You ever had a moment when you wished the ground beneath your feet should just split open and swallow you whole and people shouldn’t even realise you have ceased to exist? Or that you could just flick your fingers and go 'POOF!' and land up in the safety and confinement of your home, where you could dance naked and not be seen for all you cared?
Sounds familiar? I bet it does...
I used to always get stuck on the 'Most embarrassing moment' blank while filling up slambooks for friends back in school... I started with my name, filled in my phone number, my address, my most memorable moment, and then I’d come upon 'Most embarrassing moment;' I’d pause, scratch my head, and then jump to the next blank... I'd continue and fill the entire slambook, and would again come back to the 'Most embarrassing moment'... I'd scratch my brain a little more, and would eventually end up returning the slambook, the blank still blank. But if i had to fill one now, I’d have loads to write about... Loads... And it wouldn’t be my 'Most embarrassing moment' but my 'Extremely mortifying and 'go-beet-root-red-in-cheeks' moment'...
One fine Monday morning (although how can a Monday morning be fine, that too after a rather long and tiring Sunday is beyond me) I was getting ready for college. I had just come out of the bath and was still in my bathrobe. Water was dripping from my hair. I was already running itsy-bitsy late for college… but I was too lazed to get ready. The first lecture was ‘English’ anyway, so didn’t matter if I went a little late. So there I was, hanging out in my room, going through the pile of much used and dog-eared books___ novels, reference books, text books, magazines___ while Nick, Howie, AJ and Brian all tried to convince me I was ‘One In A Million’. I swayed left-right-front-back as the song went on; its rhythm and melody like the boys had had just an extra shot of Tequila. Mom suddenly barged into my room and shrieked.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ she said. I froze. Holding my position, I turned to look at Mom, facing the mirror of my dressing table simultaneously. I took a look at my reflection in the mirror and burst out laughing.
‘God! Whats wrong with you? You are acting like you’re having a hang over!’
‘Maybe I am!’ I squealed; Mom looked daggers at me.
‘Chill Mom! I’m ok!’ I said, and swirled around. Needless to say, I lost my balance and fell on the bed. That sent me into more fits of laughter and Mom into those of anger.
‘God! Honestly, what have I been rearing the past nineteen years?’ Mom said.
‘Ok, what is it now? What did you come in to talk about?’
‘Nothing, what are you doing in the evening?’
‘Nothing. Why?’
‘Can you come with me? Got some work, could use some help.’
‘Sure.’
Happy that I had agreed so quickly, and without giving me a chance to change my decision or rethink, Mom danced out of my room and I went back swaying around my room. Somehow I was on a high that day. You know, it happens… sometimes you are inexplicably happy, for no reason. They say it is because of your karma… some of your past deeds, maybe of a past life, have been rewarded, and that is what makes you happy… But let’s not get into that… Bottom line is; I was on a high. It seemed like nothing could mar my mirth. But no! I have now learnt my lesson well; eight out of ten times when you get such a feeling, be sure something is going to happen. In fact, I should have picked up the signs when Mom marched right back into my room.
‘Now what?’ I asked.
‘What are you wearing today?’ Mom asked.
‘Oh no… not again!’
‘Mi tula jauch denar nahiye aaj (I am not going to let you go today) unless you wear your salwar-kameez.’
Ok, I’d like to add a few things here. I am not the types who hate wearing anything that speaks of my ethnicity and shows in a way that I am Indian. I like wearing salwar-kameezes… love it in fact. But what Mom doesn’t seem to get is I have my ‘days’ or my phases… There are days when I wear only salwar-kameezes one after the other. And then there are days when I just don’t feel like it, and I stick to my jeans and t-shirts. And although mom doesn’t mind the former, she hates the later.
‘But Mom___’
‘Te kay pujayala ghetlet ka?’ (Have we bought all those dresses to worship them?)
‘Nahi, pan___’ (No, but___)
‘No if, no but,’ mom said, reaching out for my cupboard door. She opened it and pulled one of my salwar-kameezes out. ‘You wear this and come out in the next fifteen minutes, ok?’
‘Yeah.’
Mom went out of the room, and I threw a pillow at the door. I heard Mom laugh. ‘Mend me, bend me, but you cant break me!’ she called out.
‘YEAH RIGHT! WHATEVER!’ I shouted back, nonetheless smiling to myself.
Note: if you are my friend, remember one thing. Never; NEVER EVER make me do something I don’t want to. Consequences can be disastrous.
As instructed, I came out of my room, twenty minutes later, clad in a white Lucknowi salwar-kameez, with long ear-rings, and with a Shabnam on my shoulder.
‘I’m leaving!’ I called out, and Mom came rushing out of the kitchen.
‘There you are! How pretty you look!’ Mom said. ‘Bye!’
‘Thanks… bye!’ I replied and stepped out of the house.
We had three out of five of our lectures off that day. And on top of that I had planned to bunk my last two lectures anyway, as I wanted to go for a movie, which meant I was not going to attend a single lecture that day. I spent most of that day hanging out in the parking and the canteen of our college with classmates, seniors and of course, my new world friends. Soon it was quarter-to-two; time for me to go. I said bye and took leave. The show was at two-thirty. Half-way to the parking, I thought I should probably just wash my face and go… I had been in college the entire day anyway, and had been sitting in the parking lot since the minute I came. So I made my way to the Ladies Room. And the minute I set my foot inside the room, I shrieked.
I looked down at the floor… it was all wet. Completely wet. There was water everywhere and no one was in sight.
Now I am someone who can’t stand it when people leave taps running, or unnecessarily waste water in any way, so obviously I was furious. I walked to where the washrooms were and saw that one of the taps in the basin was running… Someone had turned it on all the way and probably left it on even after the water ran out; so that now that the water-tank was full, the water was running at full speed.
‘Shish!’ I exclaimed, as I hurried to the basin, trying to hold my salwar up so that it wouldn’t get wet, and trying to balance the dupatta and the Shabnam on my shoulders and myself on my heels. I quickly reached the basin and began turning the faucet off.
Soon I realised it wasn’t turning off.
I looked at the tap like it had been jinxed. I adjusted my dupatta and Shabnam and stood a little more firmly, now facing the basin, and tried to turn the tap ff with both my hands. But it just kept going round and round and round. And then at one point, it just snapped.
‘Ooo! Shit!’ I exclaimed and sprang away from the tap, dropping my Shabnam to the floor in the process, spraining my leg, and hitting the wall behind me.
I blinked rapidly and tried to regain my equilibrium. Slowly, I moved one hand, then the other, and then my legs. I looked around. My books were lying in a puddle of water… or more precisely in three inch deep water; and so was my Shabnam. My dupatta was floating away to one corner of the room; and when I finally got to look in the mirror… I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
For a few moments, I just froze. I kept looking at my books, my dupatta and my reflection in the mirror again and again. Somewhere in between I figured that my phone was in my bag too. I lifted my bag off the floor, and water poured out of it. I put my hand inside and took my cell out; and for the first time, I thanked Mom inwardly for forcing her things upon me. Just the previous day she had bought me this plastic cover for my cell, and so my cell was at that moment absolutely dry and safe. I took it out and dialed mom’s number, thinking i'd ask her to bring me a change of clothes.
Have you noticed that often when one thing goofs up… it doesn’t stop there; it goes on in a series and stops only when sufficient damage has been done to leave you feeling utterly embarrassed and miserable.
So what was the next thing that had gone wrong in my series?
Mom was not answering.
Then one after the other I tried calling Dad, my brother, my neighbour and my aunt. And with every phone call, I was almost expecting the next person to not be home/be available too… and that left me with just one option. And if you are not a really really dumb person, you must have figured it out too.
To drive back home.
On my own.
In a white Lucknowi salwar-kameez that was no longer white.
I cursed my luck several times and finally dared to step out of the Ladies room. I looked around and noticed that there was nobody in sight. I quickly got out and ran on my toes towards that parking. Luckily (ironic I should use that word under these circumstances, right?) there was nobody there either. I quickly sat on my bike and drove out of college.
That day I came home at an amazing 80km/hr; and again ‘luckily’, I didn’t get one red-signal. I didn’t get stuck in one traffic-jam, which had now almost become mandatory for every time that I drove to or from college. I drove so fast, that my dress and me were half-dry by the time I reached my house. I rushed into the bathroom and stripped the dress of… it was a sorry state. I put it in a bucket of clean water and let it soak till I took a quick shower.
Mom burst out laughing when I narrated the whole thing to her in the evening after everyone got back home.
‘You are laughing! Damn! It all happened because of you!’
‘Me?’ mom said through her fits of laughter. ‘Why me?’
‘If you wouldn’t have forced me to wear the salwar-kameez, none of this would have happened!’ I said, and Mom-Dad-Bro all broke out into more and more peels of laughter.
‘And your cells!’ I said, addressing all of them; ‘go dump them into the sewer! God! I got so fed up of listening to the same line over and over again. “The customer you are trying to reach has moved out of coverage area”. What the hell!’
By now we all had tears in our eyes… theirs out of laughing, mine rooted in fury and anger. I picked up my Mango-milkshake glass and stomped off into my room… I shut the door and could still hear the laughing and my brother mimicking me now… God! I so hated it when he did that. I grabbed the remote control lying on my bed and turned the music-system on, and of all the cassettes that could have been in it, Aqua shouted out to me;
‘FREAKY-FRIDAY! THINGS AIN’T GOING MY WAY!’
And finally, for the first time in that day, after so much of fretting and tantrum-throwing… I laughed my arse off at the bloody timing! Or should I say ‘luck’ again???
Monday, March 3, 2008
CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE SOUL...
