Back and forth: story 4 of love for losers

Some of the events bear resemblance to some actual events and the characters though fictional may carry a few traits of actual people I have known.

Hence begins

Before I start telling you the story I think we need some background over here. As all of the people reading this might know that there these days engineering students are like televisions in India, you will find at least one in every household. Two major contributing factors to this surplus of (those who are expected to be) technocrats in our beloved nation are , the boom in IT industry, and the fact that investment in an engineering college is far more profitable than investing in the stock market. A major supporting example in the favor of the second point is the fact that almost all medium sized business firms have an engineering college by their name. I won't be citing any examples though.

Our story mainly involves two of these engineering colleges. One of these is famous for being the oldest engineering college in the region that is ICE Angrezabaad, counted among the top ten engineering colleges of the country. And the other is (in)famous for campus brawls having the name MCT Malgudi college of technology. One was established by the British to train engineers for making the (in) famous guns of the 1857 rebellion. And the other was established by a desperate vice chancellor of Malgudi University in the hope of getting more funds from the government. Both these colleges lie at a distance of about 250 kilometers from each other joined by a series of potholes that at some places is disrupted by a strange geographical disturbance called a road.

This is the story of Shubhankar(meaning mascot) who did his graduation from MCT and is about to complete his PG from ICE and has his graduation friends scattered over at different places in India and the US. This amount of background was necessary and should suffice. And as it is Shubhankar's story so it would now be best to hand over the control to him.

See ya.

****

"Wait", I said to Saawan "let me look at myself before we leave."

"Why? Do you want to see the change that has come over you in the past 2 years."

"No I just want to check that will my folks be able to recognize me after what all has happened in the past two days."

"Two weeks , you havn't shaved since two weeks."

"That's only a part of the look. " I said looking at myself in the mirror.

I had expected something strange to look back at me and was not disappointed.

Oddly cut short hair, facial hair not cut since the past two weeks 70's style sunglasses and a black kurta that reminded me of Circuit from Munnabhai. The reflection in there hardly looked like me.

"Sab tera hi to kiya hua hai" Saawan said.

He was right I had come back from home 2 weeks ago for the final round of presentations. Just to discover that I had the first one and had forgotten my shaving kit at home. So on the morning of my presentation I had decided to go to Azhar miyan our hostel barber for a haircut and shave. I had come out about an hour later with my head resembling a freshly shaven coconut. Since then I hadn't dared to go for a haircut or a shave. My head still resembled the top of a coconut. As for the sunglasses I had contracted an eye infection 2 days ago and the doctor had advised me to wear sunglasses. I had requested Saawan to bring them for me and he had bought the cheapest pair which I strongly suspected to be from 70's. As for the kurta I was to be blamed for it. I had spilled milk on my only clean shirt in the morning so Saawan had lent me his only clean garment this kurta.

I forgot to introduce Saawan, my soon to be erstwhile room-mate. By strange co-incidence he also was from malgudi but from a different college. I don't know why did I respect him so much. But there was something unusual about him something sort of a positive energy that radiated from him.

"Come on now Narcissus or we will miss another bus."

We were standing at the door.

"Close it" he started,"No wait let me remove this" He strode forward and removed the wallpaper that I had used to cover the scribbling on our walls by our various friends about an year ago.

"Remember this" he turned towards me, beaming.

How could have I forgotten that night. It was in march the previous year.

-Continued.

It was the middle of March the previous year. Spring. That day was our Hostel Annual Day and guests were allowed to gorge on special (and as an exception good) food prepared in our mess and girls were allowed in the hostel for a while. However not knowing any girls we had invited our friends from another branch. Chandu ( G. Chandrasekhar ) was my guest and Apurav came as Saawan's guest. It all started when we were watching boys dressed as scantily clad girls in a so called fashion show. It was then that Apurav turned to me and said. "Let's go to your room."

"This thing looks interesting to me."

"But look at it so many people are going to their rooms." Chandu cut in.

"They have girls with them. I hope you are oriented well" I replied.

"Yes, am not like you" he said, "it was just that we wanted to see your room."

"Atithi devo bhava" Guest is an incarnation of God. This was what our culture said. We were honor bound to lead them to our rooms. Well not exactly honor bound as they had managed to get the keys out of Saawan's pocket and were rushing towards our room.

We ran after them. By the time we reached there they had opened the lock and were unlatching the door.

Hey Shubh , Chandu said , " We just learnt about a ritual at ICE."

"It involves making the room of you Hostel annual day host un-inhabitable." Apurav added.

"So we start with a modern art form made out of tooth-paste hair-oil and shaving cream." Chandu concluded.

It was my turn now, "Guys even we have been educated in the ICE way of life the said things are safely hidden at a secure location…"

"…outside this room So that you can't find them." Saawan completed the sentence with one of his characteristic bright smiles.

But somehow their smiles did not fade out. Instead Apurav coolly turned to Chandu and said , "Ok bring out the lists." As he said this he pulled out two small things out of his pocket. They looked a bit like colored sticks covered in paper but actually they were…

"…. Wax crayons" Saawan had a moment of enlightenment.

"Right Sarkaar." Chandu called saawan's famous name while pulling out a paper ou of his pocket.

"Ok so here is a list of all your girlfriends, which will be used to decorate your walls in a few moments.

"What??? What is this list where" I was shocked

"Social networking my boy. Just go to anyone's friends list and search female over there. And you shall be all knowing."

"but wait I have cousins there."

"Don't worry we will speak out the names aloud before writing them. So shall we start ." Apurav turned to Chandu.

"okey dokey."

I and Saawan just stood there as Apurav and Chandu wrote using wax crayons upon our walls a notice having the words .

To whomsoever it may concern.

This is to inform the public in general that Shubh and Sarkaar apart from being madly in love with each other are also gaga about the girls listed as follows.

This was followed by the list of the entire female population except our cousins in our friends list on a social networking website.

"Now that's what I call a masterpiece." Chandu said while looking at his "art" in awe.

I would have been satisfied if it had ended here. A voice had come from the neighboring room bringing fresh problems.

"No wait, these things belong to the Masters people in the next room."

It was Nikunj one of our B.Tech neighbors in whose room we had hidden our things. I ran out to prevent any damage with the destroyers of our room close upon my heels. I however had to stop dead in my tracks at the entrance of Nikunj's room. His girlfriend was standing there and in front of her written in red paint (hidden in her purse) upon the almirah was the message ' Chikku loves Nikku'. Chikku must be her name I thought. Our undoers got their hands upon our stuff and within mere minutes before dinner our room had lost any qualities of being inhabitable that it had ever possessed.

