A friend is defined as “a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.”

This definition is fine but another definition says a friend is “a person who is not hostile.”

It is like saying “I’m in North Pole because I’m not in South Pole.” Almost no one in this world is hostile to me (okey, except for those rickshaw drivers who deliberately try to kiss my car with their metal lips every time they pass by me), but that doesn’t mean that everyone is my friend. And I am pretty sure that our milkman in Calcutta was not hostile to us. He never mixed rat poison or phenyl in the milk, he just mixed water everyday. But that certainly doesn’t make him my friend.

A great philosopher once said “Friends are like bras: close to your heart and always there for support. But if you get the wrong one they will only induce irritation and pain.”

So you have to be careful while choosing your bra friend. Knowing different types of friends that exists will help you decide whom and when to take an acquaintance to the next level of friendship.

Friends can be classified into many types based on different parameters.

Based on the level of physical intimacy permitted friends can be divided into four major kinds.

1. Close Friends: This kind of friends are allowed to grab arms, shoulder but are not supposed to hold hands. They go out in groups for movies, adventure sports, camping etc. It is usually a tightly-knit group of 3 to 5 friends. They call each other on semi-regular basis but call duration never exceeds 5 minutes for boys and 55 minutes for girls.
2. Best Friends: In addition to type 1 privileges, best friends are allowed to hold you by waist and search for your car keys in your jeans pocket which they are then going to take out for indefinite time while you keep waiting for them. Occasionally they slap you or hit you so hard that you see the constellations in broad daylight that are yet to be discovered. You call them almost every day and they know all your secrets. Starting from your latest crush in college to your childhood molestation by some random guy.
3. Boyfriend/Girlfriend: They are allowed to do anything. When I say anything I mean ANYYY THING.
4. Just friends: This is an interesting type of friend. Nobody knows the exact limit of physical intimacy allowed for a Just Friend except for the Just Friends themselves. They never hold hands in front of other friends but go for one-on-one lunch or dinner. They go out a lot (just the two) but don’t call it a date. They call each other everyday and talk for hours. While midst of other friends they are seldom found to pass short and sweet smiles at each other and when asked ‘What’s going on between you two?’ they blush like sunrise and say ‘Nothing yaar. Just friends.’

Friends can also be divided into two broad categories-

1. Friends that you haven’t met, and
2. Friends that you have met.

Type 1 friends or Friends that you haven’t met can be of different kinds. In old days there used to be Pen Friends. Pen friends or pen pals are people who regularly write to each other, particularly via postal mail.

With the advent of technology pen friends are gradually replaced by a new kind of friends known as Online Friends or Virtual Friends. These are the people you meet via various social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. This also includes Chat Buddies, Blog Buddies and Gaming Buddies. In several occasions such friends get promoted to type 2 when you like them enough and ultimately decide to meet them in real life.

Girls enjoy some extra privilege in this sector. They are often flooded with erratic Orkut requests like ‘wanna b frands’ or ‘plsss b my fraand’ and in almost all these cases, even if the girl accepts the friend request, she never expects to meet them in real life and avoids any kind of interaction that might lead to such circumstances.

Type 2 friends or The friends that you have met can be further divided in various categories. Some of the major types are as follows-

