13th April, 2010. 12.45 pm in the noon
Five days after I had had the desktop, needless to say for the very first time in my life, my early introduction with the computer world being through the laptop given by the college (doesn’t mean it came as free though, the college charged as many as double its original value) here I sit at the same corner of my bed looking at the 18.5” PHILIPS LCD screen. Net is not working, as most of the time it does not. Too bad I have a doubt that the modem itself is in some kind of problem. No communication with friends is possible, given the internet issues, and my poor phone scheme. Life keeps waiting for thrill in the way of some excitement, and if they do not come, you’ll have to either wait for it, or keep reading ‘100 ways to impress a girl’, or may be stuffs like ‘In the wonderland of Indian managers’ or ‘Be the most effective manager in your business’ in the worse case.
It is the month of April. Hot, hot and more hots to come in the weather reports. Staying in New Alipur does have the specialty which no other place does. You get the weather reports from each and every person you come across in the colony. “We predict the weather, buddy”, as they all say. Anyway, no college for me now, at least for a week or so (Keeping in mind that I will have to sit for the unit test, just after that). But who the hell studies for a mere unit test! I would rather have a walk around the lake places twice a day (given the fact that someone urges me to sit down and study for the tests, otherwise it’s hard to go that far in this time of the year). But nevertheless, I make the walk once a day, settling the time in the evening.
Life is not as boring as it could be when you want to see someone, and she is not there for a stupid reason. Well, the ‘Mj-girl’ (the neighbour-colony girl turned into M-thing- Long story) sent me a message stating that she is taking a leave for 45 days or so for her final year exams. She also said that she had deposited applications for the leave.
“Don’t be unmindful while doing the classes. See you after the 28th,”as she added a big smiley in the text message.
Fuck. Who is going to be mindful to the lectures anyway? As if she knew, had she not been present, I would not be able to concentrate on anything. How do girls always know what’s going on?
Forget her, I said. She has a boyfriend, for God’s sake. And they are happy with each other (provided that either of them, or in the best case for me, both of them were not faking the kiss on the road). Set your priorities right, and act accordingly. MBA is the only thing you should have in your mind right now.
“Yes, of course I know that.” I muttered, and drew my mobile.
“What are you doing?” I asked myself.
But it was too late. I had already sent a text message to her saying I miss her. And the next moment, I regretted for doing that.
“You are a loose character like hell. Now I know why she left you.” Another ‘me’ told inside me.
I played with the mobile a bit, waiting to see if an answer came through message. It didn’t come, in fact. I got bored, went to the kitchen, searched for some snacks, and when I didn’t find any, got twice as bored as previous. I shouldn’t have sent the message. There’s nothing pitiful like when you text a person and they don’t answer back. I kept looking at the building on the opposite side of the road from where the Punjabi family went away a couple of months ago. People are not as bad when they are alone as they look in public. Well, I thought about Pallabi and turned my face away. There’s nothing one could do with a girl full of vanity from a beauty contest win, or may be an academic excellence, talented enough to write poems, Varanasi background or in the worst case (and I think this one is the main cause) of a foreign connection. Trust me, Boston sucks.
I saw her mother on the way back home one day. She was probably returning home from the ‘Arambag’s chicken’, with that grumpy face, spreading a feel of being agitated all the time. I felt like going to her and say, “Hello aunty, how are you?” Given the fact that whenever I called at her home, most of the time it was her mother who would receive the call first, and hand it over to her, I had an emotional attachment to her mother, or rather to her mother’s voice. Anyway, I am not going to make any more calls, so no chances of hearing those voices of mother and daughter.
Rather, I thought about other things. The fact that she made me look ridiculous by not answering to anything made me feel fuming at her at times. In fact in my mind I had imagined such situations where we meet and I make comments about her personal life in front of her friends which leave her in tears. I imagined further situations where we meet and she says hello, whereas I ignore her and keep walking, thus stating that I can live without her. And there were situations where I would talk about the flirting nature of her, or may be discuss about how proud she felt when she gulped down vodka as cocktail. Or should I tell her something about the pictures where she drew the wannabe boyfriend (the R-thing, I hate to take the name though.) close or held hands in public. Go to hell. Or even better, take a shortcut while going. I don’t need any of your dreams to live.
But all these things seem to fade away whenever I thought about the moments I stood beside her. I decided that some parts of my heart are still in love with her, or rather with the thoughts of her. So I let things be like that.
Now back to the M-thing. Time to elaborate.
One month ago, evening.
