Monster's Dumbo

Chapter-10

Nandini didn't expect me to call her manager and in a way rescue her. I could see she was fidgeting her fingers. "Does she do it a lot?", I thought. I know a lot of questions were running in her tiny brain.

She cleared her throat and I knew she was about to throw me bunch of questions. She slowly raised her eyes towards me and asked, "why did you..."

I cut her off looking at her table, "what is this?" That was the easy way I could think to escape from her KBC round.

She gave me a weird look and explained, "don't you know? This is wooden table with nice finishing and this is my desktop. This is keyboard, this is mouse, this is..."

I got irritated on her stupid explanation. Does she have any brain or she left that in her La La land which she visits everytime. Why can't she answer properly to my simple question.

"Shut up!", I shouted. She got scared and closed her eyes.

I asked her, "do you think you are very smart?"

She slowly opened her eyes and looked at me confusingly. She asked innocently, "when did I say?"

I told her, "indirectly your answers are."

She asked with glee, "really? You asked me simply looking at my table what is this so I was explaining everything to you."

I just rolled my eyes. Sometimes she really test my patience. Actually always. I took a deep breath and said, "I'm asking about roses."

She was taken aback and looked at the floor as if someone just caught her doing something fishy but then she looked at me with a smirk and replied sarcastically, "I was arranging this for our date. Please take your seat."

I looked at her with shock and my heart reached sky high just by hearing her mocking reply. She never fails to surprise me.

She sighed, "why can't you go to some other office branch?"

I looked at her in disbelief uttering, "excuse me?"

She said, "why I'm saying this is because I heard that your dad have many branches in India and also in abroad. When you have so many branches then why did you join here? Can't you go to some other branch?"

I asked her folding hands on my chest, "You yourself answered the question. As you said this is my dad's office so in a way this is my office too. So, why should I leave?"

She said in frustrated tone,"because I can't leave."

I was confused. I uttered, "what?"

She told with her anger, "yes. I can't leave this office because I don't know if I get another job or not but you can go to other branch as you have many offices."

I looked at her for sometime. Does she mean she doesn't want me to be around her? But what did I do? I didn't like this so I went from her place saying, "don't know which idiot hired you for this job." I'm sure she was looking with me making her O shaped mouth which always tempt me.

Next day, it was special occasion for me, because it was my birthday as well as AR foundations day. Everytime our company will celebrate it by inviting all the staff members and with some special chief guests.

I was completely busy to make all arrangement for functions, and even I attended video conference. I didn't realise how time flew that day.

Honestly, that time I was missing dumbo very much. She is the one who could change my mood by her antics and her blabbering. Whole day I didn't see her due to my tight schedule. Somewhere, I was hoping even she missed me.

At evening, the celebration has started. One by one people started to go on to the stage. I too joined them and took my place. My eyes were scanning for my dumbo and I saw that she was already looking at me which made me satisfied. She was wearing cream color gown and her hair was open. "How can someone look so pretty with so minimal things?" I thought.

Function started with lighting the diya. Our chest guest spoke few words about the company growth over all these years. All this while, I was just looking at my dumbo and her cute expressions. I can see that she didn't like this function. I won't blame her. Who will love to hear these lectures?

Finally my dad went to take the mic. My dad said, "I would like to do some special announcement on this grand day regarding my son."

I got alerted and looked at my dad. My dad continued, "On this special occasion I'm declaring that my only son who is also part of Malhotra Industries, is going to get engaged with my business colleague's daughter Alya Saxena."

My heart screamed, "No!"

I was stunned on his announcement, "how can he announce here infront of everyone without even discussing with me?"

I immediately looked at dumbo but she lowered her head. I noticed her face became pale. I was shocked to see her tiny tear which was flowing and shining on her cheek. So, she was trying to hide it from me. I just wished time to go forward as I needed to talk to dumbo.

Suddenly, I realised marrying someone is unbearable for me. I never had any feeling for any girl but here this girl who gave me those feelings to experience for the first time was sitting and crying silently for me. Lot of thoughts were running in my mind and one of them was to stop this engagement anyhow. But before that I wanted to talk to Nandini to know what she feels about me.

When function got over, I tried to reach Nandini but I was stuck with my business associates who were wishing me happy birthday when clearly I'm not happy at all. How irony.

Somehow I managed to excuse myself from them and searched for Nandini but she was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, fear gripped me. Did she just leave this place or she is leaving from my life?