• Quick Friends: You meet them regularly for a short period of time and you share a hearty conversation with them in that short time span. You chat with them one-on-one but never have lunch or dinner together. Neither do you intend to although you have invited each other in several occasion. This types of friends are usually the people whom you meet only in train, bus or lifts.
• Mates: These are the people you are friend with just because you have to share a lot of time together. There is no way you can avoid them and you end up seeing each other regularly. They include Class mate, Batch mate, work mate and room mate. (Not to be confused with intimate or Playboy Playmate.)
• Friends for a reason: Remember the friend who used to attend all lectures and take notes so that s/he can provide you with all those just before the exam. Or the friend who’s father is a millionaire. They provide you cars when you plan a trip or fund occasional parties without any occasion. They are categorized as the friends for a reason. This type also includes The Connected Guy who is friend with the local drug dealer or knows someone everywhere and is always willing to flaunt their contacts. They are specially helpful when you are looking for a free pass to any hip party.
• Friends with benefits: (You already know more than required ’bout them.)
• Shoulder to cry on friends: Easily one of your most selfless friends. One has to be a very good listener to qualify into this grade of friend. They listen to you pointless procrastination for hours on a regular basis and take immense interest in your plight (or atleast pretend to do so). They agree with you when you say that nobody appreciates the enormous amount of sacrifice that you did to them by not hitting them right in their nose. Moreover they mollify you and say ‘this too shall pass’.
• The last type includes those people who makes you realize that you are not the best when it comes to judging people. You thought them to be nice and became friends only to be aware of your mistake much after the damage has been done. They often cause emotional distress, initiate misunderstanding with other good friends or even worse. They include- 1. The Promise Breaker, 2. The Double-crosser, 3. The Discloser, 4. The Gossip maker, and 5. The User. We call them Pest Friends.

Now you know about different types of friends so choose your friends carefully and enjoy the pure bliss of friendship.

Let us know what kind of friends you have and what kind of friend you are.

A young girl walked in. White top and skinny blue jeans. If anybody ever makes a list of most clichéd outfit in the world then white shirt and blue jeans will certainly top the list. But the good thing about it is- it never goes out of fashion. Anyway I should not be commenting on fashion, my fashion sense is only as good as Uncle Scrooge (pic) who considers wearing a coat is more fashionable than wearing a pant.

I can’t guess her age. Girls from 17 to 27 all look same to me. All of them look like mean of 17 to 27 = 22, girls younger than twenty-two try to look more mature while those older than twenty-two manage to look younger somehow.

She kept her bag in the chair beside me and sat on the next chair. This is a clear signal of ‘I am not interested’, but I will ignore it and try to make some conversation. This is not something that happens in everyday life of a guy like me. I should say something funny. Girls like witty guys. Girls like handsome guys too, since I can’t change my looks right now so I should try the witty approach. I had a friend in college who was very popular among girls because he was funny. Whenever he used to say something all girls used to ROFL. That guy was fat, had a huge tummy- still always surrounded by girls. I think it was his face and his way of saying something that used to make every damn thing sound hilarious. He had this style of narrating even the most comical incident with a unsmiling face and still sound funny.

One day we were all sitting in college canteen and the usual gossip was on. Our topic of discussion kicked off with football then jumped over to politics then to profs and then on what electives we should take for next semester. When my turn came I said- “I have changed my mind…”

Funny-man interrupted and with his poker face on he said- “thank god! so is it working now?”. Everybody started laughing.

But being the funny man is not always fun. People laugh at anything you say. Later that week, funny-man came and said- “I didn’t pass in two subjects”. Everybody started laughing. (I laughed even louder. Yes I am evil, I laugh at others misfortune. Specially of those who make fun of me.)

However except a few occasion being the funny-man usually works for getting chicks. He used to get hugs and face palms from girls while rest of us just used to watch in complete disbelief.

So here I am sitting next (leaving one chair in between) to a pretty twenty-two year looking girl and I need to say something funny right now. I turned towards her and said,

-Hi

-Hi, she replied with a plastic smile.

-So how have you been? Long time since we last met…

-Excuse me! Do I know you?

-Of course…

She raised her eyebrows. Now she is looking with suspicion. Trying to recall whether we have actually met before or not. She knows this is the oldest trick in book to start conversation, but somewhere back in her mind also lies the slight probability of actually meeting me (considering the ample number of jerks every pretty girl meets regularly). She doesn’t want to embarrass me in that case.

