THE PROJECTION

PRADEEP SINGH BHATI

For the readers....
Most of the words written in Italic are Hindi so please try to read them as Hindi
words.
Suggestion are invited about my writing skills.
At last i request you that please try to feel it.
I hope you will enjoy it.

From the beginning of time, there were only two types of writers. According to my
preliminary and personal facts based observations, I may say the first one are those who are
successful in their writing, means the ones whom everybody literally dies to read.
But the second ones, what you call them, depends on you because they have to bag people to
read them. Before being a first type of writer, every writer passes through the second phase.
A great writer once said, “a successful writer is an amateur, who never quitted.”
Unfortunately, unconditionally and unsurprisingly until now I fall into the second category of
writers, though I know there is still a lot left in my life to write.
When I wrote my very first story I literally bagged people to read me. The only thing left out
with this bagging thing, was the use of clear universal bagging formula used worldwide by
each bagger irrespective of his religion, which is nothing but the array of words correctly
arranged as, “allah ke nam pe koi meri story padh lo malik, allah aapka bhala karega”.
Well, this thing is a good indication of communal harmony among the baggers as most of
them use the name of allah.
It never occurred to me in my whole life that my hobby would be writing while I was running
behind more tangible and less time consuming things like music, painting, acting etc.
Until one day, I was sitting in economics class with my friend-cum-neighbour Jaswant Singh.
We were free because of our economics teacher. She was showing us the answer sheets of
our FA 2 and she had some kind psychological dilemma in her mind about the whole process
of showing answer sheets to the students after checking them. She thought that if she will
give us the sheets to carry to our bench, maybe we could correct the mistakes we had done in
the exam. So she was calling every student’s name and let him see his copy in front of her
eyes.
But she didn’t realize one fact that as we were the students of aps, and for us, it was
as impossible as touching the moon while sitting in the class because we are the kind of
samples who cannot even prepare legally for exams then how we were supposed to prepare
for the same syllabus after the exam and cheat.
By the way, since my name starts with the magic letter ‘P’,
Ans she started calling students from last, so I was among the first ones whose copies were
already shown, so “sau baato ki ek bat”, we were getting bored.
Till then, I had quite a name in narrating the worst stories ever existed in the world to my
friends. So they were kind of already irritated from my stories. But still Jaswant always
thinks himself as the brave person so he said, “yar Bhati, ek story suna de yar”.
It was quite a startling thing for me because no one ever, ever asked me this before. For them
it was like hitting their legs by an axe all by themselves.
“really !!!” i exclaimed .
“yeah, why not? I want to know the extent upto which i can tolerate the boredom.”
“ok”i said .
“ but it shouldn’t be on murgas, bakras etc , i want a story with human beings this time”, he
told me his condition .
“whatever, ok listen , a boy falls in love with a girl senior to him..... “ I pause a little.
“now what ? “
“buffering “
“is it youtube ? why is it buffering ? “ he asked.
“yeah its not youtube but its mytube, so girl’s father shows up and asks him to rob some
money , boy says yes. Girl dies trying to help in robbing the money .”
“wait , what ? girl dies ?”
“yeah girl dies, boy kills her father and then kills himself.”
“this is the worst story i ever heard from you, you broke your own record” he said.
“ no, this is the best story i ever made, i m gonna write this” i said.
I told the same story to few more people and each and everyone cursed me for this story for
wasting their precious time like they all had their surname as “Ambani”.
But their curse worked and finally after three weeks i came up with the proposed story and
received great reviews . I was very happy just like the fox would have been if she would be
ever successful in getting to the grapes hanging above from her.
“I want to write more” i said to Jaswant.
“Yeah ? what type of stories you want to write ? “
“Love stories. I like Shahrukh Khan” i said.
“Ask Praveen, he has a good unsuccessful love story, i think that may inspire you”he
advised me.
i took his advise and decided to talk to Praveen about his precious love story.
...............
Praveen was quite an alien type of person , with alien face, alien habits, alien thinking and
alien ways of living. Only thing which wasn’t alien about him, was his accent of
speaking,which was Bihari. He was from Bihar and his room was right in front of my room in
hostel.
When you will enter in his room, you will find woofer , wires , laptop sitting on his bed and
Praveen sleeping on the ground with deep “gareebi”. Near the bed you will find cylindrical
boxes, the same the shopkeepers use to put toffies like stuff , that used to give typical feeling
of entering a shop.
By the way, i knew that he would never tell me his love story so i asked Shubham, as he was
little closer to him than me.
“Praveen and his crush, both are like childhood friends, but since their father are close
friends, so, the girl is going to be engaged to Praveen’s big brother.” Shubham told me.
“wow !!!, i mean so sad” i said getting excited.
“the intrusting fact is Praveen’s brother is final year student of our school”
“really ? “
“yeah and his brother is getting married as soon as the girl completes her studies”
This could be a quite good base for my story, i mean it was full of broken hearts. but i didn’t
know that Praveen was a modified version of broken hearted legend devdas.
..............
Since finally i found, that the story i was going to write, was supposed to be full of emotions,
i took help of “Lord Google” to know how to express the emotions correctly in writing.
It was talking about some research on characters and their feelings. But since my vivid past
with girls never let me realize that, what a girl could possibly think about the horrible but
intrusting situations like this, I needed to do something about that.
Last time when i had crush on someone, due to some alien conditions, i threatened her to
break her teeth. And before that i threw duster full of chalk powder on a girl’s face. so
unfortunately i never got any chance to know their feelings about the smartest and
uncontrollable disease of all , known as Love.
So once again i felt the need of a girlfriend in my life. i decided to spread my arms to search
for a girlfriend.
I usually skip my classes, i mean that is kind of a hobby to me. i just attend enough to keep
my attendance 75% with high level scientific calculation to keep it that way. So on one fully
ultra bright, extra hot day i was walking towards school alone on newly made black “sarkari
Banar” road. I saw a girl looking for something on the road very desperately.
So you know, its a moral duty of a boy to help a alone girl or atleast offer her help.
“you lost something ?” i asked her.
“yeah, my ring” she said in a desperate tone.
“engagement ring ? “ i asked.
“yeah and there lost my mangalsutra , Idiot . where do you people come from ? “she said
angrily pointing in some arbitrary direction.
“hostel” i replied.
“obviously that is a new home for the maniacs like you” she said with some less amount of
anger.
“i am sorry, its just that i’ve been through a lot of marriage stuff lately, so its kind of got
into my head. But i can help, tell me what does it look like ?” i said.
“its circular, just like lord of the rings.”
“then why are you searching at the same place , it may roll to somewhere” i said .
After 15-20 minutes of deep, drastic and thorough Sherlock-holmes-search i finally found
her ring.
“i found it” , i shouted like Archimedes shouted “eureka” after finding the amount of
contamination in golden crown of king.
“thankyou so much , you know, its golden” she said .
“but its colour is silver”
“oh sorry i have quite confusion between golden and silver colour. By the way, thank you so
much for your help” she said.
“only thankyou ?”
“what else do you want ?” she asked.
“you made me skip my class, and i found your silver, golden or whatever ring”
“so ?”
“so least you owe me , is a party .”
“ok” she agreed.
.................
“so, what’s wrong with getting engaged ?” i asked her while having a colddrink on canteen.
“nothing’s wrong its just that i also have been through a lot of marriage stuff recently, what
was it like, for you ?”
“what was what like ?”
“the marriage thing you have been through recently ?” she asked.
“splendid !”
“it wasn’t the same for me” she said being sad.
I asked her nothing about her being said because she was a girl and if she starts telling any
story, i will have to sell my soul to demon to get rid of that and because i had no intention of
being “The Ghostrider”, i would like to decline the generous offer.
“so what else you do apart from slipping classes for girls.” She asked.
“i am sort of a writer” i told her.
“should i dance that i met an early version of Chetan Bhagat?”
“can you ?”
“allright, i would like to read that.” She said.
“ok, turn on your phone’s Bluetooth i can send you right now.”
We transferred the document and then she said
“by the way, my name is Kavya Sharma, 11 commerce” she told.
And it seemed to me that something fall upon my head and i was quite sure that it wasn’t
the sky , but whatever it was, it was heavy enough.
I was shocked because in the story, i sent her, name of the female lead was the same,
Kavya Sharma.
But now i could do nothing and one childhood quote was passing through my heart
“ab pachtaye hot kya jab chidiya chug gai khet”.
“Pradeep Singh 11 hummanties” i said recovering from the shock.
“no problem, by the way, bye Pradeep i need to go now.”
She said and went away, and i started thinking of this as a good sign in my quest of getting a
girlfriend.
................0
When i write, i write the moments which either i lived in past or want to live in the future .
One legendary philosopher once said that our Past and Future are the creators of our
present. I can think of the way past affects but how future does it, is way over my little
head. But it feels alright because after taking admission in engineering, it becomes normal
for you that things are going above your head.
About writing, for me, Its like living in the moment I am writing. Makes me feel the
deepness i can never feel by mere thinking about the subject.
Since in my story the name of the girl was Kavya made me like the Kavya i met newly.
So finally i found a crush to think about. Atleast my dreams have a face now, i thought.
The summary of all these things is, i kind of started to like her.
The same day evening, i was performing my usual Friday evening ritual, search for the new
episode of the epic Love Triangle The Vampire Diaries. While doing so i felt someone’s eyes
Penetrating my neck. I turned around to find the owner of the torturing eyes.
It was Praveen staring at me through distorted-harry-potter glasses.
“Hi Praveen” i said .
“hum tumko mana kiye the, fir kahe peeche pade ho yar tum hamare “ he said in his alien
Bihari accent.
“what happened ?”, i asked him innocently.
“why were you talking to kavya ?” he asked aggressively.
“what does that mean now ?”
“don’t act smart, i know shubham told you everything about me and her”
“wait, what ? she is the same girl you love ?”
“yeah”
“same girl who is going to marry your brother ?”
“yeah”
“but Shubham never told me that she studies in same school.”
“so what ?”
“I didn’t know that she is the same girl you love.” I said.
Is this some kind of joke ? is this happening for real ? or some kind of experiment god is
performing on me about how much surprises i can digest in one day. First the girl’s name
And now her being the same girl that binds alien Praveen from Earth.
I like a girl and the “futi kismat” makes her 3/2 times already reserved.
I found myself at the far side vertex of this Love-cum-engagement polygon.
.................
One very respective teacher of mine once said that if you are copying something from
someone and you get caught, don’t say you copied from him, say you are inspired by him.
Since i know the validity of the statement from the case of Indian constitution which is
inspired from German, Irish and British constitution, i was inspired by Praveen’s love story.
But... i never wanted myself to be a part of it.
So made my immature love for Kavya, commit suscide. Breaking your own heart hurts less
than getting heart broken by some other one. So i decided to leave the crush and let the
concept of writing absolute-reality, go to hell.
But ..... where the word “but” comes, supreme court also get compelled to rethink over its
judgement, to mein kis khet ki muli hu yar.
After a week later, i was advancing myself to the school, i saw her coming from somewhere,
i wanted to steer clear because i didn’t want to break my legs just to put some real girl
emotions in my novel, but i couldn’t, because as a irregular student , it was
rare for me to see a girl. So i went to her and said hi.
“hey, Mr writer, you went invisible. Where were you all the time ?” she asked.
“No where, hey, did you read my story ?” i asked.
“Yeah, that’s why i wanted to meet you. So.”
“so ?”
“you got some time ?”
“for a girl, i am free from the day i born.” I said.
“Actually i think ,you are really a writer, but i got some suggestions for you”
“yeah, i know that it seems unrealistic for a girl to fall for a boy so easily”
“no, i was saying that you lack emotions in your writing and..”
“and ?”
“in the end, you killed both boy and the girl, you should change it because you see, we are
Indians and we believe in happy endings as according to the proverb “Ant bhala to sab
bhala”.”
Well, she was write about the special Indian sentiments.
“the thing is the story is very much close to my heart and i don’t want to make any change
in it, so its good that you gave me a suggestion but....” i said.
She said nothing and started to stare at the nearby dustbin like she desperately wanted to
put me into that.
I wanted to confirm her about what Praveen said , so i asked
“hey, where are you from”
“Bihar”
“but you don’t have any Bihari accent” i asked.
“yeah i know because for years, my family lived in Delhi”
“you are engaged ?”
“not really, only requirement left, is me saying yes.”
