The Perception

Akarsh glanced at his watched as he alighted from his bike. He was 20 mins ahead of the time that was scheduled for the meeting- the date, the blind date - the first of its kind in his entire lifetime!! He beamed at his own reflection of the bike's rear view mirror while adjusting his hair. He started walking towards the cafeteria, paused at the entrance, to have a full view of himself in the glass door, he felt he was dressed ok, just right for the occassion. He was aware Avantika liked cream color, which was his shirt's color - he had purchased a new one just for this ocassion; he hoped she appreciated his efforts to please her. Well he had collected as much info as he could about her - her likes, dislikes, things that made her happy, things thatdispleased her, etc. However he was glad she couldn't do the same even if she wanted to, she didn't even know his full name before today morning!!! Her courage left him amused to have agreed to meet a total stranger to discuss an important topic as marriage. He couldn't wait to meet her in person, the girl he had been thinking about ever since he had known, who he was yet to meet, however had changed his life already by her virtual entry.

He entered the cafeteria and occupied a table which seated two. He perched on a sofa facing the glass door entrance; he wanted to keep an eye on the people who entered, he didn't wish to miss her when she arrived. He knew she would be on time, he knew she wouldn't be late, afterall she was very punctual. He knew she wouldn't keep him waiting; he smiled,thinking about her already created ripples in his heart. He ordered a coffee to pass the fifteen minutes that lied ahead of him from meeting the girl who he was sure he was going to live happily ever after. He himself was astonished on the amount of surity he felt about their relationship, despite haven't yet met her in person or even had a proper talk yet. As he sipped the hot coffee, his mind drifted to the chain of events which had led to this moment. Since an year his parents were urging him to get settled. Although he was professionally well established with a decent paying job, a house, a car,etc; however his parents felt he needed a wife in order to settle properly who would add some meaning and purpose to his otherwise desolate life. As he hadn't been able to find himself a proper mate, his parents had suggested arrange marriage. Akarsh wasn't very keen with the procedures followed by a conventional arranged marriage system, a guy going to a girl's house, both of them getting little to almost no time to talk properly, the final decision taken based on the caste, suitability, status, family get along, etc etc. He couldn't find any justification in the whole process; he felt one meeting (he doubted if such a confrontation could be called meeting at all!!) was never enough to actually know a person to the extent that one decides to spend the rest of the life together. He had recommended to his parents that he wished to speak the girl whom they would select for him, in private first, if things kicked off, the families would meet later on. His mother had been furious on listening this, she had ruled it out arguing no decent family would ever send their daughter to meet a guy all alone for this purpose. His father had also supported her and said that his thought was derogatory and demeaning. He wasn't able to convince or reason out with his parents. Both parties stuck to their own priniciples, unable to reach any common ground, his parents finally unwillingly granted him the permission to execute his scheme. They had given him a timeline of six months, beyond which if he was unsuccessful in finding himself a suitable bride, he would have to tread their path, the normal route of a guy meeting a girl. Initially he was thrilled and had scrutinized all the matrimonial requests that he had got on the sites so far. Gradually he realised his parents had been right. The moment he put forth his desire of meeting the girl in person before taking things any further, he would receive a rebuke from an angry father or be admonished by the girl herself. He was disheartened about the general mindset of the people, who labeled his thought as ignoble. He tried to convince them that the comfort level of two people who were going to be united in the marital bond was far more important than the snugness of the families, which although important too came only later; he failed. He was on the verge of giving up his strategy and stick to his parent's game plans when Avantika happened.