Ok. So it was happening again. And I was prepared; or so I thought…
At the exact moment when I realised I was falling head over heels for my friend all over again, I also realised he was not interested in me, all over again… or that he would probably never be…
I still tried to play it cool… Try and ‘take it all sportingly in a stride’… Be happy for him… Ask about the girl without feeling jealous or left-out… Smile and actually mean it… act mature…
But the main problem with acting mature is that at the end of it, you are still ‘acting’ mature… and not actually being mature…
I again convinced myself… or tried to; that I am a ‘nice’ girl… good-looking and all… and that maybe I am just worth someone better… that I am not his kind but that doesn’t mean I am never going to have a boy-friend or anything… For the zillionth time in my life I tried to get over… over what? Even I don’t know really if you ask me. I mean, we weren’t going around, so I can’t call it ‘heartbreak’… so whatever it was that I was trying to get over… I still haven’t figured out… maybe trying to get over being the ‘outcaste’… trying to get over the fact of being the only person among my gal-pals who didn’t have a boy-friend, and so also didn’t have any of her friends who could spare some time for her and meet her and catch up on things… trying to get over feeling unwanted… trying to get over the feeling you get when your feelings are not reciprocated… Like always I tried to convince myself and said good things about myself to me… things that would, or were supposed to cheer me up… I tried to tell myself… I tried to argue, ‘why is it so important for me that a guy should like me, fall for me or whatever?’, and ‘why was my happiness conditional?’, and on and on I went inside my head. He was sitting in front of me and talking… I could make it out from his lip-movements, but I wasn’t really listening.
I went on and on… trying to ‘look at the brighter side of things’, if there were any… and I tried to ‘act mature’…
And then at one point… I just snapped.
You know what? No matter what you say and what you do… IT SUCKS.
It sucks to be the only single girl in your group of friends… It sucks to always fall for guys who don’t like you… It sucks to have all guys think of you as a ‘guy’… as an equal… just because you are frank and straightforward and bindaas… It sucks big-time. It really does. I am fed up of having to be the ‘poor-me’… and I don’t know what to do about it… I am fed up of eating with a voice at the back of my head that constantly reminds me the number of calories I am putting on… I am fed up of watching models with unrealistic figures on TV… I am fed up of going to college to look at girls who are ‘bitchy’ and pathetic people on the inside but who are also surrounded by people just because they act sweet on the face and are ‘oh-so-girly’… I am fed up of hanging out with friends who have nothing but their boy-friends to talk about… It’s such a shame that people should judge you by how you look and who you hang out with and what time you sleep and whether you go to pubs or not and whether you have a boy-friend or not… and whether you are fat or not… and whether you enjoy late night parties or not… I am fed up of going to romantic movies and then wistfully looking at the hero and the heroine as they kiss each other in the end… It’s so so sick. I am fed up trying to make myself ‘fit’… make myself accepted… I’m fed up of trying to be someone I am not… Ya I don’t wear make-up; I sleep at nine; I am fat; I am not a typical girl; i don’t go to pubs; I don’t wear short skirts and I don’t have a tattoo; and I have never had a boy-friend; and I have never been kissed… SO WHAT?
You try to be cool… you try to get people to accept you into their group… and you don’t succeed… and then at the end of the day, its just you sitting with your tears giving you company… even when you know the whole thing is nothing worth crying over… You know that you are better off such people… and that it’s not the end of the world… but nonetheless, it’s a fact. It is the world you are living in… it’s the world I am living in. It’s a world where I am alone in a crowd. It’s the world that is pathetic to the core, but it’s the real world… and my only consolation lies in this sentence I read somewhere…
Life is a dream… I will wake up when I die…
At the exact moment when I realised I was falling head over heels for my friend all over again, I also realised he was not interested in me, all over again… or that he would probably never be…
I still tried to play it cool… Try and ‘take it all sportingly in a stride’… Be happy for him… Ask about the girl without feeling jealous or left-out… Smile and actually mean it… act mature…
But the main problem with acting mature is that at the end of it, you are still ‘acting’ mature… and not actually being mature…
I again convinced myself… or tried to; that I am a ‘nice’ girl… good-looking and all… and that maybe I am just worth someone better… that I am not his kind but that doesn’t mean I am never going to have a boy-friend or anything… For the zillionth time in my life I tried to get over… over what? Even I don’t know really if you ask me. I mean, we weren’t going around, so I can’t call it ‘heartbreak’… so whatever it was that I was trying to get over… I still haven’t figured out… maybe trying to get over being the ‘outcaste’… trying to get over the fact of being the only person among my gal-pals who didn’t have a boy-friend, and so also didn’t have any of her friends who could spare some time for her and meet her and catch up on things… trying to get over feeling unwanted… trying to get over the feeling you get when your feelings are not reciprocated… Like always I tried to convince myself and said good things about myself to me… things that would, or were supposed to cheer me up… I tried to tell myself… I tried to argue, ‘why is it so important for me that a guy should like me, fall for me or whatever?’, and ‘why was my happiness conditional?’, and on and on I went inside my head. He was sitting in front of me and talking… I could make it out from his lip-movements, but I wasn’t really listening.
I went on and on… trying to ‘look at the brighter side of things’, if there were any… and I tried to ‘act mature’…
And then at one point… I just snapped.
You know what? No matter what you say and what you do… IT SUCKS.
It sucks to be the only single girl in your group of friends… It sucks to always fall for guys who don’t like you… It sucks to have all guys think of you as a ‘guy’… as an equal… just because you are frank and straightforward and bindaas… It sucks big-time. It really does. I am fed up of having to be the ‘poor-me’… and I don’t know what to do about it… I am fed up of eating with a voice at the back of my head that constantly reminds me the number of calories I am putting on… I am fed up of watching models with unrealistic figures on TV… I am fed up of going to college to look at girls who are ‘bitchy’ and pathetic people on the inside but who are also surrounded by people just because they act sweet on the face and are ‘oh-so-girly’… I am fed up of hanging out with friends who have nothing but their boy-friends to talk about… It’s such a shame that people should judge you by how you look and who you hang out with and what time you sleep and whether you go to pubs or not and whether you have a boy-friend or not… and whether you are fat or not… and whether you enjoy late night parties or not… I am fed up of going to romantic movies and then wistfully looking at the hero and the heroine as they kiss each other in the end… It’s so so sick. I am fed up trying to make myself ‘fit’… make myself accepted… I’m fed up of trying to be someone I am not… Ya I don’t wear make-up; I sleep at nine; I am fat; I am not a typical girl; i don’t go to pubs; I don’t wear short skirts and I don’t have a tattoo; and I have never had a boy-friend; and I have never been kissed… SO WHAT?
You try to be cool… you try to get people to accept you into their group… and you don’t succeed… and then at the end of the day, its just you sitting with your tears giving you company… even when you know the whole thing is nothing worth crying over… You know that you are better off such people… and that it’s not the end of the world… but nonetheless, it’s a fact. It is the world you are living in… it’s the world I am living in. It’s a world where I am alone in a crowd. It’s the world that is pathetic to the core, but it’s the real world… and my only consolation lies in this sentence I read somewhere…
Life is a dream… I will wake up when I die…
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
NOT FOR ME
I. Hate. Coffee.
These words weren’t supposed to go together in a sentence, if they were linked to me. I mean how could I hate coffee???
In case you don’t relate to this or fail to understand this, let me tell you about myself.
I was three when I took my first sip of this drink that tasted like it came right out of the Angel’s goblet. Hot. Bitter. Sweet. All at once. Wow! I knew I had discovered my addiction, but it wasn’t until I was in second standard that I actually caught onto it. That was the max my Mother could keep me away from my sweet poison.
‘Nandu,’ she cautioned my father, ‘this is not correct. You are spoiling her.’
‘Relax Mona, its just coffee! Besides, we make it mild and of milk only!’ Dad said, a coffee addict himself; and Mom knew she’d lost the battle.
Over the years, my coffee, and me, went through a lot of changes… and now, my coffee was strong, black, hot, and bitter; and I was… well, I was a teenager… What else can I say… What else needs to be said?
So I was now a girl who was always seen in coffee shops, with an espresso, and a cute guy occasionally… But I was waiting for my best friend that day. We were meeting after a gap of seven days… seven whole days! For people who SMS-ed each other first thing in the morning even before brushing their teeth, then called up each other on reaching their respective colleges, then met up in the evening for a cup of coffee, and still argued with their mothers’ sometimes for permission to meet for a late-night ice-cream, seven days was a time unbearable to stay away from each other! So there I was waiting for Ankita, and she came in fifteen minutes late… as usual…
‘Heyyyyyyyyyy!’ she said and spread her arms… and we engulfed each other in a bear hug.
‘Hieeeeeeeeee!’ I replied. ‘How have you been? And how was the tour?’
Oh didn’t I tell you? She had gone to Coorg… as part of the study tour organized by their college. She is doing architecture.
‘Missed you yaar…’ I said as we took our seats. And Ankita did something very uncharacteristic of her; she reached out and pulled my cheeks.
‘I missed you too yaar! We had so much fun! You would have loved it… there were so many photographic locations!! You would have loved it yaar…’
‘I know… ok now lets order first and then I want a blow-by-blow account of what you did!’ I said.
‘Ok, how about we both have espresso? Like we did on our ‘pre-result freak out’?’ Ankita suggested.
‘Sure! That’ll be cool,’ I said.
So we ordered two espressos and started chatting. Now everybody who has ever been to CCD knows what the espresso out there is like… they say if you are sensitive enough and if the coffee is hot enough, you get a kick out of it, if you drink it in one sip, like a Tequila; its so concentrated and bitter.
Ankita started telling me memoirs of the trip, right from the minute they boarded the train. From all that she told me, I gathered the best part of the tour was the two nights they spent in the train! What with everybody staying up the whole night and playing ‘truth n’ dare’… That’s one game I still haven’t grown out of… or we, as in my Old World Friends, haven’t grown out of. I cant remember one time when we all met and didn’t end up playing atleast a few rounds of ‘truth n’ dare’… and as it turned out, it was Ankita’s idea for sure; and everybody loved it.
‘And then at one point the bottle pointed out to Prajak,’ she said.
‘Oh no, not again!’ I said. I hadn’t met even one of her friends actually, but I would easily spot them on a crowded street if I were to see them… such is the magic of Ankita's anecdotes. I already knew them all like they were my friends… who did what, who liked who, who was the idiot, who was the ‘poor me’, who was the ‘wanna be’, and who was the joker… of course, it was Prajak. So I could imagine what must have happened, and I started laughing; but nothing prepared me for what she told me.
‘No no! Listen!’ Ankita said. ‘He chose dare; so one of the guys dared him to pick out any girl at random in our class and propose to her!’
‘No way!’ I said.
