Wrong number, Mister!

‘This number has been on my phone for a while now, but who’s this?’
I knew it was a girl, I knew her name, what she did and where she was, but I sent her this message like a dumb flirt.

She messaged me back; I almost had a black eye. I forgot about it for a while before calling her again. I must have spoken to at least three or four voices, all of them blasting me like there was no mercy in this world.

Two days later I had a call; one of those four voices spoke to me. She told me her name was Anamika, which I knew was a lie and I told her my name was Kumar which she probably thought was my full name. She was sorry for me, sorry because her friends were rude to me and she did not mean a thing. Protective friends I thought before we spoke for quite a while that day, when we hung up I knew both of us were smiling.

I called her back a day after, this time she wasn't alone, I was hearing her friends talk about ‘these bad boys’ and there was guilt for a few days. I didn't call her and neither did I answer her calls, though there weren't too many of them.

I answered her call that night, more because I was drunk. I told her my name she didn't like it, she told me hers and I confessed I was only a flirt trying to find a friend when I called her. She was angry and was terribly upset, she did not believe people called up strangers to make friends; she hung up, so much for my being truthful.

We did not speak for a week before she called me up.

She had some exam the next day and she just said “wake me up after an hour, okay mister” and hung up. I had a book 'Acts of faith' by Erich Segal in my hands. The next morning when I went to bed, I had finished the book, woken her up six times through the night and it was 6.00 am. She called me in the evening and said "you are a good guy" but added after a pause "sometimes"; I think I loved the book.

The following week, I had a terrible ulcer and I was almost crying in pain when she called me. To this day she doesn't know why she cried that day over the phone. Our calls were more frequent in the days that followed and I bore the brunt because she was still at college and I was working, when I did not call her for a few days, she would call me up only to tell me what a 'miser I was'.

Our birthdays fall a day apart, that year I sent her a box of chocolates and had my drunken friends sing her a happy birthday over the phone and she cried, again but not before she said “thank you beggar”.

I met her two months later at an old fort near her college a place near my home town, wearing a black Tee, she loved black. She was huge, she was not pretty at first sight, she loved chocolates and more importantly she had two of her beautiful protective friends with her. She didn’t like me either I guess, because she said “who do you think you are, the angry young man? Stop frowning at me and.. and drooling at them“.

I took her to my house the next month; in retrospect a bad decision because she loved my parents more than me. She called my father by an actor's name, my father laughs at it to this day; he doesn't laugh much. I noticed she was pretty when she laughed. She frequented my house until she had to leave college.

She went to work a few months later at a hospital in a neighboring state; our calls became less frequent, though we spoke at least once a week. A train I once traveled was passing through her place and she was at the station in the middle of the night smiling; standing besides a frowning, shivering-out-of-cold friend.

Railway stations have since become our only rendezvous, I only saw her every time she left home or when she was at her college to get her papers. She soon left to her home town to live with her parents and work from there, a city in a far northern state.

She still calls me up, when she is angry, when she is scared, when her brother is back from the gulf, when her back hurts, when she wants to cry, when she wants to laugh, when she has seen someone look like 'the stingy beggar' or simply because she thought she should disturb Mr. KUMMAARRR.

It’s too bad she always laughs at my proposals and worse because I do too...

Love story III

Long, long ago there were two small children attending the same grade school, fiercely fighting for the marks all the years. The fights were all they had in common, a short haired, chubby Maha was in stark contrast to the fairer, lanky Jai and while Jai excelled on the play fields, Maha lit up the stage. Albeit involving in innocent combats for their first 5 grades, they made good friends.

When the Years moved on, they too did, Jai to a boarding school, where his hockey skills flourished at the expense of his books and Maha to a girls' school where her love for the books and stage continued. In the mean while, their families had also moved away from the little town that had brought them together.

