Ma, look that guy is making a pass at me !

I was at the beginning of my career those days - and I had just joined Wipro. You know when you are young , smart , and intelligent and 24, you have a lot of friends and have a lot of fun. I too was a typical 24 year old. I had various gangs of friends - a gang to hang out during lunch , one to hang out on weekends , so on and so forth.

Also , at 24, you are used to getting a lot of attention. Well, again I was a typical 24 year old :)

Ok, so back to my story on when I was 24 and working with Wipro - there was one particular day when I was waiting for the Wipro bus, when , I suddenly looked to my side -to my surprise, I caught a guy staring at me unabashedly :| Finding it a little weird , and thinking of it as no more than a co incidence, I boarded the bus. However, from that day onwards I caught this guy staring at me lot of times - when I would go to and come from the office canteen, when I would be in transit between the various Wipro buildings.

So much so , that if I saw him coming from one side, I would take another path to avoid him.

Once he happened to be in my office room i.e. the location where my cubicle was there. And as he passed by, he saw me and went. I was so disturbed - that I finally confided in my friend, a guy sitting next to me, about what I had noticed about this guy's behaviour - to which my friend laughs and says - 'Ignore him ' :(

I try ! honest !

Next week, I notice this guy again in the busstop , waiting for the Wipro bus . I ignore him. Finally the bus comes and I notice a two seater empty seat ! Wow ! I grab the window seat. Just as I was happily settling down, I notice this guy getting in to the bus. Horror of horrors ! My next seat was empty !! Before I could do anything about it, this guy comes and sits down next to me.

I breathe and relax and after some time he tries to start a conversation - I smilingly oblige. He says - Are you Veena - Veena Mithare ?( That he can obviously read from my Name Tag ) I say 'yes' with a smile. Then he says - Are you maharastrian then ?( My surname obviously is the give away ! ) I wonder - why does he want this information - but I nod and say 'yes' again- by marriage I add .

And then he says -So nice to meet a fellow maharastrian. I am from Kolhapur, Maharastra . I am new to this city and since we both are maharastrians, I have been wanting to talk to you for quite some time.

What !

That was all the reason for all that staring !!

And after that, ridiculously and funnily , the staring stopped :)

That day onwards whenever this guy went past me , he would give a nice smile.

So many times, we interpret a person's actions according to our perceptions. And so many times, we miss out on connecting to a person or getting connected to his greatness because we are so off in our interpretation of the person or the situation. People generally have their own intentions ( and most of the times, people have great intentions ) for doing an action. The restlessness in our life is what we bring to a situation.

As Randy Pauch in his 'The Last Lecture' says, quoting Jon Snoddy -
When you are pissed off at somebody, and you're angry at them, you just haven't given them enough time. Just give them a little more time — and they'll almost always impress you. And that really stuck with me. I think he's absolutely right on that one.