She had not only accepted his proposal, had also appreciated his out-of-the-box thinking. A few mails were exchanged between them over the next few days, names weren't revealed, the matrimonial sites had their own unique numbers affixed to every candidate. Few mails later the meeting date was fixed two weeks later, on today's date. In a mail she had divulged her full name and work address to him. He was delighted to discover that both of them worked for the same company, however they were posted in separate offices, 20kms apart. He had utilised all his resources and contacts to find the smallest to minute details about her. The more he knew about her, the more he felt drawn to her. She was the replica of the soulmate of his dreams. He felt his dreams were coming true, he believed all these years he had done the right thing to guard his heart and wait, his wait was coming to an end with the advent of Avantika. To his surprise and curiosity she never asked his full name or company or any other details. She had only tried to know about his mindset, future plans regarding the relationship, his lifestyle, his approach towards the issues which would arise in case they chose each other. He had liked her simple yet insightful questions which weren't direct but were disguised in the form of case studies. He was sure she was an interesting persona, he couldn't wait to meet her, he couldn't wait for the day to arrive, his wait had finally come to an end.He looked at the wall clock, he was surprised that a good fourty minutes had already passed post his arrival at the coffee shop. She was late, she must be held up in some traffic he assumed. He passed another ten minutes waiting for her, ordered another coffee to avoid the curious glances of the people around. He was sipping the coffee when the door opened, his eyes fell on her. There she stood, dressed in a pink chudidaar, glancing all around the door, while adjusting her flowing dupatta. As her eyes met his, the coffee cup escaped his hands, which he caught just before it hit the ground, spilling some drops of coffee on him and the ground. Damned, he thought, there goes his first impression!!! He waved at her, she waved back and walked towards him. He realised she was even fairer (or was it make up?), slimmer (or had she been working out) and beautiful than her pictures. She had an oval face, hazel nut eyes, pink lips, a pleasant face in overall. She sat on the sofa facing him.

After a few minutes of awkward silence she said in the sweetest voice he had ever heard "Am sorry to keep you waiting. I hope you didn't wait long."
"Thats ok, I just arrived, few minutes back" (His first sentence- a lie!!! He was surprised at his own self.)
"So................????" she asked or may be said.

"I brought something for you." Akarsh replied while taking out the gifts from the bag, feeling all excited trying to guess her reaction.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise "Thats............thats a surprise!! Thanks."
He handed her over the small soft toy and a card which had few lines about friendship.
She went through the card and squeezed the soft toy, then looked at him (he tried to read her expression, her face was blank, tried to decipher if it pleased her or not, theoritically it was supposed to please her, as a friend of her had said she loved cards and teddies). "Thats very thoughtful of you. Thank you. Am sorry I didn't get anything for you. I wasn't sure how would you feel or what would you like."
"Thats alright." Akarsh replied as he tried to smoothen his shirt's sleeves trying to show off his shirt.
She didn't seem very bothered with it and asked his consent if she could order some coffee.
He was delighted at her suggestion and tried to steal another show of impressing her. He called the waiter and said "Two hot cappuccinos please." He looked at her for some acknowledgement of his gesture, as he had ordered the very coffee she daily indulged at office.
She stared at him for few seconds (again a blank expression) and said "Waiter, please get me some cold coffee."
Akarsh was disappointed with her indifference, however decided to let it go.

"So hows life?" he threw the first question at her which crossed his mind.
"Life's ok. Life's good. Its the usual. What about you?"
"Ahh..mine..what should I say? I have everything yet I feel I have nothing. I have a near perfect life. There is a decent job, satisfactory pay, a good family, however life feels stagnant. I wish to outgrow my mundane life and do something more, something different." Akarsh was surprised with his openness with a stranger, well then he had already accepted the stranger into his life, hadn't he? His heart and mind had already nodded for her approval!!

"I believe by different you mean marriage?" she asked in a curious voice, which irked Akarsh.
"No No...... That was not what I meant." he replied trying to find a suitable answer, "so tell me something about you."

She continued sipping her coffee through the straw without even taking her glance off her cup, as if in no absolute hurry to answer his query.
"Is there anything about me you don't know already??" she asked with a quizzing look and smirk on her face.
Her question threw him off guard. Although it was true he knew quite a lot about her already from her friends and colleagues, however he had tried to keep his enquiries hushed; even if she had found about why was she acting so strange? Was it a crime to get a clear picture about the person you were going to establish a lifelong relationship with???
"Yes there are a lot of more things to know about you. I wish to know more. Other than that you too haven't asked about me much till now." Akarsh replied in a calm voice, although his insides were simmering with the rage that was building up, herattitude was fueling to it. He was not finding the face charming anymore, he was feeling repelled from her as a whole. He decided if the conversation didn't steer a positive path in the next few minutes, he would leave.

