I don’t really consider myself as a person with strong will.
Actually I always need some kind of inspiration, some impulse or any external
stimulus to get my ass down to do something. It’s just weird how I spend hours
browsing through internet to find the right stuff to read and listen or watch
and then stack them like I am preparing for some god damn apocalypse but never
or hardly I ever take a second look at them. For instance, I am having my whole
disk stacked with movies I wanted to watch, my favourite comics, PDF files of
some of the most legendary poets and my favourite music. But all I do is
download them. I wouldn’t take a look at them until someone inquire me about my
music and movies and it is then I realise I should have watched it just so to give
a clear review upon it. So when I decided to read Salinger’s “A catcher in the
rye”, I knew it was an outcome of frustration and monotony I was facing during
my college break. Because no matter how much I despise going over to that
place, it had kind of grown over me and I couldn’t resist myself visiting
again. Even for the sake of just beating the shit out of some morons and carrying
out my foolish pranks and poking fun at most of the faculty, that place gives
me a reason to keep myself occupied enough to get me going.
It was only 2 days I started reading the book and I was
almost half way through. I sometimes find it funny that how could I get myself
so badly absorbed in a book that I can’t just disengage myself from it until I
get it finished. Because you see I am not really much of a reader. I’m not among
those folks who would take pride in reading the scores of literature and then
discuss shear comical facts in public pretending like if they had gain the
entire wealth of universal knowledge disposed into their footsteps. I don’t
know if that makes them a genuinely bright or are they plain stupid. Moreover I
don’t think people who read and hail Twilight Saga or 50 shades of grey as to
be “shear classics” are clearly to be considered to possess intellectual
mind. I haven’t read any of those books besides some extracts but I believe
sometimes you could judge a book by just looking at the kind of people who
actually highlights their interest in them. It just works in a reverse order
same way as you would judge a person by the kind of book he reads but it indeed
gives a clear insight. Well if you are really interested about me, I would
rather say I haven’t read more than a dozen of books till now, enough to count
of fingers. My first book was The Swiss Family by Robison Crusoe and as far as
I remember I finished that book within 2 days. I would have been like in 3rd
grade or something back then. I think the concept of short novels is what that
fascinates me. I can’t carry a book with myself for long. It tends to become
just droning after some time. I prefer to have variations in my reading, not
too frequent but at a significant phase. Plus from what I had read till now, I
drew a conclusion that you don’t really need to put up with extensive and
outstanding grammatical proficiency like one has poured the entire bloody
dictionary into writing one speck of paragraph that even the likes of Charles
Hamilton and Chanakya would find alien to decipher. Crazy and blind
inspirations drawn from Leo Tolstoy and Ayn Rand. I think as long as the
message is conveyed you don’t need to put crap into your writing. It’s not like
someone is going to kill you or mock you if you don’t write in a particular
way. There have been many authors who didn’t have English as their native language
but has produced literary work that are now considered among the very best.
Think about people like Sam Walton who delivered newspaper
and took care of his family by milking cows, the man who has a net worth of $23
million and is the founder of Walmart. Maria Das Gracas collected can and
papers to make extra money but went on to become the CEO of Petrobas-Petroleo Brazil.
Dhirubhai Ambani started with a mere 1 rupee in his hand and worked as the
petrol pump attendant in Yemen before moving back to India to set up the second
largest holding company by revenue in India amounting to $73.10 billion(2013)
and a Fortune 500 listed corporation, Reliance Industries. Agatha Christie is self confessed terrible at
writing and spelling. Jane Austin,
Ernest Hemingway, Andrew Jackson, Albert Einstein and Scott Fitzgerald are few
names I can recollect who were never great at writing but still went on to
create the historic and most read writings. What I mean to say is certain
drawbacks and shortcomings never restrain you from achieving what you are
deemed to be capable of. All it takes is a strong heart and a great mind to
express oneself to the world. And therefore my likings for J.D. Salinger, Mitch
Albom and many others have grown over the years. But they write simple yet
intense work for which you don’t need a Ph.D in literature to appreciate.
Anyways the point of my writing today was partly inspired
from the book I was reading and partly because I haven’t scribbled anything
from a long time and so I thought maybe I should describe something or someone
from my life. A thing or may be a person. How about telling you about this girl
I really liked during my high school. Yeah, maybe I should write about her.
Shreya was her name and she is just one person I haven’t been able to get the
hell out of my brain until now. Just my genuine intimation towards her and some
stupid thing I said to her some day and she made sure to despise me for the
rest of her life, it’s all about her.
