Accidental Coincidence

1. The Daily Routine

Life was supposed to be unpredictable, but off late it was supposed to be just so so very predictable!!!!!

The same old routine - wake up at 7, gulp in some bread and tea , rush to catch the 8 AM metro and land at office sharp at 9 AM..... Isn't that predictable???

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It had been 3 years since Dev had shifted to Bangalore for his job

Life seemed to be big shot at first but then somehow it changed back to the same boring piece of s*** once he started following the same schedule everyday.

The only thing which was better than the rest, he had made a lot of friends.

All of them were from different regions of the country.......none of them belonged to the same place by birth......neither they worked at the same place, they were just lunch-mates.....yes that's exactly what they were.

Dev used to meet them for lunch everyday, they had this particular place which they used to go to everyday for grabbing some lip-smacking lunch.

It wasn't far away from Dev's office but still he used to enjoy the time it took him to travel too and fro to this place.

They were a bunch of 8 people in all, with whom Dev used to share all his feelings, all his anxieties and pain.

They knew how he missed being home, missed being amidst his family.

They knew he was eager to be back there, to eat some yummy homemade food made by his mother, help out his father tally the accounts of his grocery store, troubling his lil sister all day.

But life does ask for sacrifices, Dev was not the only one who had to sacrifice his happiness for monetary sake, all of them were sailing in the same ship as him.

So connecting over lunch and speaking their heart out to each other was all that Dev and his bunch of friends could do.

"Let's plan a weekend trip, it's been so many days since we haven't gone anywhere, what say guys??", Naveen, one of Dev's friends working for an IT firm in the electronic city exclaimed.

"Trip....that too now??? Come on yaar Naveen, it's almost year end now, I'll be asked to complete a heap of targets by the end of this week, I might have to work on off days too, sorry yaar, for me it's not possible this time, why don't you guys go and enjoy?? I'll join you'll some other time", Dev explained his condition as the rest of them looked worried.

"Yaar Dev, we all are worried for you, this private bank of yours is making you work like an a** round the clock, why don't you go for a change in job??", Niranjan, yet another friend working for a public sector bank, said.

"I wish I could yaar, but you know my family is dependent on my income, and this job pays me enough to sustain, changing it right now can render me jobless. I can't take that risk now."

"And who said I'm not happy with my job, it's just that I feel a hollow sometimes. It's like you work so hard all day, and you have no one to come back to and share your burdens with.....I miss being around Mummy", Dev gets emotional as Hemant, yet another techy can't contain his laughter.

"Yaar Dev, you don't need a mom, right now you need a wife, or atleast a girlfriend to be honest. Look at you, I mean to me you seem to be sexually frustrated", Hemant said it aloud, there by causing the rest of the gang to laugh uncontrollably while leaving poor Dev embarrassed as hell.

"Get married Dev, marry some damsel from your hometown, she'll cook good food for you, wash your dirty laundry and ofcourse help you release your stress at night" 😉 winked Hemant as Dev now shot a steel glass towards him.

"Shut up yaar Hemant, what's wrong with you??? Get a life, women aren't just to be treated as objects, they are also human. And I don't want to marry any damsel , infact I don't wish to marry at all. I'm happy being single", Dev wrapped up his lunch as he checked his wrist watch to ensure he hadn't exhausted his lunch hours completely.

As they moved out of the canteen, Harish, his colleague working for the yet another private banks patted his shoulder to stop him for a while.

"Dev , I respect your views towards women, but saying that you don't wish to marry at all doesn't make any sense. I mean being single is fun but being married is a blessing. Trust me, I also used to think like you before, but now when I think about it, I feel foolish. A woman's presence in your life makes a lot of difference, I'm telling you from my own experience."

Dev couldn't help but think about Harish's advice.....

Should he actually get married???

Should he give in to his mother's demands of getting married to a girl of her choice???

But he didn't wish to have an arranged marriage, he wished to fall in love, he wished to date a girl for a long long time before he would be sure of spending the rest of his life with her.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he failed to notice a taxi approaching him in super speed.

"Screech!!!", the car halted with a jerk as the driver called out to Dev for his carelessness.

As Dev turned to face the taxi, his eyes met with a strange sight, the woman who had hired the taxi was asking the driver to hurry up, it seemed as if she had just fled from her house, as if she's hiding from someone.

The taxi speeded towards the east as Dev simply couldn't take the one thing he had prominently noticed about this woman, her dangling silver bracelet.

Someday if she would ever cross paths with him, he would surely recognise her by her bracelet!!!

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Hey guys, yet another update, this time a longer one, please let me know your views.....

Covers invited eagerly, please do help out.

See you with another update..  till then

Toodles❤️