"Oh I know all about you. You are a hot headed person who throws tantrums at work as well as at house. You behave with your juniors very rudely, you are unkind, ill mannered, disrespectful, unsocial, devoid of any friends. You call your life perfect? I see it as a bubble which would burst the day you lose your mind. From where I see marriage will be the pin to burst your hallucinations about your picture perfect life and a wife would be the makeshift for you to divert all your excuses andblames!!" Avantika said all of this at once in a very even tone, although her every sentence was piercing his heart and mind, her voice was strangely calm, as if she had already prepared the speech beforehand.
Akarsh's head was reeling with her accusations. Yes it was true whatever she said about him. He was in a sour mood all the time at office, that was due to his level of dissatisfaction. He wanted to travel onsite for a long time, his managers were deafto his continuous requests, they sent abroad his juniors and less experienced people instead of him, giving lame excuses that his prescence at offshore was necessary and mandatory. He would get his chance when the right was right. The reason that his juniors were preferred over him for traveling abroad, added to his bitterness. He did act rudely with them. However his act had a reason, that was not the real him. He wasn't always like this. He had turned into this person due to the situations around. It was very wrong of her to judge him only by listening to one side of the story. Instead of judging him by collecting wrong info about him, she could have simply asked him his reasons. For a split second he was tempted to explain the reason her the justification behind his mannerisms, erase all the false images of his from her mind, however he checked on his emotions . Afterall she was a stranger, there was no need of explaining himself to her. Her opinion didn't matter to him, did it? He suddenly felt sad, the way the events had unfolded were completely unexpected. She shouldn't have created a pseudo image of him in her mind, she should have taken the effort to know him, but that was if she was as interested as he was in her and she believed in the relationship's future like he did!!!

"I see that you already detest me, even though you don't know me completely. You collected some random info about me from some random people in my life and painted a picture, although that's not the true me. Am a completely different person from the one you think I am, I feel I do not need to explain you anything. We both don't owe each other anything. You could have said all of this over the phone, there was no need to make me wait for an hour just to come over and say all of this.... I take your leave. Thanks for your time and interest."

As he stood up from his seat and waved at the waiter for getting the bill, he found Avantika smiling, smiling at him.
He was outraged, annoyed, offended; first she accuses him, doesn't appreciate in the least for his efforts to have tried to know her, spies on him behind his back, accusses him and then smiles!!! The girl had guts!!!

"Akarsh, am sorry for my behaviour. Although this relationship is not possible, as you already know why, but am not done yet. There is a reason I came to meet you in person and as you have already wasted a precious hour, there is no harm in staying back and wasting one more." She said and smiled broadly now.

Akarsh was baffled, stupefied, unsure of her intensions, but he gave in to the curiosity and took his seat again and waited for her to speak.........................

Avantika placed her depleted coffee mug on the table and sat back on the sofa with her arms crossed. She observed Akarsh whose face revealed his emotional turmoil.

She had been pleased with his overall appearance the day she had come across his profile; she had found him attractive,intelligent and hailing from a good family background. She had appreciated his open mindset and his desire to do things differently (how many guys were willing to meet the girl prior to meet the families, this showcased his seriousness regarding the whole affair). She had simply adored the fact that he and his family were settled in the same city as hers, so she wouldn’t need to change her location or office or leave the city she had grown up in, post marriage. She had waited patiently for him to divulge his identity in the mail chains, his personal details instead of urging him. The meeting date was fixed, all with the permission of her parents who had a modern outlook towards life and didn’t blindly follow all society norms. They had asked her to find herself a suitable mate, who they would approve of, without much hassle. They trusted her choice, had faith on their daughter’s decisions. She was groom hunting for a long time now; although she wasn’t particularly choosy, she felt every proposal was lacking something or the other till she came across Akarsh’s profile. His face reflected his innocence; she had liked his face the moment she had set her eyes on it. She looked forward to their meeting, when two days back she heard about it.

