Time: 7pm in the evening
Location: Home (Just entered)
Conditions: Cloudy August sky, heavy downpour expected anytime
"Hey champ, whassup?? You look like somebody slapped you".
"Nothing chachu"
"nothing...hmmm, ok, lets go for a ride"
"no chachu, don't feel like it"
"But I do!!so get your ass moving"
"no chachu, have to complete my journal. Submissions tomorrow and anyway it's gonna rain"
"Do you think I care, now are you coming or do I need to drag you..."
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Riding with the wind, feeling like God on my Blue Avenger
Conditions: No rains, but no clear sky either
"where are we going chachu"
"On a dark desrt highway, cool wind in my head, warm smell of colitus, rising up through the air..."
"chachu, where are we going"
"tu hi meri shab hai, tu hi meri duniya......"
"CHACHU!!!!!!!"
"oye hold on bache, upvan jaa rahe hain....aa chal ke tujhe mai leke chalu ek aise gagan ke tale...jahan gum bhi na ho, aasoon bhi na ho, bas pyaar hi pyaar pale...."
(for those who don't know where upvan is; it is a lake in Thane(Maharashtra) where couples used to coochie coo...but the government's making ample arrangements to kill the love from the love birds and turn it into a family park)
Time: 8pm
Location : Bike parked, sitting in Upvan
Conditions : Still not raining
I remember, Upvan is a place where Jayesh and me had many head-on conversations, arguments, cribbing, laughing, relenting about love, life, girls, career, family, tensions....everything, almost everything. Sometimes Abhya would also join us. We used to spend hours and hours there. It was one of our favourite adda in Thane. But this was different. Those were our days. Now theirs!!!
"So champ, what's happening in college"
"Usual stuff chachu"
"and what does usual mean"
"lectures, canteen, bunking, movies, journals...usual stuff chachu...usual stuff"
"and hows ur guitar classes going on"
"not much chachu...still stuck on the same old chords...still the same problems in chord shifting"
"highway star kabhi bajaake sunaa raha hai"
"highway star...haha...abhi tak to gulli star bhi nahi bajaa paata hu"
"so did you propose to her"
"what???"
"what did she say"
"what are you talking about chachu"
"naa bola kya"
with stealing eyes "chachu, are you ok...can't understand what you are saying"
"it's ok yaar, since when did you start hiding things from me...we are friends, aren't we"
A long silence prevails as it starts to drizzle. I give him time and he takes it. The tension on his face resembles the same when I opened up my bike for the first time and then didn't know how to re-assemble it. The confusion of "to tell or not to tell" is dominant. More dominant is the heavy task of "how to tell". Finally, he gathers himself up to look at me. He looks at
me for a moment and then shifts his gaze. The heaviness on his heart shows.
"Chachu..."
"I'm listening stud, go ahead"
"Chachu, there is this girl in college. She's in my class and we are friends, atleast we were till now"
"Girl? or beautiful girl?"
"Very beautiful girl"
"What's her name?"
"Arpita"
"ok"
"It sounds foolish chachu, you'r gonna laugh"
"If you are telling me a joke, I'll laugh unless it's a bad one, else I don't have reason to"
"Bhaad me gaya, I'll tell you chachu. I started interacting with Arpita long after I actually met her, rather got introduced to her. By chance, we were in the same group during practicals. You know how shy I am with girls. I used to speak to her only when required. She, on the other hand is a very friendly and extrovert kind of a girl. We started chatting, cracking jokes and all. Infact she's got a terrific sense of humor. We started calling each other pretty often. She started calling me after college hours also. Sometimes, study related, other times just to chat. We talked about movies, her family, our family, anything.... She knows you pretty well by now chachu though you two haven't met each other."
"So you guys discuss me haan? Nothing more interesting to discuss??"
"Chachu, I like speaking to her. I started missing her calls when she went with her family on a holiday. I don't know when or how it happened, but it did. I started acting funny. I just couldn't concentrate on anything. She just occupied my mind completely. I couldn't understand what was happening. I didn't tell my friends, cause anyway they always tease make faces when we'r around. Infact, i was gonna tell you, but something somehow stopped me. I thought, i thought you would be amused, you would think it was a faaltu and amateurish thing to discuss"
"Nothing in life is not worth discussing, atleast that's the way I considered it was between you and me"
"Sorry chachu, but...."
"No problem, carry on"
"Chachu, I have never felt like this before. I knew I was in love. I didn't have the guts to tell her that. Once those shitty things came to my head, everything changed. The way I looked at her changed, the way I spoke to her changed. She marked the change in me, but she couldn't read my thoughts. She used to ask me 'why have you become so serious all of a sudden'. Earlier
we used to chat comfortably about anything and everything, but now I started asking irrelevant questions to her, which later I understood were very foolish. I missed her humor, i gave stupid answers, I lost control chachu, i just lost my mind"
"And all this time you kept it to yourself. That's the worst thing to do son. You should have blurted it out to somebody, if not me"
"No chachu, you were the only one I should have told, but I didn't. I knew she would drift if I kept acting weird like this. I knew I was hurting myself, was making myself miserable. I just didn't want to lose her, but that's exactly what I did, i guess."
"Did you try telling, explaining, expressing your feelings"
"Many times chachu, but I couldn't, I just couldn't. Every night I used to make plans, sketch out exactly how, where and when to make the execution. I used to prepare myself"
"And in the morning, whenever you confronted her, you turned cold, froze, ins't it?"
"Yes chachu, yes. How do you know? I just couldn't tell her anything. She used to get confused at what I was doing. She couldn't comprehend anything. She asked me if anything was wrong, and I always shook my head. I could make out that she's getting pissed off at my weird antics, but couldn't do anything about it"
"hmmmm"
"Chachu, I think I'm pakaoing you. To cut it short, I envisaged that I couldn't blurt it out to her, so I wrote a long letter pouring all my feelings in it. I'll show it to you when we go home."
"Same old story...then? did you give it to her?"
"Yes, one fine day, I developed the guts to atleast do that. After classes, when we were coming back home, I gave it to her and asked her to read and reply. She asked me what it was. I just asked her to read it and left."
"Great going champ!! The result?"
"The result was bad chachu, very bad. I didn't go to college the next day. You remember I was down with fever"
"Yes I do"
"The next day I went to college, I tried avoiding her. More than her, I was avoiding a 'NO'. Somehow, she walked up to me. I looked into her eyes. She looked frightening. Her eyes were red. I could tell that she had been crying...for two days!!! For seconds she just glared at me with those bloody eyes, I couldn't say a word, not even 'hi'. She took out a letter from her bag. I recognised it was mine. She tore it right before my eyes chachu and then she said 'I didn't expect this from you, please don't try to talk to me again. She walked away and I just stood there like a stone"
"Hey champ, you should have.........."
Ka..Ka..Ka..Ka...somebody was patting me on the back. My sleepy eyes recognised that it was
my nephew. My nephew, whom I was already with, a few minutes back. My nephew, I remembered was less than 2 years old.I suddenly realised I was dreaming as he turned me into a horse and rode on my back.It felt funny to be dragged into the present when you were having such a lively discussion in the future. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have such vivid discussions between 2 generations, inspite of the gap.........looking forward to it dabloo!!"
PS: Good that the dream, the conversation ended where it did, else I would have given my precious romantic advice, which would enrage some people as they think I'm the most unromantic fellow on this earth!!