“what is your answer ?”
“i don’t want any arranged marriage and follow the traditional sheep pattern”
“what is this “traditional sheep pattern” ?” i asked her.
“you know, one sheep goes to hell, other sheep follows her. I want to fall in love and be
mad, feeling someone special from miles away, just like movies.”
Well I had the same wishes for myself too, and by the way this statement from her was a
evidence that the doors to her heart were still wide open for someone.
................
If you make a sketch of someone in your dream, nothing can make you happy more than the
sketch being alive in front of you. There was something special about kavya that made me
fell attracted towards her like a drunkard gets attracted towards a “daru ka theka”.
Seeing her every day was a drug to me, a drug from which I could never get satisfied.
But one thing which i never liked into her was that she wasn’t mad, she was a highly
matured girl. She was beautiful like a model and her hair were dark black. She had blue
coloured eyes and I wanted authentic permission to look into them for forever.
Praveen
Living in child hood is a dream, a dream that you never appreciate when you are a child but
As soon as you know you wake up, you start to appreciate the vivid beauty of the silvery
dream. I cannot say that it is golden because i already reserved this noun for some other
time.
When in books, some particular area is said remote area, some people can never
understand the idea behind it but i do because the place where i live, is actually a remote
area. We don’t have electricity in our village even though we are only 15 km distant from a
thermal power plant. No transportation and no roads even if a petroleum refinery is just 5
km away from the place. I am quite lucky that i happen to be from a educated and reputed
family of the village. But still it sucks living in a place like that though i had enough
opportunities in my life to get myself to where i am now, APS Jodhpur.
I don’t know if everyone have a childhood crush but it’s good that your dream have a well
recognized face. Her name is Kavya Sharma and her father is a close friend to my father,
She was from our village but her family settled down in delhi due to some business reasons.
When she was going i was sad, with her going i lost a friend. But she promised that she will
return in every summer and she returned every summer. Our families spent almost every
summer together and one day i realized that i was in love with her unconditionally.
But as i realized the special affection of mine, the tradition of meeting her every summer
stopped for me and it’s been 3 years since she came last time at my home.
After passing 10th class and i planned to choose just one
stream which is hummanities, my brother was already studying there. I liked the idea of
getting together with him. And the wish came true and i got myself admitted to humanities in
a school like APS.
And one day I heard the good news that she also got selected in the same school.
During the process one day afternoon i heard something about my brother getting engaged.
“so who is the girl ?” i asked my mother when she was preparing for a small family party
that evening and tell everyone in the family about it, but i saw no point in that special
arrangement because my brother Manthan already knew and obviously same goes for my
father too.
“its a big surprise, we will tell you in the evening” she replied, like it was the top level
intelligence secret.
“but only one left who doesn’t know, is me, then what is the point in hiding from me” i said.
“really?” she exclaimed like she didn’t know.
“yeah because there are only 4 members and 3 of all already know”
“Alright, she is the daughter of Mr Ishwar, Kavya”
“really?” that was a 440 watt shock for my heart.
“but she is still studying and Manthan is also studying in the same school, and I am also
going there.” i added.
“yeah and that’s why both of them are ready for it after they complete their studies.”
I didn’t say anything but i was sad, sad like a Auto-rickshaw driver who has just watch his
client getting into another Auto right in front of his optimistic eyes.
But i couldn’t do anything and besides that i knew that this was only one sided love and i
couldn’t raise my voice in the act of mutiny to my father and family.
But now i wasn’t excited for school because i knew that the dreams were broken and there
was no point in searching for them in school.
So when i first time entered into school i didn’t talk to her. It felt like if i talk to her the
The hidden volcano of my warm love will flow through my heart and i will split all of it onto
Beautiful face of her’s. So i was quiet and my feelings were covered by my heavy heart and i
started hearing songs like “mera jeevan kora kagaz, kora hi rah gya.”
But one day i got to know that she doesn’t want to get married to Manthan.
“then why did she say yes” i asked my brother.
“She never said yes, she said that she will think and...”
“And everyone took it as yes ?”
“not everyone, just our mother”.
“great, that means i myself set my love on fire without confirming it from a well recognized
source” i said.
“what does that mean”
“Nothing” i said and started to dream of having her in my life, again.
................
Competition is the inevitable part of being human, you can’t avoid it. It is one of the basic
principal of life on the amazing blue planet of ours, The Earth. From our birth to death we
face it and somehow, it is a basic nature of human beings. We start to compete as soon as
we learn to walk and the feeling is so strong that we start trying to defeat the person who is
teaching us to walk and sometimes he himself forces it on us. This also applies in love and
the reason behind it is: the high male/female ratio of the incredible India.
So here is the brief description of the reason of my recent obsession with this competition
thing. I love a girl, due to some reason i give up in the past but when again i want to try i find
my neighbour-cum-idiot-cum-mental-cum-writer friend standing right between me and the
sweet girl i love. I want to stop him but it looks like he likes her and he meets her every day,
and i didn’t talk to her in two months even when we are in same school, so it’s like his side of
bowl is much more heavier than my side. But to do something big, that something must
have a start. So one day when she was standing alone in the corridor in school waiting for
god knows who, i approached her,
“Hey kavya” i said.
She turned towards me with some strange expression in her eyes, she continuously stared
at me for some seconds trying to recognize me and then she said, “you?”
“yeah me, i hope you still know me”.
“of course i know you but, but you never talked to me, i said hi once or twice last year but
you never replied”
“yeah i know, i am sorry i was just...”
“angry at me ? but why ?”
“no, no i wasn’t angry at you, i was just shy talking to a girl”
“so, how is it going for you, school, considering you still feel shy talking to girls” she asked.
“School is the best place for me, i mean, it’s going awesome” i replied.
“you are waiting for someone ?” i asked.
“yeah a friend he said he will meet me here i guess he is running late” she said.
He ? who is this he, i became curious and to satisfy this thrust i stopped there with her
talking random. After 1 or two minutes i saw Pradeep coming and i realized that he
was the “he” she was talking about.
“hi Kavya“ he said to kavya staring at me like he wanted to eat me right away.
Then he turned towards me.
“What are you doing here, Praveen” he asked me like i was the walking goat in his own
kingdom.
“oh well, he is my very good friend, by the way it’s good to know that you two know each
other” she said before i could say anything.
“we are neighbours in the hostel” i replied.
But something was weird, when did they exchange phone numbers. It’s been like 2-3
months since they met. He had really taken some great steps towards getting her.
“You two ?” i asked kavya.
“we are just another pair of good friends” she replied.
It was good to know that they were still standing at the step called as we-are-just-goodfriends.
We went to canteen talked about each other and some miraculously boring teachers.
When i was returning i was in a really good mood, means now that i know that i still have
great chance of getting to queen of my loving part of dreams.
Pradeep
People are keeping the incredible mind of Albert Einstein for experimental purpose so that
they can know how a mind can work so efficiently. Well, i have a suggestion for them to test
on another, the mind of a woman. I wonder How can mind of a woman work with so much
complexity that sometimes it seems that there is something there, but other time, it seems
that the deadly important space above a beautiful face is empty. Like it is covered under the
silky, long, black coloured, beautiful hairs for safe keeping.
About Kavya, i was in love with her madly. But she wasn’t, in fact it wasn’t only me who
was
in love with her. But for her, i was a good friend and Praveen was a good friend too then
there arises one basic common question:
Who the hell was her lucky boyfriend ?
After six months of my spontaneous collision with her, still i wasn’t in the state of saying
three magical words to her. But still i was better than Praveen because he was working on
the same gig for like last fifteen years and still he was no ahead of me.
“its enough” he shouted spontaneously while we were both playing our favourite mobile
game “Temple run” on our beloved hostel’s most beautiful place, the terrace over the sixth
floor.
“What is enough?” i asked him in a careless tone.
“i am in love with her for years and still i am just a friend”
“So what, same applies for me also.” I said.
“No we need to do something, one of us must back off”
“What is the guarantee that if one of us backs off, she will go to other one” i said.
“Then what do we do ?”
“Actually it’s not our place to make choices for her, it’s her’s. It’s her choice whom she
want.” I told him.
“so how do we make her to make choice”
“Independently. We both should propose her and give her time to think, i think that will
work. Whoever she doesn’t choose, shall back off without any struggle. You agree?”
“Yeah, i agree” he said moving his head in agreement.
“Ok then here starts the race” i said and shouted, “on your mark, get set and go”.
As soon as i stopped shouting, he ran from there, towards his room.
I didn’t mean this much immediately but guess he was in much more hurry then me to put
his heart on stake.
.................
Do i look like i am experienced in offering a love proposal to a girl? i looked into the mirror.
Hell, no, there was no way i wasn’t nervous right now. But i was searching for a perfect
timing to let her know the amount of love i had in my heart for her.
Since the SA 2 exams of my class 11 , i made a ritual of going to have tea
outside the school campus with my good friend Rajendra. The place is on the side of
the road and the tea is served there in a transparent glass container, the tea tastes real
good. In desi language it is known as thadi. And about our thadi, it was situated near the
temple of lord shanidev, so it was commonly known as the shani mandir thadi.
We used to sit there for almost half hour everyday and used to watch the girls passing, it
was kind of an Eye-tonic for us. When there was no girl passing, we used to look at the
different cars passing the road and try to tell the company name and model name of any car
from some distance.
One day doing the same, i was sitting there. My phone rang. I picked up.
“Hello, Navabsahab” Kavya said from the other side of the network.
“Hi shrideviji” i replied.
“Do you see me ?” she asked.
“what? Are you here ?”
“I am standing right in front of you on the other side of the road, near water-hut”
“Really?” i said and started searching for her at the place she told and there she was.
I stood up and started walking towards her.
“Where are you going now? Look there comes an Audi” Rajendra said to me.
“Right now, i don’t care if even a Lamborghini passes from here.” I replied.
“What happened ? who called you ? is everything allright ?” he almost rained me from his
questions.
“I will tell you later, i am coming in few minutes, stay here” i said and started crossing the
road.
I reached her. She was smiling.
“Hey, what are you doing here ?” i asked her.
“What are you doing here ?” she shot the same question back to me.
“i asked first”
“Alright, one of my friends was going home, i came here to accompany her to the bus stand
But now she is gone and i am alone, i didn’t think of it before that i will have to go back all
the way from here, alone. But then i saw you here” she explained.
“i was just having tea, it’s kind of a habit to me or more of a daily routine, you can say”
“i want tea” she demanded.
“Alright, where ?”
“Here”
“what?” i tried to confirm.
“i want to drink a cup of tea from this place” she said crystal clear.
“Listen girl, this doesn’t work this way”
“oh yeah ? Then how does this work”
“Girls drink juice at juice-shop, and for you i am ready to go with you.”
“And why is that ? If i may want to know in this male dominated country”
“There is no way you can go there” i said.
“Really? Why does only boys go to places like this, why not girls? tell me ?” she said almost
yelling.
“Alright, then ask a woman to open another tea shop right in front of this shop, then i will
never stop you from going there “
“what is the problem in me going to a roadside place like this ?”
“you see the people sitting there ? Some are our school students and some are labours
from every under construction place near from here. If i take you there, every other person
from this group will be staring at you. And you don’t know how much rubbish they talk
about every other girl that passes any close to the place. They will talk the same about you
and i can’t bear that.”
“you do the same ?” she asked.
“No i don’t. I mean i just used to stare but never talked crap. But what is wrong in admiring
beauty, but i stopped that too, right after the day i met you”.
“what?”
“i just stopped staring at any other girls, i just want to see you at every place”
“i know where it is going. Please don’t say any further, please for god’s sake don’t”
“i love you” i said.
And her reaction to this, was completely unexpected.
“how dare you to put me in a situation like this ?” she yelled at me and then she started
walking away from. I was like why did i do that at this time. I mean i waited for a perfect
timing for days, and when i said, the timing was totally inappropriate, like asking a cop to
write the FIR when he is sleeping.
She walked a few metres away and then she stopped and turned her head around to see
me, i understood that this wasn’t a total no to me. She was a little scared walking alone for
almost one and half kilometres in the dark. But when she stared at me i wasn’t in the state
to offer her company.
“Where the hell are your manners?” she asked almost shouting at me.
“what? Can’t I have permission to grieve over my broken heart just for a few minutes?”
“no! I mean I am going alone in the dark, least you can offer to me is to come with me till
the school gate” she said innocently.