Language compelled Maha and the seas beckoned Jai when they graduated, Maha continued to do her doctorate in English even as Jai was getting ready to safeguard the coasts. In all the while, Jai and Maha had flashes of each other’s face grinning in their minds though their careers allowed little time for anything else and fifteen years passed. Curiously enough the ever nomadic Maha's family had moved to a place only 15kms from Jai's house.

Maha still has the same short hair and isn't chubby anymore and Jai stopped growing after school. Jai, despite his famed self, is a shy loner and Maha was nick named ruffian for her daring ways at college. Jai's fair, tall stature and his exploits on the fields had made faces turn at college and Maha had no dearth for proposals herself but none of them stood time.

One fine day Maha's curiosity bumped her on to Jai online and after a few days together online, they decided to meet. The once tall skinny Jai was a handsome young man, and once the fat, short haired girl was a beautiful young lady but the meeting was mostly awkward, with neither of them having enough words in a sentence.

After two days of talk, a lot of smiles and a few tear drops, Jai 'the loner' proposed Maha looking at the sky and Maha 'the ruffian' gave her consent looking at the ground. All that Maha wanted was someone who understood her character and Jai promised he would. All that Jai wanted was Maha with her hair long and Maha said she could.

Maha's family had no problems but Jai's parents disapproved of the relation. Upon Jai's insistence, Jai and Maha soon exchanged vows at a private ceremony amidst her family and close friends, one of them, their old grade school class mate.

Jai stays with his parents but is mostly away on ships and Maha stays at her house both hoping to find favour with Jai's parents someday!!

Love story - II

Maha is a tad dark and with her protruding nose she doesn't make a great picture at first. Though not very attractive, Maha doesn’t definitely look her age, 30. But for some people though, Maha is one of the few beautiful people they will ever see.

Before 11-12 years Maha was the usual high school girl of my town, trying earnestly to enter a medical college and Jai came to her life. Jai had to quit school at a very early age, courtesy his father who to date hasn't found a permanent job and he started working as an electrician. Maha is from a middle class family, her father works in a government office and her mother a house wife. Jai was the only son of a careless father and a faithful house wife, a lower middle class family.

It was around that time that they started seeing each other. I have no idea how he met her, but from what I have heard, it was a good three months and a loss of business before Jai could make a mark with Maha.

Soon I was seeing them smile at me every time I saw them together in the barren land behind my house. Jai was never a keen sportsman, his younger days were lost in work, but he was always present at the cricket field during our twilight games. When Maha was around he always pretended he knew the game and Maha seemed proud every time the ball hit his bat and he repaid us with something that night.

Jai was going through probably the greenest patch of his life. After years of working under someone, he started working on his own and sometimes hiring people under him. He was soon setting up the electric systems of whole buildings; a long way for someone who had started with rewinding motors. And of course he had Maha; sometimes he even attributed his career turn around to her, though he always ended up in a free-for-all when he said that with his friends around.

Jai’s parents were aware of the two getting along but Maha’s never knew or pretended they did not. Maha did not seem to care and but Jai was concerned.

Interestingly Maha did not get an admission to a medical college, not even an engineering college, which was then an automatic second choice. She joined a local college and stayed closer to home and Jai.

It was during one of those days that Jai passed away doing what he did all his life, setting up an electric connection. He had accidentally come in contact with a transmission line while working on a newly built house.

10 years since, Maha hasn't married yet. Talks of marriage only bring a mad rage in to her and no one talks about it these days, not her parents and not Jai's friends.
She doesn't want to let it go, like Jai is always there some where behind those barren lands, some where under a tree near the cricket field, somewhere...

Love Story - I

I liked Maha the first time I saw her, she was pretty, she was shrewd and I enjoyed her company, her humour to be precise. After spending only a few minutes the first time I saw her, I was longing to see her again. Only her being one of my best friends Jai's girl did not help my cause.

My friend had first seen her from some 'Learn English' school and his language skills never got any better. Soon Jai was in love with her and she had responded in green. It was good to see them together.

