"I don't usually read a novel, but when I do, I end up writing one too!"
- Prafulla
I strolled past the bookshelves, lazily, trying to find something new, something that would perhaps refresh my mind. It has been almost three years since I last visited this place. More than a bookstore, this used to serve as our favorite hangout spot after college. Not that we were too much into novels and stuff, but there is something about the Oxford Bookstore that kept us coming back every time – something that I have come looking for today. All this time since we parted ways, I have spent avoiding every such place that has memories associated, beautiful memories of our love. Of course, once the petals are gone, all that is left are the thorns; the memories bring back nothing but agony.
Today, however, as I was walking past the bookstore, I felt something of the sort I used to feel back then, an inexplicable attraction that slowly turned into an irresistible urge to step into the store. For a moment, it felt just like it those good old days. Promptly, my hand slipped into my pocket and I took a quick glance at my cellphone.
Saturday, 17th December
6:45 PM
I hurriedly made my way through the passages towards the café on the first floor. The smell of the freshly brewing coffee seemed calling out to me. As I began climbing the stairs, my eyes fell upon the table on the corner, where I had spent countless evenings with Rutika – talking, laughing and creating memories all along. It was our spot; even the waiters knew it. We would always find it vacant, even if we got late.
Not anymore. The place looked the same as it was; just the faces occupying it were new. The realization came like a blow.
No, nobody is going to come today. No unread messages in the inbox. I am, but, all by myself…
As I kept staring at the tables, her face flashed across my eyes. It was perhaps the last time we met here. It was an evening like this. The whole place had been decorated for Christmas. Rutika and I had just finished shopping for my birthday and her trip to Geneva. She was very excited about it – she was to represent India in the Young Scientists’ Council after all! While she kept talking about all of it, I made her a rose with a spare tissue paper that lay on the table. God! I can never forget the expression on her face when I gave it to her. As we took our sips of the hot coffee on that cold winter evening, we could very well realize that our relationship was growing more serious by the day. I wasn’t at all surprised when she put the much obvious question on the table –
“So, when do you plan to marry me, Mr. Photographer?”
“On your next birthday perhaps?!” I had replied with a smile.
“Wow! That’d be amazing. Besides, I hope it rains on our wedding day. I love rains!”
“May I help you sir?” came a voice from behind. I was awakened from my trance by this sudden interruption.
“No, thank you”, I replied.
As, I prepared to leave the café, the waiter called out in excitement. I turned back.
“Prafulla, you are, aren’t you! Oh boy, how could I not recognize you! You have grown so pale and thin!”
It was now that I looked up at the waiter. It was the same waiter who used to bring us our coffee every evening. No wonder, his voice sounded so familiar.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Same old job, same old life… except that I got married last summer”, he replied with a smile. “How have you been? I thought like you had vanished off the face of the Earth!” he continued without stopping for a breath, “… and how is madam? I saw her once a few months back. I would have asked her about you, but she had left in a hurry”.
“That is some great news there!” I replied congratulating him on his marriage. “For us, things have changed after college, you see. Everyone is too busy with their lives...”
Wishing him luck for his new life, I headed back towards the staircase.
I was done with the place. It had taken from me, as much it had given me. Regrets?! Well, Life’s too short to move on with regrets. When expectations are gone, all that remains are experiences. Great ones! Terrible ones! I felt full.
As I made my way through the shelves, my eyes caught a certain pile of books. The author was the same old Chetan Bhagat, only this time he wanted to speak about his “Half Girlfriend”. Seemed like after having already said enough about the story his marriage, he has taken a detour into his past perhaps! I still remember how Rutika was overflown with emotions as we watched the “Two States”. It was just before the semester examinations, yet she kept talking about it for days – how the girl’s parents were so wrong about traditions and how the guy’s father had come to their rescue in the end.
“You might as well face a similar situation in a few years’ time”, I had said.
“Oh! come on Prafulla… As long as our love is intact, don’t even dare to doubt my powers of persuasion. Just leave it on me…” She had laughed it off so confidently.
Yet, things just got left in the end…
I walked forward and picked up a copy of the book. The cover looked interesting. Hardly had I began flipping through the pages, when a voice startled me.
