7 First Dates : Part 3: The co-intern

"Hmmm that went good", Kangna was smiling wide "And I hope it made you learn that Guys are dogs especially in High school and early college years"

"Oh! Please nothing like it. Just that I feel I played it cool and managed myself a date", Aman said steaming over his aviator sunglasses.

"Ha..Ha...Ha... Very funny. Only one 7th of your challenge is over and that was the easiest on the list"

"It wasn't. I made it easy"

"Okay so how about I making the next item choice on the list"



"Ahan! Go on. Time to prove myself I guess"

"Hmmm...college goer"

"Ummm I need some time to strategize about it. Can you give next best?"

"Somebody was very confident about his potential. Haha. Okies then give a shot for your co-intern. You have any?"

"Umm there is one I particularly like: Bhavya Saran from FMS"

"Okay then. All the best! :)"

*********************************************************************************

"Hey! Nice surprise to see you here", Bhavya exclaimed as she saw Aman in corporate office.

"Ya! I had some additional work in Gurgaon. So, I thought about dropping in for a visit. So how's internship going on?"

"Okayish",she replied and turned her head back to the computer screen.

"Hey are you willing to go downstairs to "BurrrGrrr" for a bite?"

"Thanks, but I have got loads of work. Give me 15 minutes and then probably we could go", she said without turning her head this time

Interns didn't get internet connections for their laptops, so they had to come to "Trainees' Room" to access internet and mails. Though they complained a lot about it, Aman was thankful that it saved him the embarrassment of asking Bhavya out with other people eavesdropping.

"Nice template", he tried to break the awkward silence.

"Hmmmm"

"A PPT Trivia: It was 3M who invented the over head projectors, which served as presentation devices before Microsoft came with MS-Office"



"Who cares?"

He heard a glass crash within him, an indication that it was better to wait for next 10 minutes.

"Hmm! I am done", taking a look at her watch "But I don't think we have enough time; So why don't we have a conversation here?"

Aman's phone rang. He telepathically said "Excuse me, just a friend", by tilting his head to a side and lifting his shoulders while pressing his lips.

She conveyed a "Go on" by a smile and moving her hand to make a gentle slice of air in front of her.

"I will come in the evening bro and then move back probably tomorrow morning......Haan I will drop a visit to the kids...Bbye"

"Kids?!", she exclaimed.

"Arre, these are some underprivileged children, my friends...", he could see she was getting interested "...Annnnnnd I teach and look after"

"Wow, that's impressive Mr. Sharma. You're a nice guy"

Now what was that supposed to mean, his head rung. Was it an apt time to ask her out and if yes then how?

"Hmm I never want to brag about it, but I like spending my Saturday mornings with these kids, teaching them alphabets, numbers etc. I have been doing that throughout the internship period. They miss me till I see them after a week's gap. I kind of miss them too"



"Hey that's super nice. Would you take me along with you tomorrow morning? I wish to see how much those cuties miss you after you meet them after whole one week"

Now according to old panchtantra stories, there are some people who invite the bull to hit them. The reason for the self called trouble was apparent. Aman hadn't visited those kids ever in his life. His friend was flying to Mumbai in the night and had requested him to drop off some stuff to the kid's school on his way back to home.

There were some talks about how she just got involved in social service group in her college and was happy that she had something in common with Aman to talk with. Aman on other hand could hardly disagree.

"Hey, you wish to catch a movie tonight?", she asked

Now he had no ideas that his fake-association with some poor kids would actually result in Bhavya asking him out for a movie.

"Sure! Why not?", he was lovin' it but with an extra stress line over his forehead which had scribbled "Morning After?????" all around in the air space surrounding them.

Everything was running great, till he had to get off his seat to get some popcorns and Pepsi for Bhavya. Though he didn't like popcorns but he liked Bhavya who liked popcorns that liked a Pepsi to be gulped with.

He had left his phone on his seat and it had to buzz that very moment, "One message received from Kangna" and it flashed a beautiful face.

Now despite trying hard not to throw a peek at the message, the curly haired girl's pic had done the trick and Bhavya picked up the cell to read the message.

"Hey how's your date number 2 gng along? ;) Though I am a bit pissed off that you used poor kids and lies as a pretext for it. x-( Koi na. Have fun. So 2 off the list. Wich one's next.. 'The college goer?' :P"

Aman came along happily with popcorns in his right hand and a jumbo Pepsi with two straws on his left. He was thinking he could get lucky tonight.

********************************************************************************

"Koi na! On the positive side, you learned an important lesson"

"What? That even girls can punch me in eyes making them go blue...Aaaahh...Easy", he groaned as Kangna was applying hot water soaked kerchief over his left eye socket.



"No! The lesson that you shouldn't lie to get a date"

"In my defense, she interpreted it herself and she was too sexy"

"Hmm so should we count it as 2nd one or not? This looks like a failure to me."

