowed, "No! I'm never going to look back at you and ask why Geet… I'm never going to let you have the pleasure to see the pain and hurt that you have given me" As he finished, he pulled out the wind chime that hung above the frame right in the middle of the large French windows and threw it. It landed on the floow with a loud clamour and shattered. As the wind chime landed on the floor, Anu who was standing by the door quickly hid herself behind the wall. Wind Chimes were Geet's favourtie and she herseld had once hung it in his room and now he was determined to wipe her out of his world.
Ever since, Geet went missing, Anu had been worried sick about her. She knew her Veerji was moving heaven and earth together to get to her. So when Maan went somewhere without letting anyone know, she knew it had to be about Geet. She was hoping and praying for things to be alright and most importantly for Geet to be alright… for things to fall into place but then came the news of Maan's accident. She wanted to have a word with Maan as soon as they came home, but something about his demeanor told her that she should rather wait. After few hours, when she couldn't take the suspense anymore, she went to meet him. But then she heard those painful words dipped in venom and was taken aback. She knew there was no point talking now! But Geet couldn't be wrong; she wanted to tell her Veerji but didn't find words or courage to do so. How could she? She didn't even know what exactly went wrong. But she couldn't get herself even once to doubt Geet's intentions. She was the not the one who would toy around with other's feelings, instead she was the one who would go out of her way to help even a random stranger on the street. A single tear made its way down her cheek as she witnessed the unfathomable, tearful and abrupt termination of a beautiful relationship that had blossomed in front of her eyes. "This can't be… they were perfect… unhe saath hona chahiya tha" she tearfully muttered as she ran back to her room.
Nandita entered Maan's room a little later and lightly shut the door behind her. Maan looked at his mother and then quickly turned back towards the window to hide the pain that was so visible on his face. Nandita put down the breakfast tray that she had brought for him and asked in a stern voice, "Do you have anything to say Maan?" But he kept quiet. She went a step ahead, "I am your mother. And I have the right to know what is going on. Past whole month you have been acting strange and kept aloof. But this has to be the limit. How could you be so careless and from when did you start loosing yourself to alcohol?" Not wanting to discuss this further, he just said, "I'm sorry to have let you down Mom. You won't have troubles from me anymore." Nandita looked a little shocked, "What kind of a reply is that Maan? Aur tum do din se kahan the? Humari wedding anniversary party pe bhi tum nahi aaye? Didn't you assure me you would be there?" Maan shut his eyes. He wasn't prepared to answer these questions yet. Infact he didn't want to talk about it at all. Fidgety, Nandita spoke again, "I'm asking you something Maan". Finally opening his eyes and sighing he replied her, "Mom I said I'm sorry. I'm sorry for making you all worry about me" Shifting her weight from one foot to another, she said as she took a step towards him again, "Goenka's kitna naraz the jaante ho and Sameera, poor girl, she was so heartbroken! Do you know how embarrassed I was? I was to make a formal announcement of your engagement with her" Maan whipped around, "Engagement? (his expressions changed from somber to firm) without even asking me once?" Nandita looked appalled, "What was to ask? I thought you like her". Trying his best to sound polite Maan replied with finality, "Mom, jo ho gaya so ho gaya! I can't change it now… but I want you to know one thing… we are not discussing my marriage again… Please leave me alone for sometime" Taken Aback by his tone, as Nandita backed and turned to leave, she saw Savitri Devi standing on the door with a worried look. Maan saw her too and just as she was about to start, Maan interrupted her, "Please Dadima… I don't want to talk about anything" and he turned back to look outside the window again. Dejected, the two women walked out of the room quietly.
