“Excuse me…”, said Aditi to a tall guy standing next to her.
“Yes”, he replied.
“Could you please get me the bottle of coffee on the top shelf? My hand does not reach there and there’s no store attendant around.”
“Sure. No problems”
Karan reached out for the coffee bottle and while giving it to Aditi, had a look at the brand and said – “Is this a new brand of coffee? I have never seen this brand before.”
“Yeah. I too am buying this for the first time. This is strong Colombian Coffee and I had it a friend’s place last night. Got really hooked onto it and decided to buy it today. Anyways, thanks for helping. See ya around”, said Aditi.
“Looks interesting. Maybe I’ll give it a try too since I like coffee. And you’re welcome”, said Karan with a smile.
Half an hour later, Aditi joined the serpentine queue at the billing counter waiting for her turn to come. A couple of minutes later, Karan too joined the queue. He was fretting at the thought of waiting long for his turn to come. Karan was standing right behind Aditi but neither of them realized that they were standing next to each other. While checking the items in her cart for the nth time, she saw another cart nearby and she started glancing in that cart to while away time. While glancing at the items in the other cart, she found the same brand of coffee that she had bought. She thought that this coffee brand seems to have become quite popular. She was curious to know who else shares the same taste as hers and cast a look in the upward direction from the corner of her eye. Little was she aware that Karan on this side too was indulging in the same activity to while away his time. While checking out each other, their eyes met, they both broke into an awkward laughter and Karan said, “Hey there. Wassup?”
“All good. Finally finished buying groceries for this week and now waiting in this looooong queue which doesn’t seem to move!”
“Exactly!! It takes half an hour to buy and 1 hour to pay. It’s terrible! They should really have self check out retail counters. Things would have been much faster. Hopefully international players can bring in customer friendly retail technology”
“Yes, all we can do is just hope. So I can see you too have bought this Colombian coffee.”
“You’re right. I love coffee. I’ve tried quite a few varieties of coffee – American Roast, Italian Roast, Starbucks’ Pike Roast, Freeze-dried coffee, et al. This Colombian coffee sounds interesting and worth a try. And I thought since you are buying it, it surely would be tasting good.”
Aditi smiled and said, “Yeah right. We don’t even know each other and you thought I have good taste in coffee.”
“You don’t have to know each other to make a judgment on someone’s taste. In my opinion, the appearance gives it away.”Flirting came naturally to Karan.
Aditi smiled and replied – “So according to that logic, you too should be having a good taste.”
“If you say so. And about not knowing each other”, Karan put his hand forward and said, “Hi, this is Karan.”
“And Hey, this is Aditi”.
“So now we know each other. How easy was that.”
They still had quite a few customers ahead of them before the main billing counter. So they continued talking. Aditi was a store designer and Karan was a software consultant. So they had a lot of interesting things to talk about their professions and they shared a common passion for food. So they were totally enjoying each other’s company. Finally it was Aditi’s turn at the billing counter. She finished her billing and waited at the gate. Karan too finished his billing and came out of the Exit door. Karan was pleasantly surprised to see Aditi waiting for him.
She said “It was great talking to you. I guess I would have been bored to death waiting in that long queue, but in your company I didn’t even realize how long we were standing there.”
“Same here. It was good fun to talk to you. Hopefully next time, I’ll help you again to bring off that bottle of coffee from the shelf.” They both laughed. Then Aditi said, “Why can’t I see any taxis or rickshaws right now. This is supposed to be a taxi stand and I don’t see a single taxi here. That’s strange!”
Karan said, “Don’t you know that public transport officials are on strike today. How did you come?”
“What! I remembered about that strike till yesterday night and I forgot about that today morning! My friend dropped me to the store as the store was on her way to work.”
“Which side of the city do you stay. Maybe I could give you a lift.”
“Hey! No problem. I just stay about 2 to 3 kms from here. I’ll walk it through. I won’t hit the gym today in the evening.”
“It’s not a big deal. Which side do you stay? I have a car. I can drop you till some distance. And besides you got two heavy bags. Walking with these bags in this sun isn’t good. So if you don’t mind me dropping you somewhere, I could give you a lift.”
At first she was hesitant about going with someone whom she had met just half an hour before. But her instinct told her to trust him since he looked like a good guy and said, “I live in Andheri West, near Alpha”
“Great. I too stay in Andheri West. But I live near Shopper’s Stop. So I could drop you till your society. Just wait here till I get my car from the parking.”
She waited with the bags till he came out of the parking. She kept her stuff in the backseat and sat in the car. After just driving for 200 meters, they stopped at the red signal. Karan said, “And hey, Andheri West is not just
“No I know my distances well. I didn’t want you to go out of your way to drop me. And FYI, I am quite good at approximating distances!”
“Oh is it? So let’s play a game of approximating distances. So from here to that Subway at the corner, how much do you think would be the distance.”
“Not more than 600 metres.”
“That was quick. Let me set my digital distance meter to 0. Let’s see how good Ms Aditi is at distance approximation….. Err, Ms Aditi or Mrs Aditi?”
She smiled and said “Ms Aditi! And my distance approximation would also be right.”
And it was right. The distance meter read 580 meters. They continued playing this game for quite some time and they were having a good time.
Finally they reached Aditi’s apartment. Just to be polite, she asked Karan “Coffee…?”