"We must do something about this" I had said to Saawan the next morning.

"Yes how about wallpapers?", he had suggested.

And those were the very same wallpapers that he had torn down just now. I looked once again at those names as he came out and latched the door remembering the last times I had talked to most of them.

30 minutes later we had got into a bus and got ourselves seats. We had got a seat with a capacity of 3 with a rather old looking fellow sitting next to the window , me sitting next to him and Saawan sitting toward the aisle. We had nearly six and a half hours of journey to go with nothing but remembering our past two years to remember. It had been five minutes since we had sat in the bus that my phone beeped.

It was a message from Shipra , one of best friends from MCT.

"Reunion scheduled coming Friday, hope you can make it J."

My mind slipped back to my third day of my second week at MCT when I had first met Shipra and many others, in front of our mechanical workshop.

-continued.

No, the last scene of that encounter was in front of the workshop, it started some 15 minutes before that. A new friend of mine , Aman , later to be known as "The Mask" had offered to pick me up on his way to college.

His heavily oiled side partitioned hair, round glasses and even rounder face together with his formal clothes gave an impression of a mild, introvert personality. The finest example of how looks can be deceptive. Highly deceptive.

"Drive slowly, will you." I shouted over the loud chanting of "Na baans ki bansi , na sone ka sariya…" coming from the speaker.

"No problemo, your holiness" he said and slammed on the breaks. The gray maruti 800 came to a standstill in the middle of the road. The roads were leading to MU were largly empty owing to the fact that it was sstill 7 : 30 in the morning. But a car standing still in the middle of the road is something that still makes you uncomfortable. He then started to move at a such a speed that a morning walker going home after his daily ritual over took us.

Irritated, I had to say "ok drive as you please. But what about the traffic police."

"traffic police ki <beep>." He answered unconcerned stepping upon the accelerator.

"And there is a rule about traffic violators in the campus" I again tried to push my luck, as we had entered the MU campus by then.

"VC ki <beep>"

As he cut a sharp turn we saw a hand waving to stop us. Four of the hosteller girls from our class were standing holding their bags and one of them a particularly ferocious one called Anusha was holding out her hand.

"Aman Singhal" she said as we looked at her "Don't you have the manners to offer your classmates a lift if you can."

Aman looked back at her but didn't seem happy. He then turned to unlock the rear door to allow the girls in. After all for of them were seated. He checked the lock of the rear door on his side and gestured me to check the one on mine. In the one week that I had known him I had never seen him silent like this. Maybe it was the calm before a storm. As soon as he had finished checking the doors his hand moved towards the ignition and the engine roared. Aman's foot pressed upon the accelerator as if a mob of murderous zombies was after us. I saw the speedometer needle at 80 as we zoomed past the the turn leading to the workshop. The girls shrieked with fear.

He made it stop some 200 meters from the turn and put reverse. Full speed backwards. The girls cried out loud again and even I felt a strange fear growing inside me. Once near the workshop he sped forward towards it and crossed it again leading us towards a roundabout in the middle of the university. He made three full revolutions about the thing at a dangerously high speed (the sound was enough to attract the attention of MU stray dogs who started barking and chasing the car. Suddenly he again sped towards the workshop and was headed towards a pillar of the workshop parking. The girls cries now seemed like background music as I silently prayed to God. And just a few meters from the pillar the car stopped. The girls and even I was too shaken to say even a single word. When they found their voice back it was the shortest of the lot who spoke first her words were , "lets bunk the workshop today"

"What after nearly getting killed on the way to attend it you want me to skip it no way. " I retorted.

"oh come on there is so much to do" she said.

"That can be done after classes." was my reply (ok ok sick one)

"What problem do you have with a bunk?"

"What problem do you have with proper classes ?" I shot back.

She made a face and went away, actually all the girls made a face at me and went away. Some thirty minutes later as I was trying to hammer some nails into a piece of wood she called out ,"watch out the way that hammer is placed it can drop on your foot ." As I moved my foot back as an impulsive reaction the hammer did actually fall down.

"Look I told you na we should bunk it" She was smiling then.

That was the first time I talked to Shipra. We soon exchanged numbers and it was she who had recommended me for teaching Isha.

I came back to the present shaking my head vigorously. No I must try to not think about Isha , I told myself.

Saawan looked at me , "Whats wrong ? were you having a bad dream" he asked.

" I wasn't sleeping"

Then what do people do while closing their eyes for 45 minutes. I looked around, we had reached Lakahangarh a five minute stop for the bus. The old man sitting on the window seat had took his luggage moved down. So I shifted towards the window and hoped that no one would come so that the two of us could get a rather relaxing environment. But even a place to sit on that route is a luxury let alone a two people getting to sit in a place meant for three. Soon enough a female voice directed towards Saawan asked ,

"Bhaiya yahan koi biatha hai?" Both of us turned towards the source of that sound. And looking at me was the face that had been moving in and out of my dreams for the past four years. I couldn't believe my eyes and didn't know whether to curse my luck or to praise it.

"Is anyone seated here?" Isha asked again.

My forced disguise had worked; even my ex-girlfriend had not recognized me.

-continued

 

Nothing but the truth (story III of love for losers)

How should I start over here? By telling my name? That does not look good enough to me. Still its Pranav for future reference. Most movies start by a train stopping by on a platform or a car entering a house mine starts in the middle of a conversation. It was the middle of September; you could call it 15^th September for convenience. The weather was unstable and common cold was common among the people of Malgudi. It was then that Anuj, one of my friends joined the ranks of "The love of Life" a religious organisation by swami Anandanand. Its motto was simple yet appealing to the younger generation "Make love, not war." (Most of the devotees were actually interested in the first half of the motto.)

As was his habit to drag me into anything he tried(smoking included) he was those days trying to persuade me to offer myself to Swami ji. My story begins on one such day when Anuj had called me over to his place and trying to force the fact down my head that swami ji would change the world order.

"He believes that all humans are equal. We don't believe in any form of cast discrimination."

"I told you Anuj am not interested in all this stuff, I plan to give my time to such things after my retirement which can only happen if I can get a job."

"Swami ji is also good at astrology, maybe he can tell you about you and Chhavi."