As much as he wanted, Maan knew he would never be able to forget her. He knew what Dadi ma came to talk about but he was jus tnot willing to discuss that. He was always very possessive about her. And not only her, but about anything and everything that was related to her. He was hurting but he couldn't bring himself to share this pain with anyone because this was also given by her and he would bear it by himself. He had never realized how and when she managed to carve this place for herself in his life…
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Flashback
Geet stood in his cabin, looking at the floor trying hard to put up a brave face and to hide her nervousness from him, while his gaze was fixed on his laptop screen. Tired of waiting she mumbled to herself, "Babaji ne yeh kaise insaan ke saath phasa diya hai, aadhe ghante se main yahin pe khadi hu aur inhone ek baar dekha tak nahi?" as she shifted her gaze, she caught him looking at her intently and she straightened herself. As she did so, she heard him speak, "So if you are done with your self-talk, can we get to work?" Offended, she replied, "Oh so aapne finally dekha, ki koi yahan khada hai?... I thought I would have to wait for eternity to seek your attention" Geet was still not over his mocking tone yesterday when he was trying to pull her leg and deter her confidence in the conference room. Undoubtedly, he was intimidating her but she couldn't let him know that and so she did her best to retort wistfully. What was there to loose anyways? She was just a trainee; at the most she would spend the rest of the time of her summer break at home and may even get lucky enough to accompany her parents to Hoshiarpur, she beamed at the thought.
"Don't you think you speak more than you should?" he asked in a lethal tone, but she in turn whiffed the air and countered, "Well atleast I speak my mind upfront, not unlike some people who go around throwing their weight and trying their best to deter the buoyancy of the poor earthlings!" Leaning back in his chair, he smirked and raised his eye-brow, "Hmm… so that means you were deterred Ms. Handa". Looking him in the eyes, she replied triumphantly, "don't relish in self-glory Sir. Its perfectly fine to put your feet on ground amidst flights!". Glaring at her, "Ms. Geet Handa, just in case if you have forgotten, you are talking to Maan Singh Khurana, the CEO of Khurana Group." Glaring back, "I have no issues with my memories sir. But you know what? Contrary to my assumption you look as human as any of us. (Feigning surprise) You don't even have horns you know." Maan looked her fiercely and interpreting his looks she replied, "if only looks could kill" and giggled. "Ms. Geet, this can cost you your term with the company", he threatened. Getting defensive, she now moved a step closer to his table "Kyun? Kyunki maine aapki baat ka jawab diya… Mr. Khurana find fault in my work and be fair! Don't forget yeh aapne shuru kiya tha", Narrowing his eyes, "Maine?" Folding her hands across her chest, "Haan aapne. Kal conference room main. Remember?"
The sight of Geet folding her hand, just like a small kid was a sight to behold… and tried as much as he may, he couldn't help a small smile that appeared at the corner of his mouth. However, he hid it almost as immediately. "I'm the boss here Ms. Geet. (getting a little serious) And before you say anything else, let me tell you one thing. Consider yourself lucky for having this opportunity to work on a project of this magnitude. The mall we are making is to be the biggest in the country and would surpass all the standards that have been seen in the real estate industry till date and Khurana's hold 80% stake in this project. So here we are no more working for the client but for ourselves. Now I want you to study the competition, refer to previous marketing plans and revise your presentation. And now you may leave. " He said getting back to his laptop and the minute she stepped out of his cabin, he looked up to see towards the door that she passed through just a moment ago.
As soon as Geet stepped out of his cabin, she imitated him, "now please leave… (looking up) Dekha babaji kaise baat ki…ek minute main kuch aur dusre minute main kuch aur… abhi meri tang kheench rahe the aur agle pal kaam… chado…" shrugging she went to her desk.
Her innocence, playfulness, full-of-life and affable personality had a certain influence, Maan thought. He now had a fair idea about how she managed to garner the affection of the whole office, just in a matter of days. He smiled and looking back at the screen of his laptop, got immersed in his work soon.
As much as they tried to ignore, they both knew that somewhere down the line they were enjoying it. Geet knew this was not the manner you spoke to your boss leave alone the CEO but something about him forced her, challenged her to stand upto him and answer him back. Was he testing her valour or trying to annoy her, courtesy her remarks that she had made oblivious to the fact that he himself was Maan Singh Khurana, she couldn't comprehend. Whereas for Maan, it was turning just as interesting as he had thought or perhaps more than that. Why was he even allowing a random trainee to answer him back, he couldn't guess. May be, he was just being a little playful with her trying to rib her off and gauge a reaction to which he could react too. Whatever it was, she was bringing in a fresh bout of air in the atmosphere and he liked it this way.
