  And you wait the endless hours. You know it is coming. Or, you tell yourself, you think you know it is coming. The mailbox keeps filling each day. But the mail you want is not there. The phone rings - friends you have nothing to say to right now.
You detest the fact that you have to go buy a wedding gift. Will they understand if you did not make it to the wedding? You reckon not - some people tend to rather touchy about marriages. Whats a good wedding gift? You don't know. You really do not care.
Today the rain comes down for a little while. The sun breaks out finally. There is rainbow in the sky. You swear. You wanted to go out for a while to check your mails. But these godforsaken roads with their million puddles and the fiendish sky.
The rains are a first rate nuisance. Probably the electricity board will cut off the power now. You have forgotten your laptop charger back in the office. You cannot deliver before time. The phone rings. Its the one you have been waiting for.
You clear your throat and say hello. You notice that the voice on the other side is a happy one. Platitudes and pleasantries follow. And then your manager tells you. Souvik, you have been a remarkable asset to the team and the organization in general. You have been proactive, versatile.
You have sought out opportunities and converted them. Your value additions have been a fair number and consistent, Souvik, you this....you that. Its coming, you think, & press the phone closer to your ear. And then it comes. You notice the build up, the working upto the decision, the congratulatory tilt of an American voice. You quickly make a mental note.
You are ready with your reply. You have been practicing. You thank your manager for his efforts on your behalf. You modulate your voice a little bit. You dont want to come across as too excited or too nonchalant. You tell him that you are happy, matter of factly.
"Souvik, do you want to join us for a movie? ", asks a colleague. You refuse politely saying that you'd love to but may not have time and you do not want to promise anything that you may not be able to deliver. You give her a dry smile. You run your eye through the vast pile of personal mails in your inbox & spot one from your friend who wed recently. You wonder for split second if he is back from his honeymoon.
He has not called yet. You make new entries in your calendar for following up with your tax consultant. The day's work is not much. You finish early. You come back home. This is your time for yourself, to read up on Israel, or may be photography.
You wonder how some people always want to be surrounded by a crowd. You have been reading up on photography. "To capture light and the drama it composes, the transformation, or indeed the metamorphosis, of the prosaic into the profound" - is what you want to do as you once reflected. You chuckle at your wordy description, but indulgently. You can tell the aperture setting now by merely looking at the photographs. You notice in a slightly self congratulatory manner that the quality of light is harsher in the part of the world you stay and therefore you need to adjust for the same, perhaps go up an extra f-stop or increase the shutter speed for a given exposure, to get similar effects as the daylight photographs in the book.
You plan to try natural framing too, soon. The sky today is, however, a bogus one. Abrasive sunlight and a continuous dull blue. You switch your computer on. You need to read up the updated career model document you downloaded in the morning while you were in the office. You want to understand the expectations at the next career level.
Its been a whole day since you have been promoted. 