“You a fan of Chetan Bhagat?”
The voice seemed familiar. As I lifted my face and glanced at her, I realized, the face wasn’t.
“Not exactly… I haven’t read any of his novels!” I replied in a sleepy but resolute tone. “Are you?”
“Well, me neither,” she said, smiling. “Though, it is quite tough to come across someone today who is not a fan of this man’s writing”, she added.
“Voila! You just found me…” I said, squeezing out a smile.
“I am more into thrillers and stuff. When it comes to romances, I prefer the classics…”, she continued. “What’s your reason?”
“I have an ego clash with this man… and the others of his kind,” I replied with a sigh. “You see, I am a writer too… just an unpublished one!”
What happened next was quite unexpected of a stranger. She burst out into laughter. She must have laughed for quite some time, for I had finished reading the back cover of the book in my hand by then. When she came to herself, she started talking again.
“That’s… that’s very funny, I mean, I didn’t mean to offend you, but I have never heard anything like that before… ” She slowly lifted her hand to her face and took a deep breath. Then she continued.
“So, what exactly do you write? Love stories?”
“Well, I have three incomplete novels – an adventure, a science-fiction and yes, a romance too, though a classic one. However, lately I have taken to writing “Love Stories”, short and perhaps toughing ones.” I seriously hoped that would be the end of our conversation. She seemed quite impressed by my confident reply, which I could make out from the glimmer in her eyes.
How often do you actually come across a writer boasting about his incomplete novels! I felt as if I was being interviewed!!!
Before she could pop up with her next question, my eyes fell on something that made my heart skip a beat. I was dumbstruck. Forgetting everything that was going on over there, I could not help but ask her,
“Where exactly did you get that bracelet from?”
I would not say she was not surprised at this unexpected interruption in her stream of questions regarding my reading habits. Yet, she replied, in a confused tone.
“I got it from my sister. She wasn’t using it anyway, and I kind of happened to like the design. No clue where she got it from… ”
It did not take me long to put two and two together. Her voice, with that stroke of confidence in it, her gaze, which perhaps, could actually kill, that familiarity in her personality – none of it was random. Nor was the bracelet. There was only one such piece that was ever made. There was only one such design that was ever created. It was a symbol of my love. I could never forget it. I could never have mistaken it.
If my previous question hadn’t surprised her enough, my next question surely did the rest. The sight of the bracelet had filled my heart with sudden excitement.
“How is Rutika?” I quickly asked.
It took her some time to answer that question. For a few moments, she stared blankly at me. Then came her reply, which was actually more of a question than an answer.
“Are you Prafulla by any chance?”
I smiled. “Very much I am, except for a few extra inches of beard and a few pounds less!”
She was both surprised and excited at this unexpected meeting. I could not say for sure which one was more. We had met only a couple of times before. The last time and perhaps, the longest one was at the airport waiting room, when I had gone to see Rutika off before her Geneva trip. While Rutika was busy comforting her mother that she will be all right by herself, we had exchanged a few words. It did not take me long to realize that Ruchika was no less talented than her elder sister was. Indeed, she was even smarter!
“I am sorry I hadn’t recognized you at the very outset… You really look quite different!” Ruchika said apologetically. “…and please don’t mind my forwardness, regarding whatever I said before.”
It would not be wrong to say that she was slightly blushing already.
We were both silent for a moment. She might have found it quite awkward to bump into her sister’s friend out of the blue. As for me, I did not know how to react. After all these years with absolutely no contact with Rutika, here I was, standing with her sister at the same spot where we once had created some of the greatest of our memories. Not that anything mattered anymore.
“How are you?” That was perhaps the dumbest thing to say at that moment. Still, it was enough to get us talking again. “How are your studies going on?” I added.
“I am great! Just completed my graduation, looking forward to go abroad, probably London, for further studies.” came a quick reply. “Not enthusiastic yet to start earning, you see…” she laughed.
Just like her sister, I thought.
“So how is Rutika?” I had not yet received my answer to that question.
“She is doing great. You know what a crazy girl she is. Good that my parents got her married. She is out of the house finally!” She laughed.
A pang of pain pierced my heart. I grabbed a chair from the side and sank into it.
