PART VI
(Act 1)
Everything resumed back to Srinagar-based-schedule. I felt like I was back after some 100 years from a space travel I’d always been longing to embark. University rush, normal hectic schedule, increased work load, all-time friends… everything brought me back to my mental equilibrium. Days started getting older and pathetic without her. 9 to 4 was the usual timing at University. Subjects like Digital Electronics and Network Analysis sucked half the blood of my body. Engineering sucked all…
In the midst of all this, I happened to open my suitcase where I’d secretly buried her “Diary” which she’d given me on the last day we met. As I opened the first page… fragrance… a wonderful fragrance (that I still can imaginatively smell) diffused to my entire room as if a magic wand making all corners beautiful. This made me feel that a part of her was now already in my room, closer to me even it would take her a few more years to actually come to this place, legally… may be after my B.Tech, M.Tech and Ph.D (8 years minimum), but I was ready to even wait for 8oo such years just to get married to her.
Diary was very much amusing. I was literally emotionally taken aback when I read these lines from the Page 13 of her diary:
“…I don’t know why he asked me my name when Rounaq di had already introduced me by my name. Well, may be he wanted to start a conversation with me or so… Men will be men… lol. Well ab jo bhi, I told him that I’m single but I don’t think it had a point to be added there. What would he be thinking about me… Gosshhh…“
Page 25 of the diary read:
“…I met him again today at Mint Leaf, I’d already seen him while he was entering the restaurant to buy cakes, but I couldn’t gather guts to face him directly. I don’t know what happened to me… as if I was so afraid to look into his eyes… No… I didn’t want to look into his eyes… but they behaved like magnets… forced yet so attractive… it took me almost seven rehearsals before calling his name inside the bakery shop today… and the most important thing – we are meeting on Saturday… Yippppyyyyy… “
Page 57 read:
“Awwww… amazinggg… sucha dumb girl I can be… held his hand today in public… in front of everyone… he blushed… lol… so cutteeeee he is… <3 “
Page 72 read:
“… 11 March 2009 is SPEECHLESS… I don’t have words to write today… I can only say I LOVE YOU TOO” and the entire page was filled with “I LOVE YOU TOO’s” and red colored hearts and cute drawings.
The diary further revealed a note addressed to me:
A Note:
“…Shayaan, I don’t have words to tell you what you mean to me. I’ve never been this happy ever in my life. The way you treat me, the way you care, the way you’re for me every time I wish you to be here, I swear all these things make me love you so much more with each passing day. I wasn’t supposed to be this lucky… and now I can’t even understand how to thank God for making me so lucky by sending my a blessing in the form of ‘what you are’. Believe me, the time of the day that I spend with you is the best part that makes up my entire day. When we meet, that effect of yours keeps rotating through my mind for so many days… and for the rest of the days I keep longing to meet you again. You know Shayaan, I’ve always wished my Mr.Perfect, my Prince Charming to come on flying wings and take me in his arms and love me forever – and today I feel I’ve got that Prince of my life. I long for nothing else…
I always wish that we be together forever… seriously even being ‘forever’ with you seems so less. I wish I could find you everyday just like I found you then… I wish to love you and be loved by you everyday so that I can have no guilt and no qualm for getting into this relationship…”
Well.. well… I mean how complex human emotions are and how slowly love gets generated into the hearts of people is itself an amazing inductive mechanism. Anyways… time flew on rosy wings and almost 5 months passed… our relation was blossoming and ripening with each passing day.
(Act 2)
Autumn came and finally in August, my semester exams started and we couldn’t talk for about two weeks. We usually have a 10-day break soon after our exams finish. As luck would have it, the day before this 10-day break, an announcement was made in our University:
“The interested students of the Engineering department are informed to attend ‘ALL-COLLEGE ANNUAL FESTIVAL’ on 12 September 2009 at Jammu University, Jammu. For further details check Notice Board.”