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Geet reached home one of the evenings and sensed the unusual tension building in the air. However, when he saw this man sitting on the living room couch, she immediately understood the reason behind it. Geet had seen this man earlier too, he occassionaly visited their house and whenever he did, her dad would be particularly unhappy about it while her mother did her best to pretend to be indifferent and suppress the underlying tension. Without a word, she went over to the dining table and poured herself a glass of water when she heard him, "Ab ladkiyan ghar se bahar jaakar kaam karengi", His voice was menacing and Geet spilled some water and immediately turned around to face him. However, before she could say anything Mohinder replied as he descended the steps, "Brij, Geet meri beti hai aur uske liye kya sahi hai aur kya nahi yeh main decide karunga." Then as it would always happen, Mohinder handed over some currency to him and asked him to leave. Brij left but not before turning and giving her a look that nonetheless send a chill down her spine. Once he was gone, he was never discussed and somehow though curious something about his body language, his voice, his attire told her that it would be better if he stayed a closed chapter.
Geet never liked Brij as well. He was the son of one of old acquaintances of her dad from Hoshairpur. No sooner than he would arrive her father would be keen to throw him out of the house. She wondered the beautiful place that she considered to be her bliss could ever nurture men like these.
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A week had passed and things continued in the similar manner. The only difference was that instead of Maan ribbing off Geet, it was turning out to be vice-versa most of the times. There had not been a single day when these two had not ended up at loggerheads.
Maan was on a phone call with a client when Geet barged in carrying a huge load of folders, trying hard to balance them all in her arms to prevent them from falling. "Now what?" was the only thought that came to his mind when he saw her walking in. Tilting his head a little he noticed one of the office peons was holding the door for her. Once inside she muttered something incomprehensible from somewhere behind the loft and came forward as the peon lightly closed the door. Still on phone, he was now eager to end the call and find out for himself what she was doing… "Mr. Chopra, I'll call you back in a while" he hurriedly disconnected the call as he got up from his chair and rushed to her side… "Ab yeh kya hai?"
"fimmess aiii" he heard her muttering and frowned. "What?" he asked confused. And the next moment Geet's foot got caught with the coffee table leg and all the files fell down scattering in the cabin and couple of them falling on his feet. "Ouchh" he groaned and looked at her irritated. She was holding a pencil in her mouth and still trying to hold on to the couple of folders that escaped the fall. "Soiieee" she said looking up at him apologetically.
He had been in a bad mood since morning. It didn't help that a particular client was being very difficult and had chewed up on his brains. Then she had come in with a proposal sent by the design team and an extensive marketing plan for the project. He handed her the market research data and asked her to prepare an analysis. However she had been pestering him every five minutes with one doubt or another. Running his hand through his hair, he asked her to bring in one of the old projects so that he could explain it to her once and for all. Mr. Gupta was busy with site work or else he would have taken care of it, but now he was stuck. When she couldn't spot that file, she called him but he rebuked her asking her to help herself once in a while. The result was she was here with a whole bunch of files which she thought could be helpful as the one he mentioned was no where to be seen.
He looked around the mess that she had created. "Isi ki kami reh gayi thi" he said, throwing his hands up in the air. "Sooiiee kaaha aa" she mumbled once again looking at him a little scared. "Huh?... jo kehna hai saaf saaf kaho" she placed the remaining files on the table and then removed the pencil from her mouth, "Sorry kaha na maine". Rolling his eyes, "Geet, yeh files yahan kya kar rahi hai?" she was looking around the mess as she said pensively, "Giri padi hai". Closing his eyes for a moment, he couldn't help but wonder was she doing this on purpose with a motive to drive him insane or if there was a permanent tempering with her brain wires!
