"All these years I have lived right next to her and still didn't know that she was there."
"Arun, come to your senses you have only known her for a day and a half and you are already behaving like. Well Majnu." Dhruv said in a really annoyed voice and I could not have blamed him for being rude to Arun. Even I used to think that the three of us knew each other well. We had bonded well since our first semester in that place which was supposedly an engineering college. I am Kunal by the way and am not going to play a big part in this story that am going to tell you I was just an onlooker to whatever happened. So as I was saying arun, dhruv and I had bonded well since the first year of our college. It was not like that we had got along like a house on fire as soon as we met. Nor had seniors ragged us in some dimly lit corridors. Nor was any of us special in any way. We were just as ordinary as the average engineering students you could think of. Studying in a not so fancy private engineering college on the outskirts of Malgudi. (A medium sized town in north India not too far away from Delhi.)
We had come to attend the fest of one of the many engineering colleges that have mushroomed in Delhi, affiliated to IPU (Inderaprstha University) and were staying in an overpriced dingy hotel. And some rooms away from us were girls from another engineering college from malgudi.(It is said that in India if you throw a stone then it will hit either a dog or an engineer.) We had met during the first day of the fest. Considering that we were from the same town and those girls looked good actually we had got along pretty well. And it was on the second day of our stay(we had come for three days) that Arun had gone love-struck. I had been noticing since morning that he was giving kind of special attention to that girl called Poorvi, but I hadn't expected that he would completely lose his senses in one day. No one would have expected this from Arun, he was the shy non flirt types and stayed away from girls. The only female he was friendly with was his mom. Normally it was I who fell for girls ASAP and those two were the ones to talk sense into me. (Though I won't say that I didn't try to flirt with Poorvi but there was something reserved in here manner like Arun that stopped me even before I actually began.) And here we were some 36 hours after first meeting those girls with Arun behaving in a way normally reserved for me.
"Look Arun, we have their numbers you can stay in touch with her when you get back and if you are too cowardly for that then we can manage it. Don't worry and let me sleep now." Dhruv said while turning out the lights.
It would be needless to say that the next day before leaving Arun was trying to behave in a typical un-arun-ish manner I never knew that he remembered so much veg jokes and could actually smile without showing his silver filled tooth. I also had to supress an urge to make fun of him in front of Poorvi. Also needless to say that throughout our way back the topic of discussion was , you gussed it right … Poorvi.
I had actually started to hate the name by the time we had come back to Malgudi.
****
"What is this global warming after all? We are doing this to the earth after all. We are taking things out of earth….." No this wasn't a seminar on global warming that we were attending this was Khatri. Kamal Khatri, Kamal Kumar Kahtri, KKK for short. According to him he is a teacher (no a lecturer ) in our college. Officially he was teaching us analog electronics that semester but actually we had diversified our syllabus a lot. In the past two months of we had done all about sofa design, costs of plasma TVs, quality of food in college functions and now global warming. Basically Khatri was not interested in taking classes and we were not interested in attending them. However you need to pretend to listen during Khatri's classes otherwise he could make life hell for you like Arun's was to be made in a few moments.
It had been almost 2 weeks since we had come back from that fest but his mind was still stuck in that place, with Poorvi.
"Yes you check shirt, not you behind you(he ment arun). Do you think am wasting time here?"
Arun just stared at him.
"Why were you grinning then?"
"sorry sir."
"meet me after the class, I have some work for you."
Soon we came to know that Arun's summer internship had been finalised under khatri on some nanotechnology project. Of course Khatri had decided this for Arun. Who actually was upset over this as he already had planned of doing his internship at the same place as … yes you know it.
Arun's mood did not get any better in the days that followed mainly because of two reasons, one poorvi was busy with her exams and not replying to his messages and two, The only other person doing internship with him under Khatri was Prakhar.
Well to tell you about Prakhar all I would say is that I hope you know chatur ramalingam, the guy who managed to pull off that Chamtkar/*****kar speech in 3idiots, well he actully did exist in our class and was called Prakhar. The knub(bunk spelt backwards) he loved attending classes and had no life except for books and coming to classes. The aim of his life was to attend classes and he was of course a pain in the neck for everyone, even khatri. But as he had no other life, khatri had decided that it would be a good idea to have him for the nanotech project.
