Kanpur-Gandhinagar-Bangalore-Calcutta

He was lying on the road, blood oozing out of his punctured body. His mother had told him that people turn into stars after death and shine in our lives forever. He turned around in great pain to see the night sky, trying to figure out a place for him.

It was a lonely road when a speeding vehicle had hit him and ran away. He knew nobody would be coming to save him. He was thankful to God for these uninterrupted last few minutes in this world, as even if somebody comes to save him, that person would be just interrupting his precious time in a futile attempt to save him.

He was smiling. Smiling after a long long time. He tried to think of the last time when he was all alone. A tear dripped from his eye. For the first time in his life, he could admire how beautiful the stars were, how cool the air was and how good it felt to lie down in mud. On his deathbed, he felt like a child- no concerns about the world or future or ego. Images flashed in his mind. What had he achieved in his life? A regular job, an unhappy wife, disappointed parents and a huge bank balance. That's it? This is what he had lived for? He had made the banks and boss happy and his family unhappy. If he had a second chance, he would try to reverse the things. But this was what he thought whole life. He thought he'll do this in future and today, future ceased to exist.

He remembered his mom waking him up for his breakfast, dad running around to make an earning out of his mediocre shop- just to educate him. In return, when he grew up, he ignored their needs. He remembered his wife, who supported him in the lowest periods of his life. When whole world laughed at him, she was there to ease his pains. He missed her. He wished if she could be there to ease that pain too, albeit for the last time. And when he tasted success, he didn't make an effort to bring that beautiful smile on her face. He got too caught up with keeping his impression in minds of others, his company, his boss, his colleagues at office, his friends from college. He was so busy in wearing a mask, a different mask for different person, that he never got time to be his true self and to give happiness to people who were his life.

He thought of dinner today when his wife had told him that she was pregnant with a child. She was so excited, dreaming of having dinner with their daughter, sending her to school and so on. He had dismissed it as saying what was the big deal. That caused his wife to cry and he left her for a night walk figuring out how to finalize the marketing strategy of their new product. It was a big deal! He so wished to buy that blue frock he saw in the hypermarket today, he so wished to bring her a bridal doll, he so wished to see her daughter sleep in his lap or cut a chocolate cake for her birthday. Wishes, he realized were useless.

His breath became heavy. The stars started getting blurred. He wished he could say a Thank You to his parents. He wished he could say I love you once more to his wife, this time truly from heart.

He limbered to scribble the words on mud-

"Name her Princess"

Faced with eternal boredom and loneliness in these holidays, I'm spending my time by distorting facial features of random people. *Sigh* Holidays are so much fun!! :)

This is one of my masterpieces (I don't know who the person is!) As they say - "Empty mind is the Devil's workshop"





Oh! btw Happy New Year 2010...

"Coming for dinner?", Abhijeet asked.
I calculated my options- had skipped lunch for a movie and was damn hungry., But then image of mess food flashed in my mind and scared me. Both options were bad.
"Abe soch kya raha hai? Ph.D karega ispe? Chal raha hai?", Abhijeet said while lighting his cigarette. I wondered if it's better to have a smoke and watch few more episodes of friends. A virtual battle between my stomach and mind started and in the end I decided to die from food poisoning rather than from hunger.

"Haan chal aata hoon. Dinner se pehle bhi sutta?" I muttered.
"Abe sutte ka bhi time hota hai kya",came the reply. I nodded in agreement as we walked towards the battlefield.

The canteen was almost full. Everyone was excited,upbeat and I wondered what made them so ignorant to greenish-jelly like-messy-liquid infront of them. Probably they are stupid or too busy in flirting, I concluded.

After strangling few people to death, I finally bought the gold coin supposed to be the coupon for our full meal. I was standing in the line and thinking about the fortune of the mess owner - greesy food and such a line. I was tossing my gold coin coupon and waiting for the line to move when I heard a soft voice from behind- "Excuse me". I thought my mind was playing games with me - like people see a mirage, I was listening one. But then again I heard the same two words "Excuse me". I turned behind and a sort of lightning struck me. There was a beautiful girl standing by - the cutest I've ever seen in my life. I was blocking her way and promptly got in side to give her way.

"Kya hua bhai! Hosh mein hai?", Abhijeet asked.
"Nahin...abhi to nahin...hehe...Saw that girl?", I asked
"Haan, kyon tu janta hai use?" asking curiously, as we were the most useless people in college, according to girls of our batch, and we used to stay away from our female batchmates(or it was the vice-versa).
"Nahin..abhi to nahin janta. Par one day I'm going to marry her" I don't know what prompted me to say these words, but I was so in love at first sight and I was so sure about my statement.
This statement of mine erupted a roar of laugher, not only from Abhijeet but all my batchmates standing in queue.
"Bhaiya khana lena hai ya apni shaadi mein hi khaoge ab", even the mess serving guy was taking a dig at me.
"Shaadi mein to khaoonga hi aur tujhe bhi khilaaonga ki bakwas na kare tu", I retorted back angrily.

