Manav

Chapter 11 - The Important Decision

'COFFEE' was written on the mug. I held it tight and took a sip. With the sun kissing my face, I sat in front of my laptop. Fully focused and engrossed in it. And then he called me,                            

"Hey Manav!" Dev said.                             

"Yes speak." I said, with eyes totally on the screen.                                                       

"Yeah, so we all are meeting today evening. Are you joining us?"                                 

"Who we?"                                                                                                                                     
"Me, Shefali, Tanmay, Omkar and Priyanka."                                                                                                  

"Hmm...but we met each other recently right?" I said.

"Yeah, but that was sort of an official and formal meet, and this is an unofficial one. Why do you keep on asking such questions? Just come okay." He said, agitated.

"Okay okay, I'll come, I was just messing around with you." I said.

"Okay. By the way, your voice seems different. Are you thinking of something?"

"Oh, well, I'm making a very important decision." I said.

"Important decision? About what?"

"I'll let you know once it's done." I said and hung up the phone.

I took the last sip of my coffee, sat erect on the chair and pressed the left mouse button of my laptop and immediately got up from my chair with the coffee mug.

* * * * * * * *

I entered the gate of Narali Baug, a garden opposite to Shivaji Park. All were going to meet there.i entered through the gate. I saw all of them at a distant. They noticed I had arrived.

For no reason all were smiling at me. It was weird. Even Shefali was smiling at me. Priyanka wasn't there yet.

"What happened guys?" I asked.

"We know Manav." Omkar said.

"About what?"

"Come on now. Don't act as if you don't know anything." He said.

"The taxi scene." Tanmay teased me as he covered his mouth with his palm depicting that a third person popped that line. And Shefali giggled.

I understood.

"Aree, okay I get it." I said.

"No like, we all were talking and then all of a sudden from nowhere she asks for water and that too from you, and we all were like 'whaaaatt!'" Dev said.

"Ya, ya, ya." I said, trying to fuse down the topic. And that's when Piryanka arrived.

"Hi Priyanka!" Shefali said and gave a look to me. I gave her a serious look and looked down. I sensed that Priyanka was totally not aware of what was going on, but later when Dev continued to pull on the teasing, she also realized.

So we just chatted, all of them shared what was going in their lives. Laughs, smiles, awkward silences were shared. In that moment what I saw was, Priyanka gave me some stares in between and whenever our eyes met, I looked somewhere else, but she was aware that I noticed her. She looking at me so many times didn't really make me think of any reason that would satisfy her staring. Well, maybe this was the time where maybe she was observing the change in me. Or maybe not. Or maybe there would be something else. I don't know. Only her mind and probably heart knew what she contained. Those looks which she gave me, while her hair danced in the air due to the sea breeze, was just splendid. It was like I didn't hear any of the conversations those guys were enjoying, but I rather focused on the melody which played along when she stared at me. She didn't smile, she didn't show as if she was actually noticing me, but she just kept on looking at me in between. I freaking don't know why.