Mariya Ali

I felt slightly awkward, sitting in the corner, all by myself. I was at a friend’s wedding in Calcutta and I didn’t know anyone there. My friend’s family would come over intermittently, amongst all of their chaotic-family-wedding-running-around and check to see if I was ok. I felt bad that I was inconveniencing them so much.

Mayank, the groom, then introduced me to Amit. He had the geek chic look going on, cute little glasses, well dressed and well spoken.

We instantly hit it off.

“Where do you work?” I asked.

“Microsoft”.

Ugh. That’s where Voldemort works. Whenever I hear that word, I shudder. Although it’s not  personal against Microsoft, anything that’s vaguely correlated to that monster makes me cringe.  I shook it off (at Amit’s insistence) and continued to enjoy his company.

As all Indian weddings are multi-function-affairs, I spent a lot of time with my new buddy, Amit. His pregnant wife was back home in Hyderabad and my husband is, well, non-existent, so we found camaraderie in each other.

He had a gentle approach, a good sense of humour and impeccable manners. Considering we had just met, I was touched at how he didn’t ditch me when his friends all showed up, but actually made an effort to include me and would look for me when I would go missing (he quickly realised to either look by the ice cream or on the dance floor).

Amit and I have become friends, and I hope it’s a friendship that stands the test of time, rather than the ones where I tell Mayank, years from now, that I vaguely remember a guy from his wedding who was nice and how I am sad we lost touch.

“It’s nice to know there are good guys out there like you”, I told him.

“There are many”, he coyly replied.

“No there aren’t. And now, when I hear about Microsoft, I will think of you and smile”.