“oh yeah ? Alright let me make a call” i said and called my friend Rajendra who would
have drunk almost four cups of tea by now feeling red hot watching me talking to a girl
leaving him all alone in the group of hungry wolves.
“Hello, Rajendra go to hostel, i will meet you there” i said on the phone.
“Where the hell you are going now?” he asked.
“girls hostel”
“Wow! It’s one hell of a opportunity, don’t you think ?”
“Shut up and go home” i said and hung up.
Then i ran towards her, to reduce the distance between me and her.
................
“i am so sorry dear, it’s just that you are not the first one today who said i love you” she said
Being a little bit cool.
“i guess i know who is the other one” i said.
“You do ?”
“Yeah, my neighbour Mr Praveen. Isn’t it ?”
“you both put me in a situation like this, and i don’t know how to decide, how to say no to
anyone. That will break your heart.”
I knew, she was right and maybe she was the first girl ever to think this much clearly on a
situation like this.
i said nothing in reply and we both were walking silently until we reached near her hostel.
“i will call you later.” i said as she was entering her hostel gate.
“Yeah, sure” she said walking away.
I was watching her going, standing still thinking about happy i would have been if she would
have said yes.
Before disappearing, she stopped and turned around and waved her delicately beautiful
hand towards me. i waved back and, she disappeared completely for the night.
...............
Grief is an important part of one’s life. You love someone, she says no and you didn’t grieve
that means you are not in true love for her. So on this occasion of mutual failure, I and
Praveen both were grieving together in my room with a “Mountain dew” in our hands.
“How did you propose?” i asked Praveen.
“i sent her a SMS saying “I Love you”. She called back and i told her my 15 years old
feeling,
she said “moron” and hung up.” he said hanging his mouth 1 metre down from its intended
place.
I almost choked the cold drink and started laughing hard.
“Why are you laughing ?” he asked.
“She is right you know, you are a moron, you proposed her through SMS ? Man, you really
need to learn some manners” i said laughing.
“At least it was better than your idea; it saves you from a hard slap. You could have got hard
on your face if it wasn’t a public place, you know. Idiot, now shut up or i will break your
teeth.” He threatened me.
“i am sorry, she said that we are putting her in a situation, so i think now we should make
her decide forcefully”
“ ....and how exactly we do it ?”
“we ask her to do that” i said.
“But you said forcing her in any way is wrong. It’s her choice and blah blah blah”
“I know what I said but we gave her a chance to do right by her but she didn’t take it. Now,
since everything is fair in love and war, we go for head-to-head war.” I said and called her.
“Hey Kavya, you cannot put us in this situation.” i said to her on phone.
“You know you both are top class mental situation. You are in this situation, all by yourself.
You know what, I am not even responsible for this in any way.” she said.
“Really? Do you have any other one on your list? At least tell us that now before we jump
from the 7th floor of our hostel” i threatened her.
“Hell, no. I mean, i don’t love any other one, but i cannot say no to any one of you on your
face.” Then she stopped saying and said,
“Wait, what? Are you threatening me that you will jump from your window?”
“Yes i am threatening you crystal clear. So about this “no” and “yes” business, i can give you
an opportunity that you won’t directly have to say anything to anyone.”
“And how you are gonna arrange that genius?” she asked.
“Just meet us at Ashok Vatika at 7:00 pm in the evening today” i said and disconnected the
phone line
........................
Have you ever seen a girl being punctual? No? But at that moment i was the eye-witness of
such an impossible miracle that never occurred in the disgraceful history of mankind.
When we reached at our judgement place Ashok Vatika, i saw Kavya waiting for us there
ahead of us. I had two rings in my hand, one was golden and the other one was silver.
Actually they weren’t actually made of gold and silver, they were just prototypes. I mean
just the colour was same as the precious metals. I chose the rings because ring had a very
important role in the inelastic collision of mine with Kavya. Actually it was Praveen’s idea he
said that it was going to change our lives, so it must be something different, but i thought it
was more dramatic than different.
She was standing in front of me, looking extra beautiful in her pure Indian dress. Her hairs
were all open behind her back and were waving slowly with cold and steadily slow air.
And she was constantly removing some bunch air that was coming in front of her eyes due
to the blowing air. All these things were acting as a catalyst in my love to her.
“so you are forcing me to make a decision right now.” she said in a calm voice.
“i guess so.” Praveen replied.
“Do you love any one of us ?” i asked her.
“Yeah, but i don’t want to break the other ones heart. Boys, why don’t you understand?”
“Then for your love’s sake, make a decision, and i promise you whoever you will reject, will
not take it personally, your decision will be final and he will just walk away from here.”
I explained it to her.
“ok, you are right, i can give my love to only one person. I made my decision on the day you
both proposed me. it’s just that i didn’t know how to say yes. So, what is your plan. I guess
that will solve everything.” she said.
“Alright then, i have two rings one golden and the other one is silver. Gold means Praveen
and Silver means me. Go and take your time.” I said.
She took the rings and walked a few metres away from us. I thought it’s gonna take a few
moments, but when after 15 minutes, she was still thinking something, i asked Praveen:
“i thought she said she made her decision already.”
“no, she didn’t she is still thinking. You see this isn’t a normal thing to decide” Praveen said
like a philosopher.
As we were talking, she came to us with her left hand behind her back.
“so, who is the lucky winner” i asked.
She nodded and stood still for a few minutes.
“why are you behaving like the Anchor of a Reality TV show ?” i asked again.
“Would you please shut your mouth ?” Praveen shouted on me.
She slowly started taking out her hand with one finger still hidden, and then she smiled a
little and showed her ring finger to me.
It felt like i started to have colour blindness on me, but when Praveen started walking away,
i realized it was SILVER.
“is this real ?” i asked her.
She nodded and started laughing hard.
My happiness had no bound and i wasn’t in the state to decide what to do next.
“What are you staring at ? Come on now give me a hug” she said smiling.
I have waited for that moment for almost a year. So i couldn’t stop myself from
approximately jumping.
But as i propagated myself to her like sound wave, i felt something was pushing me away. It
felt like it was some kind of repulsive force getting stronger with me getting closer to her.
But there was no one there to push me back, only her and she wasn’t pushing at all. I
neglected the constantly increasing repulsive force and tried to get closer to her but as i
touch her it felt like the force was at its peak and something pushed me away with a sudden
jerk of great magnitude. That sudden jerk was so strong that it threw me away and i found
myself thrown away so hard that i found myself a few metres away from her and as i hit the
ground, i lost all of my senses.
......................
After an hour, I gained my senses, and i found myself sitting on a bench at the same place i
lost my connection to the tangible world around me.
“Are you alright?” she asked in her sweet innocent voice with great amount of love filled in
it. After hearing her voice i almost forgot the travesty i have been through recently. But then
i realized that something strange happened just an hour before.
“no! I mean what the hell was that?” i asked her back.
“i don’t know what happened. I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand? Then who will?” i asked her.
“Why are you asking me ? i don’t know what threw you away.”
I was thinking, what that could be? Whatever that was, i was sure that it was real.
But it wasn’t human, it felt like different. I was thinking of the possibility that could throw
me away without letting me know until the final action. So i asked her,
“are you a vampire ?”
“no”
“a witch ?”
“no”
“a caster ?”
“no”
“some other supernatural power bearing woman ?”
“Hell no ! What are you talking about? i would have known if any of this were happening to
me, alright ?”
“i was just trying to figure out the reason of you being a “magnetic boyfriend repelling
object”.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you love me ?”
“Right now, I am not certain of any other thing.”
“Then try to touch me again”
“Please, i don’t want to be thrown again like a ball.” i said in a requesting mode.
“Try it, who do you think put you on this bench while you were living your wild dreams
sleeping on the ground”
“did you get thrown away on the other side while i was thrown away ?” i asked her.
“no.”
“Then Newton’s 3rd law of motion goes to hell with this incident”
“Shut up and give me a hug, we will figure out this thing later.”
I was afraid now, so i wanted to be careful. I slowly advanced myself towards her and was
prepared for any sudden jerk.
“come on now, don’t be afraid” she said again.
And as i give her a hard hug all fear of mine got away.
“then what happened before ?” i asked.
“how would i know ?” she said.
After that, we talked about a lot of things leaving the recent supernatural incident. And with
her talking to me i forgot about that and i got lost in the pure and innocent beauty of hers.
It was like first meeting of mine with her all over again.
...................
Loving someone is a responsibility, a responsibility that you are always willing to take no
matter how big it is. You start thinking of her every moment of your life and if she is into
some kind of problem, it takes away your sleep hours from you. After being chosen by her, I
kind of felt responsible for her all the time and she was one step ahead of me in all this
caring-for-each-other process. I used to sleep at night thinking of meeting her in the
morning and in the morning I used to be more than excited to see her. So on one wonderful
morning I got to the school before half hour the starting of classes so that I can get a few
minutes with her.
She was sitting on a bench with her hair all messed up staring at the ground like she wanted
to dig a 60 feet deep hole on a ground with her bare eyes, though in fact she knew that the
song, that says about shooting bullets through eyes of a girl, is just bullock. I couldn’t see
her face.
“hey, according to your hairs, you really look like a bhootni today. What is your secret
behind looking this much amount of ugly today?” I asked.
She did say nothing but stared at me and as I saw her face, I really got scared. she had dark
circles around her eyes and the circles were so dark that I hardly could recognize her.
“wow ! you look nice” I asked.
“this isn’t a joke. I couldn’t get a minute sleep during last night”
“what happened ?”
“dreams”
“dreams ?”
“yeah, bad dreams. Every time I close my eyes and I get bad dreams that makes me open
my eyes as soon as possible”
“really ? what kind of dreams ? “
“like I am killing you”
“then you don’t have to be panic about it, you will kill me if you will make such jokes again”
“you think I am joking ? you don’t know how much real it felt, it felt like its actually
happening around me, it was so real for a dream”
“shut up, is this a new trick of chicks to make their boyfriend panic ?”
“how many things are not a joke for you ? can you make a count ?”she asked angrily.
“alright I believe you, then what, its just a situation. try to get some day time sleep that will
definitely make you feel better.”
I advised her about the finest thing I had in my life. It was with me since I was studying in
Primary school. For me, I used to sleep from 2:00 pm everyday till 6:30 in the evening.
But on her, my “ramban ilaj” didn’t work. So people started asking me weird questions
about this strange, spontaneous and sudden appearance of dark circles around her eyes.
One of the famous drunkards of our class Yashpal Rana once asked me while I was coming
from school,
“hey, what is wrong with your girlfriend ?” he asked.
“I don’t know I am also worried about the same.”
“did you hit her on her eyes ?”
“what ? hell, no, Man, I will never hurt her.” I said.
“it looks like that, but as I am your friend if you need any help on this “Adam teasing”, I am
there for you. ok.”
“what is that ?”
“hmmm when boy tease a girl its Eve-teasing so its opposite of that. If she blackmails you, or
harasses you mentally, these kind of situations. Actually I am gonna start a special helpline
for boyfriends like you who look like they are regretting the relationship”
“I am not regretting the relationship, actually she is having bad dreams that don’t let her
sleep during nights. Same dream of killing me, every night.”
“get her a beer bottle, she will definitely sleep with its first peg, if she isn’t a drunkard like
me already.” He advised.
Wow ! that actually seemed like a good idea. It could really help her. if she is out of range
for any kind of mental activity, she will not be able to go into dreams.
So I bought a costly beer bottle from Yashpal Rana on 300 rupees monthly instalment, as he
had a month’s stock already on him.
“I think I have a solution for your sleep.” I told her while sitting on a bench in school with
her face covered under a cloth completely, having little eyeholes like Spiderman’s mask.
“really? this time it better work because I am already sick of your sleeping ideas.” she said.
I picked out the beer bottle from my backpack and showed her.
“no way I am gonna drink this shit.” she said.
“no one asked for your permission, you will drink it or I am gonna start drinking mango
shake again.” I warned.
“I banned you from mango because that brings pimples on face.”
“yeah ? and this will remove this darkness from your eyes”
I convinced her hard to try the new out-of-the-league solution and it really worked, she was
able to get sleep during nights with one peg every night for three days. In three days, she
was back to shining and beautiful Kavya Sharma, again. With that, the arrogance of being a
beautiful girl was back too.
.....................