‘No really! And you won’t believe, he picked out Pooja, and oh my God! He proposed to her so so sweetly! He got down on one knee and all! We were all dumb-struck! For a moment after he finished, we were all just staring at them. Even Pooja was looking like she’ll drop her jaw to the floor any minute. And then he just got up and went and sat on the seat again, and we all started clapping and cheering!’
‘Really!’ I said; I couldn’t believe it either.
‘Ya…’
And then she went on to describe everything… how they reached an hour late; checked into their hotels, had food and headed straight for their rooms as they were all dead tired; then went on their first study the next day; came back home in pouring rain… and on and on it went till almost quarter to eight. Finally it was time to leave. We paid the bill and went to the parking area across the street. Ankita was waiting for a rickshaw. I opened the dickey of my Activa and threw my wallet in it. I removed the scarf and was tying it around my face when I suddenly heard someone scream out my name. I turned around. It was Ankita. She crossed the street and ran up to me.
‘Are you nuts or what?’ I said. ‘What happened?’
‘Arre I got you something and forgot to give it to you!’ she said. She fished into her hand bag and removed two small packets.
‘What is this?’ I said as I took the packets from her; and answered my own question before she could… the aroma was not one which I wouldn’t recognize, and we both ended up screaming together gleefully;
‘Coffee!’
‘Ya,’ she said.
‘Wow!’ I said and opened one of the packets. I smelled the coffee and within a minute I was in heaven. ‘God! That smells almost divine!’ I said. I smelled again. ‘Yummy!’
‘I knew you would like it! I was hunting for a souvenir for you all over! But nothing seemed to strike a chord… and then on our last tour, we were having food and I smelled coffee. And you won’t believe, I followed the smell and traced it to this really tiny shop, like a kiosk. They were selling hand-ground coffee, and I knew I just had to buy it! So I bought two packets for you and two for me.’
‘Oh my God! That’s so sweet of you! Thanks!’ I said and engulfed her into a bear hug. She hugged me back.
‘By the way, don’t mix them up. They are not same. The one with the red rubber band is ‘Chicory mixed coffee’, and the other is plain coffee,’ she said; and immediately I opened the other packet and smelled that too.
‘Hmm… smells almost the same,’ I said.
‘That ‘almost’ makes all the difference!’ she remarked and I smiled.
‘Wowie, thanks yaar!’ I said. Just then a rickshaw slowed down next to us.
‘Aana hai madam?’ (You looking for a rickshaw?) The guy asked.
‘Haan haan,’ Ankita said as she hurriedly got into the rickshaw.
‘Call me!’ she called out as the rickshaw drove off. I gave her the thumbs up.
I got home and couldn’t wait to finish dinner. Mom was rather surprised to see me in the kitchen after we were done.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Making coffee; it’s quite cold.’ I replied without looking at her.
‘Deva! Wachav re baba!’ (Oh God! Save me!) She said as she walked back to the bedroom and closed the door.
I poured the steaming hot ‘Chicory mixed coffee’ into my favourite bright red mug and washed the vessel. I cleared the counter, turned the light off and walked back to my room. I was getting ready to enjoy a late night of coffee and reading, snuggled in my blanket. Mom and Dad were already in bed, trying to sleep as the cold bit into them.
I found my iPod and turned it on. Ah! What luck! My favourite song played on the shuffle list. ‘Perfect!’ I thought as I fluffed my pillow. I arranged the small stool right net to my bed and placed my cell and my coffee mug onto it. Then I got into bed and pulled the cover till my shoulders. I opened the book and took the mug in my hand.
‘This is life!’ I said to myself and took my first sip of the coffee.
I spat it back into the mug.
‘Aaaargh!’ I said as I wiped my mouth to the back of my sleeve. I looked at the coffee like it was poison. I smelled it and looked at it again. I tried another sip, a tiny one this time, and spat it back again. I set the mug aside and immediately picked up my cell. I looked at the watch. Eleven-fifty. ‘I don’t care,’ I said as I opened the message window.
‘wht shit hv u givn me as souvenir? U tryna kil me or wht?’ I typed and sent it to Ankita.
‘wht?’ came the reply, after five minutes
‘wht is tht chicory stuf suposed 2 b?’ I replied again.
‘u din lik it?’
‘I HATE IT MOR THAN ANYTHING I HAVE EVER TASTED! ITS DISGUSTING!’ I replied.
‘thts weird. ppl luv it. funy u dnt… n u say u r adictd 2 coffee.’ Came the reply.
‘YA RIGHT!’ I shouted.
‘Mrunal! Shut up!’ came the reply, this time from my parent’s bedroom.
‘Ya ya!’ I said and threw the blanket off me. I went inside the kitchen and switched the light on. I poured the entire mug right into the basin and flushed it. I rinsed the mug and set it on the counter, inverted, to drain off the water. I opened the refrigerator and took the half finished Dairy Milk bar. I munched onto it irritatedly… but the chocolate soon took over me and I got engrossed in the book and slept off sometime around two-thirty.
For the first time in my life, I got up and didn’t have coffee the next day. It took me several weeks to start drinking coffee again… and for a few days, mom was in heaven. Everytime I looked at a mug of coffee or passed a coffee shop or saw some advertisement of Bru or NesCafe, my mouth screwed up in the most difficult way and I turned away from whatever it was that had reminded me of the coffee.
‘God! What happened to you yaar?’ Ankita asked me, the day after my ‘Chicory mixed coffee’ disaster, over the phone. She was laughing her guts off.
‘Nothing,’ I said; ‘but I hated whatever it was that you gave me. And one thing’s for sure, I like coffee, but chicory is not for me,’ I said, and Ankita laughed more…
These words weren’t supposed to go together in a sentence, if they were linked to me. I mean how could I hate coffee???
In case you don’t relate to this or fail to understand this, let me tell you about myself.
I was three when I took my first sip of this drink that tasted like it came right out of the Angel’s goblet. Hot. Bitter. Sweet. All at once. Wow! I knew I had discovered my addiction, but it wasn’t until I was in second standard that I actually caught onto it. That was the max my Mother could keep me away from my sweet poison.
‘Nandu,’ she cautioned my father, ‘this is not correct. You are spoiling her.’
‘Relax Mona, its just coffee! Besides, we make it mild and of milk only!’ Dad said, a coffee addict himself; and Mom knew she’d lost the battle.
Over the years, my coffee, and me, went through a lot of changes… and now, my coffee was strong, black, hot, and bitter; and I was… well, I was a teenager… What else can I say… What else needs to be said?
So I was now a girl who was always seen in coffee shops, with an espresso, and a cute guy occasionally… But I was waiting for my best friend that day. We were meeting after a gap of seven days… seven whole days! For people who SMS-ed each other first thing in the morning even before brushing their teeth, then called up each other on reaching their respective colleges, then met up in the evening for a cup of coffee, and still argued with their mothers’ sometimes for permission to meet for a late-night ice-cream, seven days was a time unbearable to stay away from each other! So there I was waiting for Ankita, and she came in fifteen minutes late… as usual…
‘Heyyyyyyyyyy!’ she said and spread her arms… and we engulfed each other in a bear hug.
‘Hieeeeeeeeee!’ I replied. ‘How have you been? And how was the tour?’
Oh didn’t I tell you? She had gone to Coorg… as part of the study tour organized by their college. She is doing architecture.
‘Missed you yaar…’ I said as we took our seats. And Ankita did something very uncharacteristic of her; she reached out and pulled my cheeks.
‘I missed you too yaar! We had so much fun! You would have loved it… there were so many photographic locations!! You would have loved it yaar…’
‘I know… ok now lets order first and then I want a blow-by-blow account of what you did!’ I said.
‘Ok, how about we both have espresso? Like we did on our ‘pre-result freak out’?’ Ankita suggested.
‘Sure! That’ll be cool,’ I said.
So we ordered two espressos and started chatting. Now everybody who has ever been to CCD knows what the espresso out there is like… they say if you are sensitive enough and if the coffee is hot enough, you get a kick out of it, if you drink it in one sip, like a Tequila; its so concentrated and bitter.
Ankita started telling me memoirs of the trip, right from the minute they boarded the train. From all that she told me, I gathered the best part of the tour was the two nights they spent in the train! What with everybody staying up the whole night and playing ‘truth n’ dare’… That’s one game I still haven’t grown out of… or we, as in my Old World Friends, haven’t grown out of. I cant remember one time when we all met and didn’t end up playing atleast a few rounds of ‘truth n’ dare’… and as it turned out, it was Ankita’s idea for sure; and everybody loved it.
‘And then at one point the bottle pointed out to Prajak,’ she said.
‘Oh no, not again!’ I said. I hadn’t met even one of her friends actually, but I would easily spot them on a crowded street if I were to see them… such is the magic of Ankita's anecdotes. I already knew them all like they were my friends… who did what, who liked who, who was the idiot, who was the ‘poor me’, who was the ‘wanna be’, and who was the joker… of course, it was Prajak. So I could imagine what must have happened, and I started laughing; but nothing prepared me for what she told me.
‘No no! Listen!’ Ankita said. ‘He chose dare; so one of the guys dared him to pick out any girl at random in our class and propose to her!’
‘No way!’ I said.
‘No really! And you won’t believe, he picked out Pooja, and oh my God! He proposed to her so so sweetly! He got down on one knee and all! We were all dumb-struck! For a moment after he finished, we were all just staring at them. Even Pooja was looking like she’ll drop her jaw to the floor any minute. And then he just got up and went and sat on the seat again, and we all started clapping and cheering!’
‘Really!’ I said; I couldn’t believe it either.
‘Ya…’
And then she went on to describe everything… how they reached an hour late; checked into their hotels, had food and headed straight for their rooms as they were all dead tired; then went on their first study the next day; came back home in pouring rain… and on and on it went till almost quarter to eight. Finally it was time to leave. We paid the bill and went to the parking area across the street. Ankita was waiting for a rickshaw. I opened the dickey of my Activa and threw my wallet in it. I removed the scarf and was tying it around my face when I suddenly heard someone scream out my name. I turned around. It was Ankita. She crossed the street and ran up to me.
‘Are you nuts or what?’ I said. ‘What happened?’
‘Arre I got you something and forgot to give it to you!’ she said. She fished into her hand bag and removed two small packets.
‘What is this?’ I said as I took the packets from her; and answered my own question before she could… the aroma was not one which I wouldn’t recognize, and we both ended up screaming together gleefully;
‘Coffee!’
