The Awkward Conversation!

22 Mar 2011 3 Comments

by Sonali Joshi-Bhatt in General Tags: Characters of the story - Taanyaa

He looked at the papers that he had received that morning and after deliberate consideration, he finally decided to give her a call. It was long due and though he was initially not very comfortable with the idea, he went ahead and looked for her number on his phone and dialed it.

“Nothing’s gonna change my love for you, you oughta know by now how much I love you” …

It was a pleasant caller tune and was one of his favorite songs but he wondered if her taste was so good. He was also curious to know if that caller tune was intended to someone or was he thinking too much into it. While he was still lost in his analysis of the caller tune, he finally heard – Hello – from the other end of the phone.

“Hi, how are you?” he said.

“I am fine, thanks!” She replied exuberantly.

Her voice never sounded like this before. She certainly sounded lively, enthusiastic and happy. It was so unlike her, he thought. Before he could speak further, she continued – “I hope you are doing well too. I always meant to call you but wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. But I am so glad you took the initiative. How have you been?”

He was slightly baffled but simply responded “Uh…I am good, thanks for asking.”

There was a long pause…..he didn’t know what else to say and was about to tell her the purpose for which he had called when she excused herself for a minute in order to attend another call.

While he was put on hold, he started to think about her and the current conversation. He certainly did not expect the conversation to start on a cheerful note. After all they had exchanged nasty emails in the last few days and he couldn’t understand this drastic change, including the romantic caller tune. In fact, he had presumed that they would get straight into serious talk as opposed to the pleasant conversation they were having now.

The hold was however getting longer and he was about to hang up in frustration when he glanced upon his phone screen and was embarrassed at his funny mix-up. Instead of calling up Tanya, his coworker, he called up Taanyaa, an old college flame!

“Ahh, these similar names! No wonder her voice sounded so different. Why wasn’t I careful enough to dial the right person,” he uttered to himself. “Can’t even blame anyone, after all, their names are spelt differently. I was the one who did not pay attention. Taanyaa was always inclined towards numerology,” he chuckled to himself.

While he was still on hold and laughing at the funny gaffe, Taanyaa was back on the line. “I am sorry to have kept you on hold for so long. Where were we?” she said.

“Well, we were just discussing that it’s been long since we talked to each other and that you were glad I took the initiative in touching base with you,” he said. To further avoid his embarrassment, he blurted out “Maybe we should catch up sometime over the weekend. Wouldn’t that be a great idea?”

Taanyaa was happy to hear that and did not realize that it was just a fluke that he had called her up after such a long time. They planned to meet the next weekend at one of their favorite spots and spoke for a while before they hung up.

He was amused at his mix-up but felt good talking to her after so long and was excited to meet her now. He wondered if it was time to rekindle the old flame! He smiled and shook himself out of his reverie and realized that it was time for some work now.