Sometimes it seems to me that students have some kind of royal right on stairs. they like
sitting there blocking the way through the stairs. For some people like Kungfu Panda, its an
enemy but for us, stairs are the favourite sitting place during our free time.
So on one auspicious time i was sitting on the stairs near my class thinking some ideas for
my creative writing. I didn’t recognise when she came and stood in front of me.
“o hello, Navab what are you thinking so desperately that you didn’t notice me?” she asked.
“you don’t have any ability to think doesn’t mean i cannot think too, you know how much i
sacrificed for this writing thing ?” i replied.
“really? let’s hear it.” she said carelessly.
“i stopped watching movies, so that i can have my own genuine ideas during writing.” i said.
“then who went to watch Ironman 3 bunking last Saturday class.” she asked.
“Make an exception. But it’s called closing your mind for opening it in a specific direction.”
“Yeah i got it so that you can right sad and bad endings and kill both hero and heroine in the
end.”
“i already told you i will never change my ending of my story.” i said
“alright whatever. Look, here is your sleeping tonic.” she said putting an empty bottle in my
backpack.
“try to respect this, if it weren’t for this, you would still be the ugliest girl in APS.”
“really? it just made me sleep, never took the dreams away i didn’t use it more than for
more than six days.” she said carelessly.
“with one glass every night, it couldn’t be empty in six nights”
“oh i tried to take some daytime sleep too”
“means you became drunkard.”
“at least Praveen will not break your teeth now for hitting me on eyes.”
“if that would have happened, your teeth would also have been get broken by me as
“collateral damage” and in that case, it would have been real.” I said.
“i will kill you if you will ever threaten me like this again.” she said threatening me .
“oh yeah ? it seems like already you have been practicing this all along in your dreams. Let
me help you on this.”
i said and typed “how to kill my boyfriend” on Google and pressed “search” in my mobile
phone, as joke.
..................
Google is like god nowadays, if you will even ask anything random like this, it will give
search
results for that too.
First result was about some song titled as “kill my boyfriend” the second one was “top 10
ways to kill my boyfriend” and some of the suggestions were like “how to kill boyfriend and
get away with it” and “how to kill my boyfriend and get caught”. The last search result on
the page was “news about killing boyfriend”.
I randomly clicked on that specific result it was about an Incident took place in may 2011
And then there were some suggestions for the same type of incidents. And when I read all
of them one by one I got something like a 440 watt in my head which is commonly known as
shock.
“why are you searching deeply ? I don’t think you have any boyfriend you want to kill” she
said.
“I don’t. But I have a girlfriend who can kill me any time soon” I said reading the last result
among the “similar searches”.
“I was joking, you are like a magical parrot for me, if you die I will die too.” she said.
“stop joking, you are like a time bomb, you know. and you are going to explode very soon”
“wow! you look serious. What happened? What did you just read?” she shot me with two or
three guns simultaneously with questions in it.
“you need to tell me exactly what you see in your dreams”
“didn’t I tell you ?”
“nope! you just said that you saw dreams of killing me. i need a detailed version of the story
this time.”
She took a deep breath like she was going to narrate the whole mahabharat to me in one
breath. Then she gave me a hard look and then after being silent for a few seconds she said,
“ a room with full amount of brightness filled in it. The walls, the floor, the gate everything is
white. There was no source of light in the room but still it was too much bright. I was alone
in their primarily but suddenly you appear from nowhere. I stare at you and then I put a
knife in your heart and you don’t even try to stop me. I think “why am I not stopping?”
But still I don’t stop and put the knife in your heart. I see you bleeding and my senses fade
and I wake up with lot of sweat on my face.”
“yeah, sweating is like compulsory, when you wake up from a bad dream. They show the
same in the movies too. By the way what is worst for you, the dream or sweat on the face,
after the dream.” I asked.
“sweat on the face ? what do you think ? Are you a universally certified idiot?” she said
hitting me on my shoulder.
“I am a genious. I cannot stop myself from joking in every serious thing. You know it’s in
my basic nature. I can’t help it. If I don’t do this it’s like I am a breaking a basic protocol of
being a genious.”
“it means whatever crap you read now, is serious”
“No, it’s not just serious, it’s damn serious.”
“Then tell me exactly what you read?”
“Alright listen, this incident took place in beijing, china in may 2011, a girl named “chao-
xing
chang” killed her boyfriend by a knife in his heart...”
“so what, how this is related to me”
“Would you let me speak ?”
“ok”
“this isn’t the only incident. There are five other incidents like this worldwide; all of them
include putting a knife into a man’s heart. The first incident took place in 1972 in Russia,
Second one was in 1979 in Russia, 1987 china, 1999 in Nepal, 2002 in Hyderabad ,India.
Three of them say that they didn’t do it, they just dreamt of killing but don’t remember
doing this in real and other three don’t even talk about the incident. Now we have another
mental situation like this in Army Pubic School,Jodhpur.”
“do you really think I am gonna kill you ? none of my dreams ever came true, I dreamt of
being a supergirl, never happened. That is a proof of it.”
“oh don’t start with that. I thought you said the dreams felt like very real.”
“every dream feel like real until you wake up. Idiot!” she almost shouted on me.
“look, I don’t know what is it but it is serious and we can’t ignore it. So I need you to please
help me figure this out.” I said trying to convince her In a calm voice.
“I already figured this out.” She said.
“that means you already know something about this. Isn’t it”
“no ! that means we need to break up because if I don’t have a boyfriend, then whom I will
kill. That is a full proof solution with no side effects.” she said picking up her things.
“you can’t do that. I mean running away is never a solution. I am telling you, we will figure
this out. You can’t go.”
“don’t tell me what I can or what I can’t do, ok. Now you need to attend your class, you
have short attendance and all that is just because of me. I am like a bug in your life. You
really need to throw me away or I am gonna kill you.”
She said this almost being in tears and ran away from there. I couldn’t go behind her
because I really needed to attend the class due to my short attendance. But what happened
in that class, I don’t remember any word of it. I was thinking about her. Was she really going
to breakup with me ? the thought itself was very much panic and could take my sleep away.
And since I was still paying the instalment to Yashpal Rana for the last beer bottle, if dark
spots appear on my eyes this time, clearly I won’t be able to cure it by any out-of-theleague
idea this time. Clearly, all of this was a mess. Wasn’t it?
....................
I have three ideal persons in my life. The first one is related to my profession, Ex-President
of Indian republic and The Missile man Dr. A P J Abul Kalam Azad. Second one Is related to
my hobby, the wizard of Hindi literature Premchand. And when it comes to the complex
science of relationships, my big brother is an ideal to me. he never said this particular
sentence I am about to write, but it kind of got obvious after all these years:
“if someone is angry with you and if you are not the reason for that, you don’t need to try to
convince him. and by being angry with you, he or she is harming himself and he will
definitely comeback if he or she truly cares about you.”
Still for my dear love Kavya, i gave her some concession from my morals. I tried to meet her
like 10 times in last five days and called her triple times the same. But it seems like she was
wearing some kind of “invisibility cloak” to be seen by me and about the phone calls, maybe
she got successful in developing some kind of “Anti Pradeep” shield through the
application of absolute electromagnetism that was facilitating her to successfully ignore all
of my calls even if it causes her phone like ringing all the time.
I was trying to figure out the best reason among the above calculated possibilities suddenly
as I looked up, I found a giant figure staring at me.
“what is the problem between you two ?” Praveen asked me.
“nothing she is just upset from me for god knows what reason” I replied.
“did you hit her ?”
“hell, no ! what makes you think like that ?”
“her eyes”
“did you meet her ?”
“yeah I asked but she didn’t tell me anything, she said to ask you”
“but I don’t have anything to tell you. it is her who isn’t answering my calls”
“whatever this is you better solve it or I am gonna break your teeth” he threatened me.
“listen, buddy. Break it ok. You don’t need to pretend anything. Just do it alright. I am done
with your threatening statements. If you care so much about her then why don’t you go and
solve her problems, we will see then who is successful enough.” I said being hyper.
“this is not a best friend matter, this is a boyfriend matter. And she chose you not me. so
this is your responsibility. You better hurry up in solving your problems or I will have to
interfere in your business” he said the statement like United Nations Organizations is
warning India and Pakistan to stop the Kargil war immediately.
But ideas aren’t available on trees just like money. You need to find them. Isn’t it?
Now, should I search on Google “how to make an angry girlfriend happy?”.
Never mind. it is just a stupid idea and before every great idea there comes a stream of
stupid ideas just like before every Sunday, there comes six days of infinite torture.
.....................
On the generation I belong to, movies has a huge amount of influence. We are inspired by
them in every possible way. For example Munna bhai MBBS inspired people to cheat in
exams by putting a small microphone in the ear. I followed the same pattern in a different
way. i found an idea to solve my problem from legendary character for engineers, our very
own Mr Ranchoddas Shayamaldas Chanchad AKA Rancho sir. The act I am inspired from is
about getting into any other class for knowledge. But there are a few differences and
similarties between him and me. he Never used to study and I don’t too but he was still able
to secure good marks and I am quite unsuccessful in this field. And one more thing, I was
going into another class for a girl, not for knowledge.
So to be clear I decided to attend an important class of commerce branch. but I needed help
in getting to the nearest distance from her in class. So I took the help of my dear best friend
Sagar Bissa fortunately a classmate of miss Kavya sharma. About Sagar, he is a short guy
with very little sense of humour. I mean he cannot make fun of anyone but no one is
capable enough to make fun of him. In my hostel I have quite a name in creating humour on
every other person but how are you suppose to make fun of a person who replies to every
comment on him with following words:
“kya, kya matlab ?”
Like he doesn’t understand languages anymore.
By the way he is still a very good friend of mine. When I asked him for his help, he said,
“do you want to hit her again ?” he asked.
“how many times I will have to explain that I will never hurt her.” I replied.
“then why she is angry from you right before dark spots appear on her eyes again.”
“this isn’t a joke bro. Help me or I am gonna burry you in front of Mehrangarh Fort” I said.
“kya, kya matlab ?”
“never mind, just get me as much near as you can so that I can talk to her.” I said.
Sagar did a wonderful job and in next hour I was sitting right next to the drama queen I
loved. For 15 minutes she didn’t even notice that I was sitting next to her and staring at her
continuously. She has developed the dark spots on her eyes again and I could see from her
face that she didn’t get an hour sleep in last five days. Suddenly she looked into my side and
my inverted image got formed on her Retina through the application of refraction through
her convex eye lens.
“what are you doing here ?” she asked in exclamation.
“just attending the class, why does it concern you.” I asked carelessly.
“so you don’t want me to get good grades ?”
“what about my grades, huh ? or you don’t care because you have already ruined them.”
Sometimes I think some teachers like to throw students out of the class. I think it serves
dual purpose for both students and teachers. For students, they get a chance to escape
from the bombarding of unimaginable concepts and for teachers; it creates a threatening
impression of them in front of whole class.
“you two, get out of the class right now. and you boy, I never seen you in this class before.
Where do you live?” he asked me directly.
“sir I am sorry, I never attended this class before. I have short attendance.”
“then you don’t need to come now, I will give you an attendance back, go now. Don’t waste
my time and get out.” he said being a strict teacher.
I wanted to thank him but in that case there might be a chance of revelation of my true
identity.
“so, your face seems like you were enjoying without me.” I asked.
“if you want to suicide, do it yourself, why I go to jail for you.” she said almost shouting.
“but who says I want to die alone.”
“let me go dear, some day you will get another one better than me, let me go.” she said
crying.
“I don’t believe you.”
“its none of my concern” she said and started walking away.
“alright go, just go. But when you go don’t even try to look back. You are going because you
are afraid of puncturing my heart but you know what, one way or another you are doing it.
your dream came true. You are puncturing my heart, but not by a knife. Its called silent
killing and girls do it all the time with boys like me. This way you can easily get away with
killing someone. And apart from that, A week before, I was the one in the hostel teasing
almost everyone but now, now almost every person is teasing me . the people I used to
comment on, are commenting on me and I don’t have a reply for them. You are going but
not alone you are taking my Dignity and Respect with you. without them, I am a walking
dead. You feel it or not but I am mad in your love with you. listen I love you and I cant let
anything happen to you. if you are not safe, I feel like I Am into the danger zone.please
come back ! please.”
“wow ! nice speech.” She turned around and said. she started walking towards me.