There, Anuj had used his trump card a weapon that was bound to work. Chhavi, my semi-girlfriend. She was my girlfriend according to me and I was her best friend according to her. She was allergic to the words "boyfriend", love ,relation etc. And somehow for the past 3 months I had become desperate that she at-least once confessed her feelings towards me. (It might sound nonsense but it was true.) Still I had to argue that a swami can't tell me how to get a confession out of a girl.

"Actually he can get a confession out of anyone. He had told me a few days ago that he could make a truth potion for anyone after seeing his/ her kundli."

I was desperate by then so my reply instead of being " I told you I don't believe in such stuff." was "Now where can I get her kundli."

"Simple just get her place and time of birth rest we can manage from some astrologer."

"I remember it by heart 10^th June 1988 12:55 PM govt hospital Malgudi"

"In that case I would call up our family astrologer right now. He will have the kundli ready by evening."

Family astrologer , God!! What had I got myself into?

I had to believe one thing anuj had really good relations with his family astrologer as 3 hours later I was standing in the amin market parking holding Chhavi' s Kundli in my hands. It had cost me even more than a dinner date with Chhavi after which she in no way would have denied me being her boyfriend would have cost. But an old hindi saying echoed in my head at that time "when you have put your head in a grinder why be afraid of getting hurt." (jab okhli mein sir de hi diya to moosal se kya darna).

Anuj however was elated about me having visited the greatest astrologer on earth according to him, Pandit H.Qhanna.

Pandit ji was a quiet story in himself, his actual name was Rajesh Khanna ( quiet a good name according to his era of birth) but after some calculations he had modified the surname to spell like Qhannaa and prefixed a H for Hema after his mother in law's name who had inspired him for astrology. I learnt all this from pandit ji himself as his assistant was printing the kundli. I had a strong urge to ask him why did common sense have to take a back seat in all such stuff but common sense itself stopped me from asking it.

All the way to swami ji's ashram anuj kept telling me how this was going to be the best decision of my life and at that time he sounded more of a vacuum cleaner salesman to me rather than a friend. He was so excited on having converted me that he almost hit a car in front of the ashram.

-continued

Swami Anandanad was looking at me. Looking would not be a proper word here as the affection in his eyes matched that of a mad scientist looking at a guinea pig.

"You want her to tell the truth to you." He said in a voice soft enough to put Michael Jackson to shame.

"Ji swami ji" anuj replied even before I could open my mouth.

"Truth is a beautiful thing, the essence of all things good, it is the most important ingredient in the recipe called life, like suger in this barfi. " and with a wave of his hand he pulled out two pieces of barfi out of nowhere "have some prasad o seekers of truth. While I read what the stars say about your friend." He added picking up the kundli.

Anuj was looking at him completely awestruck and I must admit I too was amazed he had nothing in his hand just a moment ago. This man did actually know how to impress people as "swami ji ki jai ho" were the first words spoken by anuj when he found his voice back.

"Chamchanand" swami ji said to one of his er … henchmen " I am going into Samadhi tell them the aahutis needed to perform this yagya" turning to us he added "you will get the phal tomorrow at this time only"

It turned out the aahutis were but a fashionable name for swami ji's charges which again were enough to take Chhavi to another dinner date preceded by a movie.

Soon enough we were again present at swami ji's ashram sitting in front of his divine grace swami Anandanad "love is what you seek my children" he was barely 30 and he was calling twenty year olds children. That statement of his brought some questions into my mind about his certain activities but discussing them may cause certain censorship problems so I leave them to your imagination.

As I was saying swam ji was again trying to impress us with his talks "love is what you seek my children, divine love that is integral to this world like sugar to these laddoos" he again held out laddoos for us however I could not help noticing that the laddoos were nicely put in paper cups with "Malgudi Sweets" written in big green letters on them .

"To get what you seek you will need help from God. As chamchanad tells me that you arranged for all the ahuti's of the yagya I have hence procured this for you from God" saying this he again waved his hand and held out a tablet that looked like the ayurvedic medicine for acidity.

"Put it in any liquid and it will form the elixier of truth for her. For 1 complete prahar (3 hours )after drinking it she will speak nothing but the truth. But be warned, do not use this if she is not in the best of health for it may cause strange things in the world around." With these dialogues he dropped the tablet in my hand and that was the first time when it happened. My head suddenly burst with pain and everything went blank. I tried to open my eyes but it felt like they were made of lead. With this I heard a distant voice "we can only wait."

The sensation went away as soon as it had come and as I opened my eyes I was again sitting in swami ji's ashram.

-continued

I wasn't able to understand what swami ji had ment by his warning. Though the thought of making Chhavi eat stuff given by such a fraud was scaring me. But the desire to hear the fact that she loved me was out-weighing my fear. My only worry now was to make her drink it. The only question was how.

God seemed to be listening to me as soon as a reached home and hid Chhavi's kundli at a safe place my phone beeped, it was Chaavi "want 2 meet for a burger and a shake?" the message said.

Soon enough I was sitting opposite her at "Macbeth's" that was the thing I loved about this girl she stayed in a great shape and still was not fussy about what she ate. Strangely that day the place looked oddly empty.

"So" she said while we were waiting for our order number to flash (yes I know Mc Donald's serves you right away but it's Macbeth's), "how's my new hairdo?"

"Hairdo" I thought and looked at her and mentally banged my head on the wall .Her hair were visibly shorter and even had a slight tinge of bronze towards the end, how could have I failed to notice it. She always used to compliment me for noticing things and how could I make such a blunder on such an important day but she would be speaking the truth to me in a few minutes and even I felt like telling the truth to her at that time so I told it "You look gorgeous like always."

"oh!! Makkhan lagaya jar aha hai kya baat hai." She looked so cute with this smile. I hated myself for thinking of making her drink something given by a fraud and my hand proceeded towards my pocket to throw the thing on floor to get rid of it. Just then a couple walked in, they were holding hands and I knew the boy he lived near my house, a total loser. He was behaving like a hero with the girl doting over him. This sight reduced my guilt.

"Hey, why are you staring at those love birds get a girlfriend of your own if you want to show off in public" Chhavi brought me back to the place. And I thought to give it a try once more , " Chhavi how can I love anyone else when I have you and I have told this to you many times" I didn't notice but my tone had become serious.

"Pranav" she smiled "why do we have to give our friendship a bad name just to look cool aren't we good friends."