The Monday that was to follow our fourth semester exams was decided by Khatri as the beginning of Arun's term of sentence. And as expected as soon as our exams had ended prakhar had actually ran to Arun in order that he(Prakhar) could get to do more work than him (and hence learn more according to him). Dhruv and I meanwhile had taken up a course on java to pass our "training" period.
Exams had come and gone quietly, another year had ended and we were half engineers, and the best thing about it was that we had two full months to ourselves. Two full months of rest, that's what I thought then, for those were two of the strangest months of my life. I could not call them happy or sad, they were just strange.
This chain of co-incidences that redefined the way I looked at life began as soon as we entered our so called classroom in that training centre on 25th may .It was the Monday after our exams and the day on which Arun and Prakhar's jail term with Khatri was to begin. As I and Dhruv entered the room our eyes were drawn towards the first row and sitting in the first row was…
"Poorvi, Varsha , hi, what a pleasant surprise." Dhruv exclaimed and proceeded to greet the girls before I could say anything. I just had a momentary vision of Arun sitting in Khatri's office with Prakhar jumping about him like a 5 year old. Then seeing a nice chance to get to sit with those two girls, I also moved forward.
*****
"where's Bhavna then." Arun asked me. He could not figure out his mindset. He should have been happy because finally he could meet Poorvi. But he was not. He should have been disappointed because he was stuck with the two biggest losers on Earth while we got to share the classroom with the girl of his dreams. Still he wasn't disappointed. He just looked anxious to get as much news as possible out of us.
"Varsha told me that Poorvi and Bhavana had a fight sometime back. And I think we have talked enough about poorvi today. Tell us how your date with Prakhar was?" I replied. Varsha had really been interested in talking to me that day and had talked to me even after the class. I didn't want Dhruv to bring that up so I changed the topic.
"Khatri has given us two PC's in the room meant for his MTech students the one he calls nanotech research lab. I was online all day for chat but found no one. And guess what Knub reads harry potter, He was visiting some harry potter fan site reading about the upcoming movies. He says that he has read in the book that finally Harry leaves Hermynee for Ron's sister and that wallmart ends up killing himself. I think by the end of this vacation I will be an expert on Harry Potter."
***
"And he says he likes that girl." Arun was telling us about Prakhar, who had revealed to him that he actually was in love with a girl whom he had met on a social networking site.
"I always knew that Knub tries to impress every girl that he meets that's why he's such a big loser. Whats the name of the girl by the way?" Five days had passed and it was Friday already. Varsha had come with me for a coffee after class that day and we were to meet for a movie on Sunday. Dhruv was unusually quiet about this. Normally he would have had told as we would have met but there was something with him that day that was bothering him. He was just sitting there listening to us.
"Harshita", Arun replied, "poor girl I don't know how did he manage to add her but now he tries to chat to her all the time. I saw him today he uses gtalk like twitter and tells her like everything that is going around him."
"Wha.." Dhruv spoke for the first time, "what was the name you said?"
"Harshita , why are you getting so interested. "
"Nothing I also knew a girl called Harshita that's why."
"Then if you know her save her please life from Prakhar" Arun said in a dramatic tone." And burst out laughing. "By the way when do you guys thing we can meet Poorvi and Varsha outside."
"Ask Kunal, Varsha is her department now". Dhruv said and went on to tell arun about me and Varsha in full detail. Normally I would have stopped him with the choosiest swear words but there was some sadness in his tone that stopped me. There was something bothering him.
"I asked him about it as soon as we left Arun's house. "So you noticed it then." He said "well I do have a problem. You see today while you went out with Varsha , Poorvi came to me and told me that she liked me. She asked me that would I like to be in a relationship with her." I was no less than shocked. I always had believed Poorvi to be a shy quiet type of girl and had advised Arun to not take any chances about telling her anything incase she got upset. And now the same girl had proposed Dhruv in just five days. I just stared at him blankly somehow managing to utter , "What did you say then?"
He just took his eyes away from me and said in a flat voice
"Yes."
-Continued
"YOU SAID WHAT???" my reaction was instantaneous. I could not believe his two sentences, Poorvi proposing him and he simply saying yes. I somehow always had this image of a true friend connected with Dhruv in my mind. I thought him to be someone who would go to any lengths for his friends someone who would always have preferred a friend over love. But here Dhruv was, standing shamelessly telling me about how he had wooed the only girl his shy friend had liked in his life of nearly 20 years.