‘Ya,’ she said.
‘Wow!’ I said and opened one of the packets. I smelled the coffee and within a minute I was in heaven. ‘God! That smells almost divine!’ I said. I smelled again. ‘Yummy!’
‘I knew you would like it! I was hunting for a souvenir for you all over! But nothing seemed to strike a chord… and then on our last tour, we were having food and I smelled coffee. And you won’t believe, I followed the smell and traced it to this really tiny shop, like a kiosk. They were selling hand-ground coffee, and I knew I just had to buy it! So I bought two packets for you and two for me.’
‘Oh my God! That’s so sweet of you! Thanks!’ I said and engulfed her into a bear hug. She hugged me back.
‘By the way, don’t mix them up. They are not same. The one with the red rubber band is ‘Chicory mixed coffee’, and the other is plain coffee,’ she said; and immediately I opened the other packet and smelled that too.
‘Hmm… smells almost the same,’ I said.
‘That ‘almost’ makes all the difference!’ she remarked and I smiled.
‘Wowie, thanks yaar!’ I said. Just then a rickshaw slowed down next to us.
‘Aana hai madam?’ (You looking for a rickshaw?) The guy asked.
‘Haan haan,’ Ankita said as she hurriedly got into the rickshaw.
‘Call me!’ she called out as the rickshaw drove off. I gave her the thumbs up.
I got home and couldn’t wait to finish dinner. Mom was rather surprised to see me in the kitchen after we were done.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Making coffee; it’s quite cold.’ I replied without looking at her.
‘Deva! Wachav re baba!’ (Oh God! Save me!) She said as she walked back to the bedroom and closed the door.
I poured the steaming hot ‘Chicory mixed coffee’ into my favourite bright red mug and washed the vessel. I cleared the counter, turned the light off and walked back to my room. I was getting ready to enjoy a late night of coffee and reading, snuggled in my blanket. Mom and Dad were already in bed, trying to sleep as the cold bit into them.
I found my iPod and turned it on. Ah! What luck! My favourite song played on the shuffle list. ‘Perfect!’ I thought as I fluffed my pillow. I arranged the small stool right net to my bed and placed my cell and my coffee mug onto it. Then I got into bed and pulled the cover till my shoulders. I opened the book and took the mug in my hand.
‘This is life!’ I said to myself and took my first sip of the coffee.
I spat it back into the mug.
‘Aaaargh!’ I said as I wiped my mouth to the back of my sleeve. I looked at the coffee like it was poison. I smelled it and looked at it again. I tried another sip, a tiny one this time, and spat it back again. I set the mug aside and immediately picked up my cell. I looked at the watch. Eleven-fifty. ‘I don’t care,’ I said as I opened the message window.
‘wht shit hv u givn me as souvenir? U tryna kil me or wht?’ I typed and sent it to Ankita.
‘wht?’ came the reply, after five minutes
‘wht is tht chicory stuf suposed 2 b?’ I replied again.
‘u din lik it?’
‘I HATE IT MOR THAN ANYTHING I HAVE EVER TASTED! ITS DISGUSTING!’ I replied.
‘thts weird. ppl luv it. funy u dnt… n u say u r adictd 2 coffee.’ Came the reply.
‘YA RIGHT!’ I shouted.
‘Mrunal! Shut up!’ came the reply, this time from my parent’s bedroom.
‘Ya ya!’ I said and threw the blanket off me. I went inside the kitchen and switched the light on. I poured the entire mug right into the basin and flushed it. I rinsed the mug and set it on the counter, inverted, to drain off the water. I opened the refrigerator and took the half finished Dairy Milk bar. I munched onto it irritatedly… but the chocolate soon took over me and I got engrossed in the book and slept off sometime around two-thirty.
For the first time in my life, I got up and didn’t have coffee the next day. It took me several weeks to start drinking coffee again… and for a few days, mom was in heaven. Everytime I looked at a mug of coffee or passed a coffee shop or saw some advertisement of Bru or NesCafe, my mouth screwed up in the most difficult way and I turned away from whatever it was that had reminded me of the coffee.
‘God! What happened to you yaar?’ Ankita asked me, the day after my ‘Chicory mixed coffee’ disaster, over the phone. She was laughing her guts off.
‘Nothing,’ I said; ‘but I hated whatever it was that you gave me. And one thing’s for sure, I like coffee, but chicory is not for me,’ I said, and Ankita laughed more…
LONGING
I know you are not here… And that you will probably never be…
I know you are never going to read this… these words that I have got to write anyway…
I don’t know you… I don’t know where you are… but I can somehow feel it, within the heart of my heart, that as I write these words one by one, as they come to my mind, you can perceive them… somewhere… somehow… I don’t know what to say to you… does anything need to be said? They say when you really want something; the whole universe conspires to get it for you… I don’t know what I want… but if you can feel me, you may well know by now, what it is that I want…
And till then, I will wait… in this pain that doesn’t really hurt… in this wait that is necessary… I have come to like it now… come to live in this longing to meet you someday… Will you be like I have seen you to be in my thoughts, or have felt you to be like when I close my eyes? Will I recognize you if I saw you in a crowded street? Is that what ‘striking a chord’ means? I believe in serendipity… do you? Will you ever come across this? Will you try to reach out to me when you do? Maybe you will… Maybe you won’t…
And even though I really wish you would… a part of me wants to live in this longing… forever…
I know you are never going to read this… these words that I have got to write anyway…
I don’t know you… I don’t know where you are… but I can somehow feel it, within the heart of my heart, that as I write these words one by one, as they come to my mind, you can perceive them… somewhere… somehow… I don’t know what to say to you… does anything need to be said? They say when you really want something; the whole universe conspires to get it for you… I don’t know what I want… but if you can feel me, you may well know by now, what it is that I want…
And till then, I will wait… in this pain that doesn’t really hurt… in this wait that is necessary… I have come to like it now… come to live in this longing to meet you someday… Will you be like I have seen you to be in my thoughts, or have felt you to be like when I close my eyes? Will I recognize you if I saw you in a crowded street? Is that what ‘striking a chord’ means? I believe in serendipity… do you? Will you ever come across this? Will you try to reach out to me when you do? Maybe you will… Maybe you won’t…
And even though I really wish you would… a part of me wants to live in this longing… forever…
Monday, February 11, 2008
PERFECT PROPOSAL
I woke up with a cold sweat on my forehead and my heart racing faster than PT Usha perhaps; and my first thought was: Do early morning dreams really come true?
I hoped and hoped they didn't… I didn’t want to lose Dhananjay after all… Not for a thousand other friends… Or for a thousand other guys precisely… You only come across your dream guy once after all, right?
I went through my daily chores mechanically… I had Chemistry practicals that day, so I had already bathed and packed my bag by the time it was eight. Mom had packed my tiffin for me and left it on the kitchen counter already, and she had left for her morning walk. I entered the kitchen and picked up my tiffin. Stuffing it in my bag, I left the house sharp at eight-fifteen.
Dhananjay made a grand entry at nine, for a practical scheduled to begin at eight-thirty. Ma’am was already past the stage of getting angry at him.
‘Sorry ma’am I__’
‘No! Its ok. You don’t have to explain,’ Ma’am replied, her voice rather even. Dhananjay, and the rest of the students including me, rolled our eyes. Dhananjay muttered a meek ‘thanks’ and went to keep his bag on the shelf.
‘What are you doing?’ Ma’am called out.
Dhananjay turned around and looked at ma’am. He kept staring at her.
‘Out.’ Ma’am said.
‘Ma’am but__’
‘I said its ok. You don’t have to explain. Pick up your bag and out.’
Realising he didn’t have a choice, Dhananjay picked up his bag and stormed out of the lab. Suddenly everybody in the lab became quiet. There was not a word to be heard after that till the end of the practicals. We joined Dhananjay in the canteen at eleven-thirty.
‘Kya yaar!’ (What man!) Niraj exclaimed. ‘Why can’t you be on time for once?’
‘Arre ervicha thik ahe, (It’s another thing everyday) I come late on purpose. But I had to go to the doctor today morning.’
My ears pricked.
‘Why? What happened?’ Niraj asked.
‘Same thing. This cold will really kill me one day.’
‘Is it causing a lot of trouble?’ Tanmaya asked.
‘Not ‘a lot’ really, but enough to make me make a trip to the doctor.’
‘So what did the doctor say?’
‘What will he say? “Take care, wear a sweater,” this, that.’
‘But you said your asthma was under control now?’ Tanmaya again.
‘Yes! But just check out the cold man! 5.5o! Who thought Pune could get this cold! It gets a bit hard in the winters…’ Dhananjay said.
‘Yeah…’ Niraj said.
‘I know…’ Tanmaya said.
‘Why are you so quiet today?’ Dhananjay asked me suddenly.
‘Nothing…’ I said and looked away.
‘God! I’m ravenous!’ Niraj said out of the blue. ‘Let’s eat.’
We all proceeded to bring our tiffins out of our bags. Dhananjay put a hand into his bag; it came out empty.
‘Shit!’ he exclaimed, banging his hand on the table.
‘Now what?’ Tanmaya said.
‘I forgot my tiffin.’
‘Oh no!’
‘That’s ok,’ Niraj said, ‘We all share our tiffins anyway right?’
‘Why don’t we go to the University Canteen instead?’ Dhananjay suggested. ‘I mean if it’s ok with__’
‘No!’
This came from me. I surprised myself as much as I surprised the three of them at the sudden exclamation.
‘Why not?’ Tanmaya asked.
‘Let’s just not go ok?’ I said; for only I had foreseen what lie ahead of us if we were to go to the University Canteen.
‘But why?’ Dhananjay asked. ‘In fact a little bit of sun will do me good.’
‘Ya, come on! Let’s go yaar!’ Niraj persuaded. I tried my best to protest, but couldn’t. Finally I gave in to the idea.
‘I don’t feel like driving though,’ Dhananjay said.
‘Come on! You know I can’t drive!’ Niraj said.
‘It’s ok! We’ll drive today!’ Tanmaya said.
‘Ok! I’m sitting on your bike then,’ Niraj said, leaving Dhananjay to sit behind me. Soon we were on our way to the University Canteen.