Having brought up in a family that never gave the, as she often said, warmth that she expected, her possessiveness wasn't a surprise. Somewhere along the course I noticed she was losing her nerve too soon and that she preferred speaking to listening, every time. The one thing that I once liked in her, possessiveness was also to a disastrous extreme. Our common friends seemed to share similar thoughts. I never tried to suppress my feelings about her with Jai, he was in no mood to listen; sometimes he even said, I was jealous. Was I? I don't know.

These instances never dented the liking I had for the two of them, not until they were married with only the consent of Jai's parents, not until they shifted to a small but pretty house and started living themselves, not until they had two beautiful daughters and not until that day when I tried to surprise them and I was surprised myself.

I had been home after a while and visiting them was as usual on my list of priorities. I wanted my visit to be a surprise and it was in more ways than one. When I reached their house, I just heard a few indistinct noises; soon I was sure there was a fierce quarrel. She went to the extent of blaming him for spoiling her life. My face silenced them but I couldn't stay there for long; that was the last time I saw Maha.

Jai was a different man when I spoke to him the next day, he seemed to have aged more than what his years should have. Life and love after marriage had taken a 90 degree turn for him. No day had passed without a conflict of interest. He doesn't remember the last time they had a good day or a good night. I hugged him for no reason and may be for the first time in the 8-10 yrs I knew him. I only left when he seemed a little lighter; it was close to three hours. I very soon lost touch with both of them as they had shifted out to a nearby city.

I saw Jai after almost two years at a common friend's marriage; he was with his two beautiful daughters. He smiled even as his elder daughter ran towards me. The elder one is just like her mother, funny and shrewd. The younger daughter is like her father of the old times, naughty but silent. I liked them together, the three of them, they seem to have a resonance that I wouldn't expect of a single father.

The children didn't seem to miss having a mother, not even the younger one; she was barely a year old when her mother succumbed to the third degree burns she inflicted on herself.

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Jai is actually my brother's friend, and the above incidents are actually my brother's narration.
Despite the compulsions and requests of his family and friends, Jai hasn't married again. Jai now runs a photo studio at a nearby town, his elder daughter is in school and his younger one grows up mostly at the studio.

Long long ago..

There were only two kinds of people in my school, the famous and the infamous, others were almost nonexistent or were considered so. Since books and playfields rarely interested me, I quickly graduated to the infamous list although it needed some extraordinary courage and shamelessness.

Defiance of the rules, muddling the uniform, frequenting the TV hall in wee hours (just to prove) and marking my absence at every gathering pushed me to the ranks, but I was not complete, not without an escapade to the next town.

A residential public school with a military back drop that rarely allowed real world expoure wasn't the only thing that stood in my way and the next town. It also included,

1. Dodging the security, that involved changing in to civilian clothes inside one of those dense wild shrubs.
2. Stopping a bus, raising no alarms and not giving away the identity with my crew cut for the next half hour of the journey.
3. Watching a movie or hanging around the town very often infested by the school staff.
4. Reversal of steps one and two. For Javed too it was a virgin act.

Javed was a rich man, meaning he had a hundred rupee note and I was worth only a quarter of it.

Scene 1

I was changing clothes in broad day light and inside a shrub with one of my best friends; a surprise visitor would have doubted our orientation. Javed was dirtying his face with sand, must be some tips from the older guys I thought and I followed suit. The tallest shrub protected our uniforms.

We spent an hour behind a tree before a bus stopped; we found the last seat empty and ducked our heads for the next half hour. When we reached the movie hall running and gasping for breath, the ticket sales had already closed down.

Having no other option other than to roam around the town, the first thing I did was call my mother at her office. I was talking to my mother after three long months and I pretended I was talking to her during an official trip.

The telephone bill was an exorbitant forty rupees; visibly angry Javed reluctantly slipped his hands inside his pant pockets. I was pawned at the phone booth and Javed said he would return in an hour, he had forgotten his 100 rupee note inside his uniform.

