*Image credits: Neha Kandulna
I have been working on something for quite some time now, two months to be precise. Some of my closed ones have been generous and helpful enough to get me publisher for this work of mine which still is incomplete. However, I denied the prospect of getting it published and giving it out to the whole world to be read. This story, or a series of incidents marked by destiny, as I call it, is very close to my heart and it shall be for the years to come. So instead of getting it published, I am sharing it here on facebook with you people because, no matter we have or haven't spoken in a while, I still regard you as someone important in my life, and certainly someone I look upto. Thanks for everything :)
Please note that however this book is loosely inspired by real life, all the characters mentioned are fictious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.
Dedicated to Anshika (name changed), who is the wind beneath my wings to lift me higher. You know what you mean to me :)
---1---
In India, love stories are inspired by Bollywood movies or it might be the other way round. We Indians have developed a strange skill of exaggerating everything we come across. Unfortunately, it happens with ‘Love’ too. A friend told me the other day that it is the simplest of things but behold, to each his own, Love Stories aren’t. However cliché they might be, they are always special to that couple.
Likewise, mine too is similarly unique and still manages to appear way different from my neighbor’s or a 13 year old kid who turned up at the salon the other day to get a face massage and a shave.
“I am getting late for my girl, please can you do it quickly”, he pleaded to the barber.
All the heads turned to him.
“Hang on! Is she standing outside?” the barber quipped.
Everyone there burst into giggles. A smoldering laughter would have hurt him, I guess.
That was his story which probably will be written in some other chapter of this book. For now, let’s share mine.
---2---
Hi, I am Rahul Kapoor (Name changed). I am a self proclaimed celebrity or may be its just what I think. I have achieved a lot and seen it all at such a tender age that power and fame dominated my mind throughout. I have been in ‘love’ and out of it quite a few times. Or as it turned out to be, it was not Love. A silly writer I had been, I didn’t even know what Love was like.
While my three and a half year old relationship with a girl was crumbling every passing minute, I was constantly maneuvering more towards ‘No Love For Me’ thing but destiny had other plans. Giving my unsatisfied ego a due importance, I always walked with my nose up above in the air and was a step closer to nothing short of what they refer to as a ‘perfect snob’.
‘Friend Suggestions is a wonderful thing. Let‘s see who do I know now and haven’t added as yet’, I told myself.
12:30 in the night and I was half asleep. My desperate attempt to get away from going through the final draft of a boring article again and again landed me up on facebook yet again.
Somewhere among weird mug shots of weird people and even weirder names, there she was – Anshika Khanna. She looked serene, simple and composed while the greys and the blacks in her picture made her smile all the more permanent. My hands moved to see more of her profile and I came to know that she is my junior. Even before I realized, I sent her a friend request with minimal hopes that she would even accept it since we were total strangers and my legacy in the college was fading at a very fast rate.
Contrary to my assumptions, she accepted it. I had a sigh of relief as if I had offered her a yellow rose or something in real. We got busy in our lives. I was trying hard to gather the shattered pieces of my crumbled relationship so that I can bury them far from here and I was looking for ways and means so that I don’t have to see my ex anymore. My ex loved me too and saying that she didn’t love me would be disrespect to everything she had done for me. I take it as two people in love who just weren’t compatible or meant to be together for life. However I couldn’t foresee future way back then. That pretty well justifies the most of the time of the three years that went into fights, arguments, scars, broken cell phones and much more.
---3---
I was way back home for my Birthday. It felt weird because the last time I celebrated my birthday here years ago was with my father and he was not around this time. Unfortunately he won’t be around for birthdays to come. Home looked the same from my corner as I buried my face deep into my computer’s LCD screen and kept on working. Tears after tears, or let’s say, words after words, I missed my father all the more. The day turned into the evening and the evening turned to the night while I was replying to birthday messages, calls and wall posts through the day. I never realized I was so popular among people.
Half heartedly I kept on replying ‘Thank You’ to each and every post. Something in me was amiss and I wanted to get done with the day since it had been a terrible one. I started to scroll down to make a mental account of the posts still needed to be replied while my mind was working out the possibility of replying the other day. Just when my mind was shutting down, I came across her post on my wall among the first few Birthday posts. No wonder I missed it.
‘Happy Birthday’, she wrote.
‘Thanks Anshika’. I replied. ‘How is everything?’, I added in order to initiate the conversation which I badly needed.
She took some five hours to reply but I wanted to stay on my computer screen and wait for her reply. I fell asleep. The following morning, I was greeted by her reply.