I was little surprised by this much change in her expression but considering we still need to
write thirty million pages on women psychology, my expressions of surprise were limited.
“yeah, I sort of prepared that but..”
“really ?” she cut me in between the sentence and while moving towards me.
“but.....”
She came too close to me and stopped. she gave a gentle push to me and as a result, I found
myself sitting on a stair behind me. then she bended almost right angle towards me with her
eyes at a very little elevation to my eyes. I was staring at her in the whole process. She was
so close to me that I could feel her breath on my nose. Oh god, she was so beautiful from
this close. I forgot everything at the moment like I wanted to live the moment with zero
distraction.
“but what ?” she said whispering.
“but ... hmmm there is still a statement left from the speech that I wanted to tell you”
“and what is that” she said again whispering and her head almost touched my head.
Can you define adrenaline rush ? what is the source ? Sudden raise in heart beat ?
Feeling someone you love so close. Can you imagine how wonderful it feels ?
She was closing to me very slowly, I hesitated a little. She asked me again.
“what did you forgot to say” she asked in a soft voice.
“i changed the climax of my story for you but still you are going away from me” I replied.
“but now, I am not going. Am I ?” she said whispering from a millimetre distance from my
ears.
“no”
“then you don’t have to say that last statement. Do you ?”
“no” I was replying every question of her like I was an obedient child lost in the eyes of an
invariably beautiful witch completely and unable to find a way out of them even if I want to.
“damn it! I want to die for you.” I said.
“me too” she said holding my head into her hands.
“but this time, its my turn. So don’t you try to snatch it from me and I found something that
may help us.”
“on Google ?”
“yeah”
“what is it ?” she asked sitting beside of me.
“I told you one incident took place in India, right ? so actually the incident took place in
Rajasthan. The case was heard in Rajasthan high court and the girl was given life sentence.
After 6 years completion of her sentence, she was released on presidential pardon for her
good behaviour on 2008’s Independence day. She never went back to her home. Because
she was an alone woman, she was given the job of teaching geography on her qualification
basis, on the recommendation of the President of India to live a quality life.”
“where did you find that ?”
“I was easy, I found her name by searching again with the phrase “how to kill my boyfriend”
And then I typed her name on Google which told me that her information were made open
on the day she was released, by government of India. So I got her current address too. But it
took me almost 6-7 hours to get all that kind of information.” I said.
“so what now ?”
“just kill me and then pretend to be a good person, spend six years in jail and then get the
same privileges like her and who knows she might be a good friend to you.”
“not so funny” she said.
“then what do you expect ?”
“you have the address we go and meet her maybe she knows something that can help us.”
“yeah I know, idiots always understand a little late” I said.
“I want someone to come with us and you must not mind it. We might need support.” she
said.
“in Kota, I can find as much support as you need. I have plenty of friends there apart from
our school students. So you don’t need to worry about that. Alright”
“I want someone that I can believe.” she said.
While we were talking, we almost forgot that we were still sitting outside the class we were
thrown out from. Soon the class ended and the teacher came out of the class. While passing
from our front, he was continuously staring at me and maybe he decided to fail me in that
subject. But he didn’t know one thing, how can you throw a Blue Whale out of the well if it
doesn’t even live in the well. Just like that, I wasn’t a student of the commerce branch.
“like you already decided the name then at least tell me” I said.
“Praveen” she said.
I already guessed the name; I knew what she was talking about.
“okay, as your wish. We will leave tomorrow evening. Be ready.” I said and standing up and
started walking away from her down the stairs. I could feel her staring at me but I didn’t
turn around and move away while she was still standing at the same place.
KAVYA
If a girl leaves a boy standing alone, it is quite obvious, but when a boy does the same,
seems like some serious matter is going on with him. He left me alone sitting and made me
feel that I did something wrong wishing for Praveen to come with me. but how you solve
conflicts like that, I don’t know. When there are two girls and one boy, girls express their
conflicts with one another out loud that may sometimes result into a catfight. But males
keep their feeling buried into their heart like they are keeping it safe like they are getting
some kind of compound interest rate on that.
I met him the other day, he was all ready like he was going to start a journey to the end of
the world.
“why did you leave like that yesterday ?”I asked him.
“just I didn’t like your face the other day.” he said.
“is that so ?”
“Yes ma’m.”
“you won’t tell me. would you ?” I asked.
“no”
“but you will write another story on the basis of this feeling alone. Isn’t it?”
“that is entirely my business. You keep out of it. Ok.”
“if you make my business yours then vice versa must hold true.” we were fighting like a
parrot couple and Praveen reached the starting point of the Jodhpur-Kota marathon, and
since we were already there, he came and said,
“what are you people waiting for, lets go”
“looks like we were waiting for you because you are the one who is late” Pradeep said.
“sorry” he replied.
“by the way shame one you Praveen, you took more time than a girl.” Pradeep said.
“alright whatever lets go now. ok !” I stopped the fight before my writer boyfriend could
start a “war” with Praveen.
....................
Have you travelled through a train having a local ticket? I like it very much. Meeting a new
face in every new hour, that is kind of exciting. Sometimes talking to them can give you
extra knowledge about country and world. Sometimes when I meet people like that, I feel
like all the philosopher are travelling through this same train simultaneously. In my special
case I was travelling with an ambitious writer and the second one was like a closed
container and currently no such technology is available in the world to open that up.
Whenever I get into a train, first of all I try to get some sleep. So as usual I was following the
tradition of getting a little nap and by the side of me a person with Chetan Bhagat complex
was sitting and Praveen was sitting right in front of me. I was sleeping and my hairs were
almost open all over my face. When I closed my eyes, I tried to hold his hand, because
holding his hand makes me feel relieved of all my anxieties.
I haven’t slept in like a week. I see horrible dreams whenever I try to close my eyes and the
most important thing was, my boyfriend was angry from me for god knows what reason.
So does it feel wrong that I try to hold the hand, who makes me feel relieved and was
almost ready to die for me.
But he was being totally rude and rather than holding back he gave my hand a jerk to
through it away.
“what are you doing ?” he asked.
“are you blind. I am trying to hold your hand. Would you let me hold it ?”
“no”
“why ?”
“i don’t know.” He replied.
“go to hell” I said and closed my eyes again.
A few minutes later a hand came over my face trying to remove the hairs, i smiled a little.
“hey what are you doing” Praveen asked him.
“let him do whatever he is doing. It took him months to find this much amount of courage.
You disturb him, i will have to wait another thirty years for this opportunity.”
“I am sorry, I just she looked beautiful when her hairs were flying all over her face. I couldn’t
stop myself.” he replied.
“and what happened before when I tried to touch your hand” I asked him.
“the restriction applies to you not to me. I can touch you” he said.
“konse desh ka kanoon h ye ?” I asked.
“shutup” he said and now this time he closed his eyes.
Well since I had some complications in sleeping, I was like awake for 5 hours, while both of
them were sleeping like they were the ones who couldn’t sleep for the week.
Around 5:30 in the morning, we reached our destination.
“where do we go now ?” I asked.
“I called my friend, he is coming” Pradeep said.
“why did you called him ? we don’t need anyone” I said.
“yeah I know that, you are Jhansi ki rani but I am no one so I need him. Alright”
He replied.
I rolled my eyes over him and looked at Praveen to find his reaction, we transferred smiles
but he said nothing. He always do like that. Whenever you want him to speak, he applies
stitches to his own mouth.
While I was thinking about the specifications in the those two available samples in front of
me, the writer was hugging a guy.
“he is my friend Laxman Roy, we studied together from class 2nd to class 9th. He is now
studying here in Allen.” he introduced his friend.
He was a tall and thin guy. It felt to me that if you hand a guitar to him, his personality says
he should sit at the terrace of his hostel singing “give me some sunshine give me some rain,
give me another chance I wanna grow up once again.” I think now you exactly know about
his looks.
They met each other like they separated from each other in some big mela.
They talked to each other for almost half hour being apart from us like they were talking
about some confidential matter. But still, it was still night so I could hear them.
“so this is your girlfriend, huh ?” Laxman asked.
“yeah” Pradeep replied.?
“who hit her on the eyes ?” Laxman asked.
“no one. She didn’t sleep for a week.”
“or you hit her on the eyes and now you are looking for a way to hide it”
“do I look like that ?”
“no. But she isn’t much beautiful. May be if her eyes weren’t black, she could be beautiful.”
You know what is most torturing for a girl ? the answer is Ignorance. Girls cannot bear that
someone is ignoring her. I still tolerated for almost 30 minutes but now the big and heavy
balloon of patience broke.
“I heard that.” I interfered and added, “and one more thing I don’t want to be standing here
all day better your friend takes us somewhere to relax.”
Both of them nodded and Laxman took all four of us in his room.
......................
8:00 AM in the morning we reached in front of girl’s senior secondary school, vigyan nagar,
Kota , Rajasthan.
“is anyone of us is an ex-student of this school ? because in that way it would be a lot easy
for us to find Miss Sofia Roberts.” I asked.
“when was the last time you checked that your mind is correctly placed in your brain. This is
a all-girl school. And you are the only girl among us and you are the one who is asking.”
Laxman
said.
“what is your problem with me ?” I asked him.
“I am sorry, I just get hyper whenever I meet ugly girls like you.” he replied.
“she is just temporarily ugly, she will recover.” Praveen said.
“I think we should go inside.” The significant words came out from the writer’s tongue.
We all agreed but as we tried to get in the watch man stopped us.
“what ? why can’t we go inside.” Praveen asked.
“boys aren’t allowed only she can go inside” watchman said pointing at me.
“but she will be all alone atleast one of us should be allowed to go with her” Pradeep said.
“don’t worry. This is an all-girl school no one will harm her.” Watchman said.
“alright I will go alone. But atleast tell me where can I find Miss sofia roberts.” I asked the
watchman.
“there isn’t any Sofia Roberts here but one Sofia Verma is here, she changed her last name
and now she use the last name of a boy people say she killed him.” he replied.
“what do you think ?” I asked.
“she cannot kill anyone, she is very nice to everyone” he said.
“then tell me where she is.” I asked.
“school starts at 7:30. She is inside somewhere” he replied.
I entered inside the gate and asked a girl standing, about her whereabouts.
“she is in the staffroom” she replied.
“where is the staffroom ?” I asked.
“you see the room I am pointing at, the room behind that, is staff room.” she said.
I went into the room she sent me. I still remember how a school’s staff room looks like. A
small room filled with chairs all around a big table.
There was just one woman sitting in the room. She looked like she was almost 30 in age.
“may I help you ?” she asked as I entered through the door.
“yeah I want to meet miss sofia verma.” I replied.
“yeah that is me.”
“may I sit here” I said pointing for a chair.
“so ?” she asked.
“actually madam my name is Kavya Sharma. I am from Jodhpur. I want to ask you something
about your past, If you don’t mind.” I asked hesitating.
“if you are a law school student and want to prepare a report on me, I am sorry I cant help
you”
“no ma’m I am an senior secondary student. It all started three months ago. For the first time
when my boyfriend tried to come close to me he was thrown away in the air and then from
that day I see some weird dream every time I close my eyes. you know what kind of dreams
I am talking about. you experienced the same. The thing is I love him so much and since this
happened like six times before me, we are more than worried. we would be greatful if you
could help us in any way.” I said.
“listen Kavya, it isn’t easy for me to remember all that again. It was like a bad dream to me.”
“but please, do you want the same things happen to me ?” I said.
“you seem like a good girl. I don’t remember killing the person I loved the most in my life,
but still the worlds says I did it. I don’t want any other life to be lost, we were engaged and
as soon as we were engaged same things happened to me too. and about the dreams, they
never stopped. it all activates with engagement but I don’t know what is it.”
“but we are not engaged” I said.
“choosing a ring from two rings and then wearing one of it on your ring finger may be a joke
for you, but it is not a joke for whatever this is.” She said.
“and what is this ?”
“I don’t know what it is. Now if you will excuse me I have a class. Children must be waiting
for me. if you need anything, you can come to me, I will try whatever I can do.” she said and
then walked out of the room.
I sat there still for almost fifteen minutes thinking about what I could do next. I didn’t had
any idea where to go now. how to deal with this. Sofia was my only hope about getting
some help. I felt like everything was black in front of me. I was in a room with no gate for
exit. It felt like I am gonna loose all the good things in my life. I see his face in front of my
eyes, the way he stare at me with pure love in his eyes. the way happiness comes on his face
when we meet. It feels like an end to everything. For the last time i was having temptation
to put my head on his shoulder and sleep.
