I have had an interesting last three months, January and February characterized by uncommon amounts of stress because of my work load, and March by a restlessness due to the lack of it.

I was working on a project with tight deadlines and unearthly working hours, we were all stressed out , overworked but still confident of turning in a good product. One fine Monday morning in March we came to office to discover that the project has been scrapped. Our client had been acquired by a competitor company which chose to effectively close down all in-house IT projects?.. leaving me and my team high and dry, with nothing to do. This is what we call being on ?Bench? in IT terminology.

The Bench is an interesting phenomenon, one which I honestly thought I would relish, I mean no work and full pay and the freedom to come and go as you please, that sounds like the closest thing to bliss right !!

Well I thought so too, but with less than a week gone by, I already resent it.

So it was with such wonderful thoughts about my self worth and motivation, yesterday I left office at 3 in the afternoon. Spent a lonely 5 hours, reading, watching a movie, waiting for her to get back home.

Strange, when I have all the time in the world at my job, she is in the middle of a brand launch !

She being busy as hell, and I being not? trust me its not good. I become edgy and irritable, and well she? she is often too busy to notice?

Yesterday night she called up to tell me that she will be late coming from Office, and I will need to pick her up halfway.

Well the news definitely did not do my mood any good, having already waited for her for ages to come home.

Thus, for absolutely no fault of hers apart from being rather sincere about her job, I blamed her the culprit in my male egoist mind?

She called to tell me when to come and pick her up, the weather had become cloudy , the evening having long disappeared into the night. I went off on my trusted Activa to pick her up, and a minute into the street, the drizzle had become steady enough to drench me.

The wet breeze reminded me of so many things. It was almost like being back in Goa, on our first trip after our wedding, with her behind me on a rented scooter, intentionally driving into every puddle on the road, without a thought to our soaking cell phones or dirty jeans? and those long ago walks in college, it drizzled then too did it not?

And when I reached her, standing a bit forlorn under a tree, with the showers having driven the traffic away from the roads, I had already realized what I dick I had been for these last few days

You fall in love, and get married, with pink hearts and roses strewn all over. And you forget at times, that a marriage just like any thing else, should not be taken for granted. In my own hectic life and a busier mind, I had started to forget a promise I made to myself, a year back, That above all, I will remain her best friend. And best friends do not accuse do they? they understand, they listen, they love.

The first post for the year 2006, guess I have been away for far too long?.

Comments from the past:

vani
10 Mar 2006, 2:48pm

RandomRamblings–The ‘best blog’in fullhyd. Luv reading ur blogs…
U made us wait long for that first post of the year…

nikki
10 Mar 2006, 4:04pm

another awsome post!!! … made us wait long enough but it proves the Sabar ka faal metha hota hai!!:)

Donnie
10 Mar 2006, 10:47pm

i second nikki….awesome dude !

June
11 Mar 2006, 6:05pm

liked yer title…

n ofcourse the post too…:)

hs
12 Mar 2006, 6:04pm

This is amazing ! I just finished reading Oliver’s Story ..and you sound freakingly like Oliver ! Its heartening to see that Olivers do exist outside the pages of that book 🙂 ..All the best !