(This Short Story blog article falls into Short, Funny, Hilarious, Thrilling, Offbeat, Quick to Read Stories category as per author.)
Mamta was filled with ennui and thought of taking a break. Sitting in the office lounge, she was glancing perfunctory through the pages of one of the bussiness magazine and suddenly was astonished to see the article published about one of the wunderkinds who appeared to be somewhat known to her. The article was talking about the success of Lokesh Rathore with
the heading "Journey From Hovel to Mansion". He looked very smart in the photograph, printed alongwith the article and only word which came to her mind was "ugly duckling". She started reading the article of the magazine from the beginning. She realized that Lokesh was not only a successful person now, but was also a trail-blazer for a new bussiness trend in the country.
While reading the article she got lost in olden days, around 12 years back. Lokesh was an ordinary and unobtrusive student in the class. His father was a post-man and was hardly able to afford Lokesh's school fee and books with his meagre salary. Mamta have been a better student of the class and was also a good looking girl and she belonged to a higher middle class family. One day she had become late in returning home from school, as she was sitting in the library, she did not realize the it was twilight. She thought that her parents would be restive at home as she never became so late anytime before. She was scurrying through the steps of library and realized Lokesh was standing there, looking little pre-occupied. She passed by him but heard his voice from the behind. She turned back to see if he had called her and found Lokesh moving towards her and was looking into somekind of quandry. He quickly passed through her, coming from back, dropping a letter in her hand without saying a word. Mamta was baffled and not a single word came out of her mouth. By the time she could understand a thing, he had walked away and had vamoosed. Mamta could not dare to open the letter right there, so she folded the letter and slid inside one of the books, she was holding in her hand. By the time she reached home, her parents were standing outside the home and were looking little agitated. She said sorry to her dad and explained how she did not realize, sitting in the library, that it became so late. Atleast by seeing her okay, her parents became pacified. Mamta moved in quickly, she was finding each minute so interminable and was eager to read the letter, which was dropped in her hand few minutes back. After ablution as per her wont, she moved into her room. Her hands were shaking and she was feeling mixed kind of emotions which could be pot-pourri of fear, excitement, anger and some different kinds of attavistic feelings.
The letter contents were:
"Hi Mamta,
I do not know what kind of feeling I have for you, but I keep thinking of you all these days and I am not able to focus on my studies. Would you like to be my friend?
Yours
Lokesh"
Reading the letter Mamta looked clueless and she was infuriating; may be, she had expected something else in that letter.... something more. The days went by, but Mamta could realize that sometimes Lokesh's eye were fixate on her. She started avoiding him anyway, as she found no interest in him; and sometimes she went beyond attiquettes, when she turned to different route when she saw Lokesh coming from front.
The final exams of that acedemic year were over and the results were awaited. It was one of crux for the students, as they has to select the subjects from next year onwards among science, arts and commerce; and all this was purly based on individual's performace in this exam for limited number of seats. Science was most preferred followed by commerce and arts.
At last the result was out, and to everyone's surprise, Mamta passed summa cum laude. Lokesh could manage to get the first division, but was not able to get into science stream. Mamta opted for Science as expected and Lokesh had to satisfy with commerce. Now they seldom got to see each other for the subjects and classes were different for both of them. Mamta was doing good in her subjects and she enjoyed mathematics a lot and decided to prepare for engineering college entrance exams.
One day on her way to class, she came across Lokesh who as waiting in the similar fasion, as the other day in front of library. She was accomponied by four of her classmates and she was least expecting Lokesh to make any move, which will embrass her, among her friends. Lokesh came forward, standing in front of them; his eye little dewy. Without any preamble, he started
saying,"Mamta, I am in love with you and I want to be yours forever. Whenever I close my eyes, I see you. You are the one, whose thoughts keep me haunting every single moment of the day-". Before he could say anything else, Mamta was so flabbergasted to face all these, in presence of her friends, that she bursted unexpectedly. She snubbed Lokesh for his behavior and also rebuked his dishevelled and bedraggled appearance. without bothered to look for Lokesh reaction she moved ahead with her friends towards her class. Mamta never saw Lokesh again after that, and sometimes she felt extremely discontented with her behavior for that day when she had snubbed Lokesh.
This was very critical year for Mamta as she had to prepare for entrance exam for various enginnering colleges and she was leaving no stone unturned, to get into the most esteemed enginnering college of her state. The most awaited dream of her, came true when she received the letter from the enginnering college, confirming her admission, which she was yearning for.
All those years in the enginnering college went by very quickly and Mamth came out with flying colors. She got placed into one of the fortune 500 company for her first job and her joy knew no boundries after that. She started her professional career and was working very hard to learn all the nuances of her field.
Suddenly, Mamta got jolted back to the present, by the ring of her cellphone. Sunita was on the other side of call and was looking very perky. When Mamta asked her about the reason, she mentioned that she got a good hike in her job and a promotion too. Although Sunita was Mamta's bosom friend and they had been together since their childhood and all the while during their school days, but still Mamta was not feeling the happiness in her friends success, as she used to feel before; and the reason was, Mamta was still thinking about Lokesh. Sunita also knew Lokesh, as her house was close to Lokesh's house and Mamta was sure if she fretted little about Lokesh, Sunita will be more than happy to tell all the story. Mamta asked Sunita to meet over coffee after office hours in JSB cafe which was very famous place in the town and Sunita obliged to Mamta's proposal.
Evening, after office both of them met at the designated place. After congratulating Sunita on her success, they got into desultory conversation. Suddenly, Mamta mentioned Sunita about how she came across a article in bussiness magazine talkling about Lokesh's success but Sunita did not comment.
Mamta asked her "How did he become so lucky to get there?"
Sunita said solemnly, " He was not lucky, he made his way through this with sheer hardwark and dedication".
She added, "Success Never Happens By Chance, and who would better know it, than you".
And see started telling Lokesh's story to Mamta.......
"Lokesh got into a commerce graduation college which was not very renowned one. During his first year of the college, his father died of Intracerebral hemorrhage. There was no other bread earner in his family and Lokesh was the eldest son of the family followed by one sister, four years younger to him and then one brother 7 years younger to him. Lokesh started doing the
part time job in one of the printing press. Due to the job, he was not able to attend the classes regularly and as a result of this he was not allowed to appear in the final exam. Leaving the job was not possible for Lokesh, so he decided to appear as private candidate in the exam, to get her graduation degree. He worked hard for three years of graduation as he had to strike a balance
between family's need and his career. On his graduation day, his mother died of tuberclosis; he was left despaired. He later worked as actuary after his graduation, in one of the shops in city market. After coming back from his job in the night, he used to study hard, in order to get into a good MBA institute. He could not make it through, in his first attempt; but he did not give-up and his tenacity was worth praising as he finally got into one of the most esteemed MBA college. For his MBA, he took education loan and was also working part-time to feed the family and take care of his youngers. After completion of his MBA, he started working with a small firm and the whole world's economy was going through the depression and job opportunites were very less. But he worked hard to learn tricks of the trade and after couple of years he stared his own small chemical industry with the loan provided by bank. But as the ill luck would have it, that chemical plant was smithereens by the fire caused by some accident. But he was determined to break the jinx and after that with lots of struggle he reached where you see him today. So now you know how lucky he had been -"
Mamta interuppted Sunita, "Do you have his phone number??".
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