My thinking process broke as my phone started ringing and I realized I should go outside
where three vigorously curious people were waiting for me.
As I put my leg outside the school gate all three of them came running to me like I came out
from a viva.
Pradeep: what happened.
Praveen: did you find her ?
Laxman: I knew she cant do anything alone.
“you shut up” I said to Laxman.
And then I told them everything that happened inside line-by-line with every statement.
“what took you so long?” Praveen asked.
“did you tell her about our “ring drama”.” Pradeep asked.
“no” I replied.
“then how does she know about that because I don’t even remember updating a status like
“yupppeeee..... I got a girlfriend” on facebook.” he said.
“I don’t know that. How do you expect me to know everything.” I said almost shouting.
“that is the thing, we don’t expect you to know everything but now I expect miss Sofia to
know atleast something and she is not telling us. She is hiding something and we need to
meet her again but not here, at her home.” Pradeep said being suspicious.
“how do we find her address.” Praveen asked.
I saw Laxman Roy staring at me.
“what do you want ?” I asked him.
“ask the watchman, he knows. say him that you couldn’t find here and you want to meet
her urgently than ask him to tell you where she lives. And by your face he will know that
there is really an e0mergency.” Laxman said.
Sometimes its easy to get something from anyone if you are a girl. The voice itself works as
magic. I asked the watchmen very politely and he gave me sofia’s address very easily.
..................
After a full day of doing almost nothing, in the evening we reached the specified address.
“ring the bell.” Pradeep ordered.
“I wont do it.” Laxman said.
“then why you both standing in the front, let me do it” Praveen said.
“let Kavya ring the bell, the one who is inside, knows her.” Laxman said.
“no I will not let her go first.” Pradeep said like a dinosaur was going to open the door and
will
eat me alive right at the moment the door will be opened.
Well, if you go and talk like this on someone’s door, he or she will open the door even if you
do not have any intention to ring the doorbell.
“may I help you ?” sofia opened the gate and asked the lazy people covering the door for
me.
“actually it is me.” I said, feeling the necessity of mine coming in the front.
“who are they ?” she asked me.
“they are my friends, he is Praveen, he is Pradeep and he is.... he is no one” I said introducing
everyone except Laxman.
“actually I am not no one, my name is Laxman.” he introduced himself.
“wait for a moment” she said and went inside.
“lets go inside.” Praveen said.
“but she didn’t invite us in.” I said.
“we are not Vampires, we don’t need invitation to enter someone’s house.” Pradeep said
entering the door.
We entered the house, we saw her coming from the front room.
“why did you come inside ?” she asked.
“we know you are not telling us something.” I asked.
“what are you talking about, I am trying to help you here.” She said.
“I knew mere asking someone never works.” Laxman said and took a fast action and pushed
her for a nearby chair and when she was sitting on that chair, he said,
“tell us everything truthfully if you don’t want half of the Allen Classes’students,
Kota here in next half hour.”
“or if I can kill you all in 15 minutes.” She said and touched Laxman by her right hand and in
the next moment he was flying for the wall behind him.
“she is a witch.” Praveen shouted.
“so what ? you want to burn me alive ?” she said standing up from the chair.
“it means you are the one who is doing all that, and you also killed your lover.” I said almost
shouting on her.
“what, what did you just said ?” she said advancing towards me aggressively.
“hey listen, stop it, why are you doing it.” Pradeep said coming in between me and her.
“I am doing nothing, believe me.” she said.
“did you left any reason to believe in you, you threw my best friend away and you lied to my
girlfriend and you look like some sort of witch. How can we believe you ?”
“believe me I am a friend you have no other way. If you two don’t want to ruin yourself,
believe me. you are going to deal with much bigger than this.” She replied.
“tell us everything” Laxman said standing up.
“alright, but we need to sit.” she said.
...................
Pradeep
I don’t believe in dying for love. Death isn’t a solution, if you are dying for the one you love,
you are only solving your side of the problem. By dying you are giving an eternal sadness to
the one you love. Stand up and try to solve the problem is the way to deal with severely
serious problem in your life. That is the way life works. Running away is the act of a coward .
That is what I believe.
Logic says it isn’t even possible to construct a room with no gate. Every problem has a
solution, path may vary but everything that starts, needs an end.
Well, it is always full of excitement that you are sitting around a round table listening to
some sort of mystery. So when sofia asked us to sit, I felt excited.
“you know what, I was just a normal girl like her with heavy dreams in my eyes” sofia said.
“but you don’t seem like that” Laxman said.
“listen, I came here with my boyfriend Rakesh verma in 2002, he used to work in Hyderabad
in an investment firm. We fall in love there and then we came here to meet his parents. We
were almost ready to get married but still for the last time he wanted to ask his parents. His
parents agreed. Just like you we exchanged rings in front of his parents, but just after that
same things started to happen to me. I don’t even remember what happened in some few
minutes. But Rakesh was dead.”
“but you are not normal now. are you ?” Kavya said.
“whatever happened that day, left some pieces of supernatural power in me”
“that means it is supernatural, then how we believe that you are not the real threat”
“you know, you read on the internet, three girls said they had dreams of doing it, but three
says nothing. The first three says nothing but when they came to know that it is a series,
they decided to warn the next ones through dreams for future threats. They communicated
throw their powers and got united to stop this.” She said.
“wow! What a horrible way to “warn” someone” Laxman said.
Sofia stared at him for a moment, then she said, “ that is why I used the word warnings not
advice, idiot.”
“so you make me look like ugly just to warn me for some stupid future threat” kavya said.
“yeah”
“what were you warning me about ?” kavya asked.
“It all started in 1472. The world was never united, from the beginning of time, wars were
inevitable. There was still east and west side of the worlds long before we know. In the 13th
century, a very big war was going on between witches and wizards of east and west. They
were all fighting for a same thing, complete control over the world of magic. The west side
was very much powerful than the east side. So the magical people of east created a very use
powerful spell that bonded the seven great wizards to each other. The spell made each one
of them enormously powerful also since they were connected, any one could use power of
others any time. But the spell wanted a sacrifice from each one of them, sacrifice of
someone they loved the most. All of them knew nothing but the hunger of power and they
completed the circle of seven. The spell worked and they successfully defeated West. But
there was still one problem, with the death of one of them, the bond between them broke.”
Sofia said.
“how does this relate to our problem ?” Praveen asked.
“this is happening again, someone wants to complete the circle again. Six sacrifices are
already done. The seventh and may be the last one is to be me.” I said.
“yeah, and whoever is doing this, he knows that this time it won’t happen willingly. So he is
using some sort of magic to force us to make the sacrifice. And when seven of us will be
under the spell may be he want to control us to get something.” Sofia said.
“why is 7 ?” Laxman asked.
“In India, seven is considered as very powerful number to bind people together. That is why
in our country, it is considered that 7 rounds around fire will bind two people together for
eternity. The process is commonly known as marriage ceremony. That is why the spell uses
seven people and binds them together.” Sofia told.
“but that doesn’t happen. Does it ?”
“it doesn’t happen because people who are getting marries don’t believe in it. That is the
basic part of magic, you must have faith in it.”
“why women for this time.” Kavya asked.
“maybe someone thinks that women are easily controllable.” Sofia said.
“or...may be because he knows that women have no self control.” Laxman said.
“can you shut up for a minute ?” kavya shouted on him.
“why would I ? we just saw sofia, she used her super power on me with no reason at all. She
doesn’t even know how to control herself.” Laxman replied.
“maybe he is correct.”
“how did you know about our “ring drama”. You said it activated with the engagement”
kavya asked.
“it is because we are connected. The sacrifice happens 3 months after the act of
engagement. We were searching for the next victim to warn but we never found you but as
soon as the ring went into your finger, we got your address.” Sofia replied.
“connected ? how ?”
“if you want to go into deep, the thing that differentiates human to a witch or wizard, is our
different DNA structure. Normal human DNA has 46 chromosomes, which are completely
responsible for their texture and behaviour. Same things happen to us, but there is a little
bit of difference. You can call it a natural genetic mutation, but we have a 47th chromosome
which is completely responsible for our powers over physics and it isn’t something that is
transferrable from father to son. It is very rare, one in billions. So it makes it possible that if
father is a wizard, the son may be or may not be and vice versa is also true.” Sofia said.
“I thought only a magician’s son can be a magician.” Laxman said.
“it isn’t Indian national congress that you will get to be a top level leader just because your
ancestors had a lot of money to fund India’s independence moment and one of them was
able to steal a great surname, even if you don’t deserve that surname now.” sofia said.
“wow ! great political views” I said.
“what about our problem ? when is all this going to happen ?” Kavya asked sofia.
“tonight.” She said so calmly like we were going to have a party tonight and because she is a
widow, she doesn’t have anything to do with this.
“tonight ?” I jumped from wherever I was sitting.
“and still we don’t know who is doing this ?” Kavya said.
“we tried to track him but he is so powerful. He always gets successful in getting away from
our visions.” Sofia said.
“we ?”
“I am not alone, other five are coming here in no time.” Sofia said.
“if you want to help us, then why did you lie to me at first.” Kavya asked.
“I couldn’t tell you all that in the school ? I wanted you to come home and by the way, We
have a plan to stop him. You just hope it works.” Sofia said.
“so what do we do ? should I die ?” I said.
“are you out of your mind ? let me kill myself, everything will be over.” Kavya said.
“if there is an option, I would want to die in place of my best friend.” Laxman said.
Everybody was staring at him like he said something out of the world.
“listen you all, we were friends since we knew the meaning of school. That gives me an
option. If by any chance Pradeep can be replaced by me, do it.” Laxman added.
“what ? hell, no ! where is this coming from ?” I asked him.
“just a minute, 10 minutes before, you hated me and now you want to die for me ?” Kavya
said.
“I still hate you, I am doing it for him, because he is stupid enough to love you.” Laxman
said.
“I don’t understand. What is your problem with me ?”
“I just don’t like girls anymore. They are selfish”
“anymore ?”
“my girlfriend dumped me 2 days ago.”
“alright would you two shut up now, we have a bigger issue than hating each other.” I said.
Praveen was silent for few minutes, he didn’t say anything in the meantime we were
talking. So when his hand moved a little, I thought he was gonna say something. But the
slight movement changed into a terribly fast action, and before I could stop him, the silver
coloured ring in Kavya’s ring finger was changed into golden coloured ring.
......................
Kavya
“what did you do ?” I shouted on Praveen in anger.
“watch it Bhati, your girlfriend is blind now, I told you loving her, is a mistake.” Laxman
said,.
“shut up !” I said to Laxman.
“why did you do that ?” I asked him again.
“I replaced him with me. sofia said, you will have to sacrifice someone you love. I replaced
him with me. this ring, I always kept it with me hoping one day I will get a chance to give it
to you myself. I couldn’t think of any better timing than this.” He said in a calm voice.
“but I don’t love you, I love him. and what if it will work ? You will die. Why would you die
for me ? I don’t even love you.” I didn’t understand why I was crying, but I was. No reason
but still I was crying.
“but I love you. I would do anything for you. I loved you from last 15 years. Doesn’t matter
that I am not lucky enough to get my love back.” He said.
“listen kavya, one thing I believe about love, it has no limits. It always gets projected to new
levels. His got projected to you and mine will be projected to eternity. I won, no matter
what you say, I will always be the winner. If this works.” He said.
“it means someone will definitely die tonight ?” Laxman asked.
“not necessarily. It will happen around 7 hours after the full moon tonight. that Means
around 1:00 AM, you cant run away from each other today. The spell is powerful enough to
make you stand together around 12. So better we try to fight this. We will try to make sure
that she doesn’t lost her senses under some magic. But if we aren’t successful she will have
to find a will to stop herself.” Sofia said.
“how will she do that ?” Pradeep asked, I could sense tension in his eyes.
“Love has power over everything. You will have to hold her hand and try to remind her of
your unlimited love for her. She will find herself even if she is hypnotized under some spell.”
Sofia said.
“oh yeah ? so now everything depends on the fact that devdas loves paro or not.” Laxman
said.
“you would want to go outside.” Sofia said.
“why ?”
“because they are coming”
“who ?”
“the other five left in the circle.”
