"Mumbai the city of dreams" In this city of dreams, there was a famous bookstore located at Fort In that bookstore, there was a sweet but nerdy girl working as a bookstore clerk with her dreams of being a worldwide recognised writer. Her name was Pari. She believed that in order to write one book, one must at least go through thousands of books and that was her ideology. She is a big fan of Duryoj Dutta because of his novels and she has always admired how Geet is in Jab We Met as a typical Bollywood fan. Pari had always been a bookworm, spending most of her free time lost in the pages of her favourite novels. She had a particular fondness for romance novels and would often daydream about finding her own great love story.

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It was a tiring day where Pari had to work a lot because her workmate was absent. Pari was all up, working from morning until the shop closed. Due to an overload of work the previous day, Pari overslept, which led her to wake up late in the morning. As soon as she woke up and realised that she was late for work, she just ran into the bathroom to get ready. All she was thinking was that her manager would be mad at her for arriving late for work. She got ready and left for work. Seeing her rush to reach her workplace, her brother gave her a ride to the bookstore. Pari crashed inside the bookstore. Her mind was made up to listen to whatever lecture her manager was going to give. As soon as she enters, she sees no signs of the manager's arrival in the bookstore. Her workmate Nisha, who was absent the day before, spots Pari's arrival.

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"Hey Pari!" Nisha says silently, standing beside her with a smile.

On which Pari greets back with "Hey Nisha," and Nisha thanks her for managing the work in her absence. As the book store only had 2 employees and one was absent, it was a very tough day for Pari, and the manager is good at ordering the staff, so his use at work is barely zero. As her manager was himself late, when he arrived, Pari was already working, so it was safe for her. The day went great until Pari's workmate decided to sneak out of her office and ask Pari to handle the bookstore after the manager was gone. Being a good friend, Pari couldn't say no to Nisha. It was 9:30 PM, and only half an hour remained to close the bookstore. The store had no rush and Pari was reading a book on the counter. It was a quiet atmosphere at the bookstore, with the gentle hum of pages being turned and the occasional soft rustle of a jacket as someone browsed the shelves. Amidst the peaceful ambiance, Pari was lost in the book she was reading. The phone rang, disorienting Pari and bringing her back to reality. It was Pari's mom who called because it was late and she didn't reach home. She realised that it was 10:45 PM, so she closed the store and left for home.

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Our personalities depend on the last movie or book that we read. It was the same with Pari. While she was reading a romance novel, she realised that she was missing a love story in her life. While being in the bookstore, she observed couples spending time together reading and talking about their favourite books and authors, but that never bothered her. Even Nisha sneaks out to meet her boyfriend and it was such a sudden thought that Pari realised that she was missing the major essence of life: love. Pari couldn't shake off the feeling of loneliness and the longing for a great love story as she walked towards her home. She kept thinking about how she had been so focused on her dream of becoming a writer that she had forgotten to make room for love in her life.

As she entered her small apartment, Pari sat on her bed and picked up a notebook. She started to jot down her thoughts and emotions, hoping that writing them down would help her understand her own feelings better. She wrote about how she had always believed that love was something that would come to her naturally, but now she realised that she needed to actively search for it.

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Pari knew that finding love was not easy, especially for someone like her who spent most of her time surrounded by books. She needed to step out of her comfort zone and try something new. That's when she decided to take a break from work and travel to different places to find inspiration for her writing, but also to find a chance at love. Until reality hit her hard as she was working in a bookstore and realised she had no money to travel the world in search of love as well as for inspiration.

The next day, the work load was almost nonexistent. Pari decides to start writing her own story but the image of her protagonist is missing in her mind. The whole day while she was in the store, she went through a lot of romantic novels, trying to find the perfect protagonist for her story, but she was not able to find it. Pari made a list of books in which the protagonist is too handsome and collected those books to take home. She made a mountain of 18 books and called her brother and asked him to send a cab so she could easily carry the books home. As soon as the cab arrived, Pari picked up that mountain of books and started to walk towards the cab, which was standing in the other lane of the road. While walking with the piles of books, Pari mistakenly dropped two books, but it was impossible for her to stop and pick them up with that much of a load in hand. So she continued walking. The roads were very empty as it was not a busy street but suddenly a car pulled up and a guy came out of it and picked up those books that were lying on the road, while Pari just kept those piles of books inside the cab.

A sudden tap on Pari's shoulder, She rotated and came across a genuine face with a warm smile. It was the same guy who had picked up her fallen books. "Excuse me, miss. I think you dropped these books," he said while holding the two books in his hands and smiling.

Pari was surprised and grateful at the same time. "Oh my god, thank you so much! I didn't even realise that I had dropped them. Thank you for picking them up," Pari replied with a smile.

"It's no problem at all. I couldn't just let those books get run over by a passing car," the guy said with a chuckle. "Are these books for research or pleasure?"

Pari blushed a little at the question. "Um, actually, I'm a writer, and I'm trying to find inspiration for my protagonist. These books have handsome male leads, so I thought they might help me with my character," she explained.

The guy nodded understandingly. "That's cool. I'm also a bit of a bookworm myself. What kind of story are you working on?"

Pari hesitated a little before replying, unsure if she wanted to share her work with a stranger. But something about this guy made her feel comfortable, so she decided to take a chance. "It's a romance story about a young woman who falls in love with a guy who's completely different from her. He's adventurous and spontaneous, while she's more reserved and cautious. They have to navigate their differences and find a way to make their relationship work," she said.

The guy's eyes lit up with interest. "That sounds like a really interesting story. I'd love to read it when you're finished," he said.

Pari smiled at the guy, feeling a sense of connection with him. "Sure, I'd love to share it with you once it's done," she said.

They chatted for a few more minutes before Pari had to leave to go home. As she got into the cab, she couldn't help but feel grateful for the chance encounter with the guy who had picked up her fallen books. Maybe he was just a stranger passing by, but something about him made her day a little brighter. And who knows, maybe he could even become a beta reader for her book someday but one thing was sure she found her protagonist but his name was still missing.

to be continued.

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Pov - together for a day series -

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