"Kunal come on, what would have you said if a girl like Poorvi would have come to you and said that she liked you. I said this only after giving it a thought for about 3 hours." Though his words sounded blank to me yet I had to agree that he had a point. No one in his right mind would have said no to that girl. But there was a part of me that was really feeling sorry for Arun.I tried to voice my concern but Dhruv managed to speak first " I know what you are thinking , you ar thinking about telling na ,well just be patient till next Wednesday(it was his birthday I remembered just then) I will manage to tell him after the party. Trust me I can handle it."
I didn't have words, it was the first time I realised how poor my vocabulary was. I just kept on staring at Dhruv's face like he would burst out laughing saying that it was his idea of a prank or a late april fool's joke. He didn't.
Normally I am a sound sleeper and don't bother the things happening around me but that day sleep was far away from my eyes. Its normally girls that I think about at that time but somehow Arun's face kept on popping up in front of my eyes that night.
The signs of my troubled sleep carried themselves forward to the next day.
"You look you have not slept the entire night. Calling someone special???" Varsha said as we came out of the overpriced multiplex. Maybe she was provoking me to tell her that those days she was the special one for me. Maybe she figured out my bad mood when I didn't reply for 15 seconds and changed the topic to celeb gossip which faded to Poorvi and Bhavna's fight as were ordering food in a restaurant near-by (I was paying of course).Then suddenly out of the blue she remembered the hottest topic around, "You know Kunal Poorvi likes Dhruv and proposed him yesterday." She was getting close to the point of the reason behind my walking like a zombie. So I tried to sound more interested. "She liked him since we met at that fest and was really excited since Monday. I thought her to be a seedhi saadi type of girl. …" She continued.
"I thought she would make a better couple with Arun."I tried to put in my views.
"Yeah even I thought so when we first met you but while comingback from delhi she was talking all the time about Dhruv, I even started hating the name" This continued for some time until I dropped her home (near her home actually as according to her, her neighbourhood aunty's would have found some food for gossip had they seen me.) And I was off after a "see you on Monday."
Sunday and Monday passed without any major events. It was on Tuesday night that I got a text message from arun saying
"poorvi sent this <Dhruv said u also cmng to his bday party.. hope to meet u dere > J"
I felt sorry for him and angry with myself what would I say to him when Dhruv would tell him about everything less than 30 hours later.
My thought process was broken by another message, from Dhruv
"told poorvi not to go public with our relation… she would be there as a frnd"
I didn't know what was he counting on or how he would manage to calm Arun down. I just closed my eyes and prepared myself for another sleepless night that was to come.
-continued
"Why do you look like you have not slept last night?" Varsha said as I picked her up the following evening. We were going to PVR to watch the same movie I had watched with her some 3 days ago. And that was not her idea of a date it was actually Dhruv's idea for his birthday treat. That was to be followed by a dinner at the adjoining overpriced pizza joint (am not defaming anyone). Both of these went smoothly as during the movie the boys sat on one side of me and Varsha and Poorvi sat on the other. I still had no idea how Dhruv was planning to break the news to Arun.
Porrvi had to drop Varsha so they left a moment earlier than us. It was to happen now I told myself.
"Thanks so much for the party and for inviting poorvi dude."Arun hugged Dhruv while pulling out his keys.
"Arun listen," Dhruv started , "there was something I wanted to tell you."
Arun was in such a good mood that he didn't notice the change in our exprssions and tone. "Yup… fire away" was his reply.
"I didn't call poorvi because you like her, I called her because she is my girlfriend. " Dhruv had actually fired. One sentence that contained all the information he wanted to share. It had taken him less than 10 seconds to speak something that had worried me for the past 5 days.
Arun's expression changed from a smile to a state of disbelief. "What ? hey first april passed 2 months ago."
Dhruv's voice remaind flat , the same emotionless tone I had first heard last Friday, "No, am serious. She actually is my girlfriend she proposed me last Friday."
"WHAT ??? and you didn't even bother to tell me. " A few passer by kids in school uniforms turned back on his sudden scream.
"Look arun , it all happened so quickly that…"
"SHUT UP" Dhruv was cut off in mid-sentence by Arun who was looking as if he had just been hit by something. "So for the pas 1 week you and your girlfriend have been making fun of me. Am someone to trod over right."