She seems to be a nice girl. I have to make up a story of our previous meet and make it up right now. It should be something very general, very familiar. Such that even if she can’t recall it (which she certainly would not) still she should not be able to dismiss it completely. I should try something mundane. Something that almost everybody has been through in life, like a friend’s party or may be a journey together in bus or train.

Nooo. None of these are witty or intelligent. I should try something out-of-the-box.

So I thought out-of-the-box and said,

-I am Batman. Just forgot my mask at home today.

I gave her a strange smile followed by my special jig of the day- “Oh shit! I forgot to lock my Batmobile” and walked out.

(By the way, do Batmobiles have door lock? I don’t remember any sequence from any Batman movie or DC Comics when Batman takes a moment to lock his Batmobile door just before kicking some serious butt and save the world.)

Who cares?

I approached the man behind this auspicious day for lovers, fund-raising day for gift shop owners and agonizing day for the rest.

Saint Valentine was a great martyr who sacrificed his life for uniting young lovers. Though we all know about Valentine’s Day but very few know about St. Valentine. A lot has changed since he died. Let’s try to know how he feels ’bout twenty-first century Valentine’s Day.

Wassup mate?

How drust thee call mate. Thou son of a …

Sorry sir. This is an informal interview, so I was just trying to be informal… Sir, I have a request. Can you please speak in normal English. Thee, thou, thy- I find it very confusing.

Okey. I can speak your tongue.

Thank you sir.

Don’t call me sir, call me father. I am a priest.

No thanks. I have a father and I know who he is.

(Looking around and shouting in complete disgust) Who is this idiot? I’m not doing this any more. Thou shalt leave…

Sorry sir… oops! Sorry father. Please father please…

That’s better. Now came the camel under the hill.

What camel? Which hill?

That’s a Hindi proverb. Now came the camel under the hill means- “Ab aya uunt pahad ke niche”. You really are an idiot.

Oh I got it now. Father, there is another proverb in Hindi, “Jaroorat padhne pe gadhe ko bhi baap bulana padhta hai” -When needed call an ass as father. What’s your take on that?

No comments.

Fine. Valentine’s Day is round the corner. You must be excited.

Excited my foot. I was a martyr. I died for a cause and the cause was certainly not for buying red roses and pink cards with that naked winged boy’s picture on it. When Roman Emperor Claudius II issued an edict forbidding all marriages and engagements in the country I defied his unjustified order…

Obviously, after all you were a priest and reading marriage vows is what you do for living…

Ahem… No, not that.

Rome got involved in several bloody wars during that period. So Claudius wanted new soldiers in the army but not many wanted to join army leaving their wives and families…

So what you are saying is you opposed a rule which was made to retain the glory of Rome. And you call yourself a martyr?

Ahhh… don’t interrupt.

Claudius then prohibited all marriages in the country. Romans were not at all happy with this but nobody dared to raise voice against the mighty emperor. I saw the pain in the eyes of young lovers and decided to help them. Whenever lovers thought of marrying, they came to me and I met them afterwards in a secret place, and joined them in the sacrament of matrimony. Secretly of course. But the secret did not stay secret for long. Big-mouthed ladies. How I wish they had legalised gay marriage back then.

Anyway one fine morning I was secretly marrying this couple and then suddenly the emperor’s soldiers came…

Then they beat the shit out of you…

I won’t say that encounter was pleasant in any way.

What happened to that couple?

I don’t know. I was busy saving my own ass. Unfortunately those soldiers were better athletes than me and I was arrested.

While awaiting my sentence in prison, one day jailer Asterious came to me with his blind daughter. I helped her and she fell for me. You must have heard of that clichéd sign-off line “From Your Valentine” -that is what I wrote in my farewell message to her before my execution.

Wait… you said she fell for you then why you had to write a farewell note, that too to her?

♪ Dil to baccha hai ji… Thoda kaccha hai ji… (I have a tender heart… Its deeds are babyish…)

Hmm… So you must be upset with all these ‘moral police’ and ‘Sri Ram Sena’ activists who chastise Valentine’s Day celebration in India. That ‘pink chaddi campaign’ was a smart idea, ain’t it?

