The Second Partition

"Mini is not around, please come with me for shopping tomorrow." It was Rimi's message in request cum order tone.

Thinking himself as Mini's replacement was not a particularly enjoyable idea, but Gopu agreed."Ok."

"Let's meet at 9 am in Sahara Mall".

Getting up early morning in Gurgaon winter on a Saturday is something that you can do only for a special person.

Sahara Mall at 9 am, foggy and freezing weather. Rimi had checked every possible T-shirt in the first store they visited. None of those T-shirts impressed her. Same story was repeated in two other stores.

"What exactly are you looking for?" Gopu asked without managing to hide his irritation.
"A cute lilac T-shirt with some funky text, that best describes me".

Gopu's knowledge of colours was limited to basic colours like red, green, yellow, black and white. So he started looking for T-shirts other than these basic colours with words "Crazy Shopper" inscribed on it.

They had checked all stores in Sahara Mall without any success. City Centre Mall was the next choice.

City Centre Mall at 1pm, hint of sunshine outside. Gopu and Rimi were in third store.

"Isn't this cute?", finally Rimi was wearing what she wanted and she was not planning to part with that T-shirt for the entire day.

"Really nice colour and amazing quote!! Let's move to food court, I haven't had my breakfast."

Food court was Gopu's favourite place in any mall.After spending four hours for one T-shirt, he managed to put his butt on a chair.

"How can people eat fish? It looks so dirty. I hate to see non-veg food around." Rimi was pointing to the Sea Food Festival poster.

It was a shocker to Gopu. The last two restaurants they had visited were pure vegetarian places. May be that was the reason he missed out on this truth.

The seafood in the menu was too tempting to resist as good seafood was a rarity in Gurgaon. To order it or not, that was the dilemma. Gopu took cue from the T-shirt quote, which best described Rimi.

"Be yourself".

"One prawn masala, one fish curry and rice." Gopu placed the order.

Gopu passed the menu card to Rimi and said, "Now you can decide".

Discharged

21 days of continuous office work without any weekend break. On 22nd day, Friday, work was under control and Gopu managed to leave office by 9 pm. He took a cab home and closed his eyes to catch some sleep.

His mobile rang... it was Jhhadoo. Gopu reluctantly picked the mobile. (To his credit Jhhadoo did a great job in managing his team by phone. Even Dawood and Chhota Shakeel could learn some tips from him.)

Jhhadoo took status update and reached to a conclusion that Gopu should spend weekends in office close to beautiful sea face than distant suburban house.

The call ended after 45 minutes.

"Battery Low"
2 missed calls - Rimi, Mom.

Gopu dialed Rimi. The mobile was dead after first ring.

Poor mobile had handled irate clients throughout the day and Jhhadoo's marathon call in late evening.

Tired Gopu stared at the discharged mobile. He thought, he was looking at a mirror.