‘Everything is perfectly alright. You say. What’s up? You must be busy with your Graduation Project? she asked.
‘Oh. Let’s not talk about it now. How is college going on? I replied which looked like a desperate attempt to continue the conversation.
‘Don’t want to talk about your project? Okay. I won’t ask about that. College is buzzing with activities and preparations for the annual fest’. This reply of hers ended it right there.
We got busy in our lives. I knew about mine and could imagine hers. I developed a strange addiction of peeping in her profile as a pervert browsing through a much awaited issue of Playboy.
Bad comparison, but nothing else could match the extent of the longing and inquisitiveness and you just cannot expect me to be sane.
---4---
‘Pretty picture’, I wrote to her on a new picture change.
I could have commented on her profile picture only, but I didn’t. I still don’t know why. May be for the reason that excess treading into her profile revealed to me that she had a boyfriend and I didn’t want to intrude into their personal space.
May be, I had to appreciate her for the beauty she is. I just didn’t want to miss out on the occasion of complimenting her and the comments section of her profile was not the place for a self proclaimed celebrity like me to speak his heart out.
‘Thank you’, she replied.
I smiled. It was no great achievement.
‘Who is She?’ asked my ex who was sitting next to me.
‘I don’t know. Let’s get back to work’, I told her and started with the formalities of signing out of chat and facebook.
I resumed my work wishing that shutting my mind of her would have been as easy and clicking on ‘Turn Off’.
---5---
‘Hi. How are you?’ A chat window popped up after about some twenty days. It took me a while to realize that it was really her.
‘Hey. I am fine. What’s up with you?’, I replied.
It is strange how even the smallest of details and greetings look like one of the biggest steps you would ever take in your life.
We continued talking. I asked her questions, answers to which I already knew.
She continued with utmost ease and honesty.
Towards the end, my mind was telling me constantly to look for ways and means to make her stay.
The bigger and the better of my ego subsided and I fell for her.
‘Let me know if I could be of some help’, within seconds, I garnished myself with those words and presented myself t her on a gold outlined platter.
I felt happier.
‘I will tell you in the evening probably. I need to rush now’, she said and disappeared.
I leaned back on my chair and was lost again in her thoughts.
***To Be Continued
All Rights Reserved: Piyush Singh (2010)
Any reproduction of the above material in any form without the prior written permission of the author would be treated as a criminal offense and a serious copyright infringement.
Please note that however this book is loosely inspired by real life, all the characters mentioned are fictious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.
Dedicated to Anshika (name changed), who is the wind beneath my wings to lift me higher. You know what you mean to me :)
---1---
In India, love stories are inspired by Bollywood movies or it might be the other way round. We Indians have developed a strange skill of exaggerating everything we come across. Unfortunately, it happens with ‘Love’ too. A friend told me the other day that it is the simplest of things but behold, to each his own, Love Stories aren’t. However cliché they might be, they are always special to that couple.
Likewise, mine too is similarly unique and still manages to appear way different from my neighbor’s or a 13 year old kid who turned up at the salon the other day to get a face massage and a shave.
“I am getting late for my girl, please can you do it quickly”, he pleaded to the barber.
All the heads turned to him.
“Hang on! Is she standing outside?” the barber quipped.
Everyone there burst into giggles. A smoldering laughter would have hurt him, I guess.
That was his story which probably will be written in some other chapter of this book. For now, let’s share mine.
---2---
Hi, I am Rahul Kapoor (Name changed). I am a self proclaimed celebrity or may be its just what I think. I have achieved a lot and seen it all at such a tender age that power and fame dominated my mind throughout. I have been in ‘love’ and out of it quite a few times. Or as it turned out to be, it was not Love. A silly writer I had been, I didn’t even know what Love was like.
While my three and a half year old relationship with a girl was crumbling every passing minute, I was constantly maneuvering more towards ‘No Love For Me’ thing but destiny had other plans. Giving my unsatisfied ego a due importance, I always walked with my nose up above in the air and was a step closer to nothing short of what they refer to as a ‘perfect snob’.
‘Friend Suggestions is a wonderful thing. Let‘s see who do I know now and haven’t added as yet’, I told myself.
12:30 in the night and I was half asleep. My desperate attempt to get away from going through the final draft of a boring article again and again landed me up on facebook yet again.
