Chapter 1
Rohit, since the day booked his tickets for Mysore to attend the foundation program at Infosys, dreamt of writing a story titled “Mysore Love Story” . He entered into the Infosys campus with high hopes of making a great professional career in IT industry, the same dream shared by thousand others while entering one of the best IT training campuses in the world. He was accompanied by his friend Piyush, and both were from the same city. Just after entering the campus his eyes were wide opened to see the huge but well designed campus. The majestic GEC 2 building and the multiplex were instant attention grabbers while on the way to the hostel room which anyway were nothing less than a mini heaven.
It took him a few days to roam around in the campus and get a feel of it. He particularly liked the ECC area where he could enjoy all the sports facilities. In the meantime, formal training sessions started and he being a
bright coder managed all the spare time to enjoy the beauty of the campus. This campus is the best extension of college
for studies where one is actually paid to study. The days went by, his friend
group increased but none of them was anyway near to the ‘special’ friend he was looking
for.
It was about two months already into his four month training and his story
was like ‘so far, so good’. He was able to make three very good friends and
many other friends to enjoy outings and have drinks with. One day he left form
the class early while rest of his friends were still working on their
assignments. He went to a food court to have his favourite MDP filter coffee in
small steel cups. Next to her on the counter stood a girl, tall and fair with
big beautiful eyes. She ordered for the same filter coffee in similar small
steel cup. Oh! Yes he was in love at that very instant. He looked into
her eyes and passed a broken smile. His heart was throbbing and his body went numb.
They both took their cups with steaming hot coffees and went to their tables
and started sipping coffee in silence. The girl left first and Rohit was left
behind wondering about what has happened. He wanted to talk to her but couldn’t
think of a way to approach her. By this time his friend Piyush had found a new
girl friend for himself. He had always been a Casanova contrary to Rohit who
was always a shy person.
One day he was sitting with Piyush and his girlfriend Tanya in the
multiplex food court when he saw that girl again. She looked a little exhausted yet so pretty. She was
approaching toward their table. He
almost skipped his beat and in the mean time she was standing just besides them. She
started talking to Tanya. Yes, she was Tanya’s roommate. Tanya introduced her to Rohit and Piyush. Her name was Sagarika. They had their dinner together.
They talked about all the formal stuff ,from
training schedule , Java and SQL to the food served in the food courts. Sagarika was not as good
in coding as Rohit was ,so Rohit offered her his help, which she
accepted gladly. They would daily sit and discuss about all the coding concepts but within 2-3 days their discussion topics completely changed from JAVA to something personal to their lives. Slowly, Sagarika formally
joined in Rohit’s friend circle and this assimilation was aided by the fact
that she was Tanya’s roommate. Then this group of 4 could be seen together on
various timings like dinner or movie or late night walk in campus or b’day
celebrations, etc.
Within next 15 days, there were quite a few long conversations and in
numerous small conversations between them. Rohit made sure that other friends
in his group were not aware of his conversations with Sagarika,as he was afraid
that like any good friends, his friends will tease both of them about what’s
cooking in and probably everything would be spoiled even before anything is in
place. Rohit was getting attracted towards Sagarika not just because she was
attractive or beautiful but because he looked in her, a person he could relate
to. They both had a same outlook toward life and similar affinity
towards food, coffee and good books. The time they used to spend together used
to be the most cherish able moments of the day.
But what an irony is this –there
is a difference between things you appreciate
and things you actually possess. Rohit was waiting for right
moment to let Sagarika know of his feelings. Sagarika on the other hand thought
of Rohit as a well caring and simple
guy. She was more than happy to have him as a friend and just as a friend.
As the time passed there were numerous late night walks between them, in
the group as well as alone. There discussions at times used to get quite intense.
Then that day came – day when training was supposed to get over and everyone
would be expected to depart for their place of posting. Their group decided to
enjoy these last few days to the fullest extent – extent of just sleeping for
2/3 hours per day for last 7 days. During one of those last days, came
the turning point. Rohit realizing that training period is coming to an
end and if he does not propose to Sagarika now ,it would be the lost case for
him. But like a typical Indian lover, he was not sure of what would be going in
Sagarika’s mind and was very very afraid and nervous to propose her. As there
were not many options left for him – he had to propose to her but had to choose a
careful way. He sat whole night long to write his first love letter. He
wrote a small poem too and was all excited to propose Sagarika in the most
romantic manner he could think of.
But to everyone’s surprise their postings were decalared out of the
blue. While Rohit, Piyush and Tanya got Pune as their postings Sagarika had to
go to Chennai. All his dreams were shattered at that very moment. It just
seemed that this one was not supposed to be a lucky story with all the stars favouring them.As they say, when you love a person who is a very good friend too, it is always more difficult to tell that person about your feelings, as you have your friendship at stake.So in the end Rohit just could not gather his
guts to give that letter to Sagarika. Everything happened in such a hurry that
he just could not say what was meant to be said. In just two days they all left
for their respective DCs and his dream to write “Mysore Love Story” just couldn’t
come true. The letter still rests in his wallet. They talk on phone once in a
while. Rohit stil loves Sagarika and other side of the story is still unknown.
Yes all stories don’t have a happy ending!!
