Vaibhavi died early this morning

"Vaibhavi died early this morning." I woke up this news.

‘Good’ I am happy she died.

I had no courage to stand her eyes. I had no courage to stand her voice in my ears. I had no courage to have her smell on my hand.

My roommate didn’t say anything over my comment. She knew how I felt.

Vaibhavi Srivastava – don’t know how to describe her. I can just say that she was an average next door college going girl. Neither an angle beauty nor unattractive, she had a charm of her own. She was those stereo – type girl who are neither very ambitious nor dull, who always has an ear for your all problems. Also in turn she would actually eat your ears with her constant chatter. I won’t say she was a sweetheart among boys but a girl whom any boy can take to his mom.

Like a good girl as expected she used to help her mom out in cooking and other kitchen – house hold stuffs. But she hated cooking. She once shared with me that she didn’t like cooking but then also she used to help her mom in cooking. She used to like that time spent with mom in kitchen discussing stuffs of here and there. (Ladies talks :P)

She always had a time for everything, for everyone. In between the mobile chats, orkutting, day dreaming she used to mange time for everyone. That too, with smiles.
She was funny, charming, joyful and had a great heart.

It was a Sunday morning. Just two days back her house got painted. There were stains on floors. As her mother was busy in preparing lunch, she offered to remove those stains using kerosene. She didn’t notice neither did her mother that in that hoch poch chaotic - crowded kitchen the kerosene caught fire.

It was too late.

The news came to me in early evening. I rushed to hospital.

She was kept in a separate room – in isolation. It was good for her and others patients both. There were extensive burns and risk of infection was very high. She had received severe burns on her face, arms, upper chest and legs. Not a part was left un-burnt. The room smelt rancid.
She had two eyes, one nose, two ears and a mouth. But is it what you call as face???
Her skin colour was different in different part. Colours ranged from ugly green to bleeding red. Arms were totally charred black. The flames had played a game on her skin but couldn’t on her sweet voice as it was the same young and sweet as before.

I had to take loads of efforts to drag myself inside her room in hospital. And there she was lying with pains in eyes but smile on face. I sat beside her, wanted to ask her the history of the event but somehow I couldn’t. I just kept sitting with her. She was like any other patient I had come across or I knew. But while talking to her I could sense she was going to fight. She is going to fight the fate through all those burns, the paining pain….. She gonna fight with courage that was oozing along with blood.

I returned home after sometime as she was going for dressing change under anaesthesia. I was back near to her next morning. She was awake. I sat beside her and there she was joking about everything through the pain. Earlier she was joking about how much pocket money she wasted on buying those fairness creams …. Phew only to end like this later!! And whether she will be allowed to bunk the coming exams on this ground or not? She had a doubt whether our strict college would grant leave on this ground?!

However unlike the movies and K serials her laughter at her own, the jokes didn’t end in a sob or tears. She joked a lot, I think and while laughing in that sense she reminded me of someone I knew very well …… she reminded me of myself.

As the days passed, lesser and lesser we spoke to each other. Naah her sporting spirit was not dying down but because she had be kept at sedatives as soon as she was out of anaesthetic effect.

Yet she would always call us, chat with us over every damn topic under the sun whenever she was awake in senses. She was interested in knowing the daily college affairs; she would update us on the goings of the hospitals, had advice for a friend’s love life, a scolding for me and blah blah blah ……

Everyday she used to warn us that we should come daily to meet her and not to take liberty of avoiding her as she couldn’t be there!! She would talk of her future plans and that she would do this and that after college. She spoke of how she would become something big once she is out of here ….. and we better be nice to her or we wouldn’t get a mention in her autobiography and more worse beware of reading a bad review of ourselves in her autobiography.

Things were difficult but smooth for a week and a few days. However on 12th day suddenly Vaibhavi succumbed to septic shock. After the physical pain now it was turn of microbes to further aggravate her worse condition. She was unconscious of what happening in her surroundings. Nasogatric feeds, drugs were struggling with the war to keep her alive but all seemed to be in vain. The next 3 days were a torture. Her condition deteriorated, stabilized and deteriorated.

She was fighting the battle very hard. Every day was a fight for her… for her family….for us.
I got a chance to see her on the 3rd night; she had succumbed into septic shock.
I was determined to get a mention in her autobiography, whatever the reason it may be.
Her eyes, her voice all were shut. It seems her soul was shut. Her face looked like collage of what was once skin. The room still had the rancid smell.

She was running under high fever still she was fighting. All were helpless doing what they could do to help her in her fight – antibiotics, blood transfusions, care and prayer. Slowly everything seemed to work, or it at least seemed to. It was 4th day after she succumbed to septic shock and 16th day after that terrible black Sunday morning, I went to see her. She was sleeping. But first time in these 16 days I saw a pool of tears in her closed eyes. She was fighting with her condition with all courage she had and knowing her so well I knew, the microbes which caused septic shock are not going to win so easily.

