Do you get salary in pound or rupees?

Are you on visit visa?

When you go back will they pay you good salary?

Will the company give you permanent visa in the UK?

Are you married?

Are you planning to get married?

And what does she do?

Very nice. Will you mind if I ask you to show photo of bhaabhi?

She is from your religion?

It was like being on Mastermind Einstein.

Finally I told him to stop asking questions and quickly finish checking the laptop. Immediately he asked me if I had recently run any virus scans on ‘the Mohra file and the “Statistical Hybridization and Generational Globalization” folder’.

IN THE EXCITEMENT OF HAVING SUCCESSFULLY EXECUTED PROJECT MOHANLAL I HAD COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE ‘SHAGG’ FOLDER HIDDEN INSIDE THE FONTS FOLDER ON MY LAPTOP!!!!

For a brief moment I almost had a cardiac arrest due to embarrassment. Then I looked at the TV and screamed: ‘OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT WOMAN DOING WITH THAT GERMAN SHEPHERD!’ Sugandh let go of the laptop and swivelled on the chair to look at the TV. Immediately I pounced on the laptop, reaching around his back, and made a crazy attempt to delete the SHAGG folder and then erase it from the recycle bin.

Unfortunately due to a combination of embarrassment, speed and posture, I was unable to pull this off perfectly. Suddenly one of Teja’s most loved video files from campus began to play on the screen. Surprisingly there was no sound coming out of the laptop. I thought I could still shut the player and delete. But then I noticed that there was no sound because Sugandh had a pair of earphones plugged into the laptop. He was wearing only the left earbud.

He turned around slowly. For one full minute both of us just stood there and looked at the video. It was terribly embarrassing and I didn’t know what to do. Then I looked at him and told him that this was exactly the sort of problem I was facing with the laptop. One moment I would be working on a presentation. And then suddenly an obscene video would play on the screen.

I asked him, with 50% nonchalance, if this was because of some virus.

Sugandh looked at me silently, and then said he would have to do further investigation.

Then for twenty minutes there was an awkward silence in the room. Except for the sound of the cookery show woman on TV. (Mental note: Who is this woman cook? Slightly fat but somehow still quite sexy. Like Mala teacher in school.) I kept sitting on the bed watching TV. Sugandh sat at the little writing desk, with his back to me, and continued fiddling with the laptop.