Believe me, I was the only guy to check the notice board for details, all others were longing for a 10-day break. The first thought after hearing this announcement was “Aaliya”. I was so much excited that I got a golden chance to meet her again even before I’d planned to. Moreover, it was so easy to motivate my parents for the same as this was an official University notification and they couldn’t have no objections. The second thought made me take out the cell phone from my pocket and dial Aaliya’s number… just to tell her that I’m coming to Jammu. While the network was attempting to make a call on her number… I disconnected because a second thought came in my mind. This second thought was ofcourse – “a surprise for Aaliya”.
PART VII
(Act 1)
10 SEP 2009 (Thursday)
“Kingfisher Red” — Flight No: IT 339 — 1:05 PM — and this made me land in Jammu Airport within 30 minutes. I took a Taxi and reached home. Met my best friend ‘Aakib’ who shifted to my house those days to accompany me. I told him that I was here for the “All College Fest”and that I hadn’t told “Aaliya” anything about it yet just because I wanted to give her a “Surprise”. Little did I know that surprises often come in packages and life brings unusual, unexpected surprises at times.
“So when are you going to give her this surprise?” Aakib asked.
“Hmmm… Fest is on Saturday, 12th September, and since I’ve registered for it, so have to attend it. I’m gonna meet her Saturday evening only after the fest is over. What’s say?” I asked for a suggestion.
“Yeah cool… Lucky she… her boy friend loves her this much that he crossed 300 kilometers just to meet her, haha… amazing but crazy people you are…” Aakib said and was impressed.
(Act 2)
12 SEP 2009 (Saturday):
Finally it was the ‘ANNUAL FESTIVAL’ day at Jammu University. I reached at 10:00 in the morning and and earned their company. Since it was ‘All-College-Fest’, so students from all the government as well as private colleges were present.
In the meantime heard from other attendants that the boring Fest might take longer to start it’s proceedings, so me and a few more guys with me decided to go to University Cafe’ for a Coffee. Coffee was in disposable cups without coffee in it actually and ‘Bread Pakoras’ without Pakoras in it, dipped in raw oil, the quality of food there seemed to be inversely proportional to the rush to people.
Obviously, there was a huge crowd of students, teachers, officials from different colleges of the region. I was standing, leaning my body to a pole… and suddenly my phone started ringing and as usual this expected call was from ‘Aaliya’. She asked about my well being and then asked where I was as there was lots of noise around me, and since I had planned to give her a surprise later in evening by meeting her… so I didn’t tell her that I was in Jammu.
I told her “…yea, I am in University (which meant Kashmir University), had my internals viva today… will call you up later in the evening…” Yea I know I lied… but… I had to lie to succeed in my “surprise” plan.
Once we finished talking, and call disconnected, amidst the noise of the crowd, someone called my name from behind me –
“Shayaan?”
I looked around… and for a moment I thought that it’s only a Deja Vu feeling or maybe I couldn’t see clearly what I was seeing because I was literally shocked to see her. Yes, ‘her’… standing just in front of my nose. So do you think she was “Aaliya” standing right in front of me? No… she wasn’t Aaliya… She was someone else… someone I had met earlier in the previous version of ‘Shayaan Mir’, someone I had been in a closer relation with… someone I’d not been in contact for so long but traces of her were still somewhere buried in my heart – There is an adage – which says “You can forget the entire world but not your First Love”.
Yes, she was my first love, my ex – “Shaifta”.
And I was totally surprised at her unusual presence and her calling of my name despite whatever had happened in between us. I looked at her as if I was seeing an extra-terrestrial landing on Earth
“Shaifta? You…? Here…?” I said in complete surprise.
“Yes Shayaan, it’s me, I haven’t changed, you haven’t changed… see…” she said and then started with that usual “khear paath” what you would obviously expect from two ex lovers – though the conversation was good and heart beat like it earlier used to for her, but things had actually changed now… we started talking about about 10 more minutes.
I told her that nothing had changed “…I agree, neither did you change, nor did I change, but our vision has changed Shaifta, our way of thinking has changed, our feelings have changed… moreover time… time changed…” I was polite while explaining things to her.
But I could feel like she was not interested to believe anything I was saying and she wanted to start a relationship with me all over again, for when she said, “Yes Shayaan I know… but we can still be together Shayaan. I’m sorry for all the things that happened in the past. I can realize my mistake now. I’m back to you… see… to stay with you ever and always, I promise!”
