"Silence speaks volumes!"

"The silence is unusual. I last spoke to Mayank leisurely only when I left Hyderabad. Mayank , the macho man of the floor, the hottest manager a team can ever get is either too busy or too lazy. Why is he not responding to my calls or emails? I never felt that living a 500kms apart and working in different locations means maintaining a long distance relation ship," thought Richa when she opened her message inbox in phone for the 100th time hoping to get a message from Mayank.

She furiously threw the phone on to the desk.

Ravi : "Ohoooo ! Whats wrong with you ? You seem to be really pissed off ?"

Me : "No. I am ok."

Six months back

Mayank joined the new team as manager. All girls had their eyes transfixed on him. He is a hunk who hits gym every day so as not to get a pot belly or a bumpy buttock in the sedentary IT life. Richa was also attracted to him like every body else. He too gave green signal to Richa by flirting with her and he never missed a chance to talk to her or have coffee and lunch with her.

Slowly they became a hit pair of the office. The love birds always were seen together.

Mayank even went to smoking zone with Richa. She had tea and he smoked away to glory which is his stress buster. That was the only habit in him which Richa dislikes in him but she felt it some how added to his sex appeal. In short she cannot hate anything linked to Mayank.

They dated for four months and Richa was head over heels on Mayank. Mayank had a Casanova life style. When you are in Rome be a Roman was his life's motto but as they say love is blind. It is not only blind but deaf and dumb too many a times. Richa got a temporary transfer to Bangalore from Hyderabad. Mayank got bored of Richa in four months  and was trying hard to find an easy way to come out of the relation ship. Richa's transfer came like a blessing in disguise. He bid farewell to her and got busy with new muses and a new woman in no time.

Richa was emotional about Mayank from day 1. She wanted their relation to bloom. She left no stone unturned to make it work. She sent gifts to Mayank just to tell him that she remembered him every minute. She tried to call , sms, whats app and even mail. She started feeling that she is getting clingy. Even her forward mails are not acknowledged like before.

Present day

Richa was lost in her never ending thoughts. "What does it take for a man to like a woman ? How do we sustain a relation? Why did Mayank ditch me all of a sudden? Am I that bad?"

A meeting request popped on her laptop halting her thoughts. She had no interest to open it but job is the only deviation she has now and she cannot ignore it. She opened to read and her eyes twinkled. A meeting was planned by their delivery manager where teams from all the delivery units are supposed to meet in Bangalore. Right now their project is distributed in Hyderabad , Bangalore , Pune and Chennai. The initial excitement died in seconds when she realized that she last spoke to Mayank for just five minutes one month back when he abruptly disconnected saying he had a meeting!

On the day of the meeting every one gathered in the conference room. Mayank smiled warmly at Richa as if nothing happened between them. Richa managed to fake a smile. She felt her head may burst due to thousand questions it is holding. Mayank sat facing Richa. She couldn't resist and looked at Mayank with eyes filled with angst , confusion and agony. Mayank got a bit conscious and bent his head. The silence of the conference room made no difference to them as the silence between them over powered every thing else! The presentation started and lasted for an hour or more .After the boring statistics and mile stones  were discussed they all dispersed for a short tea break.

Richa went to get her daily cuppa of lemon tea. Even if she was sobbing from inside she kept a brave face and exchanged pleasantries with every one. Mayank came to the vending machine just when Richa was about to leave.

Mayank : " Err. Richa. how are you?"

Richa : "More than good!"

Mayank : "Actually I wanted to say sorry for not lifting your calls. I was busy and..."

Richa raised her hand to end his narration.

Richa : "Thats O.K.  When you say nothing at all I understand what you are trying to say more than those times when you said so many things!"

Mayank was speechless.

Richa : "Its alright Mayank Shah. It was nice meeting you and all the best."

Richa boldly shook his hands and left the place leaving a flabbergasted Mayank behind.

That evening Richa cried to her hearts content when she narrated it all to her best friend Pallavi. Pallavi listened patiently with out jumping to conclusions or giving any free advise. She is the best agony aunt Richa has. A person with whom she can be herself. After four rounds of coffee she gained some sanity back. They just sat in silence on the steps near the porch and watched the beautiful Bangalore rain. After half an hour Pallavi spoke first.

"I have two tickets for Shankar Mahadevan's concert. Interested?"

Richa nodded and smiled broad as she sensed she cannot waste her days in gloom!

Silence is haunting and it feels like you are groping in the dark some times and some times silence is the best conversation two friends can have. LISTEN and SILENT are made of same alphabets. You can listen to your friend the best only when you stay silent :)

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda