She

Living alone, all by yourself has got its own plus points. First and foremost advantage is the privacy that you get. Then come many others, for example, if there is no one around to converse with, we tend to think and contemplate, which in turn enhances our cognitive skills. It is an effective method to appreciate the beauty of solipsism and to re-discover oneself.

Without further ado, let me tell you a small story. There is a hotel at the end of the street where I live which goes by the name "Sneha Sagar" (which means Ocean of Friendship in Kannada). Me and Chandru were daily customers to this hotlu when we were staying together for sometime. This hotel is very small by dimensions, maybe as big as the hall of my tiny 1BHK apartment, but nevertheless, it caters to a large number of people ranging from IT professionals (like me!) to people of other walks of life like the ubiquitous real-estate dons of the locality, the head-constable and his subordinate, the hot-chips store guy etc. There aren't much items in the menu but the taste and quality is decent when compared to the other choices that are available.

I have my daily breakfast here at sharp 8:45 AM and I always ensure that I am present at the hotel at this time. Its not that I am a punctuality freak but it is because of an attractive young lady who comes there to have breakfast. Sometimes she is accompanied by her roommate(my guess) but generally she comes there alone. She usually dresses up is in a tee-shirt with her hair tied neatly into a bun. She will either order a set-dosa or idli-vada.I have garnered quite a lot of information regarding her eating habits. If she ordered set-dosa , then she orders coffee along with it and it is tea that she chooses to drink after having idli-vada. It is interesting the way she eats the dosa. What i do is pick a chunk of the dosa, dip it in chutney followed by a dip in sambar and then eat. But she first dips the dosa chunk into the chutney and takes a bite. Then she eats some sambar with a spoon. This ensures that sambar and the chutney do not mix on the plate. How smart!

As it is a very small hotel, I always happen to be seated in her vicinity. Our first acquaintance began with a very interesting incident. One day, she ordered a idli-vada and when the hotel guy turned to me asking for my order, I told "Same!".

"What?" he asked a bit confused and I replied "Whatever she ordered, Idli-vada.".

She turned towards me and there was a faint smile on her lips. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second. My heart was racing.

The hotel guy always utters some funny statements when he takes the order from the customers. A few examples:

"Ondu Plain dose. Olle paper.. paper iddhange irbeku.." (One plain dosa, should be like paper) ,

"Sir. Bere Aenbeku? Tea, coffee, badami haalu, whisky, brandy.." (Sir, what else do u need? Tea, Coffee, Badam Milk, Whisky, Brandy...) ,

"Ondu full bisi coffee.. Benki, benki iddhange" (One full hot coffee. Should be like fire).

She smiles to herself when he says all this and I infer from this that she must be a Kannadithi. But till date, I have not heard her speak in Kannada. Whenever she gets a phone call, she speaks in either English or Hindi. Sometimes, the chutney is a bit salty or the sambar is watery but all these not matter much as long as she is around.

A few days back I had been to the Pizza hut near my place and found a surprise waiting for me there. She was there along with a guy. By the way things looked, I guess that guy was her boyfriend. My appetite seemed to have vanished suddenly. She saw me and smiled as if saying hi. I tried to smile too but in a state of mixed emotions, feeling happy for she having recognized me and feeling sorrowful for the reason that she may already be having a boyfriend, So what? What if she was single? Would I have said hi to her someday in Sneha Sagar, get acquainted, go on a date, propose to her and marry - aargh, I guess thats just too much.

Nowadays,she never comes to Sneha Sagar. I feel like asking the hotel guy whether she comes at some other time but have decided against it as I dont want him to get any ideas. I guess some people like me are better off being single. Let me reiterate that catchy phrase which was once my Gtalk status message - solitude is bliss.

Grapes are sour? Whatever dude whatever.

P.S:

A Conversation between two famished software engineers whose 5 day wait for a weekend has finally ended. (Overheard in our canteen)

Engineer 1: Man what plans for weekends?
Engineer 2: Recession right? Therefore no plans.

Thanks to Facebook, people are coming up with some cool status messages. Here is one by Sheldon : "And on the seventh day, God gave his greatest gift to man - Weekends."