Corporate Sarhad

When I joined, the office still smelled like fresh paint and old discipline. The head office wasn’t sleek glass and jazz music, it was a functional three-story building in the industrial sector. Four pharma units nearby, a thousand crore business, but everything ran by a family-run setup pretending to wear a suit.

They didn’t know what to do with me exactly, the first time they were hiring someone to manage MIS. So I mostly made myself invisible. Took notes in morning meetings, updated trackers, and learned the factory names by heart. The position said Assistant Manager, but I was very clearly just her assistant.

Her, Shivani Ma’am.

She wasn't that much older. Maybe a year. But she had that stillness about her that made you sit up straight. Sharp reports. Even sharper silences. She walked into a room like it had to match her pace or risk being left behind. I noticed the way she kept her desk clean, only a notepad, two pens, and a coffee mug that said “One Woman Army.” It wasn’t ironic.

“Did you update the Unit 3 productivity?”
Her voice was always direct. No room for charm.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
"Mail it before 11. Thanks."
She never said my name. But I liked that too.

Over time, I started noticing more than just her instructions. The way she clicked her pen twice when she was about to say something she didn’t agree with. How she held her breath when angry, instead of raising her voice. The way she once waited for the office boy to finish his tea before sending him for another errand.

That’s when it began. That quiet pull.

It wasn’t a crush. Not something flimsy.
I just found myself remembering things about her I had no business remembering, her birthday from a payroll sheet, her favourite coffee from the one time she mentioned it during lunch, how she preferred “no onions” in her food.

“Tu theek hai?” my roommate asked one night.
“Hmm.”
“Lagta toh nahi.”
I didn’t answer. How could I tell him I was falling for a woman who once said, “We don’t mix personal equations with daily ops.”

It got worse in the best possible way. I started writing again. Quiet lines in my notebook while waiting for weekly calls to start. One evening, sitting alone on the factory staircase, I scribbled:

इश्क़ में दिल ज़िद कर बैठा है,
अपनी ये हदें भूला बैठा है…

The next day, she was wearing a saree. Not for any reason. Just a normal Tuesday. I kept staring at her bangles as they clinked against the glass door.

“Something wrong with the dashboard?” she asked.
“Huh? No, sorry. Just zoned out.”
“Stay zoned in, please. It’s your job.”
That was the closest she ever came to scolding me.

After that, I started avoiding her eyes. I spoke only when required. But my heart was no longer under my control.

One afternoon, I overheard someone ask her why she worked so hard.
She just smiled and said, “Discipline is cheaper than regret.”
And just like that, my heart broke a little more.

देखने यार की एक झलक को
ये सारी सरहद लांघ बैठा है…

I crossed every line, emotionally. Never physically. Never even spoken.

But it was all becoming too much. The fear of being found out. The weight of the unsaid. The shame of it. So one evening, after she left for a plant visit, I printed out my resignation. Walked up to her desk. Placed it beside her neatly stacked files.

I didn’t want a conversation. I wasn’t strong enough to lie if she asked why.

By the time she returned, I was gone. No goodbye. Just silence.

Later, someone told me she didn’t ask any questions. Just signed it and forwarded it to HR. But I like to believe she paused. For a second. Maybe clicked her pen twice.

Maybe.