Whispers Of Love

Thanks for the cheers. Glad you are reading the missed episodes.

 

Chapter-23

Srikanth

There was absolutely no response from her. She gazed around, looking at everything other than me.

‘I’m not sure Srikanth. I need to think’ She replied after minutes of eternity.

‘I understand. Shall we go?’ I dropped her home unceremoniously and started driving back home. I wasn’t planning to ask her out and I don’t know what made me do that, but her response hurt me. Irrespective of the short time we knew each other, I strongly felt for her and I felt she liked me too.

I was driving closer to Priya’s bakery and stopped there on impulse. She was engrossed in a design when I found her in office room.

‘What a pleasant surprise Srikanth’ Priya’s said and immediately followed by ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing..’ and as Priya caught my eyes , I told her everything. ‘I guess relationship will never work for me. ‘ I concluded.

‘I don’t think so. But this could have been overwhelming for the girl.’ Priya pointed out considering Harini’s economic background, villa would have been too much for her to handle.

‘She just wants to thinks about it. Give her time and meanwhile by a gentleman to her.’ As a client had walked in, I returned back home. Harini’s need to think was tough to handle than my breakup with Shruthi.

‘What are you doing in dark?’ dad came to room and switched on the lights. ‘Where were you? I wanted you to meet the lawyer and I couldn’t reach you at all.’ I remembered switching off my phone, the moment Harini entered the car.

‘I was with Harini, helping her with entrance.’ I could see dad’s face was changing. ‘’I know you don’t like her but I’m falling for her.’ I said firmly to dad.

‘What gives you that idea I don’t like her..?’ dad asked in a loud voice. He sat in a chair and stared at my eyes.

‘Your face is simple to read dad..I think you are bothered she is from a poor family as you didn’t have any objections for Meera or Shruthi prior. ..’

‘Atrocious is this what you know about me..Office romance are…’

I cut him off ‘You found your wife through office romance if you have forgotten…’ I shouted and I could see his face became like stone.

‘I’m sor….’ Dad raised his hands indicating to stop me and started leaving the room. ‘Dad I…’

‘You lose your cool when you are angry and take it at some other person for no reason. Unless you check this behavior, this is going to blow it on your face.’ Dad said before leaving me alone. When I got into retrospective mode, I realized Dad was right, I was taking it on him for no reason.

Next day when I entered office, my team appeared serious.

‘Srikanth, chairman is on rounds. Settle down fast.’ hissed someone.

‘What rounds?’

‘He loves getting the feel from the floor. He walks around, sits with few persons in random and quiz the on work, their feedback for company etc. Old man annoyingly remembers everything and will be sure to follow up next time you come across..’ my teammate was explaining.

‘You are late today. Any justification for it and where is your boss?’ ORK roared coming near to my desk.

‘Does it really matter if I’m late? Most of the days I clock12 hours..’ I replied and I could see ORK flaring up. Luckily dad crossed the floor trying to choose his next victim.

‘ORK, mind joining me for coffee. We need to discuss on the conference.’ Dad asked and thankfully ORK left.I know, i would be summoned to ORK's cabin soon.

I had busy morning at work and at lunch Dev sensed something was wrong. When he asked, I narrated how my day went yesterday.

‘I will bet on anything to say Harini has a thing for you. Give it sometime and let’s approach it in different way.’ He was cheering me up. ‘Regarding your dad if he was really not keen on Harini he could have done n number of things to stop it. If it was my dad, he would have done the same.’ Dev was saying when Harini entered the cafeteria. I struggled not to have a look at her. Dev waved at her and I could see she hesitantly came to our table. One look at her face, I knew something was wrong.

‘Anything wrong?’ Dev asked her.

‘Interview with chairman went badly and Padmini is blaming me now.’ Harini’s eyes were red and it affected me.

 

In next episode you will know.

 

Felt very happy to know you are falling for this story. Many thanks and I'm glad to see your feedback on the characters.

 

Thanks Rampuri

 

Chapter-24

Srikanth

‘What do you mean went badly? Was he rude?’ Srikanth asked me with concern. I shook my head trying to think what really happened.

Our appointment with him was 11.00 am and I was nervous right from 9.00 am. As soon as I reached office, it started pouring heavily and Vidya, the senior who was supposed to accompany us for the interview weren’t in th office. By 10.30am I received a call from senior stating both him and Vidya were completely drenched and he has requested Padmini to accompany me. Vidya who was all secretive messaged me separately saying she started going out with senior last week. Padmini was furious that they both took the chairman’s appointment lightly and gave them an earful. My hands were shaking with fear as we went for his appointment.

