With my hands plastered to immobility and my face stitched to speechlessness, in the last couple of days I have been forced to reflect over a lot of things for which I have had no time in the past - When was the last time I hugged a pal? Or did not cut short a friendly banter because I got a reminder on my Outlook for a meeting or a conference call? Or miss out on visiting people  - even on such occasions as their birthdays, marriages, illnesses, et al? Come to think of it, I havent caught up with my old friends for so long now that I dread that if they cross my path, I may not be able to recognize them even though some of them sit only a couple of floors below! 

I really dont want to pity myself for this, as the choice of hermitage and work-infested-solitary-confinement, to a large extent, has been my own doing! I absolutely love what I do (well, almost!), and am therefore not complaining either. But when, once in a while, I am forced to come out in the open and see the light of the day, I suddenly tend to remember that there is a life outside the artificial confines of my cubicle.

So when I met with an accident recently and got the feel of the linen on my bed and was fortunately neither too dead to just think about sleep nor too traumatized by pain - it was a welcome change.  

I then let my mind wanderand my bleeding social-life caught my immediate attention!!

It was actually the cute nurse at the hospital that was the catalyst. As she reached out to me that day to dress my wounds, I could feel the scent of her body and the warmth of her hands (or was it savlon and my freely oozing blood?!) I unfortunately couldnt find myself uttering the appropriate words then - only partly because of the stitches on my face - and even the oohs and aahs were misinterpreted!  

So, I thought Well! The good things about fractures and sutures is that you get to visit your doctor more than once, and maybe second-times a charm!!  But then, timing in such matters is the secret of success or undoing, as I was to realize! Had I said what I had to there and then, I could have easily put this behind me. Things were now different, and here I was trying to accommodate a desperate meeting request, and success seemed elusive!

A working lunch on a weekday was an option I thought of for a perfect date, and maybe I could take her out to the hospital cafeteria itself but unfortunately I, more often than not, have to actually work while having my lunch, and how can I forget that she also has a job to do? Weekdays then looked out of question, especially with the rest of the day packed end-to-end, starting from 8 in the morning and sometimes ending at 8 the next day! I needed to be a little more creative in carving out some time that can suit both of us. 

I then tried to figure out if its possible on any of the Saturdays or Sundays? As it turns out however, weekends are no different for me except that these days start with an S, and sometimes end with booze. In some of those rare occasions when I dont have to rush to the office, I find myself busy getting my grocery and doing my laundry and cleaning my house and if time permits making a desperate attempt to catch on the months sleep! So, weekends seem to be as badly packed as the other days, and I somehow have a premonition that she would anyways not agree to help me out with these household chores on our first date itself. Ever since I started working, I have anyways struggled to understand the concept of the weekend are they what you refer to as Saturdays & Sundays in other parts of the world, or are they really supposed to be the official off-days in the week?

That only leaves us with the national holidays then, and it looks like I will have to wait and ask her out to the Republic Day Parade - I am not available on Diwali as I have some prior commitments!! 

As I lay in my bed trying to figure out a way to make this happen, rationality had already started to set in. I have anyways decided to go back and check my calendar to see if I am at all available in the next few months?! Or else, I will have to wait till another mishap happens to me. I just hope that she remains cute till then