A New Beginning

The clock on his laptop showed 5:12 PM when he returned to his desk after his workout session. He still had a couple of hours before he could call it a day. He opened up his laptop, started checking the agenda for the meeting with the business folks at 5:30. Another window on his laptop showed his Gmail inbox – which had 1 unread email. Now, Aditya Krishnan was a man very particular with his mails and messages. He usually cleared off any pending items as and when they came in. And that’s why he just casually went to his inbox to check out the latest item. Seeing the sender’s name automatically brought a smile on his face. It was an email from a friend he considered very close. It was from Anushree, also the younger sister of Bharath – Adi’s good friend and classmate through school and junior college. Though Bharath went on to get his BTech from the most prestigious institute in the country – the IIT – Adi had done his B.E from Mumbai University. Around the same time, Adi and Anu had gotten to know each other better. Over a series of communication over yahoo chat, gtalk, orkut, and telephone in the period of next 6 years, Anushree and Aditya became close friends. Aditya had always liked Anushree. He used to openly flirt with Anu, and she being the sport always took it in her stride and laughed it off. But despite all those flirtings, there was an element of feeling in Aditya’s heart. He did harbor some ideas regarding Anushree, but he mostly disguised them in his flirtations.

The email had a subject title “Hii”. This perplexed Aditya even more since Anu was not the one to send a lot of personal emails. He still had 15 mins to the next meeting, but he just couldn’t put off reading this mail from Anushree. With a little anxiety, Aditya opened the email. Anu had poured her heart in the email. She had mentioned about her feelings for Aditya in the email. It was not a very lengthy mail, but not a short one either. She had written about the anxiety that she had in composing and sending this mail after saving it as a draft multiple number of times. Aditya read the mail at least three times just to make sure he didn’t misread or misunderstand her email. He had least expected this from Anu. But once he was sure, he immediately hit the reply button to compose an appropriate response.

Adi’s mind was flooded with all of the thoughts about Anu from the last 6 years. Anu’s cheerful face with her brilliant radiating smile, her simplistic nature, the beautiful way in which she carried herself, all came flashing in front of his eyes. He could almost feel a tear welling up in his eyes. He took out his cell to call her up and declare his “yes”. Just then he realized it was 530 and he had to get back to reality and into a meeting for the next couple of hours. The next couple of hours were painfully slow. Time seemed to have come to a standstill. Adi could hardly concentrate on the discussions in his meetings. It was as if he had been transported to a different land, and only his physical presence was left back on earth. A constant smile adorned his face for the remainder of the day.

Somehow, Aditya managed to wind up his meetings for the day and left office. With his smile. He called Anushree. Anu had just reached home and was her usual cheerful self. Both talked for about half hour. Both knew that nothing had changed between them – that they still remained friends. Both also knew that something still changed – that they were now in fact more than close friends, who wanted to share their life and passions and ambitions. Neither spoke about the email exchange, but both knew what it meant. 

Both knew that this was a new beginning for both of them . . .