Prathiksha Shetty to Pretty part 1

“Hey lets gather for a team meet.. a real quick one”.. My manager announced it loud on the floor walking towards the conference room.

I locked my system thinking “one more process update I guess!”.

We gathered in a comparatively small conference room. I looked around… and I saw a new person standing tall and leaning to the wall with smile on her face.

I got it!!!!! So, this is not a process update meeting.. new person is joining us from today on.. I have been hearing things about this girl joining our team from long back, heard guys talking  “new girl is pretty and beautiful it seems.. our manager was mentioning one time”.

Ok lets come back to our story, “So” my manager finished saying something and turned towards the new girl and introduced, This is Prathiksha from Bangalore and she is going to join our team from today! And she is been asked to introduce herself.. “Iam Prathiksha Shetty from Bangalore” she started her intro.. (I forgot the rest so will skip this part!). I remember her telling us that she has rabbits back at home and she plays Soft Ball, Volley ball and Throwball and at what levels respectively.. Sorry I don’t remember. Tell you what; people were quite impressed with this sort of introduction including managers. And then we introduced ourselves one by one and Abel got caught from that day on as Rajeev!

What else do you want to read after that? We dispersed later.

Haven’t seen her much after that first meeting on the floor. After couple of months I found her at the Cafeteria with her friend who joined along with her on the same day. I told my friend Sulochana one day at the Cafeteria “ Prathiksha dint join our team for lunch/dinner yet I think, nice to see that she sticks on to friends, seems down to earth to me”. My First impression guys….

Couple of days passed by..

Suddenly I got an invite for a meeting which is a long one, and the twist here is that the meeting is only for girls. Hmmm don’t think much on that, will tell you. We are all called in to discuss and come up with some ideas. My manager asked all of us to think and draft those and left the room. This time it’s me who will take over the attention (I dint know this till she told me). I was getting super excited and coming up with all ideas and doing all conversation along with the team and (as my friend said) jumping from one chair to other.. This is the time as what I heard that Prathiksha noticed me and said “What is she upto”?

Few days passed by again, “Mahiar, do you know if we can order Subway to office just like Pizza”? I asked my manager. She was sitting right next to where iam standing and talking. She turned towards me and said, “Are you going to order Subway?”.  I said “yes I want to, but not sure if there is a delivery service” and came back to my desk. Think she was interested to have it.. but I did not order as I thought no one is interested and its waste of money.

Gradually, little doubts in the process made her come to me asking how to go about certain things.. Very little interaction.. nothing in concrete.

The other hand of my desk was empty one day and Prathiksha sat beside me.. We started talking (not working) about all things and I mentioned about my knee and a little later about my Divorce and we left our laptop and I started my flashback and she was listening to it with utmost concern and care.. I think I liked the way she reacted to things which were very sensitive to me. That discussion went on long and after a point we started cracking jokes and I took pictures of her from my phone and that’s when I took her phone number. Now at this point we were phone friends.

One day, I was surfing Facebook and I found profile which read Prathiksha Shetty. I looked at her pics in FB and in particular I liked a pic with red dress alongside with the car. Quite impressed with the pic which reminded me of Ileana and Now you know what happened.. Obviously I have sent a friend request and now we were FB friends!!

Some more days passed by…. Once day,

“Hey Sudha, Do you want to participate in throw ball Match which is tomorrow morning?” Prathiksha came to me almost brisk walking. “Throw ball?” confused what that was, I asked her back “what is it?”. She explained me about the game though I dint understand anything. I was looking at her face and suddenly I felt time stopped by and I could see only her asking me “Please come no, Please come no” in SLOW motion.. I was so lost in that pause, I said OK I will. (Can’t answer WHY and WHAT till now). She immediately held my hand and took me to other team where players were being discussed. Prathiksha introduced me to that team and said “Sudha will join us tomorrow”. ASK me, I have absolutely NO CLUE as to what is a Throw ball and how is it played. Iam Blank and did not understand what is happening. After some time Prathiksha brought me back again to my desk. I guess discussion is over by then. I could understand only one thing; I have to go to secunderabad, a playground where we are going to play. That’s it! I said ok let’s have fun!