‘Pink chaddi campaign’?

I have only heard of ‘Pink Panther 2′ campaign when Aishwarya wore that black low-cut. Aren’t Indian Bahus (daughter-in-laws) supposed to be all shy and covered up in front of their sasurs (father-in-laws)?

Your Big B is a big time tharki (lecher). Since the day he danced in Kajra re with Aish in that low-cut blouse he has gone head-over-heels for her. And at last he brought her home. Btw is Abhishek still in the delusion that Aish married him for his good-looks and non-sense of humor?

Errr… Let’s not talk ’bout that. I’d tell you about ‘pink chaddi campaign’. In 2009, Promod Muthalik, a Sri Ram Sena activist announced an action plan to target couples found dating on February 14. He said “Our activists will go around with a priest, a turmeric stub and a mangalsutra on February 14. If we come across couples being together in public and expressing their love, we will take them to the nearest temple and conduct their marriage.” Then women from all around India started a peaceful protest by sending pink underwear (chaddi) to Muthalik’s office on Valentine’s day. Great idea, what do you think?

What is so great in that idea! Which jerk comes up with these moronic ideas? Bra-color awareness day, Pink-panty valantine’s day…

Those jerks felt amused rather than embarrassed. Who knows, they might have relished those new as well as soiled panties. From peeping-tom to sniffing-tom.

Ahem… Okey moving on- Card companies make a lot of money on Valentine’s Day. Many people suspect that the whole custom of celebrating Valentine’s Day is just a business propaganda. Do you agree?

Absolutely. Have you ever seen any card with my face on it? It’s either that attention-whore Cupid or some funny shapes they call ‘heart’!

Which duffer said that betel leaf shape looks like a heart? Where is the left and right ventricles? What ’bout aorta, inferior and superior vena-cava? No heart looks like that. Not even a chicken heart.

‘Chicken-heart’ was that an intended pun?

Forget it. What I meant was be-fooling common man has become too easy and some opportunistic people are taking full advantage of it. Some smart-ass thought drawing a heart is too complicated so just draw any crap and named it heart. How many people has seen a real heart anyway?

Anything you want to say to our readers?

Yes.

All the single ladies- DesiNinja is awesome. He is handsomeness personified. You won’t find a better guy than him. If you haven’t proposed to him already then do it ASAP. And remember- whatever Beyonce said is all rubbish. True love needs no ring.

Have a great Valentine’s Day.

=====================

Sources

• St. Valentine’s history nicked from here.
• Pink chaddi campaign nicked from wikipedia.

High school Biology class in progress. Todays topic- Life Process II: Reproduction.

Teacher asks a question to all students- What is sex?
Everybody in the class starts giggling.
Teacher asks again. This time pointing out a boy- You, stand up and tell me, what is sex?
The boy stands up, still trying hard to hold his smile and says- ummm… aaaa… sirrrr…
Teacher gets impatient and shouts- Stop stammering and say it loud. I can’t hear you.
Boy freezes in fear and starts speaking in a robotic monotonous voice- It is the penetration of penis into the vagina.

Pin-drop silence in the class.
Teacher looks away from him and says casually- Sex is the property by which organisms are classified as males and females. Anyway sit down.

The constant change for betterment in gene pool of any species is achieved by the “struggle between the individuals of one sex, generally the males, for the possession of the other sex”. This is how Darwin defined sexual selection. (FYI sexual selection is very different from sex selection which is the attempt to control the sex of the offspring to achieve a desired sex, in other words first step towards female foeticide). Sexual selection is a component of natural selection. Natural selection really is the ‘survival of those who reproduce the best’. It is this process of sexual selection which made us ‘Human’ from primates. It is because our ancestor primates consistently chose to mate with the relatively intellectually(!) superior partner which ultimately resulted in an increasing brain mass over consecutive progeny.

