Lucky Break

The year 2011 was a stressful and tiring year for her. Throughout the year she remembers slogging hard at work, there was work and more work. Work kept her occupied till late in the day  during the week and most of the times on weekends as well. What made it worse was that the project was managed poorly and deadlines were arbitrary and the manager expected everyone to give up personal life and just focus on work. Speaking of personal life nothing much was moving well there as well, as most friends had drifted away into relationships or lived in other cities and for her an arranged marriage was on cards as well. Her parents had agreed to wait for a few years until as she wanted to focus on her career for a while and that time had run out. Not only the parents the whole extended family and well wishers were constantly talking about finding a suitable match for her. It did irk initially but now that she had settled into a routine of working till late in evening and arriving home by 10 pm, these things never bothered her. After all those long hours, something had to give and recognition came in form of a meeting with onsite manager in UK. He wanted to get her to UK soon and mentioned it will help her move further in career.
Back home the reaction was not all that great as she expected, parents were happy at her getting recognized as good performer and being offered opportunity to work abroad. But there was also fear that this may delay her marriage search but she had decided she was travelling and that was it. She was to travel in March of 2012 and towards end of Jan the visa interview was set-up. After a bleak and tiring year things seemed to have turned a corner in the  new year ... and then it happened a few days before the visa interview!
She cannot remember how exactly it happened but somehow while visiting her cousin's house two floors above in same apartment her foot slipped on the stairs and she landed awkwardly flight of stairs below with severe pain at the point of impact - her left hand. She was quickly taken to a specialist who took x-rays and confirmed it was a fracture.  Doctor advised taking 4 weeks break for the arm to heal. Suddenly all plans had gone for a toss and the UK trip was now out of question as the role had to be filled by next month so someone else will end up taking her place while she sat at home. Missing work for a whole month would mean she will fall back at work and will no longer be assured of the top rating that seemed to be in the bag. While she was lost in thoughts and feeling sad about herself, the doctor was chatting up with her parents and had discovered that she was in 'marriage market' and had suggested a few suitable boys he knew which drove her even more mad. Here she was in pain and ruing about the missed chance to do some exciting work abroad and all these guys can talk about is marriage. The doctor was not done yet, he delivered an epic closing line with a smile to her.  "Let this be a lucky break for you"

Lucky break indeed, sitting at home bored out of wits with an arm in cast she could not understand what was lucky in this. But the break from routine was welcome, spending time at home during the day was a good change. Not having to get up feeling sleepy and rushing off in hot Chennai morning in crowded bus and heavy traffic was a welcome change as well. Break allowed her to see things better in terms of life and career. And just as she was getting slightly tired and bored about confined at home a marriage proposal had come. Her mom passed the details of this boy they thought was ok based on profile and his family was interested as well and here was the phone number. The boy wants to talk on phone before taking anything further, that suited her as well. 

So numbers were exchanged and they spoke to each other cautiously at first. She had lots of free time and was bored out of wits so was eager to talk to someone and they hit off really well very soon they were talking for a couple of hours daily. He would text whenever he got free and if she was free which she was for most part they would talk. Pretty soon it was becoming apparent that they were comfortable talking to each other and this moved to serious territory. But with like all things she wanted to keep hopes down so decided to approach this causally. After a few weeks, he suggested meeting up in person to decide if this will work. Meet-up for coffee was at mall nearby which was usually very crowded and the food court was a very noisy place as she remembered it. 

So the day arrived and she caught an auto and went there. The place looked super crowded and she still had pain in fractured arm and dreaded moving through the crowds.He was waiting outside and looked just like she expected. Though mall entrance was crowded, he had identified a different entrance which was not crowded and it had an elevator which they took to reach the intended floor and he marched her straight into a home furnishing and gift store which was odd. She was surprised to find a good coffee shop inside which gave them enough privacy to sit and talk. Sit and talk they did for a long time and finally it was time to leave. Standard operating procedure that she was aware for such meetings is to play it safe at the end of the meeting and part well. Whether you like the person or not was usually conveyed subsequently over phone or text. So as they were about to get up she mentioned the usual lines of lets think about how to proceed next and we can drop each other text message later today.

But she was met with a smile and he just got up and said "I don't know about you, but I like you a lot and I'm very much interested in proceeding. What do you think?". She had decided to keep the expectations low as she walked in and think later in the day. So this was a surprise and she is not sure how and or when she made up her mind but she found herself smiling back while saying "Its ok from my side as well". So they walked out together ...

Now 5 years later on warm summer morning in Texas as she wakes up next to him she has to admit that it was a lucky break indeed