I, sort of struggled with my ankles as I reached the Rashbehari Avenue. How far someone has to travel to find a computer-table store? It may be a big city, but it also a city of worthless people, with things arranged at wrong places, at wrong time. I decided to suspend my intentions to find out signs of computer tables and headed towards the Chetla bridge.
I was irritated. These days, even the traffic police will lead you to the wrong avenues. I asked for ‘P.M.R. Road’ and the officer showed me the way towards a slum, which cannot be the address of the girl I was looking for. So tonight, I walked past the site where once I asked for the directions to an officer.
I headed for an electrical goods stall, where a man was standing along with the storekeeper.
“Excuse me; do you happen to know where the P.M.R. road is?” I asked, approaching the storekeeper.
He smiled, looking at the other person standing in front of him, and asked me to ask it to that person. This person seemed to be pretty energetic. “What is the number? Do you have any number with you? P.M.R. road is a long road to be exact.”
I hesitated. The fact that I was searching for a girl made my mind fill with a criminal sense.
I smiled.
“Well, my friend told me to wait near that place. Is there a number P or something?” I made my face look confused.
“Okay let’s see here, you can call your friend near the ground, you know, the ground for the occasions. Do you have his number with you? Make a call and call him near that place”
You messed with the gender, buddy. I thought.
“Sure. And thanks for helping” I performed a formal Colgate ad, and left the stall.
And then after running to and fro for an hour or so, I found the building out. The building is named as Mj apartments. I stopped near it, bought two chloro-mints from a nearby shop, and walked back home. I made a count for the time taken to get back from her home to that of mine as if I had to solve a time-distance problem. Forty five minutes. Amazing.
And then the neighbour-colony girl turned into Mj-girl in no time. Funny old world.
A shrill sound in my mobile brought me back from my memory-journey.
Present day, 1.15 pm in the noon.
“I have seen dreams to be far apart,
And I have lost things that were not of my possess.
People say that flowers always smile,
But I have seen flowers weep in loneliness.”
I read the four lines for the fifth time to make something out of it, but it proved to be futile.
What kind of a person answers a simple message like ‘I miss you, take care’ by something like that? Where the hell did the flowers come from? Am I supposed to decode it, in case something else has been coded inside these words? What kind of flowers is she talking about? Am I supposed to bring flowers for her next time I meet her? No, this is not possible, and I ruled out this possibility. What else could she mean? Is she having issues with her boyfriend? I cannot be so sure.
But once you are in a conversation with a girl, don’t stop it by yourself. I messaged her again.
“I certainly hope you are not among those flowers which you have seen crying. You have no reasons to be a pessimist. Keep smiling. And that way the world around you will be happy too.” I sent it within two minutes.
By doing this, I did two things right. One, I flirted in a harmless way calling her a flower. And two, I sort of energized her up, which in the tough times of exams, is badly needed.
After a few moments, another message comes to the inbox.
“Don’t take my words too seriously. Sometimes I go crazy and talk in a volatile way. Anyway, I will meet you on the 30th. I hope classes will be on that time. You take care too. Bye bye.”
Evening. On the same day.
“Is it really necessary, mom?” I demanded.
My mother made a face I hate the most. Why is it always me who has to escort her in every place? Can’t my father go with her to some of the places she wants to visit?
“Okay, I will go, but make it quick.”
My mother wanted to visit the Shiva temple. And it meant that I will not be able to take a walk around the southern avenues.
“Should we take the keys?”My mother asked.
“Whatever.”I checked my mobile as we came down.
On the way, I made a plan.
We left the temple soon, and I took her to the infamous Kabir road.
“What do you say about this place? Isn’t it quiet here?”
My mother kept looking at the houses, and then told that it was the place for only rich people.
As we walked, we approached Pallabi's house.
“What tree is this?” I asked. We were standing right in front of her house.
“I don’t know this one. But that one, at the far end is Rubber, surely.”
I expected the meeting in front of her house will be on tonight, but much to my luck (bad or good?) there were no one present at the booth. We walked as we came towards the main road.
“You come this far every day?”My mother asked.
“Why? Is it odd, or is it far enough for a boy of twenty-two to have a walk in the evenings?”
“Why do you always have to mention your age? I am your mother; I know how old you are.”
“Well, maybe it is time for me too to make up my mind for something as one of my cousins did when he wanted to marry a girl of his choice stating that he was twenty-four.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You want some fuchkas? There’s a stall just round the corner.” I showed her the way to the most delicious fuchkas of the city.
Night, half an hour after Kolkata lost the match against Chennai.
I changed the plot of my first novel ‘Friday’ several times and even so, it looked like immediately after the second chapter, the reader would start doubting the ability of the writer (in this case, which was going to be me) and stop reading it altogether. I became fed up.
