prologue

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Hello my first Bombay friend!

From: Aisha Banerjee (aishabanerjee@hotmail.com)
Sent: 09 March 2009 16:58PM
To: sidharth.mehra@hotmail.com

Dear Sid,
Kaise ho? It's been days since I met you last. I haven't bought a phone yet so thought of mailing you since I was thinking about you.

Remember the day you accompanied me to the office of Mumbai Beat? You were busy capturing the children playing gully cricket on the street in your lens as I appointed an interview with their Editor-in-chief.

Today was my first interview in there and Sid, even in the midst of my anxiety and nervousness, I found my nerves calming down a bit when the photographs hanging off the walls in the cabin of the creative director, Amit Ray reminded me of you. Maybe you can visit here again someday and I'd love to show you around.

One of them was a picture of a couple at a Gola stall. The girl's eyes beamed in happiness as she savoured the Rose sherbet flavoured Gola as the boy was enchanted with her in an attempt to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. My first night in Bombay spent at Marine drive with you flashed across my eyes and I could almost hear the waves of the sea gushing over, sweeping away my worries. Slowly as I regained my confidence, it became easier to respond to the questions shot at me.

Later as we got comfortable I discovered Amit was a Bengali and we chatted about Calcutta and Durga Puja, Bengali food and movies. My final interview with the editor is after a few weeks. Oh Sid, I really hope I do get this job!

Your new friend,
Aisha.

💌

A slow smile crept up his lips as he read the mail. Despite his unwillingness to work at his father's office as an employee like any other man out there, Sid had reluctantly agreed to at least visit there for the sake of his mother.

Hands folded in fists inside his side pockets, Sid's eyes roamed at the people around him being indulged in their work, so much so, they didn't even lift their heads up for straight three minutes! Finding nothing interesting to do, that too being without his camera, he had decided to go through the computer in his respective cubicle. His eyes fell on the icon he knew was meant for mails and thought of browsing through them. He was never really a fan of mails being the lazy guy he was and also because of the fact that he thought that this particular medium of communication was strictly professional. But today that was the only thing he could think of to amuse him at this boring office and that's when his day lit up.

With having no one near him to share his feelings with and to gain an experience in drafting mails for his impending career, he sat down to type a mail to her.

From: sidharth.mehra@hotmail.com
To: aishabanerjee@hotmail.com
Subject: idk

...

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