Serious in Love ✔

19- "Love is like wine- Gets better with age."

19- “Love is like wine— Gets better with age.”

AHANA

Maitree Bhagyashree— A thirty eight year old woman with thirty eight years of wisdom and experience. She started out as a freelancer— taking small odd jobs from different companies. She had to work like that for almost two years since she never studied fashion. Coming from a science background, it was difficult but with enough knowledge, experience and patience in the freelancing field, she was able to fetch herself a position in one of the renowned fashion lines of the country. She then worked for Tejaswi fashion line for two and a half years before getting promoted to where she aimed for— Costume designing. In other words, the Haute couture route. In those years, she became an expert in both designing outlines on paper as well the dress. Between her ages, twenty nine to thirty six, she experienced a prominent jump in her career. She became a sensation. Her quality designs were valued, priced off, with few of them worn by the celebrities itself. It was the best high of her life.

After stepping down from costume design, she opened her own fashion line in her name. You can easily find her in her boutique where she designed kurtas and even party dresses upon special request. She was well settled down with her own clothing line, her husband and her seventeen month old son.

To think that I was getting mentored by a accomplished person such as her— Damn, I must be born under a lucky star to get an opportunity like this. I didn't knew she was such a star person when I met her. The workers were shocked when Maitree agreed upon being my mentor for the next ten months. Not because she saw something special in me but because she felt like sharing her knowledge with someone. And also because she could relate to someone from a non- fashion background.

In the past six weeks I've been learning under her, I felt like I had entered a whole new dimension. I was being introduced to new methods, terms, a whole new pandora of creativity. Although not everything was flowers and unicorns as I imagined to be. Sometimes I had to work relentlessly, staying late evenings till eight. At other times, it was really stressful and annoying, especially with the stitching and cutting part. I wasn't quite interested in those things but Maitree said I should atleast know the basics of everything first. Often I had the urge to give up but I didn't. Because for the first time in a long while, I felt contented. The fact that I felt tired after I returned home meant that I accomplished something, that I was worth something. The more time passed, the more grateful I was, for my last minute decision (again, thanks to Piyush). It was enough to wake up to the next day.

It was weird working alongside Nisha at first, but having her itself was a huge boon. She would often help me but my wicked mentor would stop her, saying I needed to learn on my own. As time passed, Nisha introduced me to the rest of the gang working for the boutique and soon I found my new friends in them. They had even nicknamed their boss as  Maggie due to her hair strands that rolled up like noodles. Maitree was moody as fuck. She wasn't the type to shout at others but she would show her cold anger by making us work hard if we did anything wrong. Sometimes she was kind, sometimes she was a demonic bitch, while at rare times, she would be sitting alone, looking as distant as ever. Regardless of her mood swings, everyone loved her. Not me though, I only liked her. There's a difference.

It was one Friday afternoon. I was absolutely not in the mood to work today. I was tired from a long week of work and Maitree's son only made it worse by running all over the studio, misplacing the materials he found. It was a stressful day.

Until a single message in my mobile changed it all.

“NISHAAAA~” I yelled, my voice reverberating across the huge studio room I was in. Every head turned to me as I ran across the room to pull her into a tight hug but I hardly cared. It was lunch time anyway.