She said and we saw something like lightning strikes in the room. The whole room was filled
of blue light with something like electricity sparks at some places. A few seconds later the
room came to its original state, and we saw six women standing at different parts of the
room.
I thought they were gonna come and introduce themselves one by one but beside that, one
red haired one from them came forward and said, “we cant do a protecting spell here, we
need a large water reservoir.”
“then we need to go near the river.” Sofia replied.
“which river ? Chambal ?” Praveen asked.
“no, Amazon, Idiot. Which is the nearest ?.” the red haired one shouted at him.
“but why ?” I asked looking at sofia.
“because water is one of the five basic elements. If we need to do a powerful spell, we need
a place open to every element. Four are here but the fifth one is water.” Sofia replied.
“alright but how we get there because its like 11:30 already.” Pradeep said.
“don’t worry.” Sofia said and rotated both of her hands in the air for a few times and I found
a great amount of light in front of my eyes. I couldn’t see anything in front of my eyes
because of the light. Then I heard sofia saying, “it is done, we are here.”
I opened my eyes slowly and I found us all in an open ground at the bank of calmly flowing
river.
“wow ! can you teach me that. I have problem in walking from hostel to school.” Pradeep
said.
“when did you start talking nonsense ?” I asked him.
“when you started getting mad.” He replied.
“I was mad since I was born” I said.
“then I am nonsense from since yours birthday.” He said.
“really ?”
“yeah whatever you say, I love you, isn’t that nonsense ?” he said.
“who is your favourite actor ?” I asked.
“Imran Hashmi.”
“hmmm the serial kisser. So what now, you want to kiss me ?”
“nope ! I don’t kiss “recycle bins”.” He said looking into my eyes and when he was looking
in
my eyes, it didn’t hurt that he just called me a garbage bin. Like nothing was wrong in the
night, everything was alright.
................
“alright, stop it you two. I know you love each other but I want her attention at least for
today only. I may be a dead man in the morning. So can I have a minute with you Kavya ?”
Praveen asked me.
We walked a little far from everyone while the witches were busy talking to each other on
the ground.
“what do you want to say ?” I asked.
“why are you angry at me ?” he asked.
“because of what you did. You are selfish.” I said.
“selfish ?”
“you think it is a race ? you just want to die because you want to prove that you are better
than him. You want me to feel that I made a mistake that I chose him. I thought you were
different, but you are just another one in the line. I made a mistake letting you come, I
should have listened to him, for he have been there for me every time i needed him.” I
replied.
“what is problem with you. I am about to die so that you two can live happily ever after and
here you are, making me feel that I have done wrong ?” he said.
“alright children, enough talking now, come here.” Sofia shouted from distance.
“you are the only one who has nothing to do this, why don’t you go home ?” she said to
Laxman.
“home was nearer from where we were before, now I don’t even know which side I need to
go. So I will stay here to watch the horror show.” He replied.
“okay, good evening to you all. We have a plan but we don’t know what will happen. we will
try our best to keep you safe. But still you will have to be careful because we don’t know
what could be the possible outcome.” Sofia’s red haired friend said loudly.
“what does that mean ?” I asked.
“it means The bus Driver is not responsible for any kind of accident.” Pradeep said.
I saw the time, it was almost 12:20 and nothing was happening. So I asked sofia,
“are you sure it is going to happen today ?”
“I am sure.”
“but nothing Is happening.”
“oh yeah ? then why the sudden clouds in the sky.” She said pointing towards the sky.
A minute before, there were no clouds in the sky but now, dense clouds were all over the
sky. At a specific place the clouds were denser. In a little time I saw the place was glowing. It
took the shape of a spiral and then a huge lightning ray came out from the centre of the
spiral. It was very long like a bright zig-zag pillar from earth to the sky. The lightning stroke
happened at a few metres away from us. The place where the lightning stroke, became full
of white fumes and when the fumes were diffused, we found a structure standing in front of
us.
It walked a few steps nearer to us and we saw a tall man standing in front of us. He was
wearing a black suite and was quite young like 30 years old at most. He was a fair and
handsome kind of man.
“hello, my dear beautiful faces !” he said loudly.
“who are you ?” Laxman asked.
“comes from the unsignificant one. You know what I hate most in the world ? introducing
myself to someone. I want that everybody recognize me by my face and I never need to
introduce myself to anyone. Oh, I want it so desperately.” He said looking his left like he was
thinking something.
“who are you ?” this time the red haired woman asked.
“you forgot me, Diana, You too ? I am the one who made you kill your husband 30 years
ago. But its not your mistake. Is it ? i made you forget everything and you don’t know how
much sorry I feel for that. So believe me that is why I came here today to remind you all
about me.” he said.
“if that is so than why don’t you introduce yourself ?” Praveen said.
“how can I deny the may-be-last-wish of a may-be-dying man. I am THE GREAT WIZARD
OF
ALL TIME, THE ONE AND ONLY, MENON. I am one of the first seven wizards bonded
together. you know what makes me better than my other six friends, they had pity human
dreams like live your hundred years and die like a normal human. They didn’t understand
we had so much power we could be the emperors of the world but they died, but I had
bigger dreams, which made me to live alive all these years.” He said.
“it means you are almost 700 years old.” I asked.
“you see that is the beauty of magic. I am thousand years old but I look like I am 20 years
old.” He said.
“40.” Pradeep said.
“excuse me ?”
“don’t flatter yourself, you don’t look like 20, you look like 40 years old.” Pradeep replied.
“lets just ask your girlfriend, what does she think. Kavya ?” Menon asked me.
“30.” I replied.
“see ? your thoughts don’t even match. So you should kill him.” He said to me.
“bad joke.” I replied.
“alright Q&A time. Ask me anything I don’t want to kill you all without clearing your
doubts.” He said and then he sat in the air putting his right leg over his left leg and made
himself comfortable like there was an invisible chair for him.
“why the three months period after engagement ?” Praveen asked.
“actually this isn’t mandatory, I just gave you people time so that you could spend some
quality time with each other before dying. You see, I have a heart too. Also it increases the
value of sacrifice if the relationship lives this much long in current Era.” He replied.
“why are you doing it now, I mean you could do it anytime, why now ?” I asked.
“good question. The spell can only be done after 500 years from the date it was done
before. I just did it in between 1972-2013 because minimum age limit is 20 and since the
DNA sequence we need is very rare. I did a lot of hard work in finding you all.” He replied.
“any more questions or should telling you something myself ?” he asked loudly.
“when the spell will complete, the power will be ours, what is in it for you ?”sofia asked.
“aaha, the golden question. Actually it is called the projection of a spell. Some spells can be
projected from one person to other. This is one of those rare spell. It took me 100 years to
figure out how to project the powers you are going to receive but when I knew, I found that
It is very simple. All I need to do is, After the spell will complete, I will have to kill you all.
Generally when a wizard dies, his powers get lost in the nature. But when a witch dies her
powers goes to the nearest similar person. since you all will be witches and I am the only
person apart from you who is eligible for these powers, I will be the one who will receive
them when you all will die and this time, it will be for eternity. I will be the king of the
world.”
He said smiling.
“OK, NOW SHOWTIME.” Menon said and took out an old knife from his coat’s pocket.
PRADEEP
“Hold this my dear.” He said to Kavya.
“why would I ?” she said.
“this not a request, this is an order. I said HOLD IT.” He said rubbing his teeth in a sinister
way and her hands were moving to hold the knife.
The knife was quite old with some old signs on it. You can say the first one who used that
knife was may be a closed relative of Baba Aadam.
It looked like she didn’t had any control over her own hands like they were listening to some
crazy, thousand year old, power hungry, monster like wizard.
“why my hands are not listening to me.” she asked me with a worried face.
I didnt know the answer so I looked at sofia to aske her, the reply was, “I don’t know.”
“but you said you had a plan to stop it or you are waiting for me to die.” I asked her.
“yes she is.” Menon interfered.
“don’t listen to him he will get you manipulated.” Sofia spoke almost shouting.
“oh yeah ? all I am doing is telling you the truth, if anyone lied to you, it Is her.” Menon said
pointing at sofia.
“he is lying.’ Sofia said.
“ask her again about that special plan of her’s.” Menon said again.
“what is your plan ?” I asked sofia.
“let me tell you.” menon said , “she is waiting for the spell to complete and she thinks that
when the spell will complete she will have enough power to kill me. isn’t it sofia ?”
I stared at both of them, then my eyes got concentrated on sofia’s answer to this specific
question. She made an eye contact to me and understood the question in my eyes,
“then what we are supposed to do ? He is too powerful, we cannot stop him. The only
power we can have, is the power of the spell.” She said yelling at me.
“so you were just using us all the night ?” Kavya shouted being panic.
“alright enough talking. Now Kavya kill whoever you want to kill from both of them.”
Menon
said Kavya.
“hey Kavya, listen. You don’t have to listen to him, alright. I love you and i am here, that is
all that matters right now. try to resist him, I know you can do it. You wanted to hold my
hand, I am holding yours. Common, I know you can control yourself. You don’t have to kill
anyone.” I said in a voice filled with love.
She looked into my eyes asking for help. It felt like she was fighting with her own hands.
“alright , its enough. Listen lovebird, you still doesn’t know the truth. You think your love for
her is real. Like she chose you over the other boyfriend she could have. I still think how
dumb you are. You ask the girl to choose between a golden and silver ring when you already
know that the girl cannot differentiate between golden and silver colour. She told you that
when she met you for the very first time. Didn’t she ?” menon asked me.
“so what ?”
“so...... I am going to tell you what actually happened that day, ok. Why would she choose
you over a person whom she loved since they were child ? she wanted to choose the golden
ring but because she had this colour differentiation problem, she picked up silver. Praveen
didn’t stop for the explanation, so she couldn’t say anything. So I suggest you to step away
and let her kill Praveen. I promise you when I will get what I want, I will spare you.” he said.
“I don’t believe you. you are just manipulating me.” I said.
“oh yeah ? then ask your love all by yourself.”
“is he telling truth ?” I asked Kavya.
“what ? you are listening to him now. ?” she said.
“no, I want you to deny it on his face .”
“tell him the truth Kavya.” Menon said.
“he is right.” Kavya murmured.
“excuse me ?”
“he is right. I wanted to choose Praveen but when I chose the wrong ring, I saw your face.
You were so happy and you looked so cute to me and I didn’t want that happiness to be
disappeared from your face. So I thought, I will tell you the truth later but I didn’t get the
chance because after that, I actually started to love you.” She said.
“see ? now leave her hand and let them die. Live a happy life.” Menon said getting excited.
.................
I didn’t pay any attention to him and was continuously staring at Kavya. Suddenly it felt like
I was alone there. All this time, all my happiness was nothing but a stupid misunderstanding.
Why would she choose me over a guy who loved her all his lifetime? why didn’t I asked this
question to myself before ? it felt to me like I was the stupidest living creature, alive. I
stared at Laxman to find the i-told-you-so look into his eyes but he wasn’t exactly in that
mood
right now. I saw sympathy in his eyes. I didn’t have courage to look into any other one’s
eyes. so I fixed my eyesight again on Kavya.
“hey, listen to me.”
“why would I ? all this time, you were using me ? why didn’t you tell me this before ? you
know what, I was dreamimg all these days and now I feel like my eyes are burning like they
are opened for first time.”
“listen that was before, now I really love you. Believe me.” she said.
“should I ?”
“why do you think you are eligible for sacrifice ? because I really love you, idiot. Atleast
think
about it.” She said having tears in her eyes.
“she does have a point. Man, look into her eyes. she really loves you.” Laxman said.
I looked into her eyes and I saw only tears. I thought, why a girl of this era would cry for me,
if she is not in love with me.
“really ?” I asked.
“do you want a written proof for that ?”
“did you sign a contract with me ?” I said.
suddenly I saw her knife carrying hand moving towards me very fast and before I could take
any action I heard voice of something getting penetrated by it. But it wasn’t my heart, I saw
Praveen in between me and the knife, while Menon was busy in murmuring something.
I was like startled. One of my friend was about to die ? I was sad but the previous sadness
was much more heavy than this one.
Menon opened his eyes and shouted at a Chinese girl, “ what did you do ? you stupid girl.”
................
I was a little bit surprised by the appearance of sudden anger in his voice. Why is he angry ?
Kavya loved Praveen, and she killed him. Sacrifice should be complete, then why menon is
not happy.