I was astounded on how enormous the room was. The prestigious awards that Evolution won were displayed in the rack behind. He gave us an enigmatic smile and motioned us to sit.

‘Hello Padmini, How are you doing?’ he asked and to my surprise he looked at me and said ‘Nice to meet you again Harini.’ And smiled warmly. How he knows my name?Does he remember me from the resort incident.


‘I’m sorry, you will have to remind me on today’s agenda.’ He said in a gentle voice. Man he is too gentle.

‘Plan is to take an interview of you for family day. We are planning to circulate a magazine teaser early next month to officially kick start the celebrations.’ As Padmini was saying this I could see chairman’s smile getting faded.

‘Family day?I’m not sure.was that how the appointment was made? ‘ he dialed to his secretary outside the room and asked her to come to his cabin. I could see Padmini texting someone furiously.


‘Well appointment was made for your interview-they didn’t specify family day.’ His secretary said consulting her laptop.

Padmini looked at me with annoyance. ‘Can’t you guys do a single thing properly?’ she chided me. It wasn’t me who fixed this appointment but this is not a right place to mention that.


Col.Mukund rushed into the meeting room and I could see he was exchanging pleasantries with chairman.

‘So Jai, what seems to be the problem here?’ Mukund asked chairman.

‘You of everyone know I keep my family life private and I can’t do this interview on family day.’ Chairman responded.


‘Jai, Since establishment Evolution has been doing family day and chairman presides over it. So we need you to do this.’ Mukund was saying to chairman and explaining how he needs to preside over the functionalities. It was then I realized this must be his first time as chairman presiding over family day event.


‘So all these years, you never attended the family day event?’ Mukund was joking with Jai.

‘I used to attend the first half of session. But yeah I spend majority of my career in Singapore.’ Chairman was responding. Talking about Singapore drifted my thoughts to Srikanth. Don’t think about him my head ordered. I found it difficult to concentrate as I couldn’t get what exactly the problem is. Chairman’s secretary was saying , chairman’s calendar is blocked for some other thing on family day.

Chairman raised his hand and conversations ceased . He turned towards his secretary and said ‘Order coffee. I will be back after a smoke. We seem to have more problem than the interview’ he asked.

Once chairman and his secretary were out ‘ What the heck Padmini? Why didn’t we block chairman’s and president’s calendar? I expected you kept him updated about it.’ Mukund shouted. ‘Right after this we are having a meeting with everyone on Events team’ he added.

I was looking uncomfortable when Padmini pounced on me.’Sloppy work by your team Harini. Look at where it has landed us.’ She shouted as if I’m heading the team.

Chairman returned back with his secretary and an assistant was pouring coffee in proper mugs asking everyone for their specification. , this entire thing is so posh offering customized coffees. In all the meeting I attend we are not even offered chairs.

‘how do you want your coffee mam?’ he asked.

‘Strong without sugar.’ I responded. Srikanth introduced me to drinking coffee this way saying it brings out the original flavor of coffee and I must say he was right. I noticed chairman eyeing me curiously, I couldn’t figure out why.

Finally Mukund blocked his calendar and Padmini was talking something about chairman opening the evening dance with his wife.

‘My wife will not be joining me here. Let President do the honors.’

Chairman was talking about budget for other branch offices for which Mukund has scheduled a meeting with finance team. Almost towards end of meeting we touched upon the interview for newsletter again for which chairman said he was ready to do it if there are not much of personal questions. When everyone was expecting me to start on with interview questions, I became tongue-tied initially and when I asked ‘Tell us about your family.’, chairman took a deep breath.

He then said ‘That’s a bit tricky. Next question?’ . I wondered how can talking about family can be tricky.

‘Family traditions that you follow’ I asked bit disappointed from his response of previous questions.

‘Family Traditions? There is no such thing my dear girl…….’ He said and all the interview questions went like that. Gosh..what a mess. Should I have crafted better questions? What do we do with newsletter now? I was thinking while we came out of chairman’s cabin to be blasted by Mukund.

As I was narrating the incidents to Dev and Srikanth, Dev excused himself saying he has a call to attend. I was sitting alone with Srikanth and this was the first time since he asked me out.

Padmini entered the cafeteria and my mind was going in loops over the telephonic conversation she had with someone which I overheard.

‘Anything wrong?’ Srikanth asked me. My facial expression should have changed.

‘She is trying to find about why chairman is finicky about his family life. I heard her talking in phone.’ I said and Srikanth’s face became very serious than I expected