"Vaibhavi died early this morning." I woke up this news.

From the start, she fought courageously and heroically a losing battle.

‘Good’ I am happy that she died.

She was too nice person to have to struggle with this battle for lifetime. Now dead, she was freed from the curse that had smashed all her dreams. She won’t live up to see the destruction. It would have been painful to see sympathy in people’s eyes for her. A girl like her deserved adoration and admiration and not pity while she lived.
She was free now.

I needed a freedom too. I had no courage to stand her eyes, so strong in at such a tender age hiding pains and tears of her smashed dreams and desires. I had no courage to stand her voice, a voice that made us cheerful and at the same time broke us down with lost hope. I had no courage to have her smell on my hand, which refused to leave no matter how much soap and scrub I use.

My roommate didn’t say anything over my comment. She knew how I felt.

Vaibhavi didn’t see her 23rd birthday. She tried her level best to live life to the fullest with all smiles and courage and with an image of a girl full of life who was as good as dead the first time I saw her.
She must be flying high somewhere up, waving to us with a best of luck sign, making notes for her soon to be released autobiography.

Chao ......

Love

He knew it was wrong.

For her it didn’t even exist.

He knew it was forbidden for him.

She had no apprehension against it because she didn’t believe it.

He still gave it a try ... for pure fun, to enjoy company the way others did.

She gave it a try because she knew she wouldn’t be affected by it.

Both didn’t know it would become an addiction to them. They didn’t know they will become an addiction to each other.

They will fall for each other.

It had all started with a simple discussion over love. His response he wasn’t allowed it, so he never gave a thought to it. Her point was it’s pure physical attraction and nothing else.
Both were right.

He did whatever his parents expected. They wanted their sons to be doctor. His elder brother became an engineer, so it was up to him to be a doctor. So what if he didn’t like the field. His father had sacrificed his whole for them; couldn’t he do this much for them? His brother had married a north-eastern girl. Though his parents didn’t vocalise their resentment and grief, he understood. He had vowed not to go for love-marriage. So what if he hated arrange marriage. Couldn’t he do this much to make his parents happy?

She had no memory whatsoever of her father. There were few pictures, but she had kept them in a box, locked away. Her father had deserted her mother few years after their marriage. They had married against the wishes of their families. So, obviously, none came forward for Mom’s help. Her mother had a difficult time raising her daughter and running a household. All this because her mother was in love with her father. What a bullshit! For some odd reason her mother still didn’t hate her father, but there never went a day when she didn’t curse him for his cowardice.

So, obviously, they both were caught unaware with the feelings that started developing in their hearts for each other. They hadn’t expected it. This wasn’t what they were hoping for when they decided to rename their friendship to a relationship. A relationship of convenience. Just to have some fun, company and sex.

He was the first to realise and accept those feelings. But he knew she didn’t believe in love. He knew she would never accept. And even if she felt the same, there was nothing more to be done. He couldn’t marry her. So, he didn’t tell her. But from that moment on, he preserved the time he spent with her. He memorised every talk he had with her. He took care of her like none had taken of him. He was a support to her when she needed him.

But all good things come to an end. The end came with his engagement announcement. His parents had found a perfect bride for him. Their kundlis had matched and a mohurat had been drawn.

November 12.

He got the news on July 12.

She was shocked that he had given his consent to the marriage without even meeting the girl. His reasoning – what’s the point. Mom and Dad like her. Good enough. What will I look for in her anyway?

Soon after, he became a target of her jokes. His engagement was on September 26 and she made elaborate preparations for it. She selected his dress, got him a new hair-cut and even forced him to get a facial done. Isn’t that yuck? Well, it was ... for him.

Finally the engagement day arrived. She also came there and was instantly a part of the family. She helped them with preparations, attending the guests, tending to them. He often thought how good a daughter-in-law she will make to his mother. They were traitorous thoughts, but he couldn’t suppress them anymore, so he let them wander in his mind. He had come to a point where he could accept to himself that he loved her. Even if he couldn’t do anything about it, he loved her.

The engagement went well. She was among the teasers, teasing him about his to-be-bride. He was mesmerised with her laughs, smiles and winks. He always was, but now he knew he didn’t have much time and he wanted them to stick to his memory.

He went through the engagement and its rituals, but if someone had asked him how his fiancée looked like, he wouldn’t have been able to answer them.

But he realised one thing that day – he wanted to take a chance with her. He wanted to tell her at least that he loved her. She deserved that. He deserved that.

That was the first thing he did when they reached back.

She laughed it off and even teased him that how great it was to fall in love with someone else just after engagement. But, when he didn’t laugh along with her, she realised he wasn’t joking. He was serious.

He loved her.

Did she?