That was her fixed reply and I was trying to trying to find an answer to that for the past five months and needless to say this was the fourth time in the past five months.

"Leave it , you didn't tell me about my hair do just went off into me being gorgeous" she chirped again and her with her voice sounded the Mac-bell the indication that our order was ready.

"I'll get it" I stood up as I said these words and rushed towards the counter. While going I managed to get that thing out of the wrapping paper in my pocket. I had intentionally ordered a strawberry shake for myself so I had an excuse of lifting that plastic lid to check what was inside actually slipping the pill into the shake while stopping my hands from shaking.

She started eating the burger first while telling me how her parents had opposed the colour. When half her burger was done she picked up the glass and took a sip from the straw. Then it happened again , a sharp pain shot through my head and everything went dark. I couldn't feel my hands with which I could hold my head and then I heard a distant voice like a television announcer or a news anchor I tell from the style. "Swami Anandanad is on the run after sexual harassment charges."

The next moment I was again sitting at Macbeth's opposite Chhavi sipping her chocolate shake

-Continued

At that precise moment, Chhavi sneezed and swami ji's words echoed in my ears, "She should be in the best of health when she drinks the elixir of truth. "

"What's it Chhavi you just sneezed real hard"

"its just the cold Pranav am feeling it for the past 2 hours or so but you don't expect me to stop drinking shakes just because of a cold." She was right I couldn't expect her to give up on chocolate shakes just because of a cold. But what now she had ingested that thing while she was not perfectly fit. I couldn't even stop her now and if anything went wrong I would be the one to blame. I somehow managed to finish my food as she did hers as she kept her glass aside she said to me, "I feel like a walk. Coming?"

This way I could keep an eye on her and if everything went well this was my chance.

We came out and she led the way to a park nearby. I noticed that her expression was getting serious with time. As we entered the park her lips had become so small that I had to ask, "Chhavi, why are you getting so serious what's wrong?"

She burst out crying. "I feel bad dad told me to stay away from hair-colour still I did it." That wasn't a reason to start crying she was crying over nothing like anuj did this holi when he had taken …

OH GOD

I got it that swami must have given bhang in that tablet that's why she was crying how stupid could I be and I made her drink it damn I felt like kicking myself.

"No its not that Pranav", she said still chocking on tears " am guilty about hiding the truth from you."

"I do like you very much but I am afraid that I might lose you after that kind of relationship. I was afraid that I don't deserve you , and if you find someone worth you my heart will be broken."

This was not right , She didn't think like this this was wrong . I tried to comfort her but she won't listen to me and she came really close to me when she whispered "I love you. Pranav" The medicine had worked and maybe it wasn't bhang after all.

***

"Tu apni izzat bachchane ke sirf 700 de sakta hai? Are apni nahi is chhori ki izzat ka to khyaal kar."

"Sir mere paas 700 hi hain"

"jeb mein paise hote nahi aashiki karne nikal padte hain. Chal la saat sau hi de"

For those who didn't guess what these meant let me explain while I and Chhavi were kissing in that seemingly deserted park,a constable who was on beat duty at that place had spotted us ,the rest is self-explanatory.

Chhavi's crying had stopped after that she said 'she felt much better after telling the truth' swami ji had said the effect will linger on for three hours so I stayed with her till three hours were over and then dropped her home.

While going towards my home I was calculating the total cost of this "I love you" but it actually was priceless for me and even another 10 policemen like that couldn't have made it costly. It was then I too started to feel the cold and started sneezing.

My mother has a habit of asking "how did the day go?" as soon as she opens the door.

That day as soon as she asked, I blurted out , "great! swami ji's medicine worked"

"what swami ji? which medicine? "normally I would have given some strange reply and got out of it but somehow I felt like telling nothing but the truth.

-continued

Dad was looking at me, his hands folded in front of his lips. It seemed like he was looking for appropriate words but couldn't find any. "So" he started "You are seeing advocate Mehta's daughter for the past year and a half and you had problems that she didn't call you her boyfriend so you went this sex swami to get a medicine that would make her speak the truth, that thing somehow worked and now you are officially her boyfriend. But the thing is you lied to us for the past so many months (my mother glared at me) then how the **** (hell) did you come and speak the truth today. Did you take any of that drug yourself?"

"No dad, that's what I can't understand, why am I speaking all truths like this?" I again blurted out.

"Well I can't go talk to Mehta until you find a job but be careful with what you are doing."

I couldn't believe what he said, he actually agreed on Chhavi.

Then it happened again, I felt that my head had been split open with pain and there were strange voices all around and a coughing fit began I heard my mom say, "Anuj call the doctor" but Anuj was not there. When i came back to my senses I found myself again standing in the drawing room. I said what happened and mom replied, "Nothing".

****

Chhavi called just as I was about to sleep, to tell me that she had told everything to her parents and she said that she didn't know why she was telling truths to everyone suddenly.

I spoke again, "It's all my fault, I can tell you only when we meet. "

We met the following evening I told her everything. I saw tears drawing up in her eyes as I spoke but couldn't dare to comfort her. When I had finished she stood up and moved her hand backwards in a threating way, i closed my eyes, I had well-earned that slap. But it didn't come when I opened them I saw her standing her face in her hands. "Actually it's my fault" she said, "if I had told you the truth by myself you wouldn't need to resort to such measures. But then, "she suddenly realised "why did you tell me the truth and why in the morning while dad was leaving for work did he tell mom that he would be coming late in the evening as he planned to have drinks. Normally he says he has to go to a party. But it's understood and today he said it directly. "

Now this was news to me how did his dad start speaking such truths all of a sudden? My thought process was punctuated by her sneezing again and I had a moment of enlightenment like the Buddha would have had.

"Chhavi did your father catch cold from you."

"What?"

"I mean did it seem like he had cold in the morning"

"Well yes he took a medicine just before leaving. How do you know?"

"Maybe swami ji was right" I said looking towards the setting sun.

-continued

Now I was getting the full meaning of swami ji's words , "It may cause strange things in the world around". But why did he give me such a dangerous thing. There was something strange about this whole business including the strange black outs I was experiencing. Things didn't seem right. It now felt like a long drawn dream, I told Chhavi to go home and take rest and tell everything to her dad while I dandecided to find Swami Anandanad with Anuj's help. He was the world or at-least malgudi's last hope. Because if my assumption was correct then everyone catching cold from Chhavi would soon be telling truths only. Blurting out his/her deepest secrets to everyone and even worse telling things that could destroy people's lives. The consequences of that small round brownish pill were much worse than simply "strange".

