Chapter 10: lucky or the other way round?

Chapter 11: lucky or the other way round?

Bottles tossed up in air, and sound of beer cans opening with the fizz filled my ears, as I took a sip out of the exclusively mine Coca-Cola.

Time had come when Mumbai Indians battled the mighty Royal Challengers Bangalore once more on the battlefield set in Bangalore’s cricket stadium during IPL-2010

Munchies were getting lesser and lesser, and alcohol poured like tap water.

My excitement for the match was dampened due to the fact that Lia was in the stadium with her family, and I couldn't shake off the feeling that something would go wrong.

I, on the other hand was a mere quiet spectator of this legendary or rather hyped match at my own home.

“Bring me some more fucking beer”, said an irritated and at this point, well, pretty high, Dhruv.

“Wait, I’ll help you with it.”

This was the pretty Zeesha... Dhruv's girlfriend, and an angel in disguise.

“Why are you so fucking quiet today?” She asked, looking at me, with her strange yet caring tone.

Now, you can see how these two were made for each other... just saying.

I couldn't say a word. As the time of the match broadcast drew closer, gripped by fear, my limbs getting numb by the second.

It is said that if you love someone with all your heart, you can almost sense any danger lurking over them.

That memory stays recorded in my mind like a Blu-ray movie. Loud, and extremely clear.

17^th April… The match was scheduled to start at 4 p.m. and it was quarter past 4 already. To pay no heed to the vibes around me i dug my head in the household chores that I would have never bothered about otherwise.

Dhruv, busy quaffing had now been surfing random channels since a while, when alas!

"Two low intensity bomb blasts have been reported in the proximity of stadium that hosts today's match. Reports conform at least fifteen people injured, although no fatalities have yet been reported." said a T.V. reporter.

Dhruv Sat up, and called us to see the news.

The time ceased, yet rushed at the same time... and I rushed to the T.V.

All tries to make calls to Lia were in vain as all telephone lines were jammed in a matter of seconds.

(Image courtesy: Jayanth Maiyya)

Watching the news wasn't helping either, as the "Braking news" was finding of a third bomb that was thankfully diffused.

“Oh, another one now?” Dhruv said.

It feels sad to say but we, the public, have dealt with the similar tragedies in the worst possible ways, making these events a part of our lives, and moving on. 
Till none we know of is in danger, it doesn’t take much time for the imprints of such activities to be erased of the blueprint that our mind is.

For now though, someone i wokeup everday to look at, was in grave danger.

Dhruv and Zeesha noticed me frantically making calls. Dialing numbers from my cell, then the landline, their cellphones, everything.

Anxiety levels were at the peak, and both Dhruv and Zeesha seemed inaudible to me.

“What happened?” Dhruv asked, nearly shouting, probably sober now, seeing me going crazy.

“Lia had gone to see the match. I can’t get her to answer my call.” My eyes, all watery, and throat choking.

“Okay, calm down. Who is Lia now??”

I had totally forgotten in this chaos that we had decided to keep our relation under the wraps. But this wasn’t the time to answer any queries.

“Oh My God! Are you fine? I have been trying to call you past fifteen minutes but it wasn’t of any use! How are you? How is every one?” I started and kept going on and on as soon as I heard her voice saying ‘Hello’.

“Relax. Please calm down! All is perfectly fine here. Just some minor blast I suppose. We all are perfectly fine.” She said, trying to console me.

“Okay” breathing heavily I continued, still trying to hold back my tears.

“So you are on your way back, right?”

“No. Of course not. We are already in our seats... match is starting now!" she said, in an almost deafening pitch. What followed was the roar and chants of "Sachin! Sachin!" this girl was beyond my utmost levels of understandings at times, but fearless, brave too.

After a few minutes that I took to settle down and be normal again, did I notice Zeesha and Dhruv looking at me with their eyes fixated!

“Alright then sir. Mind telling us now who the fuck Lia is?” asked Zeesha in her patent tone.

••

“Alright… Lia is your girlfriend now? And you didn’t even care telling us?” Zeesha’s voice was stern for the first time.

“And Zeesha is a recent friend. I have been your friend since past five fucking years! Couldn’t even tell me, huh?” added Dhruv.

“Really, there’s no need to get emo…” I was cut short as I tried defending myself.

“Shut up. Now tell me everything. How you two met? Are you serious about her? Is she serious about you?” continued Zeesha, her voice pitching to several notes.

“Okay, is it just me? Or does that whole ‘tell me your story’ sounds ultra-gay?? Anyway, you go ahead with that. I’m going to watch the game now. And lookout for anymore bomb blasts” Dhruv said, and what followed almost instant punch right on his face.