There was awkwardness between them after that. There were too many sorry’s and thank you’s in their conversations. Though he did miss the warmth they had, he didn’t repent telling her. Somewhere deep down he knew she loved him. He just wanted to hear it. That would be enough for him; to know that the girl he loved, loved him back.

She came to him one day demanding to talk. However he tried, he couldn’t stop his heart from racing. But all she said was that she didn’t like the awkwardness between them. She wanted things to go back to normal between them. She wanted them to be boyfriend-girlfriend like they were ... for the month they were left with.

He couldn’t refuse. He didn’t try. He hoped she would realise that she loved him, that she would accept she loved him, that she would tell him that she loved him.

They lived a month of lovers’ life even if they weren’t technically. Their relationship had a new passion ... something only a dying person can have in his remaining life. But then, wasn’t it the same? Their relationship would be dead soon, so they were living the life to the fullest.

They can still recount those 30 days to anyone who asked. No one knew of their relationship though. It was a secret which would be lost ... soon.

Finally only a week was left. He was to leave tomorrow. This time she hadn’t helped him with any shopping, hadn’t forced any haircut or a facial. Nothing. As if there wasn’t any marriage impending.

They made love that night, each of them for the last time in their life. Both knew it would just be sex from now on.

She informed him that night that she wouldn’t attend his marriage. That tonight is the last he would be seeing her.

He accepted it without a word. He wanted her to be there. He wanted her permission to marry his fiancée. It didn’t make any sense to him but he knew it was important for her to be there when he married his fiancée. Maybe he wanted her to share his pain. He hoped she would say something else ... what he wanted to hear, but that was the last talk they had...

There were too many rites and rituals to perform and he lost himself easily in them. She wasn’t in his mind during the day and he was too exhausted at night.

The D-day arrived. He was all ready in the clothes his parents had selected for him. He hadn’t bothered. Since that night, it was today only she had entered his mind. As he sat staring out of the window at the mandap, he could think of no one else than her. He wasn’t sure how will he go through all this without her. He closed his eyes, trying to picture her face and draw strength.

Tring-tring ... tring-tring ... tring-tring

Tiredly, he got up to receive the call.

“Hello!”

Silence

He knew who was on the line. They communicated in silence as the minutes passed.

She tried to give him the strength she knew he needed and she knew she couldn’t give him. She gave him the permission he wanted but wasn’t obliged to and she didn’t want to give.

“Hey, Mr. Groom, come, it’s mohurat now.” Someone was calling him.

He desperately clung to the phone, hoping she would finally say it.

She desperately tried to breathe out the words she had been holding back since a month.

His mother and cousins came into the room.

“Here he is! Talking on phone. Enough work, dear bro. It’s your marriage today.”

He knew he didn’t have much time.

She knew she didn’t have much time.

One of his cousins made a move to snatch the phone, but he ducked. He made a gesture to hold on for a second, something that annoyed his mom, but he needed to hear this. This was important. Somehow ...

She took a deep breath. She had to say this ... he deserved this ... she deserved this ...

“I love you.”

She said exactly at the moment his cousin snatched his phone away and his mother dragged him out of the room.

A lone tear found its way in their eyes, but they didn’t let it fall.

He had a marriage to endure.

She had a love to mourn.

Ek cup 'Chai'

I gulped the contents from the chipped china cup. I was late … but this ‘chai’ couldn’t be missed.

Maybe because this is the only thing from my past that had remained … lived on.

Neither the past nor the present is as depressing as it sounds … but the only relief is this ‘chai’. I was the one who used to make, serve and sell ‘chai’ few years back in the same place from the same stall. What a long journey I have covered …

It all started when I inherited the ‘chai’ lorry from my father after his death. That’s all you receive from a poverty-stricken father. Your dreams, wishes, aspirations don’t matter. It’s what you inherit from your father – responsibilities, profession, poverty – that decides your future.

So, my future was decided the moment I stepped up as a bread-earner from being a bread-eater. Life was pretty simple … wake up at 4:00 a.m., set-up lorry and leave the house with all the members snoring lightly, secure in the knowledge that a fifteen-year old boy was there to feed them.

It’s amazing and entertaining the gossips you hear while at work. Not only you find people of your own class chit-chatting with you but also the so-called shapers of our Indian fortune providing engaging stories to enjoy. Everyone feels free around a fifteen-year old boy who apparently understands nothing.

What an irony of life!

One can be pretty happy and content with life if one wants to be but then humankind wouldn't progress. Hell! We would still have been making tea in large earth-pots. Provided we had discovered tea.

So, when I had many reasons to be happy, content and satisfied with life, I wasn’t. One thing my father had done well in his time was choosing the best location for the lorry. There was a school, a college and bundle of offices around. So, I was pretty busy throughout the day. Another reason that boredom shouldn't have found its way in my mind, but it had.

So, I would end up contemplating life in general and my career in particular instead of going to sleep.