As I moved towards my home avoiding to speak to anyone another fear started rising in me. What if the disease actually was contagious? Then it would spread like a chain reaction all over the world. I feared for the world after what I had done. My fear was confimed as I reachd home. Mom sat there in a bad mood. Her prompt reply on me asking about her mood was that she had had a fight with our neighbour Mrs Khanna (not Qhanna) over gutter issues. (She actually had admitted having unintentionally blocked the Khanna's drain last week.)

Chhavi called some time later and she had big news.

"Prakhar there are two problems."

"Two more. What happened now?"

"Well dad lost his the case today as he admitted forging the evidence and now he's thinking to shut down the business an advocate who cant lie cant run a practice." Good I had set my father in law out of business as soon as I had started seeing her daughter.

"and second if this thing is actually contagious then India is headed for big trouble."

"Why? what happened ?"

"I watched the news after coming home , the executive of the ruling party is going to hold a national level meeting in malgudi next week. And you know.."

I got her meaning even before she even completed the sentence. Truthful lawyers were only dangerous for their clients but if truthful politicians started exposing themselves the entire political structure of the country would be doomed.

And as the thought of this thing spreading to other countries crossed my mind a shiver ran down my spine. I could almost hear USA nuking Pakistan.

I had to do something and I had to do it fast. I needed to find that swami and anuj was the only way I could find him and get the truth about an antidote out.

I still needed one more truth among all this commotion, one more truth to save this world from the possible catastrophe caused due my impatience and immoralities of people that though were common but if spoken out loud could rip apart the social fabric.

"Yes , Pranav am busy yaar." Anuj answered the phone on my 8^th attempt.

"listen i want tom meet you, its urgent." I told him.

" Can't come am helping Asif Bhai shift."

Bhai , so after sex swami's his new friends were underworld dons. He was surely heading for politics. Still I asked ,"Asif bhai who?" i have never heard of him .

"He is our new tenant. He's doing a PhD in English from Malgudi University, just arrived yesterday."

"Better than an underworld don" I thought. But I didn't speak it out aloud so i still was able to think some things without speaking i could still have an opinion of my own without saying it out aloud. I however had more pressing matters than the symptoms of this strange ailment to attend to.

"Be ready in half an hour am coming and i don't want to hear any excuses. "

Exactly 30 minutes later i was standing in front of his house. A new nameplate proclaimed "Er. Anuj Verma ,System support Executive, DELL." The job title sounded fancy for a call centre job I thought as i rang the bell. He came out in another 2 minutes looking irritated.

"Pranav, I told you na i was busy why are you making such a fuss."

" I tried to explain the situation to him but all he was worried about was Asif bhai." It seemed to me he finally had found true love.

"...and we need swami Anandanand to cure that thing"

"What did you say about swami ji", his faced turned to a shade of red at the mention of the name. "All the alligations against him are false he will emerge triumphant." At this i didn't know whether to laugh or to punch him in the face. But he was not behaving like normal, true he always was attracted to god-men for he believed that they could change his luck overnight, but this was getting out of control he was acting like a puppet for this Asif bhai and that Swami. Then i remembered he wasn't the only one getting out of control at that time so i added a please to my statement.

"Anuj please we need to find swami Anandanad or this will problem may increase to the extent of becoming incurable.

"Wait let me go ask Asif bhai."

I actually wanted to break his nose at that. He came back five minutes later saying , " he says he does not need my help and we may leave."

In the two days that followed we checked all the possible places where Anandand could be hiding, but all n vain. I couldn't blame myself for that. As even the entire state's police had not been able to trace him. The illness by now had spread to many people as the outbreaks of household quarrels was on the rise. On the third day the newspaper carried a news item about 7 police officers of different ranks being suspended for publically admitting their love for accepting bribes. It was getting worse and we had only 2 more days before some of the political big shots of India came to malgudi for party planning as per them and to ruin the party as per me.

Getting frustrated with our wild goose chase , Anuj decided to take me to Pandit Qhanna again he wanted to know whether i would succeed in my mission or not.

Pandit ji blew his nose loud as we entered his chamber.

"Anuj ,my boy" He greeted. "I don't know what has happend today, am having this bad cold and you are the first customers since morning" .He said customers instead of some heavy words that he used for his clients maybe Anuj was going to learn some truths about one of his god-men.

He posed the question about me succeeding in my mission and prompt came the reply, "how do you think i would know, do you think am god. Oh no what did i just say. "

"But pandit ji you could read his hand and tell." Anuj pleaded.

"Oh and just what do i read on his hand? Crisscross patterns of which i can't understand a thing. WHAT AM I SAYING NO!!!!!"

"Are you ok Pandit ji , maybe you could read his kundli and tell"

"i would do that if only i knew how to read it. DAMN!!!"

"aren't you a jyotishacharya."

"I dropped out of school when i was 12. Havn't touched studies since then. F***!!!!" and he banged his head on the wall.

"But your Sanskrit vishaarad degree on the wall behind you." Anuj asked in a breaking voice.

"Bought it for 2000 bucks in '98. GODDD " anuj was still curious but Pandit ji had run away from his office pushing him aside.

As we came out of his office and were descending the stairs we saw a Mercedes zoom past us and as we headed towards my home we saw pandit ji stopped by a traffic constable telling him that he had had only 2 pegs since morning and was in a perfect position to drive. Though he had never bothered to take a driving test or a licence.

-continued

Am working on this one right now there. And possibly will finish it by tonight J

"You see anuj whats going to happen if we don't find anandanad soon." I said switching to the news channel on the just to check if anything else had gone wrong.

Well it had gone wrong. The words breaking news flashed on the tv screen with the picture of our local MP. Who was the party spokesperson and the ex-home minister for the state. He had just quoted the exact amount received by him to allow safe passage to Mark Williamson the chairman of Union Gadbadaite limited from India after a major industrial mishap 10 years ago. This was followed by the tally of his earnings form the mid-day meal of school children during his tenure as the home minister and... the list tended to be so long that i changed the channel.

Just then anuj coughed.

"Oh so you have got it too now. Go take rest otherwise you will blurt out some great secrete to me like the hiding place of Anandand." I said sarcastically.

"How did you know that i know where swami ji is! oh no!!!" and he tried to run but i was quicker than him. I grabbed him by the legs and he fell forwards on the floor.

