It was a busy Wednesday evening at the CB solutions office, Chennai. Farhan was finishing up the report on completion of his team’s latest project. He was recently promoted as a project manager and had successfully completed his first lead project in due time.
The report had to be sent to the main office in Boston, USA and it had to be sent as a hard copy, so he had to print out the 33 page report and decided to send it through express courier. It was about 9 pm, all his staffs were leaving from the office and were wishing him ‘Good Night’ as they left. Farhan was on his desk resting his eyes a bit after a hard day’s work at the office and dozed off for a few minutes. When he woke up, he could see that the printer had gone out of paper and the print job was stopped. He then fed the paper and restarted the printing work.
By the time he was finished, it was about 10 pm, he packed his stuffs and took the report, started down the elevator to the parking garage where he had his bike. He was too tired already, and had to travel 23 kms to his house, on the way he had a detour about 8 kms on a perpendicular direction to the courier office.
On his way out, he saw one of his colleagues, Rachna standing alone. It seemed like she was waiting for someone. Farhan had a dilemma whether to ask about her situation or just leave as he had to go a long way and was already exhausted, but she was his team member and as a leader, he had a responsibility. So he walked his bike down to the place she was standing. He smiled at her, asking “Hey Rachna, what are you doing here, all alone?” She replied “well, I missed my cab back home, and my phone battery is down, so not able to call anyone for help”. Farhan immediately thought of giving his phone to help her, but he smiled to himself when he saw that his phone was also switched off. He then asked her, where she was staying and found that her place was quite close to the courier office he had to go on the way.
Farhan felt pity for the girl, as it was late at night and the office was 15 kms outside the city. She wouldn’t get any taxi or auto at this time, he offered her a ride home and said “It’s not gonna be a problem for me; I have to go that side… anyway”.
Rachna accepted to ride with him on his bike and they both started from their office. All the way, Rachna was talking continuously about something and Farhan couldn’t hear her properly with his helmet on. So he decided to remove it, when he stopped at the signal. Thereafter, they discussed about where he lived, about their families, the Football world cup, movies and stuff, all through the ride.
Finally Rachna’s destination arrived and she got down in front of a working women’s hostel. She said “Thanks a lot Farhan; I don’t know what I would have done without your help. I definitely need to treat you for this timely help”. Farhan laughed, he felt her talk was silly, so he replied “Don’t worry; maybe next time when I am stranded, you can give me a ride home”. Rachna made a pouty face and said “like that’s gonna happen anytime”, “am serious farhan, I need to return this favor, how about lunch tomorrow, it’s on me. OK?”
Farhan looked at his watch and realized that the courier shop would close in ten minutes and he had to rush, so he said “anything’s fine for me, sorry, I got to go, Good night.” and left rushing to send the courier.
Next day at the office.
Farhan happened to cross the coffee room on the way to the restroom while he overheard someone talking. He was about to leave thinking that some girls were leisure gossiping but stopped there to listen as he heard his name being said. He stood there listening to the girl talking, who happened to be Rachna, she said “You know preethi, last night, I missed my cab to home, and I was standing alone, when our manager Farhan came and started talking to me, very flirtatious in his words, he asked me about my situation and asked me if he could drop me home.” “He could have just given his cell phone for me to make a call or arranged for my ride, instead literally forced me into dropping me home.”
Farhan couldn’t move from the place or keep his ears closed, as he couldn’t believe what was being told, shocked and surprised, he stood there listening to more of it, as she said “ during the ride, such a show off, took off his helmet, thinks to himself as a dare devil I guess”. Rachna and her friend laughed as she continued “ hmm, while talking to him, I came to know that his house is nowhere near to my house, he just faked a reason to get a chance to drop me home saying he had a work in that area, what a loser”.
Farhan thought he had enough of listening to this out of control exaggerated version of last night’s incident. he decided to move on to his work, as he started walking, he couldn’t stop listening to her, as she spoke “ Since he did a small help dropping me home, I thanked him and told him that I need to treat him, as a formality, but he took it seriously and again started flirting with me. He even asked me out for lunch today. I think I may have given him a lot of wrong signals that I am interested in him. May be I should stop talking to him”.
He still couldn’t believe what he had just heard from Rachna as he walked into the restroom, Farhan smiled and thought to himself “Oh my god, can’t believe how a small help could be interpreted by another person in such devious ways”. “Really… Is Being Nice and Helping others a sort of lust or crime, do I deserve this”.
Words, he overheard from Rachna was running in his mind like a recorded tape, and as Farhan washed his hands, he looked at his face in the mirror, smiled again and said to himself… “Seriously, Being Nice Sucks..!”
