Free Will She Be Mine by Subir Banerjee Page B

about the offer?” she snorted, cutting short my daydreams. “At least he’d feel relieved and happy.”
    He was. In fact, he was so delighted that he took a break from office that afternoon and rushed home to congratulate me. I wasn't sure it was anything worth celebrating. The salary was paltry and my posting would be at Bangalore, which was so far from Delhi where my Shalini had recently returned to work.
    I didn't wish to leave Delhi at this juncture, so soon after her return. I had just started taking her out to eating joints on money borrowed from my parents and needed a little more time to warm her up to the idea of matrimony with me. I was certain she’d agree to my proposal this time.
    She too had treated me to dinner on a couple of occasions, so it wasn’t one-sided any longer. I felt we were just beginning to cozy up to each other and needed to spend more time together. The irony was that my posting would be in Bangalore, a place she’d just vacated. Couldn't we ever be near each other for long? I felt frustrated at my selection in the government job, though it was reputed to be one of the few productive government agencies across the country engaged in imaging and research, with over five thousand employees spread across three or four locations in the country.
    My selectors were villains and spoilsports, I thought fuming. We had lengthy discussions at home why I shouldn’t go to Bangalore versus why I should go and join immediately. I wasn’t able to put up a sound defense and lost the case. Left with little choice, I packed my bags reluctantly. The sad part was that Shalini was traveling at that time and father felt I shouldn’t risk postponing my joining date at my new job, lest they move on to the next candidate in queue and drop me. I was unlikely to get another good job in this life if I didn’t take up this one on time.

    So I reached Bangalore to join my first job. I couldn't meet Shalini before leaving, though I managed to convey my departure schedule to her over phone. She didn't sound in any way concerned or perturbed about my going away. I tried to reason with myself that she cared about me but was too busy to show it. Had she not had a soft corner for me, why would she have accompanied me occasionally to the eating joints after her office hours wehen she was in town?
    I felt pretty homesick at Bangalore chiefly on account of missing her. This was my first job after a long barren patch of time and I was supposed to feel enthusiastic, but I hardly felt the part. Morosely, I took up a small room at a lodge near the railway station. During my first week at the workplace, I learned the secret behind my selection and the reason for the delay in sending me the offer. It seemed there had been some kind of hiring freeze due to which they were unable to make the offer earlier. There was another secret and this second one left me feeling proud.
    The head of the interview panel, Ananthkrishnan, had favored me strongly owing to my MSIT credentials. He’d forcefully spoken in favor of recruiting me despite my joblessness of close to three years. He wanted to give a bright fresher a chance and several panel members had supported him. Since the position I was interviewed for fell in his department, as the head of the interview panel he overruled the few who objected, and hired me, albeit in a lower role, in a post unrecognized in any government gazette due to my inexperience, with the provision that I’d be promoted within a year to a post listed in a gazette, as per the organization’s processes- if I performed well. My subsequent promotions would come at four years or more, as per the existing government norms at that time.
    It was the beginning of some heady years of job life for me. A degree from MSIT was the passport to success in this country. It seemed everyone wanted an MSITian on their rolls those days. An education at MSIT was still a struggle for the majority. Only a brainy few managed to