‘Whats the matter yaar?’ Dhananjay asked me, his voice lower than usual, as we were driving. We had entered the University premises.
‘Nothing,’ I replied, trying to keep my voice steady.
‘You are shivering,’ Dhananjay said.
‘It’s the cold.’
‘Since when did you start feeling cold?’ Dhananjay asked me. I kept quiet. ‘You are looking pretty today though,’ he added.
Under normal circumstances, this should have sent me to seventh-heaven. I should have been extremely flattered, ecstatic, and incomparably happy. I mean, you don’t always receive compliments from your dream guy right? But I didn’t even as much as smile at him. In fact, I was almost on the verge of tears.
‘And why did you say ‘no’ to coming to the canteen?’ he asked further.
Now how was I to answer that? ‘Because you are going to die now’? I tried to fight back my tears. Superstitions, when they are related to or when they involve people you really love and care about, can scare the daylights out of you. I didn’t want to lose Dhananjay; no! No way! On the one hand my heart was praying and praying madly that nothing should go wrong, that my nightmare shouldn’t come true. And on the other hand my brain was laughing at me for actually believing or thinking that such things happen… that such superstitions come true.
‘Hey! WATCH OUT!’ he shouted in my ear. I blinked; and the next moment I found myself headed straight towards a Maruti 800. I swerved my bike and avoided banging head-on into it.
‘Stop! Stop right now,’ Dhananjay said. I obeyed. He got off the bike. I got off it too. He took the key from me.
‘Sit.’ He ordered. I obeyed. We took off again.
We were both quiet after that; he being angry; me… a lot of things. I breathed in his scent. My lungs filled with the smell of ‘Old Spice’. His muffler was fluttering in the air as he sped through the maze of roads. Suddenly I had a strong urge to hug him, and before I knew it, I really was hugging him.
‘Hey! Hello! Kya hua hai yaar tujhe aaj?’ (Whats happened to you today?)
I kept quiet.
Dhananjay didn’t say anything after that; but he placed one of his hands on mine and drove slower. He slacked in his back, making me nuzzle against him. The rest of the journey was completed in silence, with him whistling one of the stanzas of our favourite song, Bin Tere Sanam.
About an hour later we were having a walk through the University Garden. We had just finished eating, and nobody was in a mood to go back to college and sit for the lectures.
‘Lekin bol na yaar, tujhe hua kya hai?’ (But what is the matter with you?) Niraj again asked me.
‘And don’t say nothing,’ Tanmaya said.
‘Abe mujhe puchh na!’ (Ask me!) Dhananjay said. ‘I’ll tell you what the matter is. Madam is lost in thoughts of her lover!’
I shot Dhananjay a look. His eyes were twinkling with laughter. Tanmaya and Niraj were already acting like I had announced my engagement or something. We were out of the garden now, heading back towards our vehicles.
‘What! Really?’
‘Who is it?’
I kept looking at Dhananjay. He stared back at me.
I looked away. I could hear them all tease me, but I couldn’t really figure out what they were saying. I was there with them physically, but mentally I seemed to be lost somewhere…
‘Do you believe in superstitions?’ I asked all of a sudden, and everyone went quiet.
‘What?’ Dhananjay was the first one to speak.
‘I just had this weird dream last night,’ I said, finally coming out with what had been eating my mind since morning. ‘They say early morning dreams come true. Do you think they really do?’
The silence that ensued was so dead, if I tried real hard, I could’ve probably heard their hearts beat. With perfect timing I realised there was nobody on the road; it had emptied almost suddenly. There was not a vehicle or a person to be seen. I glanced back at the garden; it had emptied too. Just like in the dream…
‘I don’t know…’ Tanmaya said. ‘Maybe they do.’
‘Yeah… I mean, I never had a dream early morning. I mean, I don’t get up that early anyway, so I wouldn’t know really…’ Niraj said.
‘Yeah… And I don’t dream so much…’ Tanmaya added. ‘So…’
I looked at Niraj and Tanmaya. Suddenly I realised they were wearing the same clothes as they had dressed up in in my dream. I looked at Dhananjay. He was wearing the same clothes too.
I closed my eyes. And just then I heard a car in the distance, approaching us from behind. I quickly pulled Dhananjay on the inside of the road and started walking on the outside.
‘Anyway! So where were we?’ Niraj said.
‘Madam’s lover!’ Tanmaya prompted, and they all started laughing. The sound of the car grew louder. It was coming up fast… real fast.
‘Right! Ae bol na Dhananjay (Come on tell us Dhananjay). Who is the mystery guy?’
I turned around. I could see the car now. I turned back and looked at Dhananjay.
‘It’s no one,’ I said.
‘Oh ya! Really?’ Dhananjay said, looking at me, his eyes twinkling as they always do when he is up to some mischief.
‘Ya.’
‘But then what was that stuff about__’
And just then, Dhananjay stopped in mid-sentence, took my hand and pulled me hard towards himself. The car drove past us.
I heard Tanmaya shout.
I heard Niraj shout.
Me and Dhananjay fell to the ground.
I quickly recovered and got up.
‘Are you nuts or__’ Dhananjay began to say, but his voice got swallowed up in his coughing.
‘Laksha kuthe hota tujha?’ (What were you so lost in?) Tanmaya said. She quickly got down to her knees and removed her water bottle from her bag. She offered it to Dhananjay. He took the bottle, but couldn’t stop himself from coughing, even enough to drink the water.
‘Oye yaar, take it easy!’ Niraj said. But Dhananjay’s coughing only got worse. I began rubbing his back.
‘I am sorry Dhananjay,’ I said. He looked at me; his eyes were blood-shot and watering from the excessive coughing. And just then I realised; he was having an attack.
‘Oh my God,’ Tanmaya said, as it struck her too. She went through his bag to find his inhaler, but it wasn’t there. Seems like he had forgotten that too. Dhananjay's coughing was now at its peak. He was gasping for air.
‘I’ll go check the dickey of his bike, it might be there in it,’ Niraj said as he sped off in the direction of our bikes. Meanwhile I and Tanmaya tried to reduce the coughing. But we didn’t know quite what to do. And just then, Dhananjay breathed in one last time, closed his eyes and fell to the ground.
Tanmaya froze.
I froze.
We kept staring at a motionless Dhananjay.
Just then Niraj cam back with the inhaler. He took one look at us, and the inhaler dropped out of his hand.
Suddenly Tanmaya burst into tears.
Niraj bent down on his knees and held her in his arms.
I just kept staring at Dhananjay… kept staring at his hair, his eyes, his lips… all things I was crazy about… all things that were now lifeless… dead.
I raised my hand and placed it on his heart. I ran it across his chest. I bent down and placed my head on his chest. I closed my eyes. I could still hear Tanmaya crying. My finger grabbed his t-shirt slowly… my fist growing stronger and stronger. I bit my lips. Slow and steady the tears started pouring out of my eyes.
Suddenly I felt a hand on my back. I looked up.
Dhananjay was staring at me.
I blinked. I turned around and looked at Tanmaya. She was standing now, and so was Niraj, right next to her.
I looked back at Dhananjay. And now, his eyes were wet.
‘You love me so much?’ he said.
I blinked, still not able to make head or tails of what was happening.
Dhananjay now sat up and leaned against the tree behind him.
‘It was a joke,’ he explained.
I looked at Tanmaya and Niraj. They nodded. I looked back at Dhananjay.
‘It was a joke,’ he repeated. ‘I talked Tanmaya and Niraj into it. When Tanmaya told me you liked me… I couldn’t believe it. Why would you want to be with a guy like me? Someone who has health problems and a medical history and all… So I decided to__’
‘Pucch hi lete ek baar. Mein bata deti,’ (You just had to ask me once. I would have told you.) I said and got up. I started walking toward our bikes. Dhananjay called out to me. I didn’t respond. I heard him get up. Tanmaya and Niraj chose not to follow him as he came after me. I started walking faster as I heard Dhananjay close up to me. He started walking faster too. Finally he ran up to me, and held me arm. He pulled me towards him.
‘I am sorry,’ he said.
I looked at him. And before I knew it, I had slapped him.
He looked back at me.
‘I am really__’
I slapped him again, this time on the other cheek.
He looked back at me. His eyes were welling up… fast. He took me by the arms and tried to pull me into an embrace. I tried to resist… but gave in finally, breaking out into tears.
‘I love you,’ he said.
I cried harder… but nodded. That’s all I could do really at that moment…
I stop here… but I smile as I realise I still haven’t told you one thing: I don’t believe in superstitions anymore, but I do believe in miracles…
I hoped and hoped they didn't… I didn’t want to lose Dhananjay after all… Not for a thousand other friends… Or for a thousand other guys precisely… You only come across your dream guy once after all, right?
I went through my daily chores mechanically… I had Chemistry practicals that day, so I had already bathed and packed my bag by the time it was eight. Mom had packed my tiffin for me and left it on the kitchen counter already, and she had left for her morning walk. I entered the kitchen and picked up my tiffin. Stuffing it in my bag, I left the house sharp at eight-fifteen.
Dhananjay made a grand entry at nine, for a practical scheduled to begin at eight-thirty. Ma’am was already past the stage of getting angry at him.
‘Sorry ma’am I__’
‘No! Its ok. You don’t have to explain,’ Ma’am replied, her voice rather even. Dhananjay, and the rest of the students including me, rolled our eyes. Dhananjay muttered a meek ‘thanks’ and went to keep his bag on the shelf.
‘What are you doing?’ Ma’am called out.
Dhananjay turned around and looked at ma’am. He kept staring at her.
‘Out.’ Ma’am said.
‘Ma’am but__’
‘I said its ok. You don’t have to explain. Pick up your bag and out.’
Realising he didn’t have a choice, Dhananjay picked up his bag and stormed out of the lab. Suddenly everybody in the lab became quiet. There was not a word to be heard after that till the end of the practicals. We joined Dhananjay in the canteen at eleven-thirty.
‘Kya yaar!’ (What man!) Niraj exclaimed. ‘Why can’t you be on time for once?’
‘Arre ervicha thik ahe, (It’s another thing everyday) I come late on purpose. But I had to go to the doctor today morning.’
My ears pricked.
‘Why? What happened?’ Niraj asked.