But how we choose our partner from a range of people of opposite sex? There are a set of traits that both males and females look for in their prospective mate. The things man look for in a woman is very different from what a woman look for in a man.

Men are turned on visually while women are more interested in character. For men visual arousal stimuli are vitally important and activate the brain more than they do for women. The visual ques that men look for in women are the results of extraordinary evolutionary effects. Men usually look for curves in a female body. And science has proved that there is more than just perversion in typical male gaze. To begin with, a women’s breast clearly signals that she has passed puberty and is probably able to reproduce. (So ladies, next time you spot a guy staring at your boobs- don’t freak out. However this theory fails to explain Micheal Jackson, N D Tiwari and other pedophiles.) The other part of the female body which attracts eyes is the waist. A waist 7/10th of its hip size is found to be most favorable to bear babies. Females with a waist to hip ratio of 7:10 find it easier to get pregnant, conceive earlier in life and have fewer miscarriages. Next on this list are well-formed lips (explains the uber popularity of Angelina Jolie), high defined cheeks and skin texture. Most of these feminine features are regulated by the hormone Estrogen, which also regulates the reproductive health of a women. It is these signs of health, youth and fertility that a man is looking for in a woman. But deceiving human eye is not one of the toughest things to do. With the advent in medical science (mainly cosmetic surgery) now anyone can have well-developed breasts (breast augmentation), lustrous skin (Botox/ face lift/ LSR- Laser Skin Resurfacing) and a perfect waist (Liposuction/ Butt enlargement/ butt lift). Mother nature is clever enough to make women fool-proof from these visual misleads.

Women look beyond simple physical attractiveness. They looks for intangible characteristics which can not be deceived. Like reliability, loyalty, kindness and intelligence. (This should explain why Padmalaxmi married Salman Rushdie or that sexy blonde you know who is going out with some ugly prick- and you thought she was dumb!) Generally speaking, women are more choosy than men when it comes to pick a partner. The reason women are more choosy about men is because sex can be much costlier for them. It can lead them to nine months of painful pregnancy and years of child care (and the pain continues). To talk at the gamete level- sperms are cheap, eggs are costly. Sperms are easily produced (and more easily wasted ). A male can produce four such cells in every meiosis. Egg production on the other hand is costly. They are very large cells and takes almost a month to produce a single egg cell in human. So right there from the production of gametes, a female investment is significantly larger than in males. This makes them more careful in choosing a partner to pass on her DNA. It’s like if you are buying a $100 mobile phone you would be happy if you can make and receive calls only, but if you are to buy a $3000 phone you will read about its features and reviews before buying it. And for women choosing a partner is like buying that $3000 phone.

Women choose a mate who will help raise their children. This makes ‘status’ a very attractive trait. A powerful, wealthy and successful man can provide a good life to possible offspring. Men also take part in this game by showing off fancy cars and elegant clothes. But it’s not that women don’t like to look at good-looking men (like me). The male hormone testosterone helps in developing various secondary male sexual features after a boy reaches his puberty like strong jaw, prominent cheek bones and broad shoulders. These are the markers of male virility and health.

Babies with a wide genetic variation have a stronger immune system which helps fight off disease. People who inherit a range of genes have an advantage. Each individual has his own set of immune system which they strengthen over the years by fighting with various diseases. Researches show that women prefer men with dissimilar ranges of genes from them their own. (This also explains incest avoidance.) They do it by scent. Our body odour carries significant information about our genes. women tend to prefer smell of men with dissimilar MHC (major histocompatibility complex) thus favoring guys whose immune system is different from their own. Then their babies get the best of the mix, a diversity giving them a better chance to of healthy life.