I wasn’t happy feeding my good-for-nothing siblings, who would only crib about lack of … well everything in their life. As if I was some Bill Gates! I didn’t feel satisfied caring for my mother, who had altogether stopped caring for herself and was still grieving for her husband two years later. I hated being pseudo-mother to my siblings and even to my mother. And what was I receiving in the end? Not even a word of recognition. What a waste of life!

So, after chasing these morbid thoughts in my mind for another year, I decided to take a holiday. Once in three years!

I woke up as usual and went through the same ritual and set my friend at the stall. I had the whole day for roaming around the city. And roamed around I did! To see the city after three years … trust me when I say it all seemed new. It had progressed whereas I hadn’t.

I was tired by the end of the day and realised one thing – I wasn’t happy doing what I was doing. Not only because of lack of recognition by my own family, but also by the futility of my random thoughts.

I needed change, desperately.

But, first, I needed to cut off the ties that had bound me down. The ties which weren’t helping or supporting me but which were tying me to the ground, teasing me with the freedom and vastness of the sky, with the prospect of flying through them one day, with the exhilaration I will feel one day looking down here.

I needed to be free.

And freed myself, I did.

Just like that … writing a page of my views on them. I left my inheritance to my mother for whom it was high time to take the responsibility.

I was free … at last.

I shook myself out of the thoughts. I looked down at the empty cup and handed it back to my brother, the ‘chai-wala’ of the lorry. He took it grudgingly. This chapped cup was reserved for me. The more the chapped, the better. His way of revenge.

I chuckled. Poor boy! Couldn’t afford to recognise me in front of his new party of friends. Something about pride and honour!

Bullshit, I tell you.

But he will learn … if he has brains, something I highly doubt.

I checked my watch. Ten minutes late. Might as well miss the whole meeting and enjoy another ‘chai’ just to infuriate my brother.

I threw another Rs. 100 bill on the small counter and my brother silently handed me another ‘chai’.

That’s the reason I am never refused a ‘chai’ here. See … all that pride and honour gone down the drain.

Bullshit, I told you.

By the time I finished my second ‘chai’, it was time for my second meeting. I walked down the lane, looking for the before-mentioned blue coloured Honda city.

Spotting one, I walked to it. A wealthily sexy lady was driving the wheel. The tyres might burst with the weight they had to endure … but my definition of sensuality starts and ends with money and she was sensual enough.

Putting on a sexy grin, I entered the car and we drove off.

I wish she'd die

Author’s Note: Before you read on with the story, let me tell you that the story uses Harry Potter characters in here. You need not the details of Harry Potter Universe to read and understand this. Know this only that Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger (written from her perspective) are best friends. Charlie is Ron’s brother and Voldemort was an evil and the villain of the series who was ultimately killed by Harry Potter with the help of his friends. St. Mungo’s is equivalent to hospital.

Give it a chance even if you don’t like Harry Potter series.

My eyes fluttered open as sunlight filled the room. Standing before me with a smile on his face was my best friend, Ron.“Good morning, Hermione” he said softly.

I couldn’t help but smile; his smiles were always infectious. They would make you leave the worries of your world behind and just live in the moment.

“You get fresh while I make breakfast,” he said walking towards the door.

“You cook?” I asked.

He again gave me his full-of-life smile. “I try. You got to when you live all alone.”

Though, he had not meant it, I could not stop old memories from flooding my mind. I shivered as the dead, hollow faces of loved ones swam in front of my eyes.

Shaking my head to get rid of those images, I announced, “I’ll cook.” Better do something good for him while I was here. After all, I was meeting him after what … four months?

Ron looked at me questioningly. “Sure?” he asked. I nodded in response.

“As you say,” he said and walked out of the room.

I got up and made my way to the bathroom and quickly took a shower. Then, I made my way to the kitchen, thinking about not visiting Ron for so long. But his shifting out of London did make our hanging out together difficult. Putting those gloomy thoughts aside, I finished making breakfast.

I came out of kitchen, holding food-laden tray in to the living room to find Ron absorbed in a thick book. Times change and so do people. Ron, who never read books out of choice, now had a library in his apartment. He had not read as much during his entire schooling as he had done in this past one year. He had read anything and everything to get Charlie out of his coma.

Ron looked up at me. He was wearing glasses. They made his otherwise boyish face look mature. He flashed a grin at me. How he manages that after losing his almost whole family is beyond me.

I smiled at him and walked towards him while he cleared he table of all its books. We started our breakfast in silence. I was more like observing him. He had changed. He had become silent and no longer made immature or witty remarks, but his smiles or grins had not lost their charm. They could still melt people.

Once we finished our breakfast, I gathered the dishes and went to kitchen to wash them.

Half an hour later, I went back to the living room with two cups of coffee and a purpose of catching up with him. Guilt found its way in my heart for not having met him for four months.