"Arun don't blow it out of proportion Poorvi dosent even know about you liking her."
"So you didn't even bother to tell her. You just made your move when you found out I was out of the way. No don't try to talk to me or don't even try to contact me in any way both of you." He just stormed towards his bike kicked it I and went away throwing the parking slip on the boy's face.
It was the first time either I or Dhruv had seen arun lose control like that. Both of us just stood there dumb-struck,not knowing what to say to each other.
{A Five point someone moment. I stop here but picture abhi baaki hai mere dost …}
-continued
Two and a half weeks had passed since that day.
Arun had started talking to me after a couple of days but Dhruv had somehow seized to exist for him. But he had told me that he was still talking to poorvi as she didn't have a part in Dhruv's "nasty joke".I somehow had the hopes that he would forgive Dhruv in some time.
Varsha had told me she had been expecting this (even though I had never told her that Arun had liked Poorvi.) And time had just flown after that. We were at the end of our java "Training" as most of the people would have liked to put it.
Instead he had been getting more and more friendly with Prakhar and was somehow trying to get over his own shock helping him with that girl. As far as I had learnt about it Knub had fallen head over heels for that girl who was his junior in school. And if Arun was to be believed the class-i-fire (who has a fire for classes in his ***) of our class was currently filling the life of a poor girl with text messages and chats.
Now coming back to myself, I was sitting at a coffee shop whose name has 3 words (again am not advertising or defaming any brand) with Varsha who was trying to decide the movie for the coming weekend. And I for the umpteenth time was trying to figure out a difference types of coffee that place sold at prices that were enough to buy a week's supply of coffee at our college canteen (but you are not allowed to think about such things while on a date.)
"No movie is worth watching, how about a walk tomorrow?" Varsha asked as her eyes darted from me to the door to Dhruv who had just entered the place. With a girl who didn't have the slightest trace of Poorvi in her. I was again dumbstruck.
"Is she his cousin?" Varsha turned to me.
"Not as I know it." I had to confess.
"Poorvi told me that he was busy somewhere so he couldn't meet her today. " Varsha was looking at me.
I actually didn't have anyone to look at so I just stared at my cup of coffee. This was the second time in the past month that Dhruv had amazed me.
"They are holding hands…" Varsha said.
I had nothing to say. Varsha quietly got up and left, I followed.
"Ask him some time later in a way that he doesn't feel that you or I are suspecting anything." She told me as I was dropping her at the usual spot.
That evening I did ask him over the phone. His reply again was short and prompt "Kunal, listen please never ask or assume anything about her and lets not discuss this."
I had begun to suspect my judgment of people after that call. But still a part of me said that Dhruv was not cheating on Poorvi.
This part I soon realised was the one that prompted me to answer in a viva. Because my feelings turned out to be the same way as my answers in a viva. WRONG.
The very next day on Varsha's walk date we again saw Dhruv with that girl and somehow he again failed to notice us. Lucky for him the training was over because Varsha had already reached her boiling point.
"If I see those two togather one more time am telling Poorvi to come right there and finish the story off."
She didn't have to wait long for just a week later and a week before our classes were to begin we were passing outside the same café where we had first seen those two.As we crossed that place I saw Dhruv's car pulling into the parking.
Varsha dragged me to the corner and clicked a photo of the couple going inside to send it to poorvi. At the same time I saw Prakhar standing on the other side of the road staring at them.
Poorvi came while Dhruv and that girl were still having coffee and followed Varsha inside.
They came out some 30 seconds later with Poorvi hardly managing to stop her tears. She came towards me and managed to say
"Please inform him that its over." And burst into tears Varsha managed to take her to her car.
I was thinking what to say. Maybe over the past 2 months I had made a habit of standing dumbstruck at some event around me.
-To conclude
I had a brief glimpse of poorvi before she left the place. She had just spotted us sitting and yet I could somehow see the tears that had started filling up her eyes. I had expected her to create a scene but she just left followed by her friend. I wanted to go after her to tell her the truth but before I could even stand up I remembered of my promise to Dhruv bhaiya and stopped myself.