‘Same thing. This cold will really kill me one day.’
‘Is it causing a lot of trouble?’ Tanmaya asked.
‘Not ‘a lot’ really, but enough to make me make a trip to the doctor.’
‘So what did the doctor say?’
‘What will he say? “Take care, wear a sweater,” this, that.’
‘But you said your asthma was under control now?’ Tanmaya again.
‘Yes! But just check out the cold man! 5.5o! Who thought Pune could get this cold! It gets a bit hard in the winters…’ Dhananjay said.
‘Yeah…’ Niraj said.
‘I know…’ Tanmaya said.
‘Why are you so quiet today?’ Dhananjay asked me suddenly.
‘Nothing…’ I said and looked away.
‘God! I’m ravenous!’ Niraj said out of the blue. ‘Let’s eat.’
We all proceeded to bring our tiffins out of our bags. Dhananjay put a hand into his bag; it came out empty.
‘Shit!’ he exclaimed, banging his hand on the table.
‘Now what?’ Tanmaya said.
‘I forgot my tiffin.’
‘Oh no!’
‘That’s ok,’ Niraj said, ‘We all share our tiffins anyway right?’
‘Why don’t we go to the University Canteen instead?’ Dhananjay suggested. ‘I mean if it’s ok with__’
‘No!’
This came from me. I surprised myself as much as I surprised the three of them at the sudden exclamation.
‘Why not?’ Tanmaya asked.
‘Let’s just not go ok?’ I said; for only I had foreseen what lie ahead of us if we were to go to the University Canteen.
‘But why?’ Dhananjay asked. ‘In fact a little bit of sun will do me good.’
‘Ya, come on! Let’s go yaar!’ Niraj persuaded. I tried my best to protest, but couldn’t. Finally I gave in to the idea.
‘I don’t feel like driving though,’ Dhananjay said.
‘Come on! You know I can’t drive!’ Niraj said.
‘It’s ok! We’ll drive today!’ Tanmaya said.
‘Ok! I’m sitting on your bike then,’ Niraj said, leaving Dhananjay to sit behind me. Soon we were on our way to the University Canteen.
‘Whats the matter yaar?’ Dhananjay asked me, his voice lower than usual, as we were driving. We had entered the University premises.
‘Nothing,’ I replied, trying to keep my voice steady.
‘You are shivering,’ Dhananjay said.
‘It’s the cold.’
‘Since when did you start feeling cold?’ Dhananjay asked me. I kept quiet. ‘You are looking pretty today though,’ he added.
Under normal circumstances, this should have sent me to seventh-heaven. I should have been extremely flattered, ecstatic, and incomparably happy. I mean, you don’t always receive compliments from your dream guy right? But I didn’t even as much as smile at him. In fact, I was almost on the verge of tears.
‘And why did you say ‘no’ to coming to the canteen?’ he asked further.
Now how was I to answer that? ‘Because you are going to die now’? I tried to fight back my tears. Superstitions, when they are related to or when they involve people you really love and care about, can scare the daylights out of you. I didn’t want to lose Dhananjay; no! No way! On the one hand my heart was praying and praying madly that nothing should go wrong, that my nightmare shouldn’t come true. And on the other hand my brain was laughing at me for actually believing or thinking that such things happen… that such superstitions come true.
‘Hey! WATCH OUT!’ he shouted in my ear. I blinked; and the next moment I found myself headed straight towards a Maruti 800. I swerved my bike and avoided banging head-on into it.
‘Stop! Stop right now,’ Dhananjay said. I obeyed. He got off the bike. I got off it too. He took the key from me.
‘Sit.’ He ordered. I obeyed. We took off again.
We were both quiet after that; he being angry; me… a lot of things. I breathed in his scent. My lungs filled with the smell of ‘Old Spice’. His muffler was fluttering in the air as he sped through the maze of roads. Suddenly I had a strong urge to hug him, and before I knew it, I really was hugging him.
‘Hey! Hello! Kya hua hai yaar tujhe aaj?’ (Whats happened to you today?)
I kept quiet.
Dhananjay didn’t say anything after that; but he placed one of his hands on mine and drove slower. He slacked in his back, making me nuzzle against him. The rest of the journey was completed in silence, with him whistling one of the stanzas of our favourite song, Bin Tere Sanam.
About an hour later we were having a walk through the University Garden. We had just finished eating, and nobody was in a mood to go back to college and sit for the lectures.
‘Lekin bol na yaar, tujhe hua kya hai?’ (But what is the matter with you?) Niraj again asked me.
‘And don’t say nothing,’ Tanmaya said.
‘Abe mujhe puchh na!’ (Ask me!) Dhananjay said. ‘I’ll tell you what the matter is. Madam is lost in thoughts of her lover!’
I shot Dhananjay a look. His eyes were twinkling with laughter. Tanmaya and Niraj were already acting like I had announced my engagement or something. We were out of the garden now, heading back towards our vehicles.
‘What! Really?’
‘Who is it?’
I kept looking at Dhananjay. He stared back at me.
I looked away. I could hear them all tease me, but I couldn’t really figure out what they were saying. I was there with them physically, but mentally I seemed to be lost somewhere…
‘Do you believe in superstitions?’ I asked all of a sudden, and everyone went quiet.
‘What?’ Dhananjay was the first one to speak.
‘I just had this weird dream last night,’ I said, finally coming out with what had been eating my mind since morning. ‘They say early morning dreams come true. Do you think they really do?’
The silence that ensued was so dead, if I tried real hard, I could’ve probably heard their hearts beat. With perfect timing I realised there was nobody on the road; it had emptied almost suddenly. There was not a vehicle or a person to be seen. I glanced back at the garden; it had emptied too. Just like in the dream…
‘I don’t know…’ Tanmaya said. ‘Maybe they do.’
‘Yeah… I mean, I never had a dream early morning. I mean, I don’t get up that early anyway, so I wouldn’t know really…’ Niraj said.
‘Yeah… And I don’t dream so much…’ Tanmaya added. ‘So…’
I looked at Niraj and Tanmaya. Suddenly I realised they were wearing the same clothes as they had dressed up in in my dream. I looked at Dhananjay. He was wearing the same clothes too.
I closed my eyes. And just then I heard a car in the distance, approaching us from behind. I quickly pulled Dhananjay on the inside of the road and started walking on the outside.
‘Anyway! So where were we?’ Niraj said.
‘Madam’s lover!’ Tanmaya prompted, and they all started laughing. The sound of the car grew louder. It was coming up fast… real fast.
‘Right! Ae bol na Dhananjay (Come on tell us Dhananjay). Who is the mystery guy?’
I turned around. I could see the car now. I turned back and looked at Dhananjay.
‘It’s no one,’ I said.
‘Oh ya! Really?’ Dhananjay said, looking at me, his eyes twinkling as they always do when he is up to some mischief.
‘Ya.’
‘But then what was that stuff about__’
And just then, Dhananjay stopped in mid-sentence, took my hand and pulled me hard towards himself. The car drove past us.
I heard Tanmaya shout.
I heard Niraj shout.
Me and Dhananjay fell to the ground.
I quickly recovered and got up.
‘Are you nuts or__’ Dhananjay began to say, but his voice got swallowed up in his coughing.
‘Laksha kuthe hota tujha?’ (What were you so lost in?) Tanmaya said. She quickly got down to her knees and removed her water bottle from her bag. She offered it to Dhananjay. He took the bottle, but couldn’t stop himself from coughing, even enough to drink the water.
‘Oye yaar, take it easy!’ Niraj said. But Dhananjay’s coughing only got worse. I began rubbing his back.
‘I am sorry Dhananjay,’ I said. He looked at me; his eyes were blood-shot and watering from the excessive coughing. And just then I realised; he was having an attack.
‘Oh my God,’ Tanmaya said, as it struck her too. She went through his bag to find his inhaler, but it wasn’t there. Seems like he had forgotten that too. Dhananjay's coughing was now at its peak. He was gasping for air.
‘I’ll go check the dickey of his bike, it might be there in it,’ Niraj said as he sped off in the direction of our bikes. Meanwhile I and Tanmaya tried to reduce the coughing. But we didn’t know quite what to do. And just then, Dhananjay breathed in one last time, closed his eyes and fell to the ground.
Tanmaya froze.
I froze.
We kept staring at a motionless Dhananjay.
Just then Niraj cam back with the inhaler. He took one look at us, and the inhaler dropped out of his hand.
Suddenly Tanmaya burst into tears.
Niraj bent down on his knees and held her in his arms.
I just kept staring at Dhananjay… kept staring at his hair, his eyes, his lips… all things I was crazy about… all things that were now lifeless… dead.
I raised my hand and placed it on his heart. I ran it across his chest. I bent down and placed my head on his chest. I closed my eyes. I could still hear Tanmaya crying. My finger grabbed his t-shirt slowly… my fist growing stronger and stronger. I bit my lips. Slow and steady the tears started pouring out of my eyes.
Suddenly I felt a hand on my back. I looked up.
Dhananjay was staring at me.
I blinked. I turned around and looked at Tanmaya. She was standing now, and so was Niraj, right next to her.
I looked back at Dhananjay. And now, his eyes were wet.
‘You love me so much?’ he said.
I blinked, still not able to make head or tails of what was happening.
Dhananjay now sat up and leaned against the tree behind him.
‘It was a joke,’ he explained.
I looked at Tanmaya and Niraj. They nodded. I looked back at Dhananjay.
‘It was a joke,’ he repeated. ‘I talked Tanmaya and Niraj into it. When Tanmaya told me you liked me… I couldn’t believe it. Why would you want to be with a guy like me? Someone who has health problems and a medical history and all… So I decided to__’
‘Pucch hi lete ek baar. Mein bata deti,’ (You just had to ask me once. I would have told you.) I said and got up. I started walking toward our bikes. Dhananjay called out to me. I didn’t respond. I heard him get up. Tanmaya and Niraj chose not to follow him as he came after me. I started walking faster as I heard Dhananjay close up to me. He started walking faster too. Finally he ran up to me, and held me arm. He pulled me towards him.
‘I am sorry,’ he said.
I looked at him. And before I knew it, I had slapped him.
He looked back at me.
‘I am really__’
I slapped him again, this time on the other cheek.
