Just for one night

Flashback: How they met!

Siya was the second of three siblings. Her older sister was already married and was a mother of two perfect kids. Her younger brother was a happy go lucky guy with a flourishing job and career. Siya belonged to a middle-class family who were able to get financial stability only after Siya's got her job. Siya managed to buy a flat for her Parents and this was the one achievement she was the most proud of. However, she was far from being the perfect daughter. She was still unmarried and was too strong to budge or settle under the pressure of people's opinion. Siya was now 35 years old and was hiding a very big secret to protect her parents and family from the hurt and pain this secret would cause them.

Siya was not very passionate about her job, she was underpaid and undervalued but she loved her team. She was a hard worker and didn't mind slogging for it. It was 3:00 AM on a Saturday night, Siya was managing the go-live of a very critical project. One of her junior teammate had goofed up and Siya was doing her best to cover for him. She got into a call, where a very senior Customer Relationship manager was doing his best in blaming Siya's team over the failure of the entire project. Siya refused to accept, and she was very right in doing so. However, this man kept pushing her limits. Siya was very good at handling people but tonight she was incapable of accepting defeat from this man whom she knew more personally than professionally. He was related to one of her cousins and she was aware of all his fabulous accomplishments. He had pushed her too far and she ended up cursing in a major client meeting calling him "a fucking piece of shit!" accidentally by missing to put her mic off. She had not done it intentionally. She immediately got a call on her phone from an unknown Australian number. She was shivering with fear as she had clearly crossed a professional line by cursing on a call. She picked the call and heard a husky voice on the other end. It said "Hi Siya, this is Raghav Viswanathan". Siya immediately replied "Listen, I didn't mean to... I'm..". He interrupted her "Siya, l am sorry. It was me. I pushed you. Can we start over?".

Siya joined back the customer meeting that she left hastily, and Raghav made sure she was comfortable. The entire episode was now just a joke to everyone, and Siya couldn't believe she could come through such a mess so quickly. The project was successful, and Raghav was there on call till the end. Siya still couldn't believe a shark like Raghav would ever help someone like her out. In the end she messaged him on office communicator to apologize and thank him for all his help. She was still suspecting he had an ulterior motive to be this nice to her. Raghav responded, "I hope you don't think of me as a piece of shit anymore 😉". Siya was embarrassed and replied, "well that time you were, but thank you got letting it go".

Over the next few weeks, Siya and Raghav would talk frequently. He was really good at Management stuff, but Siya had a great technical knowledge. They would seek each other out for work reasons. One Friday night, when it was late evening in India and quite late night in Australia. Raghav was on call with Siya for hours helping her in a major presentation. She tried to cut the call short, but he simply wouldn't allow it. It seemed like he really had nothing else to do on a Friday night. Siya did inform him regarding their mutual connection, her dumbass cousin Rohit and his family. They both had a good laugh discussing their idiotic stories. In the end of their call, Raghav had asked for her number. He was being a little awkward and shy and Siya wondered why he bothered to ask, he could have just fetched it from her email signature. He wanted to share details of a job certification that might be good for Siya.

An hour later, Siya received his text on WhatsApp with details he had promised to send her. Also there was a comment "You look nice in the picture, I didn't know you were married". Raghav was referring to Siya's profile picture clicked during her cousin's wedding. Siya was wearing a red and gold silk saree and simple gold jewelry. Siya felt uncomfortable and brushed his compliment by cracking a lame joke. That night before going to bed she checked that comment again and slept with a smile on her face.