Looking at You

5

Christmastime.

Day 1

I had put a Christmas playlist on my musicapp, "All I Want for Christmas Is You" byMariah Carey was the first on list.

This was Christmas week; we were indeed in the mood for a celebration. Christmas wasn't the most significant festival for Indian, so we were going to work during Christmas but while doing some fun activity.

So our office management had planned to play a game at Christmas time called "Secret Santa." everyone who wanted to participate would have exchanged a Christmas presents anonymously with other colleagues, each member of the group being assigned another member for whom to provide a small gift, but the more fun part was not only a gift, but they would also give some crazy daring stuff to do.

Some of the tasks were no deal. Anyone would do them. But some were a little strange or goofy. I was praying that none of the functions that would be given to me would ask me to do something inappropriate.

Suddenly I saw my team members crowding around the desk of our manager eagerly, vying with each other as if something exciting was going to happen.

Then I got to know Sagun was given the task to sing for Sankalp.

I have to tell you; it was shocking but also really cool. So, I pushed my way through the crowd around the desk to the front. As I came towards them, my eyes mindlessly, automatically fell on Sankalp.

He was standing before Sagun hesitantly, with complete nervousness, and his hands in his pockets. Sagun's hands clasped tightly in front of her, she looked at him.

It was painfully obvious that both of them were skittish.

Sagun started signing a very romantic Hindi song, "Tumse Milke Aisa Laga Tumse, Arman hue poore dil me...."

There was a little quiver in her voice, but it sounds beautiful, melodic and slow.

When I glanced over at Sankalp again, I wasn't surprised to see that he was blushing more than enough for them both. I found myself smiling at this.

"Aren't they cute?" I mumbled this to myself.

The quirky part of me replied quickly, "Modify the words a little here and there!"

"What do you mean?" I asked myself frantically.

"It is not them; it is him, right? You found him cute, right?" As we know, there are two sides of the mind, and this is the demonic one. Always quirky, other one tries to pull toward the right track, and this one always spoils my mind.

I knew I wasn't crushing on my boss yet, but the fact that the thought even crossed my mind made me nervous. I backed away from them slowly and let the crowd enjoy the song.

You know, odd as it might seem, Sagun had quite a crush on Sankalp. It was quite easy to understand for me; nevertheless, I thought I don't want to be in the same situation as Sagun. And for Sankalp, I really didn't understand him, but I realised that he is a genuine human and I truly valued his presence.

Day four and it was Christmas Eve.

It was a Monday afternoon and Christmas Eve. We had already completed the very less work that we had received.

The games were about to start, and we were excited to participate in those one-minute games. The object of that game was to throw five balls within a minute, one at a time, onto the floor and have them bounce into the container that was placed at little distance.

Have you ever been in a game whereas you learn the game and begin to play, things that may have seemed easy soon become difficult? Well, the same thing happened to me—the same thing.

I found myself standing nervously at the centre of the crowd, with five balls in my hand. My heart rate and cardiac contraction began to increase more as I saw Sankalp, to walk over the crowd and stood just in front of the targeted container, only ten feet away from where I stood. I didn't realise I was that lucky!

My knees were trembling under me as I threw my first ball on the floor and watched it bounce high. I had miscalculated my force, as I saw the ball went and hit Sankalp in his right thigh with a light thwack. It was a plastic ball, and the impact didn't seem to hurt him. At first, it made me sigh, but then I heard some of my colleagues were laughing, some hooting, the rest of them rumbling, "What a throw Shri!" made me feel extremely embarrassed, so much so I wouldn't have been surprised if my cheeks resembled a tomato.

I threw my other four-ball ever so lightly that it didn't reach anywhere. Sankalp didn't seem to mind. Actually, he kept smiling after the initial shock left his face from the ball's hit.

But I hated it, I didn't really want to impress him but neither wanted to look stupid in front of him. And now I was someone who couldn't even throw a single ball in the bin.