"So you have been misleading me for the past 2 and a half days , you knew where he was and is and you have been lying to me." I said gripped him so that he couldn't escape "ok now speak up where is he you can't lie you know."

"I won't" So you could resist telling the truth if you wanted to but you can't lie i made a note.

"Where is Swami Ananadanad," i said tickling him. He laughed uncontrollably while I just sat there repeating the question.

In a matter of few seconds he cracked

"Swami ji is at my place"

"What he has been hiding at your place how?"

"He is dressed as asif. You can't do this to him. All the alligations aginst him are false. " I again felt like hitting him hard but we didn't have time for that. I called up Chhavi to bring her dad and threw anuj's phone out of th window as he tried to call and warn Anandanad. I tied his hands with dad's help and proceeded to his place where Chhavi and her father would be waiting. Did the people at his place know that they were unknowingly harbouring a wanted criminal?

Once there we quickly ran up the stairs to the tenant's room. As neither of us (except Anuj) was in a mood to show any manners so we didn't bother to knock or call out before breaking in and grabbing Anandanand. Who by our sheer luck had been sleeping. It took only a moment for us to bind him. But I must say the makeup was really good the beard and hair were styled in a fashion that no one could say that h was a Hindu swami in exile.

"Ok Ananadanand", dad said "how do we get rid of this problem that we are having because of you."

"Am not Anandanad my name is Asif Ansari and I will go to the minorities commission if you behave like this with me.

"They know swami ji" Anuj said.

"Oh shut up you ... " Anandanad replied "I have told you my name is Asif and am not some hindu swami. Now leave or you will pay heavily."

I then did the most disgusting thing I have done in my entire life. I blew my nose into a handkerchief and put it on the face of Ananadanad." After some five minutes he too had caught cold.

Thus began the confessions of the great sage swami Anandanad which if I would need an entire novel to finish off. So skipping the juicy details we come to the problem that we were facing.

"I don't know anything about that I just read it in a book that I stole from an old temple library."

"And where is that book now" Dad asked.

"It's in my ashram but I cant get over there its sealed."

"Don't worry I can" Chhavi's dad said and made a phone call one of his known DSPs in the crime branch.

DSP Shukla was more than happy to exchange an old book for Anandanad whon uncle promised him in 24 hours.

Within an hour we had the book and the great swami ji was translating the antidote.

"It involves taking a round of the infected area…"

The pain in my head started again more severe than before I couldn't hear a word he was saying. Breathing became difficult I tried to move my hands but it felt like they were not there. Nor did my legs respond I tried to cry out for help but no sound came out. Then again the pain subsided slowly and I was able to see.

But did I see anything. I could feel and see my body I was all alone over there. No one else was there. I looked downwards and there was no floor on which I was standing . I was just there. Then I saw him.

He looked just like me or did he. His face also reminded me of dad no Anuj no Chhavi I couldn't tell but he looked familiar. Not vaguely familiar but hugely familiar. And as he looked at me he smiled.

-to conclude

Will finish this off tonight J

And with that smile on his lips he moved towards me. I couldn't say that I wasn't scared but somehow I didn't move and just waited for him. As he came within earshot I heard him say ,"hi. Sorry for interrupting this way but possibly continuing would have made it more absurd." His voice seemed to come from within me and it was as-if he spoke into my mind directly.

"who are you ?" was the only reply I could think of.

"So rude?, you are not this rude to even the text messages from wrong numbers." He paused because you have a feeling somewhere that Chhavi has changed her number and is teasing you.

"What? , How do you know this . " I asked

"I know this because I am you."

"What?"

"Well even I don't know much about how we got separated all I know is that am that voice inside you that speaks argues for you to do the right thing whenever you have a choice between right and easy."

"So you are trying to tell me that you are God."

"Me God, no way. I told you am the voice that votes for right whenever you have to choose between right and easy. Well I was feeling a bit ignored inside and I got a chance of having some fun with you and tell you some things about choices in life so I took it."

"What do you mean you had a chance and you took it?"

"You need to answer me first" He smiled more irritatingly and posed another question , " Do you think that a fake swami such as Anandanand can possibly make or give something that would cause this much damage?"

"Well no, But he did"

"He may have given you some weak sedative under the influence of which Chhavi would have said some nonsense to you but not possibly the truth. That also if you had met him."

"That was exactly what I thought when anuj first told me about it."

"And which was possibly a far logical explanation to it than Anandanad leading the world to the verge of destruction."

"Wait you said if I had met Anandanad didn't I meet him and didn't he cause all this trouble"

"No"

"what ???"

"Didn't Anuj take me to Pt. Qhanna"

"He did and I protested a lot for that."

"Then how didn't I meet that swami"

"because there is one small detail that you are forgetting but before I tell that you answer some more questions of mine so that I know that you are ready for it"

"ok" I said

"Anandanad is such a famous godman didn't it feel strange to you when he attended to you in person?"

"Do you remember doing anything between these happenings since you got to his ashram?"

"Is there a park near Macbeth's?"

"You told your parents about your affair and they didn't mention even once that you had done something wrong?"

"You think you are so good that Chhavi would keep on talking to you even after you spike her drinks with stuff from some quack?"

"Where did Anandanad's Michal Jackson voice go?"

"Anuj might believe in such nonsense but even he has sense enough to not to harbour a wanted criminal right?"

All his questions made sense to me and there seemed to be only one possible answer, "Am I dreaming?"

"Kind of."

"What?"

"Well actually while anuj was taking you to Anandanad he was so excited that .."

"..he almost hit a car" I said.

"Not almost. He did hit a car. And you fell backwards . your head hit the road and …"

"I fell unconscious"

"only physically, then those blackouts were …"

"… the times when you were regaining you consciousness. The first blackout was when the doctor was telling your parents that they could only wait for you to regain your senses. When you woke a bit for the second time your father was watching the news and by sheer chance there was a news item about …"

"…Anandanad absconding" I said

"good. Third time you just got a coughing fit and your mother asked anuj to call the doctor."

"Oh thank god it was all a dream" I smiled for the first time.

"Hey wait a minute didn't you learn anything out of this?"

"Yes I did, I learnt that people have a choice of keeping secretes and if it is not given to them the world could be a much worse place."

"And about Chhavi"

"Yes , she is free to consider me whatever she wants to I can' t and rather shouldn't force anything upon her. It's her life and I can't and shouldn't make choices for her if she does not want me to. I love her that does not mean that I should force her to reciprocate my feelings because that would make my love for her bound by conditions and that won't be love would it?"

