The Perfect Photo

Chapter 16

About four weeks later, on a Saturday.

"Mam, This is perfect for your skin tone", said the senior stylist at MAC showroom. Neha brought me here to purchase cosmetics best suited for me and my skin. Over the past few weeks, Neha has been teaching me all kinds of stuff from eyeliners to blushes, and surprisingly I have turned out to be a good learner.

"How much is this?", I asked.

"1800, inclusive of all taxes", she said.

I flashed a look at Neha letting her know that it is too expensive. "Do you have other brands, like Maybelline maybe?", I asked.

"We do not sell any other brands mam. This is one of the best products in the market. All other products have some form of damaging effects on your skin. This liquid foundation has no side effects and also has SPF 15 which protects your skin from UVA/UVB", she tried to convince me.

"Go for it.", said Neha. "I'd recommend it too. It is going to last for quite some time. Worth the buy", said Neha.

"Fine. Add this to what I've already selected. And please get us the bill", I said still unsure if this was in the best interests of my pocket money. But Neha was my mentor, and I'm following her instructions to the letter. The sales person was jubilant. We weren't one of those women who would interact for hours and then end up buying nothing. I wiped my wrist off the samples that the stylist put while she was showing me various shades.

It has been four weeks without any major heart-stopping incidents. Pritam is officially a part of the cultural club now. I made sure I got him to work in close collaboration with me and thus got to meet him at least twice a week. I was heading logistics for the next official college function, and he was helping me out. I also managed to finish the book he had gifted me. There was a common ground for us to talk besides things related to society work. Pritam agreed to many of Marx's ideas such as alienation and insecurity of modern work. He keeps talking about how he strongly felt about certain interpretations. He seemed to be the kind who wanted to impart others what he knew. He would make an excellent professor in future if he chose to be one. I was a good listener and so enjoyed his company greatly. He was a breath of fresh air, guy from whom I was able to learn from.

But I never had an opportunity to connect with him more personally. He would always disappear at weird times and not respond to texts. On top of that, my college exams kept me busy the last couple of weeks. Since my concentration was off in the early part of the semester, I had to work twice as hard to catch up. With all these, I felt that he was still a mystery guy to me and I had to do something to break the shackles. But I had a pretty solid plan for that.

It was the weekend after exams, and some parties were going on around campus. Neha was invited for one, and as usual, I get the privilege to tag along. In this case, I had also decided to ask Pritam to go with us.

The lady got us the bill, and it was around 4K. I went up to pay, and I texted him from the cash counter.

'Hey, Whatcha doing?'

He replied almost instantly. 'El-Classico, Watching. Repeat. Hala Madrid'

I had no clue what that meant. 'Listen, What are you doing tonight?'

'Nothing', he replied.

'Awesome. We are going to party tonight. Will you join us? '

'Hmmm, I'll think about it and let you know.'

'No thinking. I'm going with Neha to give her company. But frankly, I know no one else there. So I need you to go with me.'

'Then I think you should reconsider your decision going :P.'