Short Story from a Big Novel

DISCLAIMER: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. (Sometimes disclaimers are so important).

The best kind of RELATIONSHIP in this world is the one in which a SORRY & A SMILE can make everything NORMAL again.

1.

‘I’d have fallen in love with you if you had done half the things you are doing to her right now,’ she said. ‘She is such a…’

‘Shriya please,’ I paused. ‘Don’t call her that. You know how much I love her.’

‘Shut up Jay. Everyone in this college can see how much you love her. It is only that bitch who is so blind.’

I don’t know what happened to me as soon as I heard her say the word ‘Bitch’. My reflex arc was so quick to react that it had landed my palm on her face. I could see those teardrops which were about to drain from her eyes. She tried to control it.

‘You and your BITCH can go to hell.’

She stressed on the word BITCH in such a way that she meant me to stay away from her as far as possible and left the canteen.

It had been almost a month since I had known Shriya. One of my friends’s introduced me to her. She was from the first year MBA batch. In time we had developed a fondness towards each other. She turned out to be my best friend where as I was her secret crush. And we both knew it would never work out between us or at least I did. She was the girl who actually got me out of my depression stage and who really meant a lot to me. But the problem here was not Shriya. I mean the main problem.

2. 

Priyanka… Priyanka Shekawat... The 5’4 inches typical Rajput girl. Her hair, rich dark ebony black, thick and flows a little lower than her shoulders. Her eyes remind me of a coffee bean, brown yet makes it look like green. What actually fool you into believing that she is got not so mesmerizing eyes are her funny Looney toons orange frame glasses which makes her look cute as well as adorable. A nose job from God justifies her perfect pinky nose. But what is icing on the cake is her smile. I still haven’t figured out how to describe it because no matter what happens when I see that smile coming, all I can do is lose myself. She was the MAIN PROBLEM.

Main problem because I was madly in love with her. And she knew it. I had made that so clear to her by now. It had been a year and a half since we kind of shared this love-hate relationship.

The story was simple. I meet her. She meets me. We become really good friends. I fall in love with her. She semi falls in love with me. We live happily ever after till another 6’foot stud comes into the story. She fully falls in love with him. They start going around. I get jealous and fight with her. We stop talking. They break up. We start talking. They get back. We fight again. They break up again. We start talking again. This drill is repeated a couple more times. And finally the stud is out of the story. But this time we decide not to talk. I mean she decides not to talk.

Though we have never had a perfect love story, we have had our perfect moments ranging from an almost soft kiss at the college terrace to a charming cameo dance in the college corridor. They were so perfect considering the fact that our 12 lakhs would have gone into the drain if we had been caught. I’m kidding. This is the reason why she avoids me. I can really make an awww sounding moment turn into a fart joke. I try my best being serious but then I really blow it off.

But now after all this I just want to be as serious as I can to just be by her side all the time even if that means I lose being myself. To be frank they were perfect moments because there were only three things in it. Me, her and nothing else. It was just like being thrown off from the sky and knowing that there is no ground below, just the sky. Free falling. It was not that I had never told her about my feelings. We both had but it was never on the face. We preferred the virtual world or our phones. I don’t know why we never said it on face. May be because we knew that it was going nowhere or we were really scared what would happen next or we were just fooling around. But now I was sure than ever before. I tell her on her face how much I love her before I get chucked out of this place.

Chucked out of this place? Well that’s another story I’ll share it some other time. But now it was Priyanka Shekawat who was playing with my mind. I wanted go down on my knees and tell her how I really felt. I didn’t want to do a Chethan Bhagat or a Karan Johar stereotype and tell it to her because I had tried it a million times and it always didn’t work out which actually helped me differentiate between what it looks like and actually what it is. 

I looked at Shriya’s half eaten kachori and finally decided that tonight I would walk up to Priyanka and tell her everything. So I packed up everything on my table and rushed to my room. It was four in the evening. I switched on my laptop and opened the traditional Microsoft Word and started scribbling what I should actually tell her when I meet her tonight. This probably was my last chance. I don’t know why but I strongly felt so. One plate of hot maggi and a flask full of hot tea was there to help me out. I hate tea though but I’ve built an unusual liking for it since a fortnight, the reason for which is still a mystery.

3.

It was nine fifteen now and I had reached the food court. I could feel a paper stub in my pocket which was actually a brilliantly articulated Proposal Letter an hour ago. I rehearsed it better than my Fresher Party’s Play Script in the last three hours. And I was dead damn sure she would surely fall for it. And then I noticed her coming. She as usual was accompanied by what I always called a DOB Squad (Darts of Brainwashing). I called the leader of the squad Ms. Mahalingam (she kind of reminded me of that plane owner from Talespin). But they didn’t matter to me anymore. I saw her taking her regular last seat. Mahalingam signaled her that she would be getting the food for her so Pri removed her phone from her pocket and started texting. I took my last restless breath and started walking towards her.

‘Pri…’ I said. ‘I wanna tell you something.’

She pretended as though she heard nothing and continued texting. That really pissed me off. But I had decided I would not lose my temper today.  I tried again. She didn’t reply. This time I got frustrated but then again I didn’t show it. I held her hand and said ‘Pri, can you please listen to me for some time?’ She pulled a typical girl thing as I held her hand, that frown like ‘don’t you dare touch me you filthy dog’. I did feel offended but it was a natural thing that a girl does when you have really pissed her off and I had actually pissed her off that bad.

This was my time but. I had to undo everything I did including calling her a BITCH. Yes, even I had called her a BITCH and I dead damn knew that she wasn’t one. So I just went on my knees.

‘What the FUCK are you doing Jay?’ she kind of whispered. ‘Everybody is looking at us.’

The word ‘US’ sounded like Enrique playing ‘When you say nothing at all’. So couple iiish. But I just wanted it to be like that forever.