For a moment I gave a thought because she obviously had been the ‘First Love’ of my life, a deep thought within my inner conscience, I thought of how things were and how things are, I thought about ‘Aaliya’ and all the promises I’d made to her and that I must keep them and love her as I do. And this love for ‘Aaliya’ made be speak to her directly about how things were and I didn’t want to even give it a second thought.
“I’m Sorry Shaifta… That was ‘then’ and this is ‘now’, I’m sorry, it’s too late now!” I was straight in replying as I didn’t want any confusion.
With this, her eyes broke into tears and she held my hand… to not let go. I looked at her hand holding mine which I obviously resisted, yea I know I had held this hand so many times before… when I was in a relationship with her, but today was the first time when I felt like a ‘stranger’ touching my hand and holding it. I felt like my hands were not meant to be held by these hands for my fingers now fitted in someone else’s hands and those hands were of “Aaliya”.
I resisted her holding of my hand in the Cafe’, and during this resistance process, feeling embarrassed I tried to cast a glance towards the crowd to see for any odd reactions for which I should feel guilty later. During this glance towards the entire crowd in the Cafeteria, my eyes caught a glance of a girl… in the crowd… this fraction in between overlapped, and I tried to focus to see that girl in the crowd, who, within this fraction of a second, was like… turning her eyes away from two of us… and then her face tilted away from us… and finally she started moving away… finally leaving the Canteen area.
This second… was the major setback to the story of my Love… of my Life. The girl in crowd was wearing red… and had my ‘gifted silver ear-rings’ hanging from her ears… and she was my girl-friend – ‘Aaliya’, turning away after watching me with my ex at a situation she should not have seen and not have interpreted the way I thought she did. I was caught in a catch-22, I could neither do this nor that. I knew her turning away was unusual, but I knew this situation of seeing me and my ex together holding hand was much more unusual and unexpected. I could not speak anything after I resisted that forced holding of my hand… my hands were free now but mind was occupied with fear and uncertainty of losing someone closest to me.
I tried to follow the path from where she left, searched the entire University, but I could feel it that she couldn’t have bear to stand there for even a moment. She had already left in utmost disappointment. Calling her seemed a good option… but how the hell would I tell her that I was lying and that I was in Jammu only when she saw me in a wrong situation at a wrong time with a wrong person. How could she believe me now? She obviously would think that I had lied to her deliberately just to meet my ‘ex’.
Anyways I tried to call her… but first three times she disconnected… and it confirmed me that she’d seen everything… then fourth time her phone was switched-off.
I kept calling her for 2 hours continuously, till my phone’s battery was low, and despite her phone being swtiched-off I kept calling like a psycho. Then I got a second thought, I called her sister ‘Rounaq’ and talked to her. She received the call and confirmed that ‘Aaliya’ had come to accompany her to the “Annual Festival” in which Rounaq’s college was also participating. She also confirmed that ‘Aaliya’ had witnessed everything… and that how disgusted they both were feeling about me. She told me that ‘Aaliya’ didn’t want to talk to me and that I must be happy with that girl she’d seen me with, in Cafe. I tried to explain and convince ‘Rounaq’ to let me speak to ‘Aaliya’ but neither did ‘Rounaq’ want me to talk to her nor did ‘Aaliya’ herself.
I realized for the first time how difficult it is to bear this burden of life when you gotta broken heart. My heart felt like punctured and it felt like bleeding without getting healed up. Her ignorance peeled off the soul from my body, and sucked all my blood from my veins. I spent 2 hours standing at a chowk on footpath… smoked about 13 cigarettes in a row… felt like being drained off all the powers and energy. Felt like I was no more existing in this world.
Day passed with, I, every minute wishing if only I had a ‘Time Machine’, I could go back to time in the time-flight and rewind everything… rewind and undo what’s done… stop and skip that wrong second of my life. Every moment I wished, I could change the entire system of human memory right now, and at times just wished if it were only a dream. But this was a reality and I realized… and there was no such ‘Time Machine’ that could possibly take me back to rewind and undo things, so I had to either way believe what was true. Inside I knew none of it was my fault, she had just seen the wrong second of a two-second story… :’(
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