An Evening Out with Friends

Considering that we’re reaching the last few days of my internship, and hence my last few days in Pune, I decided it would be great to simply go out with Nanda ma’am & Nilesh (of course Nilesh had to be informed that if he created a fuss of any sort and showed reluctance in venturing out with me he’d be dropped with absolutely no reluctance on my part whatsoever - hard lessons to be learnt at every step). So I gave Nanda ma’am a call and told her we’d be going out for a drive in the evening at 7.00 when she’d be free.

This going out thing is something I had mentioned to her before but she was very reluctant then. Earlier the idea of going somewhere with me, just for fun, was something she wasn’t comfortable with. But like I’ve said before, progress was being made everyday with every visit and every phone call. She finally said yes. When I arrived to pick them up, she made no bones about expressing her concern. She said she hadn’t done anything like this before and was just a little worried. I didn’t have any problems with that - at least she was expressing what she felt instead of trying to hide it. I needed to be gentle and so I was. Of all people I feel I should relate to what Nanda ma’am was feeling. I had to relate her insecurity to the insecurity I often feel when in the company of people I think are more intelligent and experienced than me. However, I’ve learnt from my internship that people do need to have a decent level of self respect and should not demean themselves by thinking any less of themselves with respect to other people (I’ve learnt this, now I just have to get into the habit of continuing to think this way.) This is so similar to what I had been trying to teach Nanda ma’am & Aji about my belief that there was no such thing as the “big man” and “small man”.

Nilesh was very pleased, once again to get his car ride. I took them around Kalyaninagar and showed them my house and Jogger’s Park. After that we went to the Baker’s Basket. Nanda ma’am had been talking about mini-pizzas a few days earlier and I thought I’d treat them to that. Unfortunately they were out of mini-pizzas. We had an enjoyable meal nonetheless.

                                    

                                    

Once back, I dropped in at their home for a little bit to meet Aji. At that point I had a profound feeling of acceptance at their home.

Note - During the drive I told Nanda ma’am that I still wasn't confident about driving at night. As a result, she and Aji made repeated demands that I call them once I reached home safe and sound.