“Industrialist’s wife found dead in her hotel room. No suicide note, husband arrested” The headlines every day seemed to be more and more weird, she thought. She was reading the headlines on her cell phone on her way to Pune to spend a day with a friend. The breeze was gently blowing her hair as she watched the scenes outside the window of the bus. How monotonous life had become, she thought. 

Suddenly her phone gave a beep. “Hi!” she read. She missed a heartbeat. It was Jayant, her new found Facebook friend. “Hi, how are you”, she replied. “Okay…” then suddenly he went offline.

Soniya had received a Facebook friend request some days ago from an unknown person named Jayant. She had accepted the request. As it is, I have very few friends, she thought. Most of her friends lived in Pune or were married and settled.

Soniya’s brief brush with romance was in her second year of college when she had met Ashish. Ashish was a scholar, very handsome and much sought after guy. Every girl in the college seemed to have a crush on him. After graduating, Ashish went to study in the United States of America. Though he had promised to keep in touch with Soniya, he never did. Soniya remembered the last day at the college canteen. She had tears in her eyes and he held her hand gently and said, “You know I love you, just a matter of time, and things will be fine.” But they never were.

Jayant looked at his cellphone to see the time. These days the cell phone acted as an all-in-one device. Clock, music, camera, bank, social networking, just about everything. He had a board meeting scheduled in a few minutes. These meetings are so boring he thought. He looked at the cell phone, a bit dejected with himself that he had earlier cut Soniya’s conversation abruptly.

Jayant clicked on Facebook. He looked at Soniya’s picture. She looked like a modern and independent girl from Mumbai. He once again looked at her profile. It did not say much. But he noticed a change from the first time he had seen her profile and randomly sent her a friend request. Her status showed ‘in a relationship’. His heart began to beat faster. Did she say that for him? He hoped. He decided to ask her when they chatted the next time.

The routines of daily monotonous life seemed never-ending for both of them. They chatted every other day, but it was very formal, each trying hard to hide their feelings for the other. After all, they hardly knew each other and had never met.

On this trip to Pune, Soniya’s friend Asha was nudging her to find out if she had found someone in Mumbai. “No, but….nothing.” she wanted to tell her friend Asha about Jayant but thought she would ridicule her. After all she had nothing to tell her. But she also knew that Asha was her only friend and with whom she could open her heart. So while they were sipping coffee after dinner, Soniya told Asha about Jayant. Asha laughed. “Did you find out anything about him?” “Not really, He doesn’t even have a photograph on Facebook.” Soniya said, quickly adding, “Maybe he is not very handsome and feels shy to put up his photograph.”

Asha too looked for details in Jayant’s Facebook profile, but it kept on saying “User doesn''t want to share his personal details.”

“Hi” Soniya saw Jayant online and pinged him. “How are you? Kahan ho?”, he asked. “In my home town, come for a break from the hectic life of Mumbai” she replied. “BTW, where do you live?” she decided to take the conversation further as advised by Asha. “Me? Oh I travel almost twenty days a month but my home is in New York.” Soniya missed a heartbeat. Was he a con? She wondered. She called her friend Asha to see the message. Asha too did not know how to respond. Soniya hurriedly said bye and closed the chat.

Soniya was back at the office with loads of work to do. She had not been online on Facebook since that day at her friend’s house. It was about 6 pm and most of the staff had left the office. She logged into Facebook. If he is in New York, then he should not be online now she thought. As soon as she logged in her eyes went to the chat view. There was a message for her. She opened it, her heart was pounding. It read, “Soniya please call me. My number is 001 2645 00532. Need to speak to you urgently”. With trembling hands she dialed the number and suddenly disconnected it.

She was hoping that Jayant will call back, but that did not happen. On her way home, she kept on looking at her phone to see if there was a missed call. Anxious with the day’s events, she slept very disturbed.

The alarm woke her up. She went to collect the newspaper, when she found a bunch of red roses kept outside her door. There was a note which read, ‘To a very dear friend, Happy Birthday!’ there was nothing else written. She suddenly realized it was her birthday. Was this from Jayant? She wondered.

When her friend Asha called to wish her, Soniya told her about the phone call, the flowers and the note. Asha laughed and said, “Call the number again today.”

Soniya anxiously waited for the phone to be picked up, but it just rang out. Feeling dejected, she kept the phone down when it suddenly rang. “Hi Soniya, I am so sorry to have missed your call, I am in Mumbai on an official visit. Can we meet for dinner?” Soniya felt as if she was dreaming. Not knowing how to respond and almost in a state of shock, she just said “Sure”

It was the first time that Soniya was taking so much effort to dress up nicely. She wore her favourite deep blue coloured saree with a golden border and her black pearl earrings to go with it. She had never been to hotel Taj Lands End before. She stood in the lobby and looked around. The sea looked gorgeous and the setting sun made the ambiance even better. She went to the reception to ask for Jayant. Before the receptionist could answer someone said, “Hi Soniya.” For a moment she was dazed. The astonishment showed on her face. “Anything wrong?” he asked. “No,…..ah… you look exactly like Ashish” and then wondered if she had made a mistake by saying that.

Jayant led her to the corner table of the restaurant. Soniya had never been on a date before. The birthday cake and the wonderful dinner, everything seemed so perfect. Jayant made her feel so special, she thought to herself.

On the way to the airport, Jayant was to drop her to the hostel. He asked the driver to stop the car at the café coffee corner. “Care for some coffee? I have a late night flight. I would like to spend some more time to know you better”, he said with a twinkle in his eye.

While sipping her coffee, Soniya asked, “How did you send me a friend request when you didn''t know me at all?” Jayant smiled and said, “In one of my many boring meetings I was surfing Facebook for the name Soniya (I don’t know why, but I always liked that name) and came across you. Something in my heart felt nice when I saw your picture, and I knew I had to get to know you better, I think I did the right thing” they both laughed like they had not done in a very long time. “Why did you not post your picture on Facebook?” she asked. “I wanted to know if you would like me even if you did not know how I looked. Now that you say I look like your ex-flame Ashish, I think I should have posted a picture, you would have loved me sooner.” They both again laughed till their cheeks hurt.

When they reached the hostel, Jayant gave her a small packet and kissed her saying, “Happy birthday once again, I am waiting for your call”. He waved good bye and left.

Soniya opened the packet. There was a note and a ring inside. The note said, ‘I love you, you are my Soniya!!’ She dialed his number and said, “Me too.”

The headline in the New York Times read, ‘Well known Indian industrialist finally ties the knot to a Facebook friend at a private function in New York.’ While sipping her tea, Soniya smiled and thought even the headlines in New York are weird, only this time she was part of the news.