I guess my surprises for the evening were not yet done. The news of her marriage – something that I had been fearing for the last three years. I had always thought that it would be too much for me to handle, because maybe deep down, I still loved her, maybe I still believed we could make it back together again some day…
“When did it happen? The marriage I mean…” I asked, taking a deep breath.
“July, 26 this year. They came to India for the marriage. It’s really great that both of them work in the same company…” she replied.
“Where is she working? Pardon my ignorance, Rutika and I haven’t been in touch for quite some time now.”
“Oh! so you don’t know? After some struggle after college, she finally got a call from some IT company in Dublin. There she met this guy, who actually happened to be a family friend. So, even before they could become girlfriend and boyfriend, our families tied their knots. They are now settled in Dublin.” She took a breath and continued. “It is a very nice place, Dublin, she says. My parents and I plan to visit them sometime next year.”
My head felt numb. My heart was heavy. A scene from my past flashed across my eyes. It was a rough day and Rutika was in a pretty bad mood. After trying quite hard, I had got her into talking. She opened a photograph on her cellphone and threw it to me. “My parents are planning for my marriage. My mom gave me this photo today. He works in some company in Dublin.” I had laughed. “Don’t worry. Dublin or Dubai – nobody else is getting to you. You are mine and I am all yours!” I had comforted her with a soft kiss. That was the Rutika I knew. That was the Rutika I had loved.
I faked a smile.
“Yeah, it is I have heard too. Seen some of it in that movie – P.S. I Love you. Nice place for honeymoon as well.” I tried to hide my feelings with my words.
“Ha! Ha! Can you guess where they are right now? Of course, they are doing what couples do after marriage.” She seemed pretty excited.
I had become quite normal by now. “Greenland, is it?” I replied hesitatingly.
“Spot on! How did you guess that? I could not believe it even after I had heard it from my sister. There are a ton of other places that, I bet, are better.”
“Ruchika, your sister was a very close friend of mine. We know a lot about each other. Besides, she used to be a huge fan on the Northern lights up there in Greenland…” I replied.
“I see, I had always doubted that you had a thing for my sister…” she said jokingly.
All these years, we had kept our love, a secret. We did not want it to be nipped in the bud. Now, there is nothing to feared anymore. There is no secret anymore. No love to be lost.
“You may say so, but our friendship was our relationship. It was a thing indeed! It would not be wrong to say that knowing her was one of the best things that have happened in my life. It makes me sad to say that things ended, even before either of us realized.” I managed to explain to her. “It was after I met her when I began writing romantic stories. You see real-life experiences make some great stories. And just like my novels, my love remains incomplete even to this day… Rutika has left a hole that cannot be filled, not easily…”
I paused. I guess I had spoken far more than I should have. Ruchika had become serious by this sudden revelation. She had always thought of me as just a classmate and friend of Rutika’s. She kept staring at me for a while.
I could now feel the cold sweats on my forehead. The air was cold. I got up from the chair and looked around. The Christmas lights in the bookstore had filled the space with a cheerful colour. The few people, present in the store seemed too busy choosing and buying books.
Gifts for friends, family and themselves.
Ruchika spoke again. “So, the bracelet, was it your gift?”
“Hmmm… yes. She had made that design one fine evening and named it the mark of our relationship. I had then immortalized it by incorporating it in the design of that bracelet. It was a gift from me on her 21st birthday. It’s good to see that it is still there. It looks good on you too…”
“Mind if I take a look?” I asked.
Ruchika obliged. She lifted her hand towards me and I took a close look at the bracelet. Except for a few scratches here and there, it had not changed a bit. I kept looking at it for quite some time.
“You can take it with you, if you feel like,” Ruchika said.
“Nope,” I said. “It belonged to Rutika. Now it belongs to you… Besides, I don’t need any more things to remind me of her everyday… I’m still struggling with the fact that she is gone.”
Ruchika did not say anything. maybe she didn’t know what to say. Maybe she didn’t want to. I took a quick glance at my cellphone. I have been here for more than an hour.
“I should leave you to yourself I guess. Spent quite a lot of time talking…” I said.