Somewhere among weird mug shots of weird people and even weirder names, there she was – Anshika Khanna. She looked serene, simple and composed while the greys and the blacks in her picture made her smile all the more permanent. My hands moved to see more of her profile and I came to know that she is my junior. Even before I realized, I sent her a friend request with minimal hopes that she would even accept it since we were total strangers and my legacy in the college was fading at a very fast rate.
Contrary to my assumptions, she accepted it. I had a sigh of relief as if I had offered her a yellow rose or something in real. We got busy in our lives. I was trying hard to gather the shattered pieces of my crumbled relationship so that I can bury them far from here and I was looking for ways and means so that I don’t have to see my ex anymore. My ex loved me too and saying that she didn’t love me would be disrespect to everything she had done for me. I take it as two people in love who just weren’t compatible or meant to be together for life. However I couldn’t foresee future way back then. That pretty well justifies the most of the time of the three years that went into fights, arguments, scars, broken cell phones and much more.
---3---
I was way back home for my Birthday. It felt weird because the last time I celebrated my birthday here years ago was with my father and he was not around this time. Unfortunately he won’t be around for birthdays to come. Home looked the same from my corner as I buried my face deep into my computer’s LCD screen and kept on working. Tears after tears, or let’s say, words after words, I missed my father all the more. The day turned into the evening and the evening turned to the night while I was replying to birthday messages, calls and wall posts through the day. I never realized I was so popular among people.
Half heartedly I kept on replying ‘Thank You’ to each and every post. Something in me was amiss and I wanted to get done with the day since it had been a terrible one. I started to scroll down to make a mental account of the posts still needed to be replied while my mind was working out the possibility of replying the other day. Just when my mind was shutting down, I came across her post on my wall among the first few Birthday posts. No wonder I missed it.
‘Happy Birthday’, she wrote.
‘Thanks Anshika’. I replied. ‘How is everything?’, I added in order to initiate the conversation which I badly needed.
She took some five hours to reply but I wanted to stay on my computer screen and wait for her reply. I fell asleep. The following morning, I was greeted by her reply.
‘Everything is perfectly alright. You say. What’s up? You must be busy with your Graduation Project? she asked.
‘Oh. Let’s not talk about it now. How is college going on? I replied which looked like a desperate attempt to continue the conversation.
‘Don’t want to talk about your project? Okay. I won’t ask about that. College is buzzing with activities and preparations for the annual fest’. This reply of hers ended it right there.
We got busy in our lives. I knew about mine and could imagine hers. I developed a strange addiction of peeping in her profile as a pervert browsing through a much awaited issue of Playboy.
Bad comparison, but nothing else could match the extent of the longing and inquisitiveness and you just cannot expect me to be sane.
---4---
‘Pretty picture’, I wrote to her on a new picture change.
I could have commented on her profile picture only, but I didn’t. I still don’t know why. May be for the reason that excess treading into her profile revealed to me that she had a boyfriend and I didn’t want to intrude into their personal space.
May be, I had to appreciate her for the beauty she is. I just didn’t want to miss out on the occasion of complimenting her and the comments section of her profile was not the place for a self proclaimed celebrity like me to speak his heart out.
‘Thank you’, she replied.
I smiled. It was no great achievement.
‘Who is She?’ asked my ex who was sitting next to me.
‘I don’t know. Let’s get back to work’, I told her and started with the formalities of signing out of chat and facebook.
I resumed my work wishing that shutting my mind of her would have been as easy and clicking on ‘Turn Off’.
---5---
‘Hi. How are you?’ A chat window popped up after about some twenty days. It took me a while to realize that it was really her.
‘Hey. I am fine. What’s up with you?’, I replied.
It is strange how even the smallest of details and greetings look like one of the biggest steps you would ever take in your life.
We continued talking. I asked her questions, answers to which I already knew.
She continued with utmost ease and honesty.
Towards the end, my mind was telling me constantly to look for ways and means to make her stay.
The bigger and the better of my ego subsided and I fell for her.
‘Let me know if I could be of some help’, within seconds, I garnished myself with those words and presented myself t her on a gold outlined platter.
I felt happier.
‘I will tell you in the evening probably. I need to rush now’, she said and disappeared.
I leaned back on my chair and was lost again in her thoughts.
***To Be Continued
All Rights Reserved: Piyush Singh (2010)
Any reproduction of the above material in any form without the prior written permission of the author would be treated as a criminal offense and a serious copyright infringement.
2 comments:
Hey Piyush....nicely written buddy..i just luv the way you notice and express things. There are many things that we do ignore in our busy life, but the way u have expressed them is too gud man.
i want to read the whole story..what will next happen with that gal and guy? waiting for next post
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