"Wow , even I couldn't have put it better" he smiled again and the pain started again. But this time I was ready for it. My eyes felt heavy and I could only open them slowly . As I opened them I could see a blur of three figures sitting.

My parents and Chhavi.

"Mom" I called.

"Oh look beta he has awoken" Mom said and all of them took turns to hug me.

The bandages on my head were removed a week later and Chhavi called me to Macbeths for a treat from her side while we were eating she said to me "I was really scared when you were in the hospital and it was then that I realized what was your worth for me. I know you have asked me 3 times earlier, could you ask me once more please I want to say yes this time."

Oh and I forgot about that Kundli well anuj had kept it safe with him and told me that Anandanad's doing had made him reconsider his faith in all god-men. He told me that h was only waiting for me to get well before destroying that as he wanted my permission for it and I hugged him.

So that's it this finishes the third story of love for losers

 

 

Nothing but the truth(story III of love for losers)

How should I start over here? By telling my name? That does not look good enough to me. Still its Pranav for future reference. Most movies start by a train stopping by on a platform or a car entering a house mine starts in the middle of a conversation. It was the middle of September; you could call it 15^th September for convenience. The weather was unstable and common cold was common among the people of Malgudi. It was then that Anuj, one of my friends joined the ranks of "The love of Life" a religious organisation by swami Anandanand. Its motto was simple yet appealing to the younger generation "Make love, not war." (Most of the devotees were actually interested in the first half of the motto.)

As was his habit to drag me into anything he tried(smoking included) he was those days trying to persuade me to offer myself to Swami ji. My story begins on one such day when Anuj had called me over to his place and trying to force the fact down my head that swami ji would change the world order.

"He believes that all humans are equal. We don't believe in any form of cast discrimination."

"I told you Anuj am not interested in all this stuff, I plan to give my time to such things after my retirement which can only happen if I can get a job."

"Swami ji is also good at astrology, maybe he can tell you about you and Chhavi."

There, Anuj had used his trump card a weapon that was bound to work. Chhavi, my semi-girlfriend. She was my girlfriend according to me and I was her best friend according to her. She was allergic to the words "boyfriend", love ,relation etc. And somehow for the past 3 months I had become desperate that she atleast once confessed her feelings towards me. (It might sound nonsense but it was true.) Still I had to argue that a swami can't tell me how to get a confession out of a girl.

"Actually he can get a confession out of anyone. He had told me a few days ago that he could make a truth potion for anyone after seeing his/ her kundli."

I was desperate by then so my reply instead of being " I told you I don't believe in such stuff." was "Now where can I get her kundli."

"Simple just get her place and time of birth rest we can manage from some astrologer."

"I remember it by heart 10^th June 1988 12:55 PM govt hospital Malgudi"

"Good now lets go to Pt. H.Qhannaa to get a kundli."

Pandit ji was a quiet story in himself, his actual name was Rajesh Khanna ( quiet a good name according to his era of birth) but after some calculations he had modified the surname to spell like Qhannaa and prefixed a H for Hema after his mother in law's name who had inspired him for astrology. Though according to me the entire family had filmy names.

As we came out holding the kundli Anuj looked at me and asked , "So Pranav will you belive in swami ji if Chhavi confesses her love for you."

Of course I said yes.

-continued

PS : This story is completely a work of fantasy and there is no absolutely no connection of this story with any actual event. All the characters are purely fictitious and bear no relation with any real life characters (except of course swami ji and pandit ji ) whose actual names you can figure out but I can't reveal.

I thought we were friends: Love for losers part II

"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 25^th 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 18^th 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.

I thought we were friends: Love for losers part II

"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.

-Continued

Love for losers Part 1

My last post was damn some serious and actually made no sense altogether to me when I read it again. So I decided let me get back to what I am best at.. Telling nonsense stories. And in the past one day I made this one up :P.

This is not a guide to love just a funny situation I thought of.

One or two characters are inspired from friends and family rest all is fictional.

I used the name malgudi from RK Narayn's Works. Though this malgudi seems to be a kind of city in northern India

.

One last thing before you start reading this biotechnology has always seemed kind of strange to me. It is one thing that both medical and non-medical students can do and both complain about the syllabus not being of their interest (The medical people have problems with math and non-med people with bio).

Now read up

--------------

Once upon a time not so long ago (it kind of gives the feel)

It was a normal summers day in malgudi. As normal as a day can be. The storm last night had left a few trees down and the all the cel phone networks had been down from midnight till four in the morning. Our story however begins at the very moment these networks came back to life. There were two beeps on Archana Singh's phone and the screen displayed "message delivered Ishan". The sound however did not disturb Archana who was sleeping at the time. Meanwhile some five miles away on the first floor of house number 651 shalimar estate another phone vibrated while on table it was kept face down so the screen was not visible. The sound made by the phone was hidden by the sound its owner Ishan's snoring. It was a special day for him because according to his friends he could now officially marry you-know-who (he had forbidden them to use the name). Meaning he had turned 21 on the very day. Birthday boy's snoring continued for two more hours until the door opened slowly and a girl n her nightdress her black hair tied loosely in a bun her eyes half shut from sleep but her mind fully alert walked in and picked the phone up. It was Priyanka, Ishan's baby (according to him) sister. She moved her head a bit closer to her slumbering brother's ear and yelled at the top of her voice "HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAAMCHOR." By the time Ishan got to his senses Priyanka had already read half the messages in his inbox and the first words he heard from her sister were "hmmmm happy birthday dear bless you. Sender Archana Received at 4 on five on may 18 hmmm aag dono taraf barabar lagi Hui hai subbah chaar baje messages he bhagwaan aajkal ke bachche to bilkul nhai padhte likhte." And by the time he could react Priyanka was far from his reach. "Being a national level gymnast is one thing and catching your sister while she is making fun of you another" he said to himself. At the same time he his mind drifted to the fact that Archana herself had sent that message. The girl who made him always nervous who had known him for 2 years as her friend's brother. Nothing more nothing less. But unlike Priyanka she used to call him by his name (which of course came as a relief). Priyanka somehow had sensed his nervousness and had had her pound of flesh for keeping her mouth shut. He had not been able to tell Archana anything for all the time he had liked her and was in no mood to do so(what if she thinks I am a flirt what if she stops talking to me? what if she tells mom? what if.....) Priyanka however understood his brother's feelings and also knew about the secrete admiration in her best friends heart for him. She just wanted to make sure that nothing went wrong at the time they confessed their feelings for each other. But to her annoyance her brother always stopped at an if." I will make sure that my best friend and my brother get the one they deserve this year."She made a mental note.