“Oh no, it’s okay. I come here often just to browse through the books. I love the ambiance of the place. A nice place to spend my evenings – just me and my books!” Ruchika replied in a soft tone. “Come take a walk with me, if you will…” Having said so, she grabbed her sling bag from the nearby table and prepared to walk. I followed.
“So, what went wrong between you and Rutika?” she asked, as we walked past the bookshelves.
“Nothing… and everything. We were two strangers who met by chance in this city. In the end, we were back to being strangers again. As days passed, she grew weirder until we forgot who we were.” I said. Ruchika had no idea how deep our relationship was. Therefore, I had to choose my words carefully.
“I tried my best to save the relationship. Maybe I had held on for too long. That’s why I ended up getting hurt so bad in the end. There is something Rutika always used to say, whenever I was in doubt – ‘It will happen, if it has to happen…’ Guess, our thing was not supposed to happen!”
Acceptance – the final stage of grief.
Ruchika did not say anything. The whole thing must have been quite tough for her to believe, much less understand it. So, I continued. “It’s great to know that she is finally settled. I hope she is happy too…”
“Rutika used to talk a lot about you. You were like really talented – she used to say, and confused too,” she said, as we passed the stack of movie DVDs. “There was this one time, when I had some trouble with my scripts. I was quite new to script writing and there was a deadline to be met. It was then that she had suggested I talk to you. She had said – “Prafulla is a magician with stories. There is hardly any problem that he cannot find a solution to!”
I smiled. There was a lot that I could have said perhaps, but I chose not to. I feared tripping down the memory lane.
I must have been lost in thought, for her next question came with a slight nudge on my left shoulder.
“What are you doing these days? Just writing?”
“I am freelancing for an ad-agency… plus a lot of other stuff to keep busy,” I said nonchalantly.
“Complete your novels for sure. They deserve to be completed. And try out something new. Though I have never been in love myself, I know a few things. And the worst thing is to keep grieving.”
Ruchika said, as we approached the exit. After some thought, she continued, “Do you mind if I read some of your stories? I am currently working on a project that involves making short films. Maybe I could use some story of yours?!”
“Absolutely, go ahead. I will mail them to you. Besides, I too think you should read them. Just like that…” I replied enthusiastically. Her actions kept reminding me of Rutika.
The security guard held the door open and we stepped out into the cold winter evening. The road outside looked beautiful with the festive mood all around. People were busy with the preparations. Couples moved around, arm in arm, sharing the warmth. It was cold outside.
“When are you leaving for London?” I asked her.
“March, next year,” she said. “It was very tough to get my parents consent to my leaving India. Mom tried to blackmail me emotionally, saying that, after Rutika left, she would get very lonely without me. Anyway, they are very conservative by nature. They never allowed Rutika to go abroad for studies. I must say I got quite lucky!”
“I bet you did!” I said with a smile. “Nobody knows better about their conservative nature – I have suffered it too.”
Ruchika threw a surprised look. I had no choice but to say what I said next.
“The guy, Rutika got married to, is a marwari too, isn’t he?” I said rhetorically.
I am not sure if I had been successful in making my point. She is smart enough to understand though, I thought. The confused look on her face faded away gradually.
She did not say anything.
“Where are you headed?” I asked.
“Towards home,” she replied. “Are you coming?”
“Nah,” I said. “I guess I will move around the block for some time, alone. Who knows, I might get struck with an idea for my next story!”
Having bade our goodbyes, we parted ways. I dug my hands deep into my pockets. The night was growing colder. As I walked down the footpath, it felt really nice to look at the smiling faces of the people walk by. Flurys looked magnificent with all the cakes and the people. Another happy time of the year, I thought.
After some time, I looked back. I had come quite far away from the bookstore. The figure of Ruchika was growing smaller every instant until it was lost in the crowd.
I reached into the pocket of my jacket and took out a cigarette. I badly needed a puff after all this tension of the evening. I turned and kept walking. My head was filled with thoughts. Was this meeting really necessary? After all this while? Life was easier with the memory of Rutika I loved. Now that I know she is gone forever, will it make my life any easier? No wonder, ignorance surely would have been a bliss! Regrets? Now I have one – I missed my girlfriend’s wedding!
