The Girl I Last Loved (6 page)

‘Oh ghosh! She isn’t looking at me.’ All of a sudden a sudden she looked at me, then raised her eyebrow. I shook my head and rested backwards.

On top of that, the
autowala
was playing the song
‘milan abhi adha adhura he…’.

We were already at Forum Mart. The journey seemed timeless.

“Hey, this pen-drive is mine. Take the print while I use the internet.”

It was 2002: a time when normal people didn’t have either the know-how or the access to the internet.

It was a pink coloured pen-drive, just as cute as her.

I gave the PD for printing.

“What are you doing? What’s this?” I asked Kasam as I joined her.

“This is called a chat room. Multiple people can chat at a time. And to whosoever you like, you can send them a request to chat individually.”

“[email protected],” I read aloud her email-id.

“Isn’t it cool?”

I smiled. She went on chatting with several people. Even in a virtual world, everyone wanted a piece of her. She seemed like a completely different person. Her face lighted in excitement. Her slender fingers were busy typing and I was very busy staring at her.

“Yogi is one of my chat friends. He is about to get married. It’s arranged. He was having trouble to accept the whole scenario. I gave him the suggestion to meet the girl and know how she feels. Maybe her belief will make him believe. And now everything is sorted out,” she was jumping in excitement.

I just smiled. Somewhere I didn’t like her talking with so many guys.

“There is another friend of mine – Rashmi.”

Thank God. She was talking about a girl.

“He is…”

‘He is’? I felt exhausted. As she continued, “He’s a model and so is his girlfriend Kimmi .”

She tucked in her half tucked shirt while walking on the road.

“He is a great guy. Handsome… six packs... awesome.”

I looked at myself.

“Kimmi is even more hot. They make an awesome pair.” She buttoned up her shirt to the brim and tightened her tie.

“Rashmi, in spite of being in the same modelling world, has never smoked, let alone drinking.”

She halted at the footpath, kneeled down and pulled her socks up till her knees. I never knew they were this long.

“Kimmi is an addict. Rashmi’s family won’t ever accept her.”

She spoke as she removed her bangles and rings and kept them in her bag and undid her clutch from her bag’s strap and then tied her hair. I was more than confused.

“He wants to marry her but Kimmi is not ready to quit smoking. He is unable to find a way out.

“Even I am not able to help.”

I seriously got anxious when she removed
kajal
by rubbing her fingers vigorously along her lower eyelids.

“What exactly are you doing?” I yelled out.

She smiled and then patted over my shoulder.

“You know if somebody goes to my home and reveals today I was with a guy at Forum Mart and I contradict and answer that I was all afternoon at home studying, nobody’s going to question me back. However, the other person will be thrown out of the house.”

“Context?” I inquired.

“Do you think with my kind of lifestyle – dressing, attitude – I can afford to maintain such an image?” she explained with a mischievous smile.

“Why have a dual life?”

“There is something known as ‘generation gap’ dear.”

“Still, I don’t think you need to hide things from your parents,” I contradicted.

“When I have a daughter, same age as mine and she gets dressed in a miniskirt with a strapless blouse, seeks permission to leave for disco say at 11 p.m. at night with her boyfriend, who is blowing the horn continuously downstairs, even I won’t allow her although I might like to do such a thing. If I won’t allow my daughter for the same twenty-five years later, how can my parents do so for me now? I just want to spare them the trouble.”

She stretched her hands and marched ahead of me. I followed her in awe – why do I keep falling for her again and again?

Three missed calls and I was good to go. As it was the era of landlines, Kasam gave me the ‘unique identification mechanism’.

“Hello,” she picked the call but there was lot of background noise.

“Hold on a second. Let me switch off the radio.”

Suddenly it was all peaceful.

“Hey, again.”

“Hi, who the hell listens to radio nowadays?”

“I do.”

“Strange.”

“No, it’s fun! In a CD you listen to only those songs about which you know, which already are your favourites, but over radio you listen to songs you have never known before.

“Songs you have heard before but never liked much, but somehow at that moment it suits your mood of life. Listening to radio surprises you, thus it’s much more fun. You experience things from others’ point of view. When you have run out of your own options, you find happiness in someone else’s choices,” she blurted out, sounding grateful. Probably I was the first one to ask about this.

Rest of the conversation was just as usual. I wondered, wasn’t Kasam like a radio for me? Every day I discovered a new song; even a new style of music. Now, I am not the one I used to be any more. I experience everything from her point of view. I experience everything with her.

My choices, my options, my decisions are all about her. Most importantly, ‘Am I not finding happiness in it?’

Next day I saw Kasam while leaving for school as I walked one-and-a-half kilometres from my home to board the bus with her.

She was sitting over a bench beneath a tree, folding her socks down to her ankle.

I couldn’t help but laugh, shaking my head while pushing both hands in my pocket as I rushed towards her.

Dear Romeo,

Today I asked Priya to come along.

She refused, saying, “I don’t want to upset your boyfriend.”

“He isn’t my boyfriend,” I stated in plain words.

“Does he know that?” Priya went ahead, chuckling.

Despite that I remained still there.

I have done a lot of things today; been to a lot of places, but my life, my thoughts, everything are stuck at that point.

“Does he know that?”

“Do I want him to know that?”

“Do I want him to ask me?”

“Do I want to put a label over what we have?”

“Do I…”

If you find the answer, do let me know.

Love

Juliet

Chapter 6

*Google image results…*

*Abu Dhabi*

As I glanced over the screen, my anger erupted like hot lava.

“Planning your holiday, Mr Rakesh Bedi?”

He turned back in anxiety.

On noticing that it’s me, he quickly minimised the screen.

“I won’t question you today. Instead you question yourself – were you doing what you are being paid for?”

“Sorry.”

I stared at him in anger.

“Akash, you come with me. Mr Bedi, get back to your work,” Ved dragged me along.

“He needs to leave,” I said in a flat but stern voice, when we reached my cabin.

“Who?” Ved asked casually.

“Rakesh.”

“You’re really thinking about firing him?”

“Yes.”

“Give him a chance.”

“I have issued five prior notices to him to improve his behaviour.”

“Still, it’s a big step. He is a nice fellow and is more than qualified for this job.”

“He maybe, but we don’t get benefits from qualified employees, rather from those who are qualified and work hard as well.”

“Maybe there is some reason. Probably he isn’t placed in the right domain. He has some conflicts with the team or…”

“It’s my duty to get the work done on time, not personal counselling. If after five warnings, he doesn’t improve, he’ll never do.”

“Aren’t you getting too harsh? He is married, has a family. You should give him another chance.”

“Don’t you think he should be the one to be considerate about these factors?” I slammed the laptop lid hard.

I placed both the hands over my desk and hung my head low, breathing out to cool off.

Ved was standing at the opposite end of the room.

“You are taking something else’s anger out on somebody else.”

He had stepped on a wrong nerve.

“What do you mean?”

“Is it about Divya?” he asked with a suppressed voice along with a long pause in between .

I immediately looked at him, our eyes met for a brief moment and I left the room.

As I breathed out, everything was lost in fumes. What happened just now, what happened last night, what has been happening all throughout?

“Ye dhuan… dhuan sa rehne do…,”
sound surrounded the closed smoking area.