I came back home, watched all throw ball match videos on YouTube to understand the game. I could understand one thing, what they are playing is “Catches”! Ha I know this game, very simple. What we usually play as kids. I thought if this is the game, iam going to rock it today! (Iam fooled by my own assumption later on). Having this rock solid confidence that iam going to play well and outdo everyone, I danced to WAKA WAKA song in the morning (dint sleep actually) little I know what lies ahead of me, started from my home on my bike. The plan was to pick Prathiksha and go to playground. I picked her from the Railway Station and went to playground after making some enquiry calls to other friends about the route and direction. We reached the playground, “they already started practicing” Prathiksha said getting down from the bike. I said to myself “Its ok, I can do it without practice, I know this game already.. Huh..”.  We got down, parked the bike and met our team players.

Here is the best part… Time to reveal the rules of the game and unravel my confidence. One by one started explaining the rules of the game..When I heard the last rule of the game.. my mind was again blank and I came to the same point I was last day “what is a Throw Ball?” Ok it’s time to Practice; we are already late for the practice I told Prathiksha, coming back to my senses.. Prathiksha’s words of them doing practice made more sense to me then.. May be I should now forget the YouTube and listen and learn to what they say…

We practiced for some time, and I was able to serve the ball quite well for a first timer (as Prathiksha said). Myself and Prathiksha were sitting and talking something, there came our team player and informed that the “Actual team was dangerous and deadly and a winner all the time!”. Those tigers and Lions could not join the game this time, I felt bad… That thing pressurized that we are replacing some wild tigers and we are expected to perform well at least at FOX level. Well, I practiced more again… Prathiksha threw some furious catches towards me and I managed to take them (AS per Rules).. While in this process, I hurt my finger.. my finger got angry at me and turned green.

We Practiced enough and were sitting by now.. I do not remember what all we spoke that time but we were continuously speaking to each other being apart from the team. “Iam a very bad singer” Prathiksha told me, I asked her to sing one line for me.. She hesitantly said, “If you join me for the next line, I will”. I have to tell you something here “I consider myself a very good singer”. Which Prathiksha got to know a little later when she finished her singing. “U sing well Prathiksha”, who said you sing bad?” I told her. “You sound like my mom, she always tells me that I sing well, don’t know the reason, she is the only one who says this and now you”. Quite honestly, I found her singing manageable and nice. She considers herself as a horrible singer. Well, now it’s my turn.. I sang a line and she burst out laughing…dint know the reason, I stopped singing and asked her… “What happened”? She said I have a company and a competitor… (Rest is up to me to understand)!

Time passed by as we discussed a lot of things about each other and fun stuff; finally we got a call from the team to join them as the game was going to start. Game started, I can find that all the tigers and lions were sleeping and only Prathiksha was playing and saving the game. “Oh my oh my… she got good reflexes I said to myself”. Before the game started, I heard someone telling me that they are state level or District level players. I can see that so called District level player is missing the balls and committing fouls very frequently. Hmm Deadly team this is… I wondered from where!

We lost the first match! L But to our surprise, we’ve been included in the quarter finals… Prathiksha got hurt this time on her arm. Ball has no heart I tell u! It hurt me also but then it might have assumed me to be a guy as I have sunny deol arms, I understand that!.

Quarter finals started…

Well, I was called in to play after some time and the very first two balls were to me and I missed them.. (Outdone and outperformed everybody) huh!. I came back to my position as a Spectator (was doing much better job this way)..  Prathiksha was a savior again! No matter how hard a person tries to save the game, until the lion and tigers don’t wake up and roar, this game cannot be won. Prathiksha cannot be in all the positions sadly.. I can ask her to practice it..(can’t we ask for 7 Prathikshas?)……. No I can’t, where will I ask the other 6 to sit on my bike?

Well coming back, we lost the game…

LOTS of FUN happened after that!

As iam feeling sleepy, don’t want to lose on quality of this article and also would want to catch up a small nap… I pen down here today. Trust me, interesting stuff coming up!

I also don’t want to rush things as someone said just today, “do rush with work, ull do mistakes”.

Rest of the things in the later part of the story! Keep waiting for the second part

Hope you have enjoyed reading my article, my real life experience.. Leave a comment.

Malladi..

1/13/2012.