‘I wanna talk to you. It is really important.’ I pleaded.

‘I know what you wanna talk and I’m really not interested in your cock and bull shit. You know what? I’m leaving. Go to hell.’

She stood up and banged the chair and started to leave. And I still was wondering why every girl wants me to go to hell.

‘Pri can you please FUCKING listen to me?’ I shouted. 

I was still on my knees.  She had walked around five yards. She stopped and turned back. Now there were more than 300 eyes on us. The whole food court was looking at us as though she had raped me and I was here for my compensation. She was getting conscious about the unexpected attention she was getting. But something told me it was going to be alright from now. She looked at me and understood I was actually serious this time. She folded her hands against her elbow and gave me a look which meant ‘go on, I’m listening.’

‘Pri listen I know I was being a dog. I shouldn’t have been one. All I want to say is…’

This is when God makes you realize that he exists. He has got his own sense of humor. And this time he cracked his joke on me. When I was about to start my three minute speech which I rehearsed a million times in the past three hours I actually remembered that I had forgotten the first line. I mean how I could forget. Here I was in between 150 odd people in the canteen, on my knees, looking at the most beautiful coffee bean eyes figuring what am I going to tell her after I pulled this unexpected Karan Johar stereotype which I prayed to God to not let it happen.

‘All I want to say is…’ I continued searching for words. ‘… let’s end it once and for all. I don’t want to talk to you ever. I’m tired fighting with you and I can’t do it anymore.’ I swear I had no idea what I was saying but words just came out like shit when a sewage pipe breaks. I dead damn knew that after this there was no second chance.

‘Ok kool.’ She said and started walking away.

‘Dhammu wait. I know I’m acting like a jerk.’ She stopped and started listening to me. ‘I don’t want to. I wanna act normal. I wanna be just like you want me to be. Smart, sensible, funny not sarcastic funny which you hate but normal funny. I know I am not that guy. But I get to closer to him whenever I am with you. I try my best to ignore you and then figure it out that I have noticed you more when I am ignoring you than when I am actually noticing you.’

People started to pay more attention now than ever. I gave a damn.

‘I mean I just can’t help myself by not looking at you.’ I continued. ‘Every time you notice that I’m noticing you, you try to pretend not noticing me noticing you but yet end up noticing me and curse yourself for that. The way you check your cell every two minutes just to see if you have got any messages, like you press the menu key, see you have no messages and then just push the phone in frustration. The face you make when you see the canteen guy serving paneer on your plate. The way you pinch Rhea’s cheek when she does something adorable. The way you inquire your dad about how he takes care of your mom. The way you dress according to your mood, blue if you feel gloomy and white when you feel fresh and happy. I mean I just can’t help myself from not noticing you. Every little thing you do gets a smile on my face. Things as little as your status updates.’

I saw Ms. Mahalingam coming back from the counter and she directly went towards Pri.

‘Chale?’ She asked her like she wanted to drag her off from there. She personally never liked me. I was a typical South Indian Tamilian Bhramin. Jayachandra Eeshwaran Iyer. She always thought it was a crime for her to talk to me unlike Pri who almost all the time enjoyed my company. But as I said Ms. Mahalingam was the leader of DOB. She knew how to wash brains with Sabeena.

‘Aap jayeeye main aa rahi hoon.’ She replied.

And I was wondering like did she actually shoo the DOB off. Back to where I was.

‘I mean everything you do make me believe that this world is such a beautiful place to live. I’m sorry I can’t make you feel the way I see you. But there has been nothing in my life that I have wanted so much as much as I want you. I know I called you a BITCH and you know why I called you so. But I know and you know better than me that I would do anything and absolutely anything to undo it. You say it is never gonna work between us. I mean how can you say that unless you give it a chance?

My knees were hurting now. I could see her expressions changing. From anger to frustration to pity to love to anger. It was like a cycle.

I still continued. ’Girl I don’t know what to say.’ I picked up the paper stub from my pocket. ‘I tried to write a whole page of what to say and what not to say to you but when I ended up on my knees all I could remember was how you keep naming stuff toys and every random thing that someone around you buys or gifts. That funny orange glasses of yours. How you don’t like to tie your hair but yet do it every day. The only things I could remember were things about you and not what I rehearsed and re-rehearsed for the past three hours.

I kind of figured out that I was talking about almost everything on this planet except for what I really had to tell her. But at least I wasn’t lying. I thought it would be really good if I tell it to her than creating such a melodrama. Even the canteen in-charge was staring at us as though he would take my ID card off.

‘Pri, I just wanna tell you that I really love you. I’ve gotta do nothing with the dogs or the bats. I’m just an ordinary guy who is madly in love with you. I can’t promise you of stupid movie dialogues like breaking the moon and stuff but I can promise you of only of one thing. If you get up at three in the morning just to have a cup of tea then you would find a glass of hot tea already on the study table right next to you. I can’t say anything more than this. Will you please be the girl for whom I can learn how to make a cup of tea?’

I could see her face still unchanged from what it was at the beginning of the conversation. But I could notice her eyes were kind of wet. I knew I had pissed her off enough and now I had embarrassed her in front of almost half the college. But then again you get this odd feeling when you know no matter what happens to you it is going to end right and I exactly had the same feeling right now.

She looked at me for another five seconds. I was still on my knees but not looking foolish like SRK. I had my hands on my thighs not half in the air. She rubbed her right eye with her ring finger like something had gone inside it.

And she said, ‘Sunn…’

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I have always wanted to write this piece but never knew how to end it. Nor do I know how to end it now. As some people say “There is someone above who writes our stories.” Hoping for him to complete this piece on my behalf. 

Eat well sleep safe.. Take care.. Have a Nice Day.. Sayonara.. =)