“Fucker. Go ahead with your story” he said, covering his face this time.

“Alright!” I said, looking Zeesha right in the eyes.

“You remember Tej, right?”

I continued as I got an affirmative response from Zeesha, with her head bobbling.

“Okay well, Tej and Lia were pretty good friends in their old school, and then he moved to my school and we clicked and became really great friends in no time. He told me some things about this girl Lia, and I just had to look her up over the internet.

I still remember, that sky blue top and in a black back ground, with a lock of hair sliding down and covering her right cheek she looked nothing less than angelic.

I tricked Tej in letting me use his cell phone at times, so that I could pretend to be him and talk to her and try to get to know her more." I said, ignoring the loud crunches Zeesha continued making with the pop-corns.

"Anyway, then one day I, as Tej, told her about 'one guy who has a serious crush on her' and that's when she came across my name, for the very first time.

After begging him for days together, he finally agreed to introduce me to her. 
I still remember, she walked down the stairs of a restaurant, and I swore on every dead man’s grave I would walk down the aisle with her.

But, so much for hopes and dreams. She barely looked at me, and all that I could say to her in that first meeting is precisely ‘hhhhhh… hi… you know Tej?’

That sure wasn’t the impression I wanted to put on her, but the damage had been done.

She looked at me, made a face, and said ‘Yes, I know Tej, who just introduced me to you’ and looked away, giggled and left.

Well, that day she walked away, and Tej had two things with him now. Something to laugh upon, and a story to tell to the whole college” saying that, I paused, smiling with every thought of Lia.

"We started texting each other all day, every day.

And then one fine day, she seemed perplexed. Lost in her thought, totally confused.

“What happened? Anything wrong? Anyone troubling you? Let me know” I told her over messages.

“No, no one’s troubling me. Actually, do you mind if I talk about guy issues with you?”

“No no, not at all! Go on” I said, thinking to myself ‘Atta boy Suraj. Girl sharing troubles with you? You are so going to get her’

“There’s this guy in my college. He is a senior to me.

He proposed to me today. Till now we had been pretty close friends, but I am really confused about how I feel about him.

I know I am just out of a serious relationship of three years with a jerk, and then there was this guy Satish, with whom I went out for only a couple of days, but still, I don’t know if I am over this jerk, and if this would be a genuine relation, or just a stale hook up and a rebound. What do you think I should do?”

My lower jaw, with my mouth closed, dropped down to the ground, or that’s what I felt.

The pain of this, was compensated by the sense of achievement of finding someone who has had crushes as much as me. Don’t lose her big boy. Stick with her and talk her out of it. Well, that was the plan.

“Alright, this is what I think honestly. You have already had two people in your life, who weren’t true to you, and hurt you. Now it’s up to you to decide what’s right for you, and what’s not. Close those big beautiful eyes, and let your heart tell you what’s right for you.” I stated, making my opinions pretty clear, at least that’s what I thought, until…

Next morning I woke up with my phone buzzing with her name.

“Hi Suraj. Thanks for your advice. It really helped. I closed my eyes, and could only picture him. Not all guys are jerks, right? I want to give another try. I think he’s worth taking the risk for. I Have a boyfriend now J love you buddy. Thanks again for the favor”

Just the shock I needed, to wake up and lose all my sleep.

“She went out with another guy? And you, although unintentionally but most definitely helped her hook up. Wow, you must be a special kind of dumbass. The biggest one I have ever seen” Zeesha lashed out.

“Hey, I didn’t know what was on her mind, alright? I did what I thought was supposed to be done!”
"And this is what was supposed to be done?!" 

“Anyway, you want me to continue, or not?”

“Yeah, sure… go on”

“I backed out from talking to her all the time. Slowly, there was no conversation at all. One day she called up to confront me, and asked what was wrong.

Well, I didn’t think it was worth keeping inside anymore. I told her all I felt. She uttered a few words, and hung up.

I fortuitously had a friend Janette and her boyfriend George who happened to be not only her classmates, but also her close friends.

Updates about the events of her life, and her love life were regular.

“Bro, sup! Hey we got some info for you dude. Trouble in paradise! Lia talks about you all the time to her guy, and it makes him quirky to no avail! You are beating that mutherfuckah without your knowledge!” Janette revealed in a secret message kind of manner.

Well, yes, Janette was more ‘guy’ than George for sure! And she needed to cut down on the movies she was hooked on to. The ones appealing to her pseudo-Caribbean side. 

“Alright. And you want me to do what exactly?” I asked.

“Go, talk to her! Make her yours! It’s your only chance” she said, as if stating the obvious.

