Me: " Sure, I'm going to Andheri too."
She : "Great, thanks !!"
Me : "Gimme a minute"
A few minutes later both of us were sitting in an auto-rickshaw which was caught in a traffic jam shortly after we had set off. All I was doing was staring at the meter probably because I was yet to be convinced abt what had just happened.

"Biscuits?", a sudden question slapped me back to reality and there they were, a pack of good day cashew biscuits stretched out towards me. Greedily, I put my hand in the pack and pulled of three of the conversation starters. THREE!! Why the hell did I have to pull out three at once? I asked myself and before I was done with cursing my self I noticed that she had a smile on her face. "No breakfast" was all I could manage to utter. Her smile widened and a simple gesture of hers made everything all right once again.

Nibbling on the yummy biscuits I asked " So, u in IT ? "
She: "TCS, Pune"
Me: "JAVA?"
She: "Dot Net and you?"
Me : "Oracle Apps, Finance Support" (someone had told me this sounds cool, but trust me there’s nothing like it)

I was so glad she did not ask where I worked. Anyways, after exchanging a few dialogues, which you should expect two IT engineers to exchange during the downtime, I was convinced that this conversation is becoming a liability, and it was, at least for me and the heat wasn’t making anything easier. A change in topic was necessity of the moment. So I began:

" Where to? A relatives place or a friend’s?"

"Bhavans College?"

"Huh ??"

"Yeah, I got an interview at SP Jain College (MBA)"

(Silence)

(Long Silence)

"What a 98, 99 in CAT?"

" 98.7"

(Silence)

All the alarms in my head went off screaming, "ALERT! ALERT! Smart Girl, Smart Girl!!"
F@*!, that reply of hers had proved to be a hammer on the thin glass of my confidence, which was now shattered by the intensity of the impact. I wasn’t able to muster enough strength to speak! I felt as if I had a milestone around my neck, which was getting heavier by the moment.

In the mean time we had arrived at her destination. Both of us got off, said out bbye and thanks, I added a 'Best of luck', she replied with a thanks, and that was pretty much it. I got back in the auto rubbing my eyes and told the rickshaw driver: " Kandivali, West "

He turned around, gave me an amazed smile and off we were.