In another study it was found that- people with more symmetric face looks more attractive. Symmetry is a reliable signal of gene quality. People whom we find attractive usually has more symmetric face and a greater variety of genes, hence stronger immune system. People with good immune system are less prone to diseases and parasites, the sort of things that might lead to asymmetrical features when we are developing. Women also prefer the smell of men who are more symmetrical, specifically to women who are at the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle. (This leads to the question of science behind fidelity and infidelity. I might cover this topic some other time.)

So what a women is actually looking for in men? She is looking for indications in men that display honest and costly signals that they contain genes for superior survival ability. it’s a catch twenty-two for them between ‘direct benifits’ (status, power, fame, money) and ‘good genes’ (tall dark handsome). And it is this situation which gives many men the ‘benefit of doubt’ and ultimately all of us get hitched.

************************************
Sources:
* The Nature of love by Dr. Helen Fisher
* Yale University Lecture on Sexual Selection
* The National Geographic Channel
* Discovery Channel
* My own (not so) intelligent analytical ability.

The crown of literature is poetry.It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose stop aside when the poet passes.

–William Somerset Maugham

I wrote my first poem when I was in class II. Some over-patriotic-die-hard poem. If I remember correctly its English translations would be something like this: Oh my dear motherland, I want to die for you. I am full of vigor, My blood is fresh and new. I was so mesmerized by my creativity that the next moment I was standing in front of my Dad, holding a torn paper with both hands and giving a shy smile.

Dad was reading newspaper sitting on couch. What is it son? Dad asked.

Poem. I replied in a shy voice with my eyes locked at floor.

Dad took a while to read and then looked at me. Gave a bigger smile and said-

This is the best poetry I have ever read. Very good. Veeery good. But it’s a bit short to be published?

I don’t know what I was thinking back then. I went straight back to my room and actually wrote twelve more lines. It was a masterpiece. At least that’s what I thought. Four sonnets of four lines each. And rhyming last words. Sweet. This time I got aroused by my creative ability. I completely overlooked the loop-hole in this whole excitement. My Dad is a doctor. Anyone he knows closest to print media is our newspaper-boy. Till today it remains a mystery what he meant by ‘to be published’?

So my first poem remained unpublished. But I was still oozing with poetry. And I delivered my second one after two years without any contraception. A new family just moved in to our neighborhood. They had a daughter named Diana. I didn’t really meet her at first. One day I saw her returning from school. She was wearing blue and white school uniform and I experienced love-at-first-sight for the first time. I said ‘first time’ because it kept happening pretty regularly since then. Every time a see a pretty girl I fall in love. My love is not that demanding. I don’t expect them to love me back. Rather I am that kind where the boy keeps loving from a distance and never expresses his feelings for her. In fact I think I have become a ‘love-at-first-sight’ specialist. But the problem is I am a perfectionist. Perfectionists have this extraordinary skill of restricting their love only to the first sight. To them second sight is never as lovely as the first one, third sight is ‘okey-okey’ and sights there after gradually turn ‘disturbing’. Whatever, back to my story. Our first meet was heavenly. My thoughts went crazy once again. But there was a small hitch in our (secret) relation. She was in class VII and I was still in class IV. This time I ventured into a new genre of poetry viz. romance, and as usual I was bedazzled. Next day I waited till evening. There was a little park for kids in our block. She comes to that park everyday along with three other girls, also from neighborhood. We used play an indigenous version of hide and seek there. One of the kids will be blindfolded. Then everybody else will run in all possible directions. The seeker will count till five then open his blind and start chasing any one. The indigenous part was, seeker had to count till five while touching and in the mean time if somebody else comes and touches seeker then he has to start all over again. The other three girls, now with Diana, also used to play with us. But they stopped paying when they entered class VII. Now they have a group of four girls who sit in the grass and keeps talking. They somehow manage to keep it audible only to themselves. If someone sits just behind any of them even then he won’t be able to grasp a single word they are saying. Although the giggles were pretty clear.

When she was coming back from park, I followed her. There was a narrow lane which I knew would be empty. Once she was in that lane I fast-forwarded my steps and was walking beside her.