I had just got into the high school when the social
networking era had just begun to revolutionize as per my view and the prime
subjugator of this period was just Orkut. It had literally opened the gateways
for people from countries like India, Brazil, Philippines and other Asian
sub-continent to connect with the outside world. Of course Myspace and Netscape
existed before that but the thing with something like Orkut was it led into the
lives of millions of strangers who were literally willing to share and lie
about everything to you. When I think of that now, all I could picture is bunch
of assholes and mental retards
mindlessly sending friend request across the globe and putting up with very
decisiveness that couldn’t bear to uphold in reality. I will never deny it. I was
one of them and I had been doing exactly the same as everyone else back then.
It was plain and crude form to start up a relationship, to just drop a request
and hope for that hot chick on the other hand to accept it, whom you would
never be speaking to because she wouldn’t be replying you shit. It was all that
one could expect. But what was indeed unexpected was that one of these smearing
lies regarding my true identity would eventually lead to meet that one person I
believe I could never get out of my damn mind. Shreya.
The moment I send her a request all I did is check through
her profile. She was a Raphaelite and somehow her profile appeared to be
genuine among the heap of crooks and lady-boys who maintain a fake profile to
because they think it sort of fun to screw around with people. Crazy bastards
got no standard in pranks and even in their own miserable lives. Anyhow she did
accept my request and we started speaking on regular basis. Only till one day,
my childhood friend Ashu came back from Pune back to the city. He wasn’t really
familiar with the routes once he left Indore and when he called me to his
parental home I was way too excited to go. After all I was about to meet my
mate almost after a gap of 6 years. What this excitement was soon going to turn
into a freakish disclosure was about the most unexpected stuff I had ever encountered.
Before all this happened, let’s rewind back the reel a bit and have a little
insight of this tale.
I met Shreya through the only acceptable social networking
site, Orkut. During those high school days, when facebook was still trying to
spread it’s foothold in the Indian sub-continent, Orkut dominated undisputedly.
So one day just it would happen back then, I accidently came across her profile
and dropped her request. She did eventually accept it but we didn’t talk to
each other for a long time. Then one day, while just horsing around, which I
often do when I am bored, I send her a “Hi”. It took almost ages for her to
return back the reply but the important part was she did. It was peculiarly
unexpected to receive back a reply on shoddy website such as Orkut from a high
school girl who is responding to a text from a complete stranger. But it seem
to bother me much, as her profile was very genuine in it’s content and
character. We hit the chord soon and began chatting to her on regular basis.
She sounded like a pretty girl, she was in fact pretty. She had a kind of look
which wasn’t strongly seducing or striking but there was some kind of
childishness and cheerfulness at her face. She did look too young for her age,
she still do. She had a timid and delicate build like someone had taken extra
precautions while moulding her sculpture just to make sure she is unharmed. She
had a tiny voice too, just to compliment her looks and like most of the Marathi
chicks she had these big round eyes on her peach shaped face which looked like
a two sparkling beads which will leave you mesmerising ever if you looked at
her. She would keep her hair tied back but she wasn’t really kind who cared
much about them. They were not straight but a bit wavy and dense and there
would always be a strand or two which would bounce across her face. I remember
when Ashu was at her home and I just went to pick him up there, I saw him
walking with Shreya from a distance and she looked like a small girl walking
with her elder brother. I almost laughed at her face as this thought hit me
when she came close, standing in front of me and she gave me that perplexed
look as if she had just seen a lunatic. She used to listen to some Punk bands
back then but then developed love for Alternate Rock and some Metal too, a
quality which made me to fall for her more than anything else. Things were
pretty good and easy between us but I still never dared to ask her out for a
date. Maybe I was just too stupid and retarded to comprehend any hints she
would have dropped me as a sign of her interest. So we continued with our usual
talks, without ever telling her how I felt about her. And often those talks
with her would end the next morning at 4am. One day, I spotted her in the
parking of a shopping mall but I was still confused if it was her. She kept on
staring at me, maybe expecting from me to wave at her or smile but I didn’t. It
wasn’t until I came out of there I realised and when I collected all her
characteristic features in my brain I realised it was indeed her. In the
meantime, I had just made a regretful and shameful mistake by asking Heeral
out. She was just a girl from one of those tuitions I went during my 11th
grade. I cannot still think of a reason why I even dared to ask her and what
the heck was going through my head back then. But the funny thing was, after
spending 10 cheeky minutes with her, she did say “yes”. Boy, I wish she would
have just rejected me back then. I wouldn’t have even mind it if she had abused
me and rang my balls to even dare to ask her out. Because I would still be
having Shreya to whom I had always carried genuine care for and the only person
who would come to my rescue and that was at least I had hoped for. But it never
happened that way because Heeral said yes to my offer and I knew the moment I
can never back out.
