Worst Case Scenario
AN One Shot
Neha pushed her spectacles back on her nose. 'This is too much,' she thought, looking at Ajay flirting with two pretty girls near the restaurant. She'd just stepped out of the office after a 14-hour workday. She looked like a zombie.
The girls were clad in impeccable designer ware, right from the ray-bans perched on their highlighted, blow-dried straightened hair to the vibrant flipflops with matching pedicure.
Then she looked down at her own apparel- rumpled tracks slung low on her hips, a t-shirt that was definitely not designer and unruly hair tucked in a casual pony tail. Life was unfair, and she knew it. Even if she danced in front of the guy holding pink pom-poms and wearing a yellow mini skirt (so unlike her, really), he definitely wouldn't notice.
To him, she was 'Neha'. Just Neha, who sat on the office computer and hacked systems, downloaded information illegally with innate nonchalance. Neha, who wore dresses or jeans to work, nothing like the garments worn by the two girls. Neha, who had to go and fall in love with him.
She sighed and walked away in the opposite direction.
The next day, Ajay was sitting on the chair next to Neha's, spinning around. Seeing her enter, his face lit up.
"Hey Neha! Kahaan thi tum? Kitni der se intezaar kar raha hoon."
Neha barely glanced at Ajay as she brushed past him and threw her bag on the desk. She needed to sit down. An Ajay Desai who waited for her gave her palpitations.
"Kuch kaam hain?" she asked brusquely. Ajay winced. Neha had been giving him the evil eye for the past month or so. It was taking all his self control not to confront her. Shyna too had advised him that it would be a foolhardy thing to do ' but he was a fool anyway.
He tilted his head to look at her. "Koi problem hain Neha?"
"Nahin toh."
"Kya main koi help kar sakta hoon?"
Neha's eyes widened in surprise. She kneaded her forehead with her index fingers. "Nahi Ajay, tum koi madad nahi kar sakte. Ab jao."
He shrugged casually and walked towards his workstation. His male alter ego stood leaning on the metal frame, smoking a pseudo cigarette.
As Ajay neared, Boxer raised his eyebrows. "Ab tune kya kiya?"
"Uska mood jab kharab hota hain, toh main hi jimmewar hota hoon?"
Boxer pretended to think for a minute. "Haan." He dropped ash from his Lexi pen.
"Pagal ho gaya hain Boxer? Ek mahine se aise dekh rahi hain..jaise'jaise mujhe rabies hua ho!"
Both thought to the time when Ajay had been bit by a dog a month ago and both scrunched their noses at the same time.
"Rabies nahi Ajay, kuch toh hua hain. Aur wo bhi tumhe nahi, use."
Ajay blinked once, twice, thrice. Then he decided to pretend as though he had not understood what Boxer meant.
"Pichle case main mile drugs hand over karne ke wajah khud hi le liye Boxer bhai?" he asked jestingly.
Boxer made a shooting gesture at Ajay, blew on his smoking pen and walked away, the trench coat rumpling in his wake.
Ajay looked over at the woman a few workstations away. He knew exactly what was troubling her, and he was the one responsible for it.
From the time she had confessed her feelings accidentally, Ajay had been treading on eggshells around her. It wasn't like he didn't reciprocate her feelings, but well'as Ajay told himself over and over, he was a player. Girls came and went. Very few stayed around for more than two, three months tops. Neha was the kind of girl who came and stayed in your life forever. Ajay had strong resolve not to, but as each day passed, he found himself being more than just interested in her.
Heck, he'd even agree to a long term relationship at this point ' but the fact was that Neha didn't even look at him. It was like he'd go invisible for her'and that thought made Ajay's heart churn with pain.
A small alarming thought went running through his head, which made him abandon his perch next to Neha and run off to find his colleague.
Neha looked at Ajay run, as if he were preparing for marathon and sighed. No doubt he was late for another date with a girl.
In fact, Ajay was searching for a girl, for consultation that did involve romantic feelings, but they were not directed towards her. They were, in fact directed towards a bespectacled, grumpy girl hammering away at her computer.
"Shy!"
She rolled her eyes and turned away from Aaryan. Aaryan chuckled. "Kyun Ajay marathon ki taaiyaari ho rahi hain?"
"Not now, Aaryan."
Aaryan's eyebrows rose and disappeared in his hair.
Shy threw Ajay a sardonic glance and with a nod at Aaryan, she left the room with Ajay trailing behind her like a lost puppy.
"Shy please! Tum to uski dost ho na! Toh fir?"
Shy merely walked, ignoring the man following her. "Toh fir kya?"
"Please'please mujhe sach batao."