He looked back at me. His eyes were welling up… fast. He took me by the arms and tried to pull me into an embrace. I tried to resist… but gave in finally, breaking out into tears.
‘I love you,’ he said.
I cried harder… but nodded. That’s all I could do really at that moment…
I stop here… but I smile as I realise I still haven’t told you one thing: I don’t believe in superstitions anymore, but I do believe in miracles…
Monday, February 4, 2008
YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL
It was way past my bed-time, and I was not at all in a mood to sleep. The next day was Sunday anyway, so I didn’t need to sleep early or wake up early or anything. And then, when I am sulking, there is no use telling me or convincing me. When I am sulking, I have just one rule: leave me alone, and I won’t swallow you whole.
So what was I doing then?
Orkut-ing… what else?
I went and checked out several people’s profiles (all guys; needless to say) and scrapped several unknown guys - very uncharacteristic of me. And just as I was about to logoff, some guy scrapped me.
‘heyaaaaaa! no reply miss!’
G.O.D.
Are guys really that dumb? Or is it my dire luck that I always come across losers? This guy had been bothering me for god knows how many days; I had lost count by then. And I had been avoiding him - again quite uncharacteristic of me. But… there was something wrong with me… There had been something wrong with me for quite some time… I had changed… I had become very irritable, and was on a low in general… anyway. So I saw his name in my scrapbook and thought to myself; ‘That’s it! I am getting rid of this guy tonight, and for good.’
‘wht is ur prob dude? jst buzz off.’
‘i c u r rg’s fren.’ came the reply, and I immediately scanned his friend-list; sure enough, he was RG’s friend. I mellowed down a bit.
‘ya. so?’
‘so I though mayb v cud hv a chat… do u hv webcam?’
Oh God. Now I was totally convinced this guy was the ultimate loser category. I hated such guys, who think they are being really suave when they say and do things that would turn even the most boring and ‘plain Jane’ of girls’ off. Things like; ‘cn v b frens’ n ‘do u hv a cel’ or ‘do u hv a webcam’ or even ‘wen cn v meet’… God! I so loathed these types!
‘no.’ I said.
‘ok. hw abt a pic?’
‘y u wana c me so badly?’ I asked him. Actually I didn’t even know why I was talking with him in the first place… n that too when I was in such a bad mood.
‘hv herd a lot bt u frm rg. pl.’
And right there I saw my way out of this guy… I show him my pic, he doesn’t like me, and I am free!
Now, I am not the kind of person who has a low self-esteem or anything… but then, I also don’t have any fancy ideas about how I look… I think I look good… not exceptionally beautiful or anything, but good. But I am also more on the plump side. So, its like - guys like me, but not enough to pursue me I guess… Actually whatever… it doesn’t matter, I don’t care.
I gave the guy my Yahoo!-id and asked him to come online. I clicked on the photo-sharing option and chose the dumbest of my pics. It wasn’t all that dumb actually, but I wouldn’t consider it my best pic; atleast not a pic I’d share with a guy.
‘luks lik its bit big. takin tym to load. so wht do u do?’
‘u knw wht?’
‘wht’
‘jst c d pic n buz off. m nt in d mood fr a chat.’
‘y? wht hapnd?’
‘whtevr! wht is ur prob anyway? u think u r sm grt guy who cn whisk my probs away jst lik tht? u think u r bein vry nic n suave wen u ask me whts d matr wit me?’
‘u knw wht I think? i think u r drunk, or u r being vry funy rit nw.’
‘luk, whtevr ur name is – ’
‘luv. my name is luv. as in luv-kush.’
GOD SAVE ME! I almost cried out reading that one. Luv. LUV! How could anyone’s parents ever name their son ‘Luv’? Eeeeeeeeeeeew!
‘okh LUV. m hvin a bad day. so jst buz off. frankly i dnt evn knw y i m talking to u in d first place. I need to b left alon rite nw, k? so jst – ’
‘wow. u r beautiful.’
Pause.
‘wht?’
‘ur pic. it jst loaded fully. u r beautiful.’
‘ya rite. i m beautiful, n d world is flat.’
‘i mean it. m nt putin u on.’
‘no. m nt beautiful, m fat.’
‘bt dt dosnt mean u r nt beautiful.’
And just like that, my eyes welled up. I don’t know what happened in that one moment, but the next moment, I was crying. I was laughing and crying at the same time. It was like all my anger and frustration and irritation had gone in a moment.
‘u knw wht?’
‘wht?’
‘u r mad.’
‘cmon. tel me smthin new. :D’
God. I felt so touched… It was nothing maybe, and for all I know, he could be just putting me on. I can’t really express what I want to say, or how I felt. But… its like, me being fat had become a part of my identity. Even that would have been ok with me, but it gets really annoying when all people reduce you to is ‘that big fat girl’. Yes, I am very tall, and I am stout. I am not the bulging fat types. But yes, I could do with losing a few pounds. But lately, it seemed like that was the only thing people could notice in me. I act like it doesn’t bother me. And personally, it doesn’t. But sometimes you do get tired of acting strong, or acting like you couldn’t care less about what people said and did. Sometimes, it just gets to you, and all you feel like doing is curling into a corner and hugging yourself and crying. Wouldn’t you feel great if someone came along at such a time and just appreciated you the way you are? Or said something stupid and ridiculous and wonderful at the same time? Sometimes that’s all that we want really… to be accepted for what we are… to be liked or cherished just the way we are. And that is exactly what this guy had just done.
‘thnx.’ I said… That’s all I could think of saying really. It was such a stupid thing… so trivial. But it lifted me up and made me happy. We exchanged a few more words and then said goodbye and logged off.
To this day, I haven’t been able to find that guy again… I don’t know where he is or how he is. I asked my friend RG, but she completely denied of knowing any such guy. Maybe we were talking of 2 different RGs… or maybe RG had unknowingly accepted his ‘friend request’ on Orkut and didn’t really know him… or maybe… I don’t know what… I can’t really explain what happened. But that guy just came and went… just like that.
Luv, if you are reading this right now, I just want to say; thanks. Thanks for what you did. Maybe its nothing to you, but it meant a lot to me… thanks… and hope we meet again some day…
So what was I doing then?
Orkut-ing… what else?
I went and checked out several people’s profiles (all guys; needless to say) and scrapped several unknown guys - very uncharacteristic of me. And just as I was about to logoff, some guy scrapped me.
‘heyaaaaaa! no reply miss!’
G.O.D.
Are guys really that dumb? Or is it my dire luck that I always come across losers? This guy had been bothering me for god knows how many days; I had lost count by then. And I had been avoiding him - again quite uncharacteristic of me. But… there was something wrong with me… There had been something wrong with me for quite some time… I had changed… I had become very irritable, and was on a low in general… anyway. So I saw his name in my scrapbook and thought to myself; ‘That’s it! I am getting rid of this guy tonight, and for good.’
‘wht is ur prob dude? jst buzz off.’
‘i c u r rg’s fren.’ came the reply, and I immediately scanned his friend-list; sure enough, he was RG’s friend. I mellowed down a bit.
‘ya. so?’
‘so I though mayb v cud hv a chat… do u hv webcam?’
Oh God. Now I was totally convinced this guy was the ultimate loser category. I hated such guys, who think they are being really suave when they say and do things that would turn even the most boring and ‘plain Jane’ of girls’ off. Things like; ‘cn v b frens’ n ‘do u hv a cel’ or ‘do u hv a webcam’ or even ‘wen cn v meet’… God! I so loathed these types!
‘no.’ I said.
‘ok. hw abt a pic?’
‘y u wana c me so badly?’ I asked him. Actually I didn’t even know why I was talking with him in the first place… n that too when I was in such a bad mood.
‘hv herd a lot bt u frm rg. pl.’
And right there I saw my way out of this guy… I show him my pic, he doesn’t like me, and I am free!
Now, I am not the kind of person who has a low self-esteem or anything… but then, I also don’t have any fancy ideas about how I look… I think I look good… not exceptionally beautiful or anything, but good. But I am also more on the plump side. So, its like - guys like me, but not enough to pursue me I guess… Actually whatever… it doesn’t matter, I don’t care.
I gave the guy my Yahoo!-id and asked him to come online. I clicked on the photo-sharing option and chose the dumbest of my pics. It wasn’t all that dumb actually, but I wouldn’t consider it my best pic; atleast not a pic I’d share with a guy.
‘luks lik its bit big. takin tym to load. so wht do u do?’
‘u knw wht?’
‘wht’
‘jst c d pic n buz off. m nt in d mood fr a chat.’
‘y? wht hapnd?’
‘whtevr! wht is ur prob anyway? u think u r sm grt guy who cn whisk my probs away jst lik tht? u think u r bein vry nic n suave wen u ask me whts d matr wit me?’
‘u knw wht I think? i think u r drunk, or u r being vry funy rit nw.’
‘luk, whtevr ur name is – ’
‘luv. my name is luv. as in luv-kush.’
GOD SAVE ME! I almost cried out reading that one. Luv. LUV! How could anyone’s parents ever name their son ‘Luv’? Eeeeeeeeeeeew!
‘okh LUV. m hvin a bad day. so jst buz off. frankly i dnt evn knw y i m talking to u in d first place. I need to b left alon rite nw, k? so jst – ’
‘wow. u r beautiful.’
Pause.
‘wht?’
‘ur pic. it jst loaded fully. u r beautiful.’
‘ya rite. i m beautiful, n d world is flat.’
‘i mean it. m nt putin u on.’
‘no. m nt beautiful, m fat.’
‘bt dt dosnt mean u r nt beautiful.’
And just like that, my eyes welled up. I don’t know what happened in that one moment, but the next moment, I was crying. I was laughing and crying at the same time. It was like all my anger and frustration and irritation had gone in a moment.
‘u knw wht?’
‘wht?’
‘u r mad.’