I don’t know why I felt like it, but unlike the mystic aura
that surrounds almost every girl it was a very different scene in case of her.
She reflected obscurity in herself that you would ever expect a girl to maintain.
May be she was legitimately different. Her parents have been great scholars and
had graduated from the top institutes of the country. Moreover her brother later
went to study in one of those IIT’s. Maybe this academically excelling
environment had impacted her in some way which gave her this characteristic.
But I never saw her as a very studious of the lot. She went to a very common
undergrad. College of the city and had a basic degree in commerce while both
her parents belonged to technical background. But she was intellectual and
mature enough for her age. So when I had my first fight with Heeral and told
her I can no longer continue with her, it was Shreya whom I would spend my time
talking to. During this time it happened one day that Shreya actually revealed
her feelings towards me. Not explicitly but unintentionally. I was a bit taken
back but there was some part of me which actually wanted her to say that. But
then in my utter sense of self-respect and my shear brainless act to sound a
gentleman I said something so obtuse and shallow that would make her to despise
me for the rest of her life. She was dropping me hints from the same day I told
her I had a fight with Heeral but my mind was so badly obscured by the thoughts
of Heeral’s betrayal that I could not decipher any of those signals. It wasn’t
until I decided to go for a run with Ekansh and also talking to Shreya I
realised what she was actually trying to convey. And I asked her, what she
always wanted me to say or what she was feeling but could not say.
“You do like me. Don’t you?” I shoot at her straight.
It took another age for her to reply back to that throw. I
guess she was with some friend of her. But ultimately she did text back.
“Yes, I do.” She replied.
“But how can you expect me to be in relation with you when
you are aware of the fact that I just ended up with a relationship”. I replied.
And now unless you are a dim-witted rascal like me, I need
not to explain you what it would have actually meant. This one statement
inflicted the havoc on earth and that’s how folks, my story ended with Shreya.
Although I apologised a lot, once I realised what I had said,
it made no difference. I had just proven myself to be the most stupid and
retarded person ever to be born on the face of earth and I could see my entire
existence reduced to a self-pitying mockery of my shallowness and immaturity. I
did try to get back in contact with her but she was reluctant. She did spoke to
me but never the same way. There was a sure sign of ignorance in her texts and
in her voice and in the pattern she replied back to my messages which
eventually led me to give up on her. A few years back I did spotted her at
complex where my dad’s office was, with her mom when I was there with Anshul
but I couldn’t gather enough guts to walk to her and greet them. All I did is
stand there with my head held down in a desperate attempt to hide from her and
whispering to Anshul about her presence while her mom remained standing in
front of me.
I still never understood what could be the exact reason that
caused her to spurn me for rest of her life as I never dared to ask her. Maybe
she never meant it that way when she said she likes me and she was just trying
to be nice. Maybe I was delusional. Maybe some of her friend had replied me
back just to play out some bloody prank on me in her absence and Shreya read
the text back that I like her too and other horsecrap. But even to this day, when I believe she is
probably in relation with some other guy, I could just not let her escape from
my mind. She still occupies a corner in my heart which often thinks about her.
I know I sound stupid often when I talk about her to Ishaan because whenever I
am high I never forget to mention her. She is always there as an admiration and
as a constant reminder of my stupidity. And then I console myself with my own
degraded thoughts about her and me together and what would I have made her to
go through in the coming years when I went through my academic fall. I knew I
could never let her suffer for my mistakes. I could never be selfish towards
her and although she would have been the perfect image of the kind of girl I
ever wanted to be with I would have let her go by then because all I wanted her
is to be happy. But then, a secondary thought runs parallel through my mind,
“Would I really had to go through those hard times and failures if Shreya was
with me?” I just happen to know what
would it be but how much does it matter now she is gone away. And all I am left
with is the reminiscences of her and the time we spent etched in my brain and
her timid voice echoing through my skull. Gosh, I never thought I would miss
her so much. There isn’t any love struck feeling or suicidal tendencies but
just memories and regret.
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