She was having coffee with her friend at office taking a break from work, when her talkative friend spilled the beans about a guy named Akarsh from their company but different team & location, was asking around about her. She understood who Akarsh was, she felt annoyed about his means of extracting information. He could have simply asked her whatever he wanted to know!! After that she too did the same, she dug out contacts, she found out all about him she could, she swore her sources an oath of secrecy, the more she knew about him, the more she was intrigued. She had assumed him to be gentle, calm, good natured, kind hearted; that’s how she had deducted him from his mails; however the description that his peers gave was totally different. She was confused, who was the real Akarsh, the sweet and charming person she interacted with in her mails or the angry and hot headed Team Lead at office?? She knew she had to reach a conclusion in order to move ahead. After a lot of thought and analysis she made a choice and was here to make the revelation; whether he agreed or disagreed with her was upto him.

“Why did you get me a teddy and card Akarsh? It was only our first meeting, how did you know what I liked?” she asked, with the smile smeared on her face.
Akarsh shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with her question, she knew that.
“ ’Coz your friend told you loved those.” He replied in an irritated voice.
“Ok. So I understand you wanted to impress me. I also deduce that you reached early for our meet today, is it so?”
“Yes I came twenty minutes before the scheduled time and waited almost an hour for you.”
“Can you explain your over punctuality?” her eyebrows were arched now, Akarsh wanted to leave the place and walk away; he wasn’t interested in her interrogation at all.
“Your friends said you were never late to office. You always reach and leave the office at a fixed time, so I assumed you are punctual.”
“You assumed…………..Was your assumption right?”
“Nope” Akarsh nodded his head and was confused where this meaningless conversation heading to.
“Is it a new shirt that you are wearing? Is it to awe me too?” her lips were tightly pursed now.
Akarsh blushed with her question, his ears turned red, his palm curled into a fist and said “I think you already know the answer”, he said with gritted teeth.
Avantika laughed, a hearty cheery childlike laugh.

She said “You shouldn’t have taken the pain to collect all this info to sway me!! I am sorry none of these information or others are accurate. Let me explain and clear your confusion. There is an Archies shop near by our office, so whenever we need to buy a gift, I suggest my teammates to get it from there. As Archies house a huge collection of soft toys and cards, I always pick them up!! That doesn’t mean I love those gifts for my own self. Those gifts are convenient and save time, you see!!” She paused, Akarsh’s face was in a state of puzzlement, just few minutes more to clear the cloud of confusion, she thought to herself.

“Next, about my punctuality, I travel to and fro to office by company means of transportation. As the bus is always on time, thus am never late!! Personally, I generally make people wait, take some time to get ready, I can say am a little unpunctualtoo. Coming to the cream color part. I do love that color, I prefer to set it as my wallpaper or as the color of my wallet or earrings or sandals; but as an apparel’s color it’s a NO NO… Seriously did you like your own self when you wore that? Had you ever wore that color as a shirt before??” This time Akarsh smiled too, much to her relief.

“Actually when I was buying it, I was hesitant.” He replied.
“So, you see all the info that you collected about me from my colleagues and teammates was a waste of time!! The real Avantika is someone different, someone you need to discover layer by layer in case you decide to take things further. I too was surprised and shocked to find about you. The official you was someone totally different from the real you!!! If I hadn’t enquired I would have been happy and hearty with the charming Akarsh I had come to know!! Thank God for the conversation with your good friend Vivek, who explained to me the reason behind your resentment and bitterness, I was relieved. Iunderstood your frustration, I totally empathize with it; every person has various sides to their life, you had too, it was wrong to judge a person with only one side; but to tell you the truth I was furious the day I had come to know you were spying on me. I had decided not to meet you, I had been annoyed with your nosy nature, but now after seeing how you utilized all the info, I must say am impressed and happy that you were curious.” Avantika paused for a moment for her words to sink into him before moving on to her declaration.
“So Akarsh, I really like you as a person and I have a feeling we might work out. What do you think?”

Akarsh replied with a grin “I think that not only you are beautiful but also intelligent and smart. I would definitely be lucky to get a person like you as my soulmate.”

“There is just one condition. Next time just ask, don’t snoop.” Saying so she broke into a delirious laughter, joined by Akarsh.

...........The end..........