Chapter 1
I sat at my desk, staring at cell E1000 on the Excel sheet open on my screen, while every now and then, my gaze wandered to the sky beyond my window.
Both looked equally complicated and neither seemed ready to give me any answers.
I glanced at the clock. It was noon, yet the sky outside my window looked as though the afternoon had forgotten to arrive. Dark clouds had gathered overhead, turning the day strangely dim.
The sky had turned so dark and overcast that it felt as though the clouds were holding their breath, waiting for the slightest sign to start raining.
Maybe it’s waiting for a signal from God to burst and start pouring?
Or perhaps the clouds had other plans. They were on their way somewhere else, carrying all that rain with them, saving their grand downpour for a destination that, apparently, wasn’t our office.
I felt so connected to the clouds, as if both of us were holding something back, waiting to burst any minute now.
As for me, I had spent the last hour frying my brain over cell E1000, desperately trying to make sense of it. How had this range gotten so high? Where, exactly, had I gone wrong in my analysis?
I was trying hard to trace where the formula had gone wrong when my colleague Varsha called from the door.
“Sindhoo, wanna join us for tea? Let’s go to Tapri downstairs before it starts raining.”
I looked at her, then back outside my window. Still, there was nothing but dark clouds hanging heavily in the sky. But I felt they were going to pour any minute now.
Besides, I didn’t want to break my train of thought over E1000, so I said to her, “Sorry! I’m neck-deep in work right now. You guys go ahead.”
She rolled her eyes at me and left with the others, already laughing about something before they’d even reached the stairs.
After a while, I noticed it: the headers and data had shifted, causing the formula to pull values from the wrong field.
The flash of realization in my head coincided with a sudden streak of lightning outside the window. It snapped me out of my thoughts.
And then, almost immediately, the sky opened up.
It started pouring cats and dogs.
Wow! Splashes of raindrops came dancing through the window and landed on my skin.
Nick, from the opposite desk, swore and threw the window shut before the rain got to his keyboard.
The tea party, it seemed, had been replaced by a mad scramble through the rain. They burst through the stairwell door, drenched and cursing, stumbling over one another in their frantic attempt to escape the downpour.
Their chaos spilled into the office: wet footsteps, breathless laughter, and colourful curses, while the steady roar of the rain filled every corner, breaking the silence of the office.
They came in soaked to the bone, hair plastered down, chappals squeaking against the tile, and bolted straight for the washroom without a word to anyone.
I sat there, misted by a few stray raindrops, smiling beneath my breath. All the corrections were finally done, and cell E1000 seemed to be smiling back at me. The rain washed over the city; my relief washed over me.
And then it hit me: Ahh, the rain had only been waiting for its namesake - Miss Varsha.
What began as another prosaic afternoon at the office, I’m sure, will become one of those little memories I’ll remember long after I’ve left, especially whenever I meet Varsha or find myself caught in the rain.