All these thoughts had caused a momentary silence which was broken by Priyanka."What day?" she asked "can be better for it? I will invite her for dinner; call Alok bhaiya as well so you don't freak out at the last moment. " Ishan as usual started "Priyanka come to your senses I can't propose her what if .." he never got to complete his sentence as the cel phone rang(Priyanka had turned the silent mode off). It was Alok his school time friend as well as near lookalike (according to Alok's parents people had confused them for twins). Priyanka answered and before Ishan could say anything she had told Alok her (their) plan and confided him in.

***

Two hours later ACP Vijay Mehra was trying to understand the cause of the strange smile on his daughter's face. As far as his experience had told him this was a sure sign of approaching trouble. But Priyanka would not speak except for "Bhaiya has lost the bet and he will take me and Archana for movie tonight". Ishan meanwhile was quiet his face as if someone had hit it with a frying pan. "Alright" he "I will take you two but at least allow Alok to come." "Ok,but only Alok no one else I don't want anyone else, last year you had invited Raghuvanshi sir to dinner and we all had to behave as acche bachche" . came the reply .

"he's my Coach by the way and why are you calling that friend of yours for the movie".

"I won the bet loser and I can invite anyone whom I want to."

The argument could have taken a diabolical form had not ACP Vijay interrupted "Cut it out you two you still fight like 10 year olds. Rajni am leaving and if these two start a commotion again inform me the riot control vehicle has not been out on roads for some months now. "With those words he left the room not realizing that his son had just given a big thumbs up to his daughter who eyes were filled with tears of stopped laughter.

"… and how am involved in it?" Archana asked Priyanka in a semi interested tone.

"Because aaj hi ke manhoos din bhagwaan ne mere bhai ko is duniya mein bheja tha and aaj wo mujhe aur meri ek friend ko pizza party de raha hai. "

"but Priyanka I thought you didn't like pizza's ? And why only me?"

"Because you like pizzas and because you are my bestest best friend. Come by 7 in the evening "

 

Just 10 feet above this conversation Alok Sharma was sitting on the bed while his friend Ishan was moving from one side of the room to the other.

"Ishan relax if you are so tense now how will you handle it in the evening. Don't worry she can't say no."

" the thing that worries me more is that Priyanka has told movie at home and she has asked Archana for pizza. Idont know what she's up to. You know how she loves causing trouble."

"Chill yaar she's a genius. With that plan nothing can go wrong Archana will be left speechless when the pizza arrives."

"I hope she does not make her hand do the talking. Leave it. Have you started reading newspaper daily? My coaching guy repeated his affection for the edit page again. Why do I have to take CAT and can't be an IPS like dad."

"Because he thinks that the job is too rotten for a guy with morals. And you are talking all nonsense because of tension. The papers these days are filled with India's space mission. Nothing more. Just give him some crap from that and he'll be happy."

Time seems to fly when you are too happy or too tense because before Ishan could have anticipated it the clock had struck seven in the evening and he was sitting in Pizza Haven with the three he wanted to be with but also he wanted to postpone meeting all three of them for such a purpose indefiantly. Priyanka and Archana had given him star shaped a belt buckle which he was wearing with a yellow tee and a pair of blue jeans (Priyanka said Archana's favorite color was yellow.)

Coming back to pizza haven the order had been placed and Priyanka's chatterbox was on (as usual). "Bhaiya you know I told dad that we were going for a movie. But here we are… " . "But you said he promised a pizza" Archana interrupted. "yeah he did but papa se jhooth to nahi bol sakti hai na bhaiya. BHAIYA ..".. "Huh" Ishan was startled out of his his daze.

"What happened Ishan, you look worried everything alright na? how's CAT going?" Archana got a chance to speak again.

"Ah nothing am ok. The coaching is going fine just I have to start reading the newspaper more. How's your Medical going? "

"Good though I still don't understand why do we have to learn all Math and please try to remember its Biotechnology and not Medical. Waise I didn't mind."

Keeping quiet for such a long period of time was just too much for Priyanka "hello padhaakoo log main movie ki baat kar rahi thi. So I was saying that Mr. Ishan Mehra here was going to show us a romantic movie but because we are here so I think that he will have to act himself."

She was interrupted by Alok who upon seeing the self-service number change actually ran to get the pizza.

"He's hungry that friend of yours??" Archana giggled to Ishan who again was looking lost.

 

And when Alok did return with the pizza Archana was the first one to notice "hey Alok why is it shaped like a heart you sure that was our order and notr of someone love struck."

Alok simply replied "both the options are correct Ishan will explain."

Ishan started " um Archana actually this pizza … what actually … Priyanka movie no actually Alok no Archana its like this that actually I I I …"

" Bhaiya chup karo aap bilkul nikamme ho. Moti sun this brother of mine wants to say "I love you" to you but I think that god has decided to take his power of speech just at the right moment so I will have to propose you." And before Archana could have made the sense out of anything Priyanka had stood up and forced Ishan out of his chair on his knees and continued "Archana he loves you from the depth of his heart and will you be my sister in law. And yes that pizza was for you two."

Priyanka's plan had not worked exactly but with some interference from her Archana actually stood speechless. Her eyes darting from Priyanka to Ishan. She didn't know whom to address. She had liked Ishan from the moment she saw him. And this was the strangest way in which Ishan could have proposed her. The moment she found her speech back she managed to say just one word.

"Yes."

-----------------------------------------------

Well that's all I was able to think of. ("The sicko he left the story incomplete.")

I actually intended to stop here because this post was titled "love for losers" and not "highly mushy college romance." I wanted to conclude nothing with this except that having an overconfident chatterbox for a sister actually helps sometimes (I personally have none). As for the characters in the story all I can say is that they lived happily ever after J

 

Again if you think that this was a total waste of space and time(yours) then feel free the comments box is waiting.

Otherwise if you feel that it actually was my my magnificent octopus(magnum opus) then also feel free. And in case you feel nothing then **** *** (fill it with your choice of a four letter word followed by a 3 letter word. Good bye seems like a good option to fill in the blank, but we may differ)

Take care