"Shut up! I got myself beaten by a girl and you are disqualifying my attempt. And it would have been perfectly fine if you could have restrained yourself from texting me in that specific time window of 5 minutes", he thundered.

"Ohkay! I give it to you, in return of all the fun we are having right now. OOh look at the poor baby. Somebody spanked you sweetie??", she pulled his cheeks

The phone rang. Kangna picked it up. Then turned back to Aman and asked "Hey had you ordered four dozens each of notebooks, pencil, chocolates and water bottle? Some guy wants all that to be delivered here."

"Oh! Yes..call him in. They wanted a landline number. So I gave them yours"

"Oh nice! you really gonna meet the kids?"

"Ummm... Yes but I NEVER WANNA BRAG ABOUT IT" and he winked.

"Oooohh you are a sweetie pie."

"Eeeeeh...Please stop pulling my cheeks" he said as they sat for the dinner.


to be continued......

Part 1

Part 2

Part 4

7 First Dates : Part 2 : The school friend

Search words: DPS Noida, batch 2000

He tried to look up on facebook for communities where he could get old school friends in touch from.

"Hmmm the list is long. Lemme check these", he said to himself

But he forgot that all of these would be 27 just like him.

Archana.. Pennsylvania
Ayesha... Engaged
Divya.... In relationship
Ekta ... is Married to...
Hrishita ... commented on her album "Honeymoon"
Isha added pictures in the album "My lovely kids"
.......................
.......................

A heavy lot went away from consideration just like that.

Then he pondered upon the name "Soumya". He clicked her profile. She was working in Noida, no relationship status and no pictures meant she was alone. He hesitated for some time as he knew the girl had a crush on him in class XI.

11 years ago




"Hey Aman, could you please help me with the organic chemistry nomenclature during the PT period break", a girl with sheepish smile and 5 ft height tapped on his back while asking the question.

"Ummm....sure" a couple of lusty eyes were set on her without she even noticing.

"So for hydrocarbons, basically we need to observe the number of carbon atoms and types of bonds between them. Hydrogens may not need to bother", he started.

He could see she was hardly noticing what was in the book, rather just looking at his eyes and moving lips. He knew nobody was in the vicinity.

"So the bonds between two carbon atoms" he slipped his hands onto hers "can be of three types" he came close to her. She could hardly resist. "Single" he planted a kiss on her lips, "Double", and she kissed this time and said "or..."

"or...triple" and before they knew they were making out.

For a couple of days he avoided her. Next day she met him and asked "Why are you ignoring me? I thought you liked me."

"Well it was an accident" and he moved away. They never spoke again.

****************************************************************************

In summer of 2010, two friends had a bet about whether one could date seven girls, attributes specified by the other.

He couldn't think much before the cursor moved to the link "Add as Friend" and his middle finger's tip which was still a bit Numb, tapped on the touch pad of his Vaio.

And now he was wondering if she would accept the request or not? What would be her reaction? Was she going to bad-mouth him? and a zillion other phrasable non-phrasable questions.

But everything was put to rest, when before even he could see a confirmation mail in his gmail, she pinged him via facebook chat "Hey! wassup? Whr had u bin dese dez?"

After few contrived portions of usual "What about your job", "parents", "blah blah", he popped in "Let's catch up tomorrow evening, if that's fine with you"

She took a pause and then said "Okay"

They met next evening at Geoffrey's. He was still uneasy about talking normally with her. She could see that and helped him "Hey, are you still thinking about Organic Chemistry?" and winked.





All he could manage was a smile.

"Arre it was a long time ago and we were kids. It's fine. It indeed was an accident"

"You are saying that sarcastically?"

"No yaar! Both you and I have moved on miles after that and now all I can do when I watch at past is to laugh about it."

He was a bit comforted now. He made a gesture to the waiter and wine was served shortly. She pressed her lips and raised her brows signifying "I am impressed" and then they laughed after the glasses clinked.

They had loads of catch up and tales to be told. When he dropped her at her place, he said "Hey sorry from the past of me to the past of yours. I know you are cool with it but maybe the past of yours wasn't."

"You have surely come of age" and gave him a peck on cheek and "This has been simple yet one of the most beautiful dates I have had in a very long time"

"Thanks Soumya! It was a wonderful time spent with you."

"And thanks for the nomenclature class. I am a Bio-pharmacist now."

Smiles were exchanged one more time before he drove away. She waved at him.




To be continued....

Part 1

Part 3

7 First Dates : Part 1

It'd been just a week since Aman met Akshita (he couldn't recall her name at that time) for barely 11 minutes (conversation time) in that metro ride from Dwarka to Botanical Garden. She was great, he thought but it was too vague for being crazy for a girl one'd met barely for barely few minutes and had almost zero probability unless intervened by "hand of god"

"Interesting account", Kangna said and smiled and continued "It could make a good pretext for a story"



"Hahaha", Aman spoke his laugh "By the way I though you agreed to be my wing woman"

"Yeah! Sure I am. There is this friend of mine from......."