“she love the guy standing here, not the one who is dying. I could sense it in her eyes so the
sacrifice isn’t complete for you. I couldn’t stop the knife but I could change the position of a
guy. And now, you will get nothing out of it.” The Chinese girl replied.
“you made me kill my friend ?” Kavya shouted with anger at the chinese girl.
“yeah, otherwise you would have killed the person you love more than anything.” She
replied.
Kavya said nothing but kneel down on her knees putting his head on almost died Praveen’s
head and started to cry.
The situation was quite complicated for me. but still I couldn’t stop myself from helping her
deal with the situation.
“hey, listen everything is gonna be fine.” I said lifting her throw her shoulders.
“damn it idiot! You think he is gonna be alive again ? how dare you bluffing me.” she said
hitting me on my chest.
“I am trying to help. If you don’t want it, go to hell.” I said angrily.
“I want your help. I know you can.” She said crying.
“I can do a lot of stuff but the question is, why would I do that. You are not even my
girlfriend anymore.” I replied.
I looked at Menon, he seemed quite upset. But suddenly his face looked like it was gaining
some light on it.
“that is the beauty of love triangles, you may have the right results even if you have done
the wrong sacrifice.” He said shouting.
“what do you mean ? I am sad because my friend died, you should be sad too. You were like
waiting for this for 500 years and still you got human thumb as result. Why you seem like
happy ?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer for few seconds but then I saw Kavya starting getting brighter like she had
some embedded LED in her body. I turn around to take a look of the surrounding. I saw the
bodies of other six witches were glowing too.
“the spell is complete.” Sofia said.
...................
“Congratulations to all of you for being very powerful but I am so sorry that It wont last
long. You see, I need to kill all of you. so first of all I am gonna kill humans here. So
alphabetically Praveen is dead, now it should be Pradeep.” He said and than he looked at me
and asked,
“are you ready to die my friend ?”
“no he isn’t.” Kavya interfered before I could even think of a rocking reply to the simple
question asked above.
“so you are gonna fight. Huuh ?” he asked her.
“she is not alone.” The other six said in unison.
................
I was quite experiencing a new harry potter and deathly hallows part 2 taking place around
me. from the side I was standing, seven bright waveforms were going away from the bare
hands of seven unconditionally beautiful women. Their faces looked more fare because of
the brightness. And yes I could admire their beauty because right now, I was not committed
to anyone which means technically, I was single at that time.
But in competition to them there was one single bluish colour waveform much brighter and
powerful from those seven. I could clearly see he was very much powerful than them.
“we should try to help.” I said.
“ok, but which side we are on ?” Laxman asked.
“what ?”
“I mean since you officially broke up with your girlfriend, so the question arises is which side
we are on now, seven sister’s side or the mean and mighty monster wizard side ?”
“she doesn’t love me, doesn’t mean I don’t love her. I don’t want her dead.” I replied.
“ then look for a parrot.” Laxman said.
“what are you talking about. we are in the middle of a crisis and you want me to look for
parrot.” I replied.
“he is a big wizard. Didn’t you read the old stories? big magician keep themselves connected
to a parrot and if you kill the parrot the evil wizard dies.” He said.
“can you stop using your mind ?” I asked him.
“yeah sure.” He nodded.
“then shut it down for god’s sake.” I said.
“alright, I was just trying to help.” He replied
“how do we help them ?”
The question was serious, the seven powerful witches weren’t able to touch him then how
we were supposed to do something about it. As we asked this question, Sofia put her hands
down and turned around at us.
“the knife.” She said.
“what knife ?”
“the knife which is in the chest your friend, he can only be killed by this right in his heart.”
She said.
“okay but how do we get near him. He won’t let me do that easily.” I asked.
“that was the plan actually. My friends are keeping him distracted but still he has a magical
barrier around him. This knife is very old and sacred. It is able to cross any type of magical
barrier. I will help you get near him, you just put it in his heart.” She told.
“but how do I know the exact position of the heart, I mean what if I miss a little ?” I asked.
“then he will never give us another chance to do that.” She said.
“I will do it.” Laxman said.
“you sure ?” I said.
“yeah.”
“alright go ahead. I will try to get you as much near as I can.” Sofia said.
As he started to move and took one step towards menon, and he moved his hand and Laxman
stopped right there.
“what happened.”I asked.
“my legs are jammed. I can’t move.” Laxman replied.
“alright. Now that makes two of us.” Sofia said.
I stared at her.
“what ? he didn’t even gave me time to do something.” She replied.
“you better do something this time.” I said.
................
I positioned myself like I was going to have a race against Flying Sikh Milkha singh.
I looked around. Menon was busy against the witches. I saw Kavya staring at me .
“what ?” I asked her.
“don’t die.” She said.
“how does it concern you.” I said.
“would you stop acting like a moron.” She said.
“I cant. You should concentrate on the other side right now.” I said.
I prepared myself again for the run. Sofia started murmuring something and I started
walking towards Menon. First few steps were easy but then I started to feel repulsive force
against me. I got successful on getting nearer to Menon but as I was ready to put the knife
through his heart he made his one hand free and hold my elbow very hard.
I tried hard to free my hand but it was like I was not even able to move it a little.
“you think I am an easy kill ? I am the wizard who survived 10 centuries and I don’t think
some school student can kill me.” he said in arrogance.
“but I think you are wrong. Right now, both of your hands are busy. But I have a free hand.”
I said and loosen the grip on the knife. As it started falling down, I caught the knife by my
other hand and put its sharp edge very quickly in his stomach. He shouted in pain and as a
result my other hand also got free. I took the knife out of his stomach. But he was wounded
and so suddenly the witches side got strong on him and he suddenly all of his senses got
concentrated on them. It was a good chance for me. I stood up and hold his neck in my left
hand and pushed the knife hard into his heart. He shouted much more hard than before.
He sat down staring at me and holding his chest. He was dead in next ten seconds.
As he became dead all of his brightness went away. The dead body looked like a very old
man died of hunger.
“all of his beauty, was just because of magic. This is him for real.” Sofia said.
“but didn’t he had a plan ? where did he want wrong ?” Laxman asked. He could walk now.
“he simply underestimated the power of Jodhpuriyans.” I said looking at him.
We shared a little laugh but then I saw Praveen dead in front of me. my heart got filled with
deep sorrow.
................
I sat down on a nearby rock to grieve while kavya sat down beside his dead body.
All other people also sat down around the place.
I was looking at Kavya sitting a few metres away from me.
“she loves you. you know.” Sofia said coming near to me.
“I don’t think so. I was a mistake for her. I am nothing but A constant reminder of her colour
blindness.” I replied.
“what if I give you five reasons that she loves you.” she said.
“ok”
“alright. The first one, until now, she said thousand times that she love you.”
Second, why she became panic when you were upset from her due to her decision of
bringing Praveen here.
Third one, her knife carrying hands moved towards you. that clearly indicates that you were
the first choice of Menon as a sacrifice. Why would he think like that even though he knew
that you got chosen by a mistake.
fourth, I can see love for you in her eyes.” she said.
“and the fifth one ?” I asked.
“why would she ban you from drinking mango juice not Praveen, even though he had more
pimples on his face than you.” sofia said.
I smiled a little.
“I have a doubt.” I said.
“an idiot will always be an idiot. Ask.” She said.
“you all got the powers, that means she was also in love with Praveen.” I said.
“Love has its types. All types of love performs one basic function of binding people together
with a very powerful bond, probably the strongest of all other bonds. That is why, the spell
wants a sacrifice. One such powerful bond breaks and binds seven other people with
enormous amount of energy. The bond between mother and child, is also love. the thing
between brothers, that is also one other kind of love. The friendship works also in a way
similar to it. Praveen and Kavya were friends since they were children. For once, Kavya
misunderstood this friendship as love but then she fall in love with you and that helped her
understand the difference. that is why she never told you about this. She thanked god for
whatever happened that day.” Sofia’s words filled my mind with some light.
I stood up and walked few metres to Kavya. I sat near to her. She hold my hand and then
she looked up at me and asked, “may I ?”
“I am all yours.” I replied. Suddenly her hand moved and slapped hard on my face.
“that was for being a stupid moron.” She said before I could ask her.
“we can do something about it. Right ?” she looked up and asked sofia
“what are you talking about.” I asked.
“his soul hasn’t gone much far yet. Its still on its way to the permanent disappearance from
the earth. We can make him alive again.” She replied.
“yeah but it is against the rules of nature therefore in doing so, we all will lose our newly
found powers.” Sofia replied.
“but it will save a life.” I said.
“its not the choice of yours alone, you need to ask all of them to be ready to sacrifice their
powers.” Sofia said.
“alright lets have a vote. All in favour, raise your hand.” I said.
Only three hands were up including Kavya and Sofia. I genuinely felt a desperate need of
giving a hardcore speech dipped in the unlimited sea full of emotions.
“listen you all, i know it is hard to give up something so easily for someone you barely know.
But think about these powers, I think they are cursed. Remember how did you get them ?
you got them by killing someone you loved more than yourself. If I would be you, for me, it
would be the constant reminder of their death by my hand. Why would you like to keep
something like that forever. Besides that, in the pursuit of getting these powers, you all
killed someone, this is the chance for redemption, to use them for life apart from
destruction. Let them serve the true purpose of life. Think about his family, their indefinite
amount of grief when we will be justifying his death to them in a false way. No one will ever
know that he died for us. You know, who is bigger ? the one who kills or the one who saves.
Choice is all yours. What you want to be ? so I am gonna ask for your vote again.
All in favour please raise your hand.” I said and raised my hand just to create some effect
though I knew my vote wouldn’t even matter.
For a few seconds everybody of them was standing still, thinking something. Then one by
one, hands started to rise. I counted there were only six. We still needed one more vote, I
looked around for that specific witch, and I saw Kavya looking down on the ground. I was
surprised. I grabbed her through her shoulder and pushed with a force of little magnitude in
SI units and asked, “hello, bhootni aunty, what happened ?”
“oh sorry, I was thinking something else.” She said like I woke her up from sleep and then
raised her hand in hurry.
“alright now do the witchy thing.” I said.
...............
“alright everyone, close your eyes. you all just need to concentrate on me, I will do the rest.”
The oldest one said.
A few seconds later, a sphere of light came out of each one of them and got united to make
a big sphere. Then it directly went into dead Praveen’s chest.
“we are done.” Sofia said.
Few minutes later Praveen opened his eyes in a surprise mode.
“what happened ?” he asked.
“long story. We will tell you later.” I said.
“alright how will you go from here ?” I asked Sofia’s friends.
“don’t worry, some traces are still there but they will disappear shortly. we have left enough
power to take us back. Also we can send you wherever you want to go until next few
minutes.” One of them replied.
“Jodhpur.” Kavya said.
“let me go to my room too, I am tired.” Laxman said.
As he finished talking a very bright light filled in my eyes again and in no time we were
standing in front of our school.
“so ? whom you love this time.” Praveen asked Kavya.
“give me two rings again.” She replied.
“no way I am doing that again.” He said.
“can we leave this for tomorrow ?” she said.
“alright.” I said and we parted out ways to our hostel.
...............
Next day, I woke up with a fear. Fear of losing someone, for whom I was ready to die.
I wanted to give her a call but before I could do that, I received a call from her.
“hey, good morning.” She said. Her voice sounded fresh.
“looks like someone got a good night sleep.” I said.
“yeah meet me near my hostel in 20 minutes.” She said and disconnected.
In my life I never got ready for class in mere 20 minutes. Generally when the class is at 8
AM, I see the time. If it is more than 7:15, I leave the class. But when a beautiful, girl calls
you, your speed gets enhanced 10 times the original.
I reached for the place specified. She was already waiting for me there.
“I love you.” she said as I got near her.
“are you sure for this time ?” I asked.
“yeah, right now I am not sure of anything else.” She said.
“you stole my dialogue.”
“really. I misunderstood friendship for love for some time, but then you made me feel the
difference.”
“you will tell him or I will ?”
“I will tell him myself.” She said.
After a long time, I could see into her eyes clearly. Her beautiful eyes, I never wanted to
look out of them.
“you forgot.” She said.
“what ?”
“saying, I love you too.”
“oh sorry. I love you too.” I said.
I didn’t realize we were getting closer to each other. Distance between us was decreasing.
But I was busy looking at her face and I didn’t want to look at any other thing.
I knew that now I got an authentic permission to look into her eyes for forever.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE............__