But the room was empty. The table was cluttered with books, diaries, quills and parchments. I looked around and found Ron standing in the balcony at the far end of the room.

As I moved over to the table to place the cups of coffee on the table, I got a glimpse of the scene Ron was enjoying. There, on the street, were 4-5 kids playing and a middle-aged woman, obviously their mother, running around them yelling which, I guessed, could only be – be careful.

After putting down the coffee cups on the table, I straightened myself. I was about to move towards Ron when few words caught my eye. I looked down to find a diary with its pages fluttering. I quickly glanced at the cover to find that it was Ron’s personal diary. I never knew he wrote. Must be a new habit, I concluded.

My mind screamed at me not to read his personal diary, but my curiosity got the better of me. It was difficult not to if you read words like ‘I wish she would die.’

A quick glance at Ron and I started reading the entry. Date at the top of the page told me that it was written a week after the final battle, when Mrs. Weasley was fighting for her life in the hospital and Charlie was in coma. All other family members of his had died.

I am really confused. Mom is in there since a week, struggling between life and death. Whosoever comes to meet her prays for her life because that is what the Healers have said, that Mom needs all good luck people can wish for and all prayers we can summon for her to open her eyes. So, that’s what people do –pray for her.

I don’t understand why. Healers told me that she will never recover fully. She will be bed-ridden for the rest of her life and pain will be a constant. Not that I doubt Mom’s endurance; a mother who gave birth to seven children would know what pain is.

But how will she survive the emotional setback? Everyone has come and told me how sad were they that my whole family, except Mom and Charlie, had gone down in the war. What do they want Mom to wake up for? To go through a living hell?

I wish she would die.

When everyone prays for her life, I pray for her freedom – from this physical pain she is going through, from the emotional grief she would face on her revival, from this world. She will meet everyone there. She will be back with her family, the way she has always wanted. Sure, Charlie and I won’t be with there, but I also need some company here.

This past week, I have never left her bedside. I had watched her struggle against death. I wish she would give in for there is where her heart and happiness lay.

Throughout the week I wished I could tell her the reason I want her to lose but couldn’t muster up the courage. I am afraid saying aloud the truth would make it final, true, with no hope of their return. Instead, I let her struggle. Instead, I sat as a mute audience to her pain. But I can’t take it anymore. I will have to say it. I will have to tell her.

I will have to accept it.

Hermione turned the page. A new entry. Next day.

Mom died today. I don’t know what the Healer was expecting when she informed me on my loss, but surely she wasn’t expecting a smile.

I had finally gathered the courage last night to tell her about the death of our family members. I told her how valiantly they fought and how fearlessly they died. I cried as I uttered those words. We were both mourning. Her only response was a lone tear that trickled down her cheek. I spent whole night sitting beside her, holding her hand, crying. I had finally accepted the truth of losing my family and grieved over their deaths. I don’t know when I fell asleep.

It was Healer’s gentle voice that woke me up. I still had Mom’s hand in mine. I gently stroked it as I looked up at the Healer. She sadly and gently said those words and left

Your mother is no more.

Mom was dead.

Never before had I felt relief over a death. Even Voldemort’s death had brought sadness … for losing so many lives before a wrong could be set right. But Mom’s death brought me relief. Her struggle, her pain had finally ended.

She was free.

I was free.

Tears rolled down my eyes. I wiped them off and carefully placed the diary on the table. Distantly I heard Ron chuckle, still enjoying the scene below, and whisper,

“A mother can never see her child in pain. Never.”

In quest of love

I was busy doing nothing and staring at the cloud laden sky when my mom came to my room. Her jovial mood was in contrast to my own; way too contrast.

“Hey, Sweetie, guess what?” my mom tried when I didn’t acknowledge her presence.

“Hmph?” was my only reply.

“There is a marriage proposal for you,” my mom told me excitedly, thinking she had my whole-hearted attention. “A very nice guy and handsome too…”

After a minute when I turned my gaze to my mom, she was still talking about ‘the guy’. I could see her bubbling with excitement … and there was something else … nervousness? Yes, she was nervous, nervous of my reaction.

I smiled at her. My mistake! She relaxed visibly, but mistook my smile for my interest.

“I knew you will like the guy,” my mom said. Yeah, without even looking at him, I thought. “Let me show you his photograph.”

And she sprinted out of my room. Literally. Is that yoga thing finally paying, I wondered. She didn’t give me much time to think along those lines as she was back with the photograph.

So, he looks like this tribal man, who never ever has seen sunshine, never taken bath, never seen another human and yet managed a photograph of himself. Well, that was how thought I would start but have to accept, he is handsome, the way they describe in those love novels.

After letting my mom fiddle with it for God-knows-how-much-time, I said, “He is good looking, Mom, but that’s not the only thing you look for in a guy. I don’t love him. Heck! I don’t even know him.”