Oh and I forgot to tell you am not Kunal my name is Harshita. You might have encountered me a few times in Kunal's story but as he didn't know me directly so my role in his story was even smaller than Naseeruddin Shah in jaane tu ya jaane na. But this is my story as much as it is his just that for me it started a bit later than him and was a bit less dramatic.
It was just a day or two after my class 12 result, about a month and a half ago. I got 81%. Not good enough for the top colleges of commerce but still a respectable percentage. It was a Monday as far as I can remember. I was sitting idle in front of my PC when I got a new mail message saying "Prakhar Bhatia wants to be your friend on faceut. Do you know Prakhar?" I had remembered a senior from my school days called Prakhar 2 years elder to me, the teacher's pet. I accepted the request. Chatted with him for some time and got to know he was doing engineering from some college. The name of college sounded similer to the name of Dhruv bhaiya's college but there are so many of them I wanted to confirm it from him asking Prakhar about it.
Dhruv Bhaiya is our neighbour and used to teach me maths sometimes( he's not that good at it actually but still tries his best.) But before I could have asked him about Prakahar, he asked me about him. He then told me about a problem he was facing. It was about one of his friends called Arun. From what I could understand Arun was a shy kind of person and had started liking a girl who was interested in Bhaiya. But Bhaiya strongly felt that the girl was not his type and would be better matched with Arun. That day the girl had proposed bhaiya and he said she was so sweet that no one could say no to her (BOYS!!!!). Now he wanted my help to make that girl feel that he was cheating on her so that she can find out the real person who loves her. (He later confessed to me that he had been reading some late 18th century romance novels for the past few days.)
His plan seemed nonsense and almost impossible but somehow he was confident that those two will manage.
He then called me about a week later on his birthday. Arun had reacted in a way he hadn't expected but he said that the things were still under control.
Two days later I got his SMS saying that things were good and Arun and poorvi were still on talking terms. Prakhar meanwhile was turning from an old senior to a pain in the neck. He called on alternate days expecting to talk for hours. Suggested books that I should read. Messaged me all day long. I couldn't find a way of getting him off me and as Dhruv Bhaiya had told me he was in love and I was going to get in trouble.
Now it was my turn to have an idea. When the two of us( I and bhaiya were to be spotted the third time I messaged him to meet me at the same place same time. And as soon as we got out of the car I messaged him to see my boyfriend who was with me and asked how did we look as a couple. There was no reply.
After poorvi left that place Dhruv bhaiya's phone hand slid into his pocket to take out his phone, he sent an SMS and looked up at me to say. "Thanks little one, all will be well in a few days."
***
Hi, its kunal here again. Girls do have an aptitude for complicating as well as simplifying things . I could have never wrote this brief description of Dhruv's master plan. And guess what, it worked.
It has been almost 5 years since all this happened , Poorvi and Arun got married last September. But still neither Dhruv nor Arun is ready to tell me about the contents of that message. Dhruv is still single and is still waiting for his "type" of girl. About me and Varsha well we broke up a few months later on mutual consent (Shipra was much better looking and according to her I am a complete idiot compared to Nitin.)
Harshita has just completed her masters in journalism and is looking for a job in a newspaper. Prakahar understood after that.
Prakhar's problems with Khatri didn't end soon but by the end of our degree he managed to get admission in master's program of some big shot university in the US. But before leaving india he somehow managed to lock Khatri in his own room on a Friday night. No one had seen him doing this but everyone knew that it was him.
-Concluded
Acknowledgements
I worked nearly 2 weeks on this story and finally it's over. I really enjoyed writing it. But it would be really ungrateful of me to not acknowledge the people who have directly or indirectly contributed in the writing of this thing.
Firstly I would like to thank my Alma Mater, UIET, for giving me the ideas of almost all the characters for this story. (two of the characters are intended to reflect their UIET counterparts). Next I would like to thank Zafar, my neighbour at Ravindra bhawan for playing some love songs on his laptop on high volumes gave me an idea for this story.(So you can kill him before me if you hated this story.)
Then a bunch of thanks to Kinshuk who not only heard this first but also provided valuable feedback. (Yes he was my first victim HAAHAHAHAH)
Last but not the least thanks to Swati who tagged me in a note. As a result of which I discovered this wonderful app on Facebook (she is as much guilty as Zafar. :P)
Hope you liked these people and their twisted ideas.
And now until I get more twisted ideas
Take care.