‘cmon. tel me smthin new. :D’
God. I felt so touched… It was nothing maybe, and for all I know, he could be just putting me on. I can’t really express what I want to say, or how I felt. But… its like, me being fat had become a part of my identity. Even that would have been ok with me, but it gets really annoying when all people reduce you to is ‘that big fat girl’. Yes, I am very tall, and I am stout. I am not the bulging fat types. But yes, I could do with losing a few pounds. But lately, it seemed like that was the only thing people could notice in me. I act like it doesn’t bother me. And personally, it doesn’t. But sometimes you do get tired of acting strong, or acting like you couldn’t care less about what people said and did. Sometimes, it just gets to you, and all you feel like doing is curling into a corner and hugging yourself and crying. Wouldn’t you feel great if someone came along at such a time and just appreciated you the way you are? Or said something stupid and ridiculous and wonderful at the same time? Sometimes that’s all that we want really… to be accepted for what we are… to be liked or cherished just the way we are. And that is exactly what this guy had just done.
‘thnx.’ I said… That’s all I could think of saying really. It was such a stupid thing… so trivial. But it lifted me up and made me happy. We exchanged a few more words and then said goodbye and logged off.
To this day, I haven’t been able to find that guy again… I don’t know where he is or how he is. I asked my friend RG, but she completely denied of knowing any such guy. Maybe we were talking of 2 different RGs… or maybe RG had unknowingly accepted his ‘friend request’ on Orkut and didn’t really know him… or maybe… I don’t know what… I can’t really explain what happened. But that guy just came and went… just like that.
Luv, if you are reading this right now, I just want to say; thanks. Thanks for what you did. Maybe its nothing to you, but it meant a lot to me… thanks… and hope we meet again some day…
Friday, January 4, 2008
MAYA
‘Come on! I wanna know who it is!’
‘I will tell you! I promise I will… But when the time comes…’
YES!
My doubts were finally confirmed… but I was still not sure. I mean… it seemed highly improbable… Neel and me? I mean… nothing absurd about it. But he would never fall in love with me… maybe, just MAYBE I would… or rather I could… but him? Fall in love with a tom-boy like me? Way nigh impossible.
But then, why would he not tell me the name of his new found love? I mean, he told me about everything! I swear he did! Then why wouldn’t he tell me about this? And what the hell was ‘when the time comes’ supposed to mean? As always, and as about everything, I set a meeting with my mentor; my friend, philosopher, and most of all, my conspirator, Ankita.
‘What? Are you kidding?’
‘No! This is exactly what he said! I swear!’ I said, as we sat on our favourite table at our favourite Café Coffee Day outlet on Law College road.
‘Well then; this could mean only one thing; you are now officially going to be your best friend’s girlfriend!’
I smiled… blushed ever-so-slightly. Up until that moment, I wasn’t aware I was capable of performing such girly feats as blushing. Really? Could this be? I couldn’t believe it… but come to think of it… it seemed almost the right thing to happen. Or rather the logical thing to happen in a sequence of event taken place over a period of about eleven months. Within the first two months of our friendship we had exchanged numbers. And over a period of time, we had started calling each other up every night, as I have mentioned before. Yes, I did like him. He had come to mean to me what no one had meant to me in a long time. Talking to him made me forget the worst of college fights; it made me get over the worst of depressions; and more than any of this, it just made me very very happy. I didn’t feel any of the things for Neel which I had felt when I had had brief crushes over several guys. But as I considered the possibility… I can’t say how I felt about going around with Neel. But it brought a smile to my lips. It brought a smile to my lips… it made me feel happy… and it made me feel… how should I put it… it made me feel secure… even though he was over 1100 kilometers away from me.
That is what love does to you.
God no! Wait! What the hell was I talking about?
‘What are you thinking about?’ Ankita asked (probably I was still smiling)
I told her what I was thinking about. She suddenly put her hands up in the air, and acted like she was playing the piano, and sang in an ultimately off-key voice:
‘’Tis the season to be jolly Fra-la-la-la-la-lala-la-la!’
I quickly held her hands and hushed her.
‘That’s not true! And even if it is, the whole world needn’t know about it!’
‘Whats not true? I didn’t even say anything! Did I say anything?’
That’s Ankita. There is no stopping her from going down hook, line and sinker once she decides to.
‘Oh my God! Look look! You are blushing!’ she squealed in delight. By now my ears were feeling real hot. I glanced at my watch. It was seven-forty five.
‘Bollocks! We must get going! It’s almost dinner time!’ I said, thankful for once that it was time-up. Otherwise me and Ankita could sit in a coffee shop and go on bantering till the end of time… and without getting bored… sometimes even without talking… that is what the thing is with best friends; it never gets uncomfortable even if you have nothing to say.
Back home, I waited for Neel’s nightly call. I waited for the call, and at the same time I wished he didn’t call me. I was getting that weird ‘butterflies-in-the-stomach’ feeling I had read about in many novels (no, not love stories). There was a whole valley of butterflies in my stomach! I kept trying to be normal. I actually took out a pen and a notebook and listed things I would talk about; in the fear that he would find my pauses too long, or would see that I was distracted. And the last thing I wanted was Neel to ask me why the hell was I acting so listless.
As the arms of the clock inched closer to ten, my anxiety grew. It climaxed and was off the peak by the time he called me.
‘Hi!’ his voice sounded welcome and unwelcome at the same time.
‘Hey… wassup?’ I said.
‘I can’t keep it. I have to tell you.’
OH MY GOD. Oh my god oh my god oh my god! No! No! Not so soon! Come on! Let’s do it like in the movies… First you talk, then I talk; small talk. Then we don’t talk. Then you clear your throat and I get the signal. But Neel had already begun talking.
‘Her name is M___’
‘Mrunal,’ I thought.
‘Maya.’
‘What?’
‘Maya!’
‘Hellow! I thought it was me!’
‘What? You are kidding. Say you are kidding, aren’t you?’
If Neel hadn’t asked me, I wouldn’t have believed I had actually said that. Within a minute… within a few seconds I was brought down to earth from my seventh, or seven hundredth heaven. Maya.
‘Hello? Mrunal you there?’
‘What? Yes... of course! I was kidding…’ I said. Neel further went on to describe Maya; how they met, what she looked like… but I still kept thinking… ‘I thought it was me’…
‘I will tell you! I promise I will… But when the time comes…’
YES!
My doubts were finally confirmed… but I was still not sure. I mean… it seemed highly improbable… Neel and me? I mean… nothing absurd about it. But he would never fall in love with me… maybe, just MAYBE I would… or rather I could… but him? Fall in love with a tom-boy like me? Way nigh impossible.
But then, why would he not tell me the name of his new found love? I mean, he told me about everything! I swear he did! Then why wouldn’t he tell me about this? And what the hell was ‘when the time comes’ supposed to mean? As always, and as about everything, I set a meeting with my mentor; my friend, philosopher, and most of all, my conspirator, Ankita.
‘What? Are you kidding?’
‘No! This is exactly what he said! I swear!’ I said, as we sat on our favourite table at our favourite Café Coffee Day outlet on Law College road.
‘Well then; this could mean only one thing; you are now officially going to be your best friend’s girlfriend!’
I smiled… blushed ever-so-slightly. Up until that moment, I wasn’t aware I was capable of performing such girly feats as blushing. Really? Could this be? I couldn’t believe it… but come to think of it… it seemed almost the right thing to happen. Or rather the logical thing to happen in a sequence of event taken place over a period of about eleven months. Within the first two months of our friendship we had exchanged numbers. And over a period of time, we had started calling each other up every night, as I have mentioned before. Yes, I did like him. He had come to mean to me what no one had meant to me in a long time. Talking to him made me forget the worst of college fights; it made me get over the worst of depressions; and more than any of this, it just made me very very happy. I didn’t feel any of the things for Neel which I had felt when I had had brief crushes over several guys. But as I considered the possibility… I can’t say how I felt about going around with Neel. But it brought a smile to my lips. It brought a smile to my lips… it made me feel happy… and it made me feel… how should I put it… it made me feel secure… even though he was over 1100 kilometers away from me.
That is what love does to you.
God no! Wait! What the hell was I talking about?
‘What are you thinking about?’ Ankita asked (probably I was still smiling)
I told her what I was thinking about. She suddenly put her hands up in the air, and acted like she was playing the piano, and sang in an ultimately off-key voice:
‘’Tis the season to be jolly Fra-la-la-la-la-lala-la-la!’
I quickly held her hands and hushed her.
‘That’s not true! And even if it is, the whole world needn’t know about it!’
‘Whats not true? I didn’t even say anything! Did I say anything?’
That’s Ankita. There is no stopping her from going down hook, line and sinker once she decides to.
‘Oh my God! Look look! You are blushing!’ she squealed in delight. By now my ears were feeling real hot. I glanced at my watch. It was seven-forty five.
‘Bollocks! We must get going! It’s almost dinner time!’ I said, thankful for once that it was time-up. Otherwise me and Ankita could sit in a coffee shop and go on bantering till the end of time… and without getting bored… sometimes even without talking… that is what the thing is with best friends; it never gets uncomfortable even if you have nothing to say.
Back home, I waited for Neel’s nightly call. I waited for the call, and at the same time I wished he didn’t call me. I was getting that weird ‘butterflies-in-the-stomach’ feeling I had read about in many novels (no, not love stories). There was a whole valley of butterflies in my stomach! I kept trying to be normal. I actually took out a pen and a notebook and listed things I would talk about; in the fear that he would find my pauses too long, or would see that I was distracted. And the last thing I wanted was Neel to ask me why the hell was I acting so listless.
As the arms of the clock inched closer to ten, my anxiety grew. It climaxed and was off the peak by the time he called me.
‘Hi!’ his voice sounded welcome and unwelcome at the same time.
‘Hey… wassup?’ I said.
‘I can’t keep it. I have to tell you.’
OH MY GOD. Oh my god oh my god oh my god! No! No! Not so soon! Come on! Let’s do it like in the movies… First you talk, then I talk; small talk. Then we don’t talk. Then you clear your throat and I get the signal. But Neel had already begun talking.
‘Her name is M___’
‘Mrunal,’ I thought.
‘Maya.’
‘What?’
‘Maya!’
‘Hellow! I thought it was me!’
‘What? You are kidding. Say you are kidding, aren’t you?’
If Neel hadn’t asked me, I wouldn’t have believed I had actually said that. Within a minute… within a few seconds I was brought down to earth from my seventh, or seven hundredth heaven. Maya.
‘Hello? Mrunal you there?’
‘What? Yes... of course! I was kidding…’ I said. Neel further went on to describe Maya; how they met, what she looked like… but I still kept thinking… ‘I thought it was me’…
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