“Knowing is not a problem, Honey,” Mom said airily, “And once you are married, you will learn to love. That’s how it is. And how long will you wait for the love of your life? Whole life?”

I had no answer to that, so I was silent. And that’s how I found myself in a beauty parlour after one month, getting ready for my own wedding. Yeah, my own wedding. That novel-handsome guy isn’t that bad – loving, caring, understanding, etc. And still I can not feel that spark, you know, the kind which tells you – yes, he is the one. But … as Mom said, I can’t wait my whole life for my Prince Charming.

***

Five years, five long years, five long hectic years, five long … alright, you got an idea, right? Yes, five years since I got married. I am well settled with my husband and two kids. Life is cool and calm, well as much it can be with two naughty kids around. But yes, I have everything I could have hoped for in life … correction … married life.

But, sometimes … just sometimes, I look at the sky and think about my Prince Charming, whom I never gave a chance. All these years, I tried forgetting about him. I tried finding him in my husband, but no, he is not ‘the one’. Not that he is bad or we don’t gel well, but it’s that I don’t find a spark in him, there are no ringing bells in my mind and my heart doesn’t skip a beat when I see him.

Is this idiocy? To wait for someone who you don’t even know is there? Is it sinful to wish for love when I already am married? Is it selfish on my part to wish love when I am not exactly lacking it? If it is, then why do I still think about it?

***

A new colleague joined office today. God knows why, but I felt as if I know him. Of course, that proved to be a figment of my wild imagination. He had never even been to the cities I have wandered through all my life. Still, where had I seen him?

Anyway, he seems to be a shy … scratch that … introvert kind. Not that he won’t answer you if you ask something, but his answers are odd and to the point, giving you an impression that he is not interested. Many of my colleagues think he is arrogant, but I think it’s better to talk less than to talk rubbish.

***

He is my friend now. It’s strange that within two months we have opened up so much with each other. There’s hardly anyone else whom I am so frank with. I never had shared my opinions until necessary with anyone and definitely not the personal ones. But, he always seems to know that when am I worried, when I need someone to talk to, when I need a friend to confess things I want to. He just has to ask me and I can’t help but pour all my heart out to him. Same is the case with him. I don’t see him talking and laughing so much as he does with me.

I haven’t confessed this to anyone, but I feel very happy and proud that I am the reason he laughs and talks so much, that I make him feel content, that he shares his problems with me.

And well, now I am also labelled odd and arrogant by my colleagues.

***

It was my marriage anniversary today. He also came. And he gifted me a set of fiction novels which I still hadn’t got the chance to read. To say I was surprised would be an under-statement. Even my husband can’t tell my favourite novels and yet he had chosen all the ones I would love to lay my hands on.

The party went well and to everyone’s amazement, he got along very well with my ‘naughty’ kids. Thanks to him, there was no interruption in the party; a record in the last six years. I had to stop my kids from going with him to his home. I am pretty sure my colleagues would have labelled my kids as arrogant as well or maybe odd. As if I care, huh!

***

These girls! What do they think of themselves? Just because they wear skimpy clothes, they think they can woo any guy. I would have loved to kill that … that … bitch, yes, bitch. How dare she!

And no, she couldn’t find any other guy in the whole office group. She had to flirt with him. She had to ask his help in swimming. Why the hell did we go to beach for celebrating our team’s anniversary?

And he … he simply laughed it away when I told him. He was just helping her, he said. Yeah, right! As if I am blind or something. He is too innocent for all these things. He doesn’t know that girls take advantage of guys like him. Those sluts, I swear…

***

He has not come to office for a week. He is ill, some viral or something. Yes, we all went to meet him. He looked so weak. I wish I could stay there and help him. Though I did take dinner for him twice, it’s not enough, now is it? My husband was looking in a odd way, when I took dinner to hospital. My kids also came with me and it seemed more of an outing than a hospital visit.

I wish he gets well soon. Office is not the same without him.

***

How can this happen? How could I let it happen? No, no, this is not happening.

I … I – him … no. We are just friend, right? I mean, we care for each other like friends, don’t we? Then why does Sonia feel that we have fallen for each other. She is idiot. Gossip queen of the office.

And yet, why was he not disturbed by the fact? Why was he looking at me oddly? Why did he not deny it? What’s all this? Why is it happening?

***

Yes, I love him. I have loved him from the first day I saw him. I have loved each and every moment I spent with him. I feel pain when I was not with him. I, who always waited for Prince Charming, couldn’t recognise him. It took a simple question from my husband to make me accept the truth. What is he to you? That’s was what my husband asked me.

What is he to me? Everything. Everything I wanted my husband to be. He is my love. He means the whole world to me.

What an irony! I had always waited for my ‘Knight in shining armour’. Here he is and I can’t hold his hand. I can’t love him. I can’t be his.

