A face that keeps coming back...

Times are not innumerable - neither are they occasional - when her face has flashed my mind in the last two years of having met her. Her innocent smile and beautiful eyes keep talking to me.

I met her in one of those few interviews that I attended - in search of a  job and we spoke for not more than ten minutes that day and two or three times after that on phone . I no longer have her contact number neither am I sure if I will ever meet her . But the thoughts around her keep lingering in my mind and hurts me deep at times.

She looked gorgeous- a typical south Indian Brahmin girl with sharp features and modest dressing. She looked tensed than most others in the hall waiting for their chance for the interview. I noticed her as she quickly flipped the pages of the book that she carried trying to memorise or refresh the concepts of PL/SQL - the programming language of Oracle. It was later when I was lost in some thoughts  that she suddenly came near me and asked - " Do you know what are the new features in Oracle 11i". I gave  a  blank face when she asked me what my experience was. I am not sure why she chose to talk to me - probably just that I looked approachable to her. She told me that she did not have  a job currently and that she was badly in need of one. I asked her "Why ?" and this one question was enough for her to pour out her story to me. the story that she told me was sad...and that probably is the reason that it keeps coming back to my mind.

She was working for a  software company when her parents found a  match for her and got her married. But her marriage life did not go fine - Her husband seem to not like her and left her with her parents. She wanted to stay with him - being the only daughter for middle class parents , she did not want to bother them. So she forcefully returned to her husband and was staying with him but 'separate'. She also told me that she feared if she would be killed - Oh my God....I really did not know what to do- how to help. I managed to ask her to go and be with her parents - at least her life is not at risk.. which she agreed.

She was shattered and I could still sense the sadness in her eyes, the pace at which she talked and her movements. Everything was slightly erratic...when suddenly she said " I'm on medicines for tension and sleep. I need this job to keep going".

I was called in for the interview and we did not meet again .She had called me once or twice to check if there was any opening in the company that I worked for. I lost her number when I moved out from Bangalore but her face keeps coming back to me. Hope you are fine my friend !