As soon as we moved to occupy a seat, Abhijeet pointed at her and said to me " Lagta hai teri wife ka boyfriend hai." There she was siting with a guy, laughing. I should admit that her smile had almost got me killed. Maybe I had made the record of shortest heart break . "Bhool ja ye sab. Khana kha jaldi warna fir daddu ki shop band ho jayegi. Sutta reh jayega mera", Abhijeet complained - cigarette was the love of his life. Somehow for first time in my college life, I found the canteen food tasty. I concentrated on my food, finished it in 5 minutes straight and ran out of the canteen.

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

It was a heartburn and I decided not to give up. I tried to go for round everyday and on context of evening walk followed her everywhere till I deciphered her minute to minute details of schedule.

I tried to figure out a plan to talk to her-

"Lecture theater" - morning - nah...LT kaun jata hai...
"Canteen" - nah...wahan pe uske sab gujju friends hote hain (I had also managed to decipher that she was gujarati by following her on evening walks and overhearing her)
"Evening walk"- nah..wahan pe uska "Bhai" hota hai saath mein...
"Library" at night - raat mein kaun padta hai yaar..infact log padte hi kyon hai college mein..i sighed...guess i don't have an option....

"Kahan ja raha hai", Abhijeet asked, once again lighting a sutta.
I wondered how much he used to spend on matchsticks, leave alone the cigarette.
"Library"- I answered harmlessly.
"What?" Abhijeet shouted in a shock, almost spitting his cig out. "Fir se bol?"
"Library." I said with emphasis on the word. "Hum padhne ke liye aaye hain college. Padhne ja raha hoon. Ismein aise pretend karne ki kya baat hai" I retorted and started moving out as soon as possible before he can get a clue of my actual reasons.

I sat in the corner of library and avoiding looks of padhaku students of batch. I almost felt guilty of encroaching their space. After shuffling through pages of my books, I brought a magazine from shelf and started reading when she entered and sat diagonally opposite to me. I went to the shelf of humanities books (which was right next to her seat) some hundred times in next three hourse on pretext of searching for a book. Even Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology and other monstrous words engraved on the books in the shelf couldn't deter me from coming yet another time to the same shelf.

After 3 hours of staring at love of my life, I noticed that she was left handed. She looked confused while reading and the more she read, more confused she looked. She had a black wrist watch, white sandals 4 pens, 2 pencils and 1 eraser(I realized I was looking at stationery items after really a long time- I thought they were extinct!)

"How do I talk to her? I need to think of a perfect opening statement" I muttered to myself.

I'll wait for her to leave. As we get out of library, I'll call her. I would introduce myself and say I think you look pretty. She will smile and we would get talking and then I would get a red rose and propose. After she says yes, I'll go to her parents and say in bollywood style- "main aapki ladki ka haath mangne aaya hoon" Lost in my dreams I didn't realize the chair that was diagonally opposite to me was empty.

"Sapne mein shaadi hogi ab meri",I said kicking to myself, running out of library. I saw her on way to girls hostel and seeing me running in her direction, she got a little scared and started walking faster.

"No,no,no. I'm not a bad person. I've screwed it up. Now she thinks I'm a stalker(which in some sense I was). How do I say I have no intentions to hurt".
She gave me a cold look which warned me not to follow her. But as blind in love as I was, she seemed more beautiful than ever.

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

That's when the hero of my life, one person(or rather creature) I'll be ever grateful to appeared. A dog came in her way and she got scared. She freezed at the place The dog freezed too, maybe trying to figure out what had he done. In the confusion, I entered and shooed the dog away(I could hear myself whispering to the dog- "Sorry dude! Thanks" with a salute).

"Are you scared of dogs?" I muttered, I kicked myself for forgetting all my planned lines and style. What a dumb opening statement to make to a girl.
"Yes I am. Thanks for help. I would have fainted if you would not have saved me" she said.
"Saved you!hell yeah!I so risked my life to save my princess", I wanted to say....
"I'll keep meeting you", she said with her beautiful smile and disappeared in the dark.

I tried to find the dog to thank him but he was nowhere to be seen. I turned back and reach my room. Abhijit was watching a movie and searching for his matchbox.
"Ho aaya library? Ye din to tu bhulega nahin jindagi mein kabhi...Landmark event hai tere liye library jana.."
"haan yaar...it was the best day ever in my life" I said lying down on my bed. Abhijeet saw me in disbelief and shock for next two minutes straight. Maybe he thought my mind was not functioning properly after being exposed to harmful radiations of library and would become normal by next morning.

But that was the day my life changed. Also I discovered that it's pretty tough to execute a good opening line - especially if the girl is as beautiful as her.