This is painful … to let go of my life, to forget the happiness I will have with him, to find a treasure only to leave it again.

What should I do?

***

His confession tore me apart. We both love each other and yet can’t be together. This is cruelty, unfair, horrible …

No, I did not wait for him to let him go… he is my happiness, my being. I feel empty without him. I don’t want to die when I just learnt to be happy.

***

My whole family is against me. Honestly, what was I expecting? What else will you get after telling your family that you want to move out of a happy married life? Just because you have found love? my mother had said. Now I am idiot and insane as well. Well, apart from arrogant.

My husband … he is furious, depressed and feeling dejected. I tried explaining him. But honestly, what can I say to make him feel better.

***

It has been five years since we got married. Five years full of love and life. I have never felt so happy and content. It seems like that smile on my face never wants to fade away.

Ahh! A crash downstairs. Seems like I am wanted there. Those two naughty boys had broken something. I am not sure whether they proved to be a bad influence on him or he proved to be a bad influence on them. But, he knows how to get them under control. God knows, what my two years daughter will turn into. No, I am not expecting much. With three naughty kids around, she is bound to join them.

Alright, now they all are shouting at the top of their voices, led by the to-be-member of the group. Hungry kids.

Time for me to go.

Ciao.

-Allya

A “FAREWELL” to college life –A hello to the “BIG” World

All good things come to an end one day …. So it happened with our college life too.

College life was a journey in itself. Journey with lots of fun, assignments, worries, presentations, internal tests, examinations, projects, submissions and loads of grades - both good & bad, gappebazi, bakra-giri, NSP searching, night stays etc. etc. etc…

All going to end soon or rather about to end. Now no more lectures, submissions, presentations, zerox, tests and exams.

I feel like I joined college just few days back but I wonder how fast I crossed these 5 years.

But now, not even a month left and College Life will end once and for all, thankfully with the THESIS. Somehow, I have waded my way through to the final semester with Thesis work, came across a number of hurdles, jumping most of them and stumbling upon a few.

Needless to say, Foods and Nutrition Dept. curriculum is similar to buffet system where there are many varieties of food to be eaten and that too in a short available time. And within this short span of time we tasting every flavour of each dish offered and grabbed. Aha!!! we never had time and never got opportunity to gobble up completely!

Sometimes I feel we are masters … Masters of all trades and Jack of ... (Still figuring Out: P: P)
So far we had nothing to worry about really except studies and submissions, without any thought about future, we were damn cool. So how long we can do this???? Don’t know …..

We all might have different experiences in college. We all have different memories to cherish. But whatever it may be, the feeling of leaving college, the experience of farewell would be the same regardless of how well known we are, as each one of us will be departing our close buddies & the college which was a sort of second home for a long time. (Sometimes I had a feeling it was my first home … coz my home was just an inn where I used to go for sleeping)

I think initially, the feeling of missing friends would not be in my mind. It would be more of the excitement of completion of the thesis, of M.Sc. & the feeling of stepping out into the world - “THE BIG WORLD” with jobs in hands - earning & living the way we have always dreamt of.

Clearly, the happy feelings over weigh the sad feelings but can’t ignore the facts these going days are never going to come back again. Needless to say that this is one of those most cherished unforgettable moments in each one of our life which we preserve as memories locked safe deep in our hearts.

Now I see ahead a door opened widely for me , leading me to the competitive world, calling me to make a niche for my. Now its time to start a career with all I learnt. (Or I should say with all we were forced to learn: P:P )

Finally I say farewell to college and a hello to the big world.

All the best to everyone reading this post, for a bright future!

Colours

She took a drag at the cigarette. It was gratifying to see fire; wild and feral, tamed by her fingertips; the only thing she had now control on …

She was sitting in a dark room, propped against wall. She was staring at the ceiling but not looking at it. She was looking far beyond it; very far … some four years back …

She was talking to her bench-mate when her Science teacher came inside and asked them to submit their practical journals. They had seen preserved samples of few insects and small animals a week before and had been asked by their teacher to draw them and write about their anatomy in their journals. She submitted her journal along with others. Her teacher started correcting them the moment she got them. ‘You have drawn very well … they look almost alive. I never knew you draw so well,’ the teacher had said seeing her drawings. Even she, herself, did not know this. She was the topper of the class, quite effortlessly. She was not exactly nerd, but she enjoyed reading. She had never tried her hand at anything else. However when she had sat to draw these insects and animals, she had done that also quite … effortlessly. The drawings, although had taken lots of time, had left her quite refreshed.

Drawing became an occasional part of her life after this. Whenever she felt tired, she would draw and paint. By the time she reached tenth, painting had become a regular feature. Her parents thought of this new interest as her medium to de-stress. Her paintings, though few, were very much appreciated by her teachers and friends. She could make the colours dance to her tunes, express the emotion she felt, bring her thoughts to life; she felt peace with colours.