I said- This is for you. I wrote it for you.

-For me? But it’s not my birthday today?

I wanted it to be out-of-the-world. So I wrote my poem in a colored paper with sparkles and she thought it to be a Birthday card. Can’t really blame her. She took it and started to read.

-How dare you write that to me? I’ll tell your mom.

That was it. She kept her word. What followed was not at all pleasant. Soon everybody in my block started to call me Mr. Poet. Even my classmates in school also started to call me Mr. Poet. I had to bear with that name till my last day in that school. I changed that school after class V. I learned from my mistakes and never tried poetry since then.

NOTE: I think I figured out why did she react so brutally to my lovely poem. Most probably she didn’t like my last stanza where I rhymed her name- Diana with banana.

It’s 7:48 am. Panir lifted his eyelids to see the time. Damn. I can still sleep for 12 more minutes, his thoughts keep running. Panir hates this feeling, when you know you have time to sleep some more and you are awake before time. Nothing happens before time with him. Buses never come before time when he is waiting at bus stop. His class teacher never leaves the class before time. It happens only with his sleep. He always wakes up few minutes before 8 o’clock, his regular wake up time.

He pressed some random buttons on his laptop. He keeps his laptop over the side table. It’s still switched on, in sleep mode. The screen flashed. Panir gave a quick look over his mail box. He has to do something in these 12 minutes.

‘You have 3 new massages’. Someone has commented on someone else’s photo in facebook. Then why is facebook sanding him this emails? Oh, I liked his photo, Panir recalled.

Panir rolled out of his bed. Went to bathroom. Brushed his teeth. Came back to bedroom and started to plan his day, sitting on easy chair by the big French-window.

Hi hon, Lina entered the room with two cups of coffee in her hands. She came near Panir and kissed him in cheeks. Panir took a cup in hands and smiled back to her.

She always looks beautiful in morning, Panir thinks in his mind and said, Good Morning.

Lina is doing her graduation in Media and Journalism. Their relationship will be one year old next month. After dating for eleven months and almost 100 movies, they decided to live together. They shifted to this house yesterday. It’s a small house with one bedroom, living, kitchen and a toilet. It doesn’t have a bathtub tough. But they have a big sliding wardrobe in bedroom. Panir didn’t like this house when he first came here for inspection. But it was in a convenient location for both him and Lina. So he convinced Lina  and now they are here.

Panir keeps staring at Lina. He loves this girl. Last evening she was so upset with him that she was not even talking to him and now she has made coffee for him! Like all her grudge is gone along with the night.

Panir said, You looking fab.

Thank you, Lina replied, You looking good too, hehehe.

Why are you laughing?

What now? You can’t even see me laughing? I’m not that bad.

Lina has started talking in her husky voice. It means she is in a good mood. When she speaks like this she sounds like those feline animals who keeps cuddling only to its owner. Panir hates this. Instead he said, Nothing like that baby. I was just curious.

Lina came towards him and sat on his lap.

Get ready, she is going to ask for some over-priced shit right now, Panir thinks while he wraps his arm around her abdomen and pulls her closer. Now he is holding Lina by one hand and the coffee cup by other. Drinking coffee won’t be that comfortable in this posture, a quick thought came to Panir’s mind.

Can you come early today. Lets go to beach, Lina Said

Now she has started talking in short and unrelated sentences. I mean, why I have to come early? It’s summer now. I’ll be back by 4 o’clock. We will still have time to hit beach. What is she trying to say? Lets go to beach at 12 noon!

Yeah sure, Panir said with a smile.

Oh you are so sweet. Lina gave him a tight hug and kissed him again.

Ta tat. Ta tat. Ta tat.

Alarm goes off. It’s 8:00 am. Panir opens his eyes and bangs it hard.

Did I imagine all those in just 12 minutes or was it a dream? Panir woke up with a confusion. He doesn’t have a girlfriend.