Can Love Happen Twice? Read Online Free PDF Page B

Eighty euros per night?’ he answered his own question with a witty smile.
    ‘Yup. And not bad when the company is paying,’ I answered, pulling out some Indian snacks that I had got from home. He jumped to grab his share.
    In the evening we walked out of the hotel to Brussels Nord. Sanchit explained to me that ‘Nord’ in French meant North. Brussels Nord was the nearest station from where we were supposed to catch the metro to go to Sanchit’s place. It was very cold outside. The temperature was around –2 degrees Celsius. I could barely take my hands out of my overcoat pockets. On the way, Sanchit stopped at a Pakistani shop from where he bought himself a pack of cigarettes. Meanwhile, I used the shop’s ISD booth to call my parents back home and update them that I had reached safely and was doing well.
    I enjoyed observing people and the vicinities we passed by. The station we were in was quite hi-tech with a three-level transport system. On the ground level ran the trains. On the level below ran the metros. And further below ran the trams. Sanchit had a monthly pass to avail the public transport across Belgium and, on his suggestion, I too got one for myself.
    While we were in the train, Sanchit updated me with various facts about Belgium. The country is bilingual. Half of the country including Brussels speaks French and the other half Dutch. Belgium is famous for Belgian chocolates, Belgian beer and Belgian girls. I was yet to check the first two facts. The last one was an omnipresent truth. Belgium has a monarchical system of governance and has legalized gay marriages. The fact that interested me most was that, taking advantage of Belgium’s centralized location—the best among some of the European countries—I could easily visit the nearby countries such as France, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands.
    By late evening we were at Sanchit’s house. I found it to be nice and cosy, although a bit cluttered since Sanchit had washed his clothes and had placed them here and there to dry. It was a costly house, but Sanchit had taken it because his wife was supposed to join him in a week’s time and he had chosen the house as per his wife’s preference. At that time she was back in India.
    I settled into the couch in the living-room area and he switched on the TV. Sanchit brought two cans of beer from the fridge and we relaxed for a while, enjoying the much-touted Belgian beer.
    Soon our conversation moved to the official things: the client, the project, the office location, the good official things and the not-so-good ones.
    We cooked dinner for ourselves after which I caught the late-night metro back to Brussels Nord. I slept in my hotel room. The glass wall on my left still remained bare without the curtain, treating me to a beautiful night-time view of the city whenever my sleep broke.

Six
    The next morning I was at my client’s office. It was on Zandvoorstraat in Mechelen. Mechelen is another city in Belgium and, unlike Brussels, this part of the country has a Dutch-speaking population. ‘Straat’ in Dutch means ‘street’ in English. And Zandvoorstraat was the street address of my office.
    The initial few hours at my client’s office passed well. Primarily, my task involved greeting everyone: meeting them, introducing myself and listening to their share of the introduction. My other important task for the day was to set up my workstation, which I successfully did by noon.
    ‘Let’s go for lunch,’ Sanchit suggested. ‘There is a sandwich shop nearby where most of us go.’
    Unlike India, where a sandwich is more like a snack, in the West it is more of a meal. Having lived in various countries I have adapted to every kind of meal by now.
    Sanchit and I joined Anthony for lunch.
    Anthony Gomes was one of the various clients’ point of contact for us. His job was to deploy the projects we built for him at his client’s location. He was fairly pink in complexion with grey eyes and curly brown hair.