High school was busier than before. She had taken mathematics as well as biology which left her with little time to play with colours. Although she had lost her once immense interest in reading, it didn’t affect her marks as studying and scoring came effortlessly to her. Her heart was now in painting. She would see a beautiful landscape and she would draw, she would imagine a scene and she would draw, she would have a sudden idea and she would draw. She always had been shy and her intelligence was envy of many, leaving her lonely. But she had found her solace in painting; painting had become a passion for her.

Soon it was time for filling out various forms for entrance examinations but she had not noticed it. Her parents had brought various forms and filled them for her. All she had done was signing them. She was eagerly waiting for NID forms; she had decided for it with all her heart - she would become an artist. She had become calm and peaceful. There was a special glow about her. She was completing her high school in a detached way; she wanted to be an artist as soon as possible.

Her parents had noticed the changes in her daughter – her calmness, her serenity.

‘She is loving medical,’ her mother told her father one day, ‘she will become a great doctor.’

‘How can she not be, when all her family comprises of doctors only,’ her father had replied proudly.

He wanted her daughter to be a doctor and that was what she would become; he had no doubt about it. He had always given her daughter the freedom she needed. He would have steered her in the right direction had she become distracted. Luckily, such a need never rose.

She bought the NID form, filled it herself and posted it. This was her first step in fulfilling her dreams. It did not strike her to tell her parents about it; she was living in her won world. She was eagerly waiting for her NID admit card; what if she had wrongly filled the form, what if she never gets her admit card, what if it got lost on the way …

She was preparing for her pre-board examinations in her room. Ting tong. She got up as there was no one else at home to answer the door bell. There stood two courier guys with a brown envelope each. She signed and closed the door. First was her aiims admit card; she couldn’t recall sending the form. She tossed it onto the table. The second one was … NID Admit Card. Gosh! Is this true? She had finally got the entry ticket to her dream world. She was so happy today … so happy …

When her parents came back from work that night, they found a very happy daughter. Soon they found the source of her happiness when they saw her AIIMS Admit Card. They smiled to each other.

She had just got over with her board examinations. She now needed to focus on her NID entrance exam. She was getting anxious. And there was only one way to relieve the tension – paint. She was painting almost daily. Her parents could feel the anxiety of her daughter; she was painting daily to de-stress.

Just when it was about time for her entrance exams to start, her grandfather died. Her parents were in a dilemma; they did not want to leave her alone at this crucial point but they had their duties to perform. She convinced them to go as she could easily handle the situation. Having full confidence on their daughter, they left. She had her AIIMS exam first, which she found quite easy. But her stomach was all butterflies when she went for NID exam. However, the moment she got the question paper, she relaxed. When she got out of the hall, she was sure that she will pass this one.

Days passed and soon it was time for results of the entrance examinations. She had gone to meet her grand mother. Her parents came back from work and saw two brown envelopes in the mail slot. Her father picked up the first. It was result card of AIIMS examination. He tore it open. His daughter had got an All India Rank of thirty-five. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he hugged his wife. This was the news he had been waiting for so many years. He was so happy. He had forgotten about the second envelope and only his wife’s question brought it back to his attention. He tore it open. His first thought was that it belonged to some one else. How else could he explain his daughter’s All India Rank of one in NID examination when she had not given one? However, on further scrutiny he concluded that it was indeed his daughter’s. Why had she given NID exam? Why didn’t she tell us? How can it be? She used to paint only to de-stress. No doubt she was excellent in that but she wanted to be a doctor. WE want her to be a doctor.

Soon she was back at home. What followed was a nightmare for her. Somehow, she had never thought of her parents’ rejection to her chosen career. They had always allowed her to follow her own choices. Why, then, they were not ready to let her choose NID over aiims? Her dream world was shattered. She tried explaining her parents; she couldn’t. How could she explain the happiness, the comfort, the joy, the spiritual serenity around her she felt when she was in her world of colours? How could she counter the arguments of difficulties and struggle required of an artist compared to lucrative career of a doctor? How could she ignore the happiness, dreams and joys of her parents?

And she couldn’t. She gave in. She stripped colours out of her life. She smashed her dream. Who else was responsible but her?

From the hall below came the light music that was going on in the party. Party … to celebrate her admission to AIIMS. The music held no meaning to her. Nothing held meaning to her anymore.

She took another drag, tilted her head to look at the brush she was holding in her other hand. It was soaked in colour - blood red. What was she trying to paint? She didn’t know. She felt numb. Was this mental numbness or physical? She didn’t know. She felt the darkness closing in, engulfed by the forces unseen, overcome by the silence unheard of …

She let the brush drop to the floor, which splattered the blood-red colour everywhere and then ... she closed her eyes …

P.S. To all those who wanted to know about the oral sex class in our graduation, refer to the comments of last blog. I explained it to someone there.