Taking a deep breath, he asked her again, stressing each word separately, "Geet, Yeh-Files-Tum-Mere-Cabin-Main-Kyun-Lekar-Aayi-Thi" Geet looked at him confused, "Aap aise kyun pooch rahe hai? (but the look in his eyes told her to better answer his question then to project one of her own) woh… woh jo file aapne kahi thi woh nahi mil rahi thi toh main doosri files le aayi reference ke liye"
"Geet tumse ek kaam theek se nahi ho sakta. Files archives ke alawa kahin nahi hoti so it should be there. Lekin tumhe kaise mil sakti hai. Tum toh apni baaton main zyada busy rehti ho, hai na? Kitni baar tumhe kehna padta hai dhyan se kaam karo. Be responsible. Lekin nahi. Tumhare paas humesha koi na koi gadbad karne ke liye bahana humesha taiyar rehta hai. This is ridiculous." Geet was on the verge of tears by the time he finished admonishing her. He picked up his phone and barked at Sapna to come in. Sapna immediately came in and looked sympathetically towards Geet as she asked, "yes sir?"
"Golden Arcade's ki marketing plan aur proposals ki file Geet ko handover kar do" he ordered. However, Sapna looked at him perplexed, "Lekin sir woh file toh aapke hi paas hai" Both of them flipped at once to look at Sapna. "Mere paas?" he questioned. Sapna moved forward and picked up a couple of files from his table underneath which the archival file was resting. Picking up the file, she said, "Sir, couple of days ago you asked me to get it and I had kept it here when you were busy on some call" she handed over the file to him with a polite smile while Geet squinted her eyes at him and he completely avoided her gaze.
Sapna left the room but Geet kept glaring at him. Yes it was his fault, he had completely forgotten that he had asked for this file from Sapna but then Geet had created such a mess in his cabin and he was not going to apologize. Finally after a couple of silent moments he handed her the file and asked her to send a peon to pick the files up. Giving him one final look, she huffed out of his cabin. He was about to go back towards his desk when he saw something from the corner of his eyes. As he went ahead and picked the object, he saw a very delicate silver beaded bracelet. It was simple just like her but very classy. He was about to call her back to give it to her but then thought better of it. Carefully he put it in his coat pocket and refused to defy his actions to himself as he went over to his desk.
It was Friday and Maan reached office earlier than usual. While entering the building, habitually he looked at the vase kept on the security desk and it was empty. After he returned from Bangalore, he had never seen that vase empty and couldn't help a small frown that appeared on his forehead and he looked at the time. He realized it must be too soon for the staff to come in. Shrugging it off, he walked towards his own cabin. It was 10 now and the office was bustling with activity. Maan looked at his watch once again and then looked at his cabin door expecting it to open any moment just like everyday. Much to Maan's annoyance, it had become almost customary for Geet to barge in his cabin the first thing in the morning for something or the other. But today she had not barged in and for some reason he wasn't able to concentrate on the agreement copy he was suppose to review and sign. Why? He didn't know or probably knew but was not ready to accept.
An hour later however he picked up his call and dialed in for Sapna. "Sapna, ask Geet to come to my cabin and yes please ask her to carry her notepad. She may need to take notes." "But sir, Geet isn't coming in today infact none of the trainees are. Their term results were going to be announced today" Sapna replied. "ok" he said and placed the phone back in this place. He tried hard getting back to his job but somehow found it extremely difficult today. While moving around in the office involuntarily his eyes would drift off to Geet's desk. Probably he was not the only one who was missing the usual chatter in the office because he heard someone say, "Geet ke begair office kitna boring lag raha hai" But at least the rest were still doing their jobs, were still glued to their computer screens or were focusing on the files but he was just not able to do any of it. He was cranky and he also knew he was being unreasonable but he just couldn't help it. There was this sudden gloominess in the office that was overpowering everything else for him. Finally around at 7 in the evening when he left, he once again glanced at the empty vase on the security desk before leaving the premises. He just couldn't fathom what was happening. He neither wanted to nor was he prepared for.
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Bade Achche Lagte Hain Naya Season
36