I wanted my first entry to be a love story...

I know someone called Balaji. I call him Baals. He calls me rarely. We can't meet as often as I would like us to, because we live in different time zones. When I wake up Baals is falling asleep, when he opens his eyes, I'm busy dreaming about him. Weekends we meet.

I'll call and say 'Let's meet', he'll say 'In or Out?'. Baals is a paradoxical guy. 'Out' means when we stay in. We like to sit around a lot, so we find different places to do so, his room or mine, or some place in the city. 'In' is when we ride on his bike to the outskirts of the city. Baals says that riding out helps us soak in ourselves. Maybe he has a point.

Yesterday was hang out time. We sat in a loud, coffee place. Neither of us drink coffee and noise makes us both cranky. When I'm cranky I say nasty things and I said a lot of them then. Baals is a gentle guy, he hates scenes, especially unnecessary ones. Baals said 'I don't think you particularly want to hang-out today, I'll call you later', and he walked off, without looking back. I called out to him 'Baals....BAALS', this seemed to amuse the young people on the table next to me. They said 'O God, listen to her man!!!', 'Why do people even try to be hep?!!

Funny how people can for no reason say mean things. I shrugged my shoulders and went off. All the way back home, I could only think of how he never looked back.

When things go wrong they really do. Today was an important presentation and my promotion depended on it. I had practised hard in front of the bathroom mirror. Things seemed to be going well. Fully confident of the impact I seemed to be making, I ended with a flourish, 'Now ladies and gentlemen, the court is in your baals'.

I didn't get the promotion. Infact, they've sent me back to training. I sat the entire day with a lady who told me ' It's- Can I take your cOll and not "your caal". One needs to round one's O's'

At the end of that day, I cOlled Baals.
'Baals..', I said.
'In or Out?', he asked. Immediately the burdens of everyone in the whole, wide world, which had somehow gotten misplaced on my poor shoulders, disappeared. Just like that. Still didn't want to push my luck too far
'Don't you have work now?', I asked.
'I'm bunking', he said.
'O then In! In!' I said.
'Ok hang on I'll come to your office and pick you up'.

I hung up and wanted to fly. But my boss would have disapproved a little, he's a strange guy. So I merely jumped a little in my chair.

'However bleak the world may seem', I thought to myself, 'Thank God, I'll always have Baals'.