Kangna and Aman had been great friends since their respective break-offs about a year ago.

"Oi, better stop going for flings now and go for the serious thing", she advised.

"Why?"

"Because at 27, you are too old for this. It's the age people start thinking of settling in", she professed.

"What logic is that? I still feel too young for that"

"Haven't you been tired of meeting new people and those meetings not resulting hardly in anything concrete?"

"Absolutely not"

"Oh! Is that the case? Somebody seems up for a dare."

"Sure! The dare sounds fun. I can date 7 different girls in as many days"



Kangna started scribbling something on a tissue. Aman started to look for beauties around. There was one brown haired girl in denim shorts and long legs. And then his eyes moved to a short skirt girl with a spiked haired weirdo.

"Would to stop staring those girls like that?", she said without lifting her eyes and still scribbling.

"Wow she is definitely a nine pointer and ...", he was interrupted.

"Read this. You have got to date 7 girls in 15 days time and they should be"

"What?” he started reading...

1. A credit card caller
2. An air-hostess
3. A co-intern at the firm you are doing internship from
4. A college goer
5. An old school mate
6. A friend's friend
7. A friend's ex-girlfriend



"So, what do you say? You already look so pale to me. I can increase the days limit if you wish, teddy boy", Kangna smirked.

"No way!” he rose up and said "Challenge accepted", as he looked like staring at the horizon

"Stop being a Barney and sit down. If you lose, you would stop fooling around and look for someone you can settle with."

"And if I win you continue to be my wing woman and get me a prey every week. Hahahaha..", he laughed demoniacally.

"Shut the fuck up! I won’t introduce you a single girl more if you don't start respecting girls", she thundered

"Oi..Sorry. I was just kidding", he said sheepishly.

"Hmmm... so tell me who of these would you try the first?” Kangna asked after calming down.

"I guess the school friend one"

"All the best"




Part 2

Rajneeti: Mahabharat, Sarkar and Irresponsible sex leading to pregnancies!!

I saw the much hyped movie today. To summarize it in few words it was an engaging well-scripted movie that rarely has a dull moment.

The movie started strongly with Naseeruddin Shah, playing a left comrade, delivers small but strong speech in an Election rally. I wish I could have seen more of him. But thanks to first instance of irresponsible sex, he mingled with his most obedient companion, the daughter of then chief minister. The girl considered him to be his God but ended up being pregnant with his son, Ajay Devgan (who is raised by a Dalit family)

Just like Kunti gave birth to Karn after being involved with Sun God, she is forced to abandon her child and goes on to marry another powerful politician Chandramohan, giving birth to two handsome hunks Arjun Rampal and Ranbir Kapoor (Pandavas)

Chandramohan's elder brother is reduced to helpless state by a paralysis attack (Dhritrashtra was rendered useless because of being blind). His son, Manoj Vajpayee in simile with Duryodhan, asserts his right over the party president's chair but the it goes to his uncle. In exact similar situation as Duryodhan and Karn, he embraces Ajay, from Dalit family into the party.

Nana patekar who starts as playing Bhishm pitamaah in begining trying to strike harmony with the two parties slowly shifts his role towards being Krishna; Ranbir becomes Arjuna seeking revenge for his Father's and other dear ones' murder (Abhimanyu in Mahabharat's context)



A literary PHd from US of A, he miraculously plays the politics, often portraying his grey side but is successful in leading their family out of the crisis. In other words he manages an "Abhishek Bacchan" from Sarkar fame.

Second series of irresponsible sex for election ticket lands Rampal in judicial trouble.

Just when Ranbir is deep in the mud muddle, his visiting girlfriend from US of A gets pregnant and he vows return back to Uncle Sam.

If that was not enough, Katrina gets an unplanned pregnancy from her husband too.

The Devgan and his mother shot just avoids from being too reminiscent of Kunti-Karn's "You are the eldest. You will get the throne" scene. So does Nana-Ranbir scene portrayal from Geeta.

Amidst all this is a well scripted, amazingly directed flick that could prevent people from going out and ordering popcorn and pepsi in between.

Prakash Jha has utilized Nana in his calmest ever avatar, which is at the opposite end of what we saw of him in Krantiveer.

Ranbir is the next big thing in bollywood. He continues to please people by is ever evolving character portrayals.

Katrina is good but is there just to give the promos a look alike Sonia Gandhi (the attire she takes on only for about last 15 minutes of the movie)


Ajay Devgan comes out good but is a bit over shadowed by others.

Manoj Vajpayee is impressive as ever. He totally gets in the skin of character portrayed by him.

Arjun Rampal's learning curve has been really sharp post Om-Shanti-Om.

The movie is predictable but that doesn't hinder its likability in any manner. Thankfully we are saved from unnecessary song and dance sequences, which could have hampered the swift flow of the film.

A definite worth watch more so because of lame releases in past couple of months. Script writers are back. The movie reiterates the importance of story rather than simply "Shoshebaazi"


Rating : ****