All the Chapters
Chapter 13
Over next many months Shaan and Kelly kept meeting outside their offices. Sometimes the meeting was at the school’s conference room and other times in some restaurant over a dinner.
Shaan felt convinced about the boundarylessness of ‘Humanity Forum’. He saw that the philosophy of the members of this forum matched quite well with his own one-liner guiding principle of “feel, think and do good to self and others”.
He did not have to wait too long to decide on actively starting his association with the members of the group. He started attending every meeting and soon started taking part in its work. He gave his free dates to the group’s office when he could undertake group’s projects.
He easily won the trust and confidence of rest of the group members of ‘Humanity Forum’ in no time.
Soon Shaan wrote to his parents in India about his professional activities as well as his association with ‘Humanity Forum’.
He also wrote about Kelly, “Mom and dad, I met this girl Kelly. She is interesting in many ways. She is very intelligent, highly educated- a PhD, carries a thinking head on her shoulders and I find her very beautiful. Works as an executive in the world-best software company ‘Super Soft’. A black single mother named Christie brought her up; later adopted by a couple. A white guy, Kelly’s father had ditched Christie in marriage. Now Kelly’s legal mom is a Chinese and the legal father a Hindu. Christie died of cancer after handing over Kelly- then a teenager- to her office colleagues and friends Yin and Arun. Don’t you think hers is a beautiful profile?”
Yusuf and Alice read Shaan’s email with lots of interest and replied promptly, “Hey Shaan, a perfect wifely material, we suppose?”
Yusuf and Alice keenly looked forward to Shaan’s reply.
Shaan wrote back promptly, “Come on mom and dad, no kidding please. I am just not ready.”
Yusuf and Alice did not pursue it further.
Around this time Kelly was telling her parents about Shaan much more than what little they knew about him so far. She described, “I did not know Shaan’s personal and family background till recently. My company policy does not allow us to probe into such details of any individual we hire. Over a period of time we have become good friends and yesterday while we were having dinner together, on my asking him he told me a lot about himself.” Then she paused for a minute or so to assess her parents’ interest in listening about Shaan.
Kelly’s parents looked at each other with meaningful glances and encouraged her to pour out more info about Shaan, “Please go ahead, we are listening.”
“Mom and dad. He was born a Hindu orphan. Then a couple, man Muslim and female Christian adopted him. Theirs was a love marriage. They could not assign any religion to Shaan because of their perennial indecision on this issue. Shaan grew up an adult while the parents were still indecisive. Finally they suggested him to adopt Hindu religion as the orphanage had certified him to be a Hindu. But Shaan saw the futility of affiliating himself with any organized religion and lives like a free but utterly responsible bird. Highly educated. Highly intelligent. A great thinker and doer. A doer because he runs his own IT company from USA and India. How’s that?”
Kelly seemed keen to learn Yin’s and Arun’s response.
Yin and Arun exclaimed almost simultaneously, “An impressive guy, Kelly. Not a bad husband material I suppose. We must see you getting married to a right boy- that was one of Christie’s last wishes too.”
Kelly blushed but spoke decisively, “No ways, I am not marrying anyone. Mom had suffered a lot attaching herself to a man.”
Arun and Yin did not pursue the matter.
Next time soon when Kelly and Shaan met each other their respective parents’ recent comments loomed large on their minds. It showed in their behavior pattern to some minor extent though not very alarmingly.
Just for the sake of maintaining some conversation, Shaan said, “You had told me that the Porche belonged to your mom, you mean Yin?”
“No, not Yin, my real mom, Christie. She was very fond of stylish things. So she settled on this cute little car and its color. She was quite choosy in selecting her dresses too.”
“I can see that her daughter has picked up those qualities.”
Kelly felt flattered at Shaan’s comment. She thought she was willing to fish many more such comments from Shaan.
“You are right. I like wearing all kinds of beautiful and sophisticated dresses provided they are decent. And Shaan you too dress up pretty impressively.”
“I think we are turning into a mutual appreciation society.”
“More crudely put- you scratch my back and I scratch yours. What?”
And they laughed uproariously at the same time. The conversation was lighter with overtones of softness, delicacy and innocent humor. That day they enjoyed each other’s company much more than they did earlier.
Their life continued this way. Yet, they remained focused and busy mainly with their professional work.
Some three years went by.
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Novels and Stories
Novel "Good People" http://good-people-novel.blogspot.com/
Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/
Stories Children Will Love http://stories-children.blogspot.com/
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