I assessed the old plots and kept thinking where did I go wrong. Half an hour later, I found out ten reasons to be responsible.
PROBLEMS WITH PLOT NO. 1
First, a lady can’t handover her diaries before committing suicide; to a person she has never known in her life. This is one thing. Another thing is that, I am not good at writing interviews with people who are supposed to have known that lady, let alone be the thoughts of writing real ones.
PROBLEMS WITH PLOT NO. 2
It is more than certain that I can’t go on writing a novel based on a break-up, and show the main character as a vagrant, without any intention of presenting a real story. Well may be I can; but soon the reader will lose all sorts of interests from the novel, and it will turn into a disaster.
PROBLEMS WITH PLOT NO. 3
‘Friday’ cannot be simply the story about a lady or a man. It must be the story of a misunderstanding, and a day that everyone concerning the lady would like to forget. From that respect, my novel is so much fucked up.
PROBLEMS WITH PLOT NO. 4
I cannot present the name ‘Friday’ as a person who was very close to the main character, in this case which is Jipsa. Should I show ‘Friday’ as someone who liked her and wanted to be close to her, or was it someone who sought bad things of the world to happen with her. Once again I am in a dilemma.
PROBLEM 5
I don’t know much about the main character Jipsa.
PROBLEM 6
I have no idea how on earth she could commit suicide, or even think about it.
PROBLEM 7
I don’t have enough time to finish ‘Friday’ as a novel.
PROBLEM 8
My previous copy of ‘Friday’ was in my laptop, which was affected by viruses. And also the laptop was now severely broken. So both from the software and the hardware way, the documents inside the laptop were inaccessible.
PROBLEM 9
I don’t know any publisher, living or dead, who would like to publish my writing.
PROBLEM 10
I don’t have a girlfriend.
I scratched the last point in my imaginary notebook with the virtual pen I was taking notes. How on earth, I not having girlfriend can affect writing a novel? Well, of course there are possibilities that given the fact that I had one, she would have encouraged me enough to write at least couple of chapters more. And also I would have been more experienced to handle complex things. But that is mere a chance. And relationships cannot be built by the bricks of chances.
I sat up on the bed.
Sj came into my mind. What should I say to her when we meet again? Should I just smile and say nothing? I hope an ‘are you alright?’ or ‘how are you?’ will do. Keeping in mind the recent circumstances maybe I should further go on and say ‘how was your exam?’
All these things seem real complicated. I don’t want another smile, or another flirt. I am shameless, and I admit that way, I want someone more than a girlfriend and I search for her in each and every moment of my life. I know, a few went away, a few ignored, and the others were avoided (I am too afraid to give the percentage though).
I decided to say ‘hello’. To be a bit modest, I considered adding a smile.
And then I slept.
But before I end this writing, I must copy something from my diary of December, 2006 and put that in here. Given the fact that I am going to name this writing as ‘mediocre things like love’, I must put some of my first love experiences into it.
December, 2006
“Before shutting the windows I took the smell of the chhatims for the last time. Now it’s been a lonely, closed room with its only sound of ticking the clock. I switched on the table lamp and everything could be seen by that in the room. The half-open books and copies on my bed, the newspaper, the pillow, the half-ate biscuit packet and lastly, my diary. I put off my windcheater and comforter and did let them hang from the hooks. I took my diary, kept it on the table and sat on the chair.
“Another shock from a girl...” I muttered again. The only line I have written on the paper. I was about to write a love story but my pen can’t write a single line beyond it. Perhaps I would be the first ever to write a story by a single line. My story was about a boy who has fallen in love many times, but every time he has got refused or detached from the girl. His mind gets affected every time and the thoughts of happy past weaken his mind. And then how his girlfriend bring him back to his normal life and they fall in love with each other, but fail to tell it.
Right here my thoughts are not proceeding. Both the two think, the other one treats him/her as a friend only and a big doubt stands between them, whether they share love, or just friendship.
Actually this story is the reflection of my own opinion that a boy and a girl can never be just friends. One of their minds always thinks that the other one is surely in love with him/her. This strong faith resists the building of a relationship between a boy and a girl and that is the so-called ‘friendship’.
The doors opened, silently and suddenly, and my mother entered the room.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a sleepy and astonishing voice.
I was about to answer something but as soon as I saw that her eyes have fallen into my diary, I changed my mind and went straight ahead, “writing some answers on physics. Why?”
She turned back, and I left the deep breath. I knew about her poor eyesight without glasses, and got the best opportunity to lie.
“Who is Pallabi?