She stopped abruptly and whirled around, her long hair slapped Ajay's face. Aaryan winced as he saw this from his cabin ' he was very interested in Shy. Not Shy, really, he corrected himself, but in this consultation of Ajay's problems.
"You are an idiot, Ajay Desai," she said, but she was looking at the person in the cabin. Ajay rolled his eyes. She wasn't saying that to him, was she?
"Kahin pe nigahen kahin pe nishana," he said to a blushing Shyna and pushed her inside the pantry. They came out in five minutes- Ajay was looking visibly happier.
The next day, as Boxer was leaving, he motioned to his buddy. "Chal raha hain na Ajay?"
Ajay declined and instead, leaned over the wall of his cubicle.
"Hey Neha!"
Though he pretended to be absorbed in Ajay's computer, Boxer was listening to every word. And so was Shyna, who had crouched near the cubicle wall adjoining Neha's. Aaryan Khanna stood poring over a file in the shadows. Only Papaji had kept his distance ' nevertheless, his eyes wandered over to the scene unfolding in front of him.
"Mere paas do tickets hain." He produced two tickets of some movie. "Kya tum-"
"Nahi," she said flatly.
Shyna sighed and jumped to the rescue. "Ajay, you are so sweet. Thank you for the tickets," she said, grabbing them out of the hands of a visibly stunned Ajay. "Nine ka show hain Neha, hum zaroor jayenge. I'll call you," she said, picking up her bag and jacket. She paused for a moment and stuffed one of the tickets in Neha's hands. Before the girl could respond, however, she was on her way.
Sharing an eyeroll with Aaryan and with a good-bye wave at Papaji, she disappeared through the door, followed by a chortling Boxer, escorting Ajay, who seemed to be in a trance.
"Kisi ladki ne," he whispered, "aaj tak mujhe refuse nahi kiya. Kisi bhi ladki ne nahi'"
Boxer laid a hand on his friend's shoulder comfortingly.
Neha picked up her purse and looked around her flat once more. Then locking the door, she trudged down the stairs. After talking with Shyna, they'd decided that she would pick Neha up at eight thirty.
At the dot of eight thirty, Neha was on her place. A motorbike purred to a stop beside her and she looked at Ajay with undisguised disgust.
"You deceitful'rogue!" she cried. "Shyna kahaan hain?"
He said gravely, "Sunny ko achanak ghar aana pada, so Shy nahi aa saki. She didn't want to inconvenience you, so instead, she gave me the ticket.
Neha thought for a moment that he must be lying ' but then she realized that Shy would never use her son to do this. Every word he'd uttered was true, she discovered, on the way to the theatre, riding behind Ajay. Shy sounded worried on the phone but had asked her to have fun.
Hah. As if.
But surprisingly, Neha discovered that there wasn't only macho-ness to Ajay. He was something beyond that. The movie was a romantic-action film so she wasn't bored ' but she was baffled by Ajay's attitude. He had bought the tickets, so she offered to buy the food (as a last ditch attempt to tell him this wasn't a date, though she wanted it to be) and noting her earnestness, he'd agreed.
Standing in line to get some popcorn, he'd leaned down to whisper in her ear, "Par Neha, agli date par main hi paise doonga."
She was on cloud nine. Instead, she growled, "Dream on."
After the movie, he dropped her off to her apartment. He leaned against his bike as she stood in front of him, clearly uncomfortable and scuffing the ground with her toe.
Finally, she looked up. "So that's it?"
"Unless you want ice cream," he said evenly.
"No, thank you," she said.
"I hope we can do this more often, Neha'"
She laughed. "Tum kya keh rahe ho Ajay? This is it!"
"What do you mean," he asked, folding his hands across his chest.
"This," she said, struggling to keep the tears out of her eyes and her voice. "This pity date thing'"
"Pity date!" he thundered. "Tumhara dimag to kharab nahi ho gaya na Neha?"
She looked surprised. "Tumhe pata hain Ajay'how I feel about you. You don't really need to'.you know'." She trailed off.
To her everlasting surprise, the anger and the annoyance on his face deepened. "No, I don't know. Explain it to me, Neha."
She took a deep breath. "You don't need to reciprocate what I feel, except out of your free will'"
He chuckled, the rage disappearing. "This isn't out of my free will?"
"It isn't, right? Just because Shy couldn't come, you had to."
"I'd brought those tickets in the first place!"
She looked at him, comprehension dawning on her face.
"I'll just say this once Neha, don't make me say it again. I really like you. And I want there to be an us," he said with an air of finality.
Coming from Ajay that was like a declaration of eternal love. She was happy for it, atleast for now.
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