“Well, it’s not my last chance, I know of that for sure. And anyway, I break them up and we get together, what are the odds that this won’t happen with us? She’ll be mine if she is destined to” Reading ‘The Alchemist’ had left me with a deep impression on my mind, and rightly so.

“Well, suit yourself! dumbass” concluded Janette.

In another one of our conversations, Janette revealed that the ‘couple in news’ have had one of the ugliest breakups the world could ever witness! Weren’t really happy together and were trying to reignite the fire needed to go on, and then one day, Lia’s parents reached home a bit earlier than expected. You can guess what happened after that”

“Whaaa… sorry. What?” Zeesha didn’t expect this ending to the story of this couple.

“I know! I tell you, there is somebody up there.”

“And you made your move after that right?”

“Not exactly. Have patience my dear, I will get to that!”

“You still waited? Oh you pussy! Even I would have proposed to her by now!”

“Well, I could have made my move then and there, but don’t you see, she’d have turned me down in a matter of minutes.

And well, I really love her, so you see, it was more important that she had someone to talk to, someone whom she trusted, someone who stood by her.

I wanted to be that guy. Knowing her family would hate me every single bit, I wanted it. I had to be there, to let her know that it’s all going to be alright very soon now.

Cause if I could not do that, I might as well not try to be with her at all.” I replied, in a manner, hoping my point gets through to her.

“I will say what Janette told you, and rightly so. Dumbass”

What is it with me and long speeches? Why does nobody get what I want to say?

“Anyway, doesn't matter. What happened after that?”

 “Well, I gained her trust, and started putting my good traits in front of her.

‘I had so much fun today! You can’t believe it!’ as my text to her read.

‘Oh wow, that’s nice! But umm… what happened exactly?’

‘Oh this new girl joined in our salsa classes. And all thanks to you, I have really honed my flirting skills.’

‘Oh, but I thought we had something special going on’ she replied, and I realized she was just pulling my leg!

‘And you never told me that you dance! I love dancing! And… Salsa? You should tell that as your first quality! Girls love guys who can move!

‘Wow, Really? Well if it’s anything, then I don’t just learn salsa. I also teach. You can come over anytime. I would love show you a few good moves’ I replied, trying to get cheeky

‘Really? Oh my God! I would love that! Thank you so much! I could just reach out to you and, can I kiss your right cheek?’

Do you ever get that feeling that you should really say something and not keep the other one waiting?

This was me. The bliss of life had showered upon me. Well more like a loose tap with water dripping, if not shower, but it gave me the sensation of Goosebumps all over my body. Even my face! And accompanied by chills running down my spine.

The GnCs by Gods!

“You are blushing just telling me this story! Oh, you are so adorable” Zeesha laughed at my state as she asked me to go on.

“Well, even after that, I could barely talk to her, in front of her.

God is my witness that I have forgotten my English in front of her on innumerable occasions, and blanked out with nothing but a smile that wouldn't go.

And well, then one day she had to leave for a trip to her native with her family members, and that’s when I bought her my first of the many to come, presents.

I gifted her a novel. A mystery novel. Hoping that every page that she turned, every mystery she unfurled, reminded her of me throughout her journey.

So, I asked her to meet me up the morning of the day that she had to leave, and went up to her and presented her the book.

Unexpectedly quiet, she kept looking at my eyes, as if waiting for something to happen, and that’s when it happened. I held my breath, and blurted out ‘I Love You’, and got out of there as fast as humanly possible.

Exactly three minutes later my cell buzzed again with her name popping up on my screen.

‘Why would you run away? I was still standing there you idiot!’

‘You were? Sorry I didn’t realize that’

‘Alright. But why did you have to go off in such a rush?’

‘Well, you might not know this, but never have I been this scared of rejection. Never in my life!’

‘You Dumbo! I might have just stood there quietly, but never would my reply have been negative for you, for sure! Anyway I gotta get going now. Have to finish with all the packing and stuff. Dumbo!’

Cursing myself at the lost opportunity, the reassurance was that she certainly did have something for me.

I knew that finally there was someone in this world who loved me.

And two days after she came back from her trip, on my way to the dance classes, I got her message;

I would have said it that day itself, but I wanted to know how it is to be away from you. Not pretty.

I love you too Suraj. And from this moment, I would give everything I can to make this relation work. Please ignore my flaws, and I would, yours, I love you,

The chaotic traffic seemed to have disappeared from the roads.

All the blatant noises, and all the shimmer and gleam of the L.E.D sign boards seemed now to have magically transformed into something tranquil and blur, soothing, and calming every nerve of the body.

And well, she was mine, and since then, we are going on, and going strong.”

“Phew… that’s some story mister! You've got a good one. Don’t let her go.” Zeesha sounded chirpy, and happy for me.