Scene 2

Javed is nervous and is sweating overtly, grabbing the attention of the vicinity. Some stranger strikes a conversation with Javed trying to make him comfortable, Javed is relaxed but almost crying. The stranger helps him with some money after hearing a rather bizarre story.

Although the guy at the booth was trying his best to comfort me, I continued sweating. To my relief, Javed returned in twenty minutes I was traded back, phew.

Scene 3

Only stage four was remaining but our heads were already drooping. Lady luck must have been taking a real long break, for when were about to board the bus, we were met right on face by the big mustached English teacher Mr. Jeyaraj. With no valid reasons for us being in the town, we had the right to remain silent.

We were again at the last row and it was showbiz for us. We had the undivided attention of the almost all passengers, hearing our histories and watching him play with our ears (he was known for his long finger nails and his fondness for ears).

I was afraid, the tragedy could prolong if we were handed over at the school gates. It meant public humiliation and a complete Khaki outfit with leather shoes at all places (play field included) for another week. Mr. Jeyaraj stopped the bus exactly where we had boarded only a few hours before, and said "run, you stupid buggers" with a smirk on his face. We lived the expression, "running for lives" till we reached the tree where we had started it all. The uniforms were missing.

Scene 4

We walked inside the hostel, making up faces that brimmed with pride.
Voila! we had done it, well almost.

Three coffees and a sweetmeat.

"Be a man," my friend told me.We were both lying on the terrace of my hostel looking at the star-studded sky. It was just about three months since I had joined college and I thought I was in love. Maha was beautiful, my first girl friend after seven years at a residential boys' school. Three months around her I was almost convinced I was in love. I even carried her photograph wherever I went. I had told my friend about it. He was more excited than I was and he was her best friend too.

"I think she loves you more than you think she does, go ahead let her know what you think" continued my friend, "In a few days time we are going on a vacation, aren't we? I will arrange for a rendezvous and you are proposing her!!! ", it was almost a command and he stood up and walked away. The cold night was getting warm.

The next four days were hard to move. I skipped classes on two of those days and slept in the classroom on the other two days as I had not slept in the nights. Just a day before I called up my mother and told her I was proposing a girl. I was disappointed when she simply said, " You still have a day to think about it".

It was the day and I wore my favorite black pair of pants with a borrowed cream-colored shirt and shiny black shoes (borrowed of course). All the three of us left my college to the Bus station where she and my friend would take a bus to their hometown. There were a good three hours left for their bus and we went to a coffee shop.
I ordered for a cup of coffee and a sweetmeat I thought was fresh, while they sat sipping teas. When we left it was almost an hour, I had had three coffees.

She wanted to make a call. We had to go to a telephone booth and while she went inside one of the cabins, my friend silently left telling me "f*** you man, all the best ". I was all alone and sweating when she came out and looked for him, my friend.

"Maha.. " I started "Yes, Kumar" she continued. "I think.... I thi " I couldn't continue.. "You think what? And where is Joe? ".

I couldn't stand it any longer, I mustered up all the courage I could and I started "I.." . She wasn't even looking at me when she said impatiently " I what?" something’s wrong with you Kumar?? ". I couldn’t look at her.

"I think I like you more than you think I do! " I finally said, " and what does that mean?" she asked without a wink. "I mean.. I think.. Maha to live with you all my.., I mean I think I am in l.. l.. ", no it never came out of my mouth. I tried looking at the wall posters around, Heavens why were all the theatres running ‘B’ grade movies?

"So this is what the fuss is all about! Kumar, I think you are mistaken because I never had such a thing towards you ", Maha sounded indifferent.

I was feeling uneasy; three coffees with sweetmeat are definitely not good for your stomach when you propose.

"You are such a good friend and I would always..." she went on but I couldn’t listen to her anymore.
Joe was smiling at me when he returned.

"Is there a washroom around " I asked him. "Yes there's one around the corner, but is something wrong?" he retorted.

"Yes, think I need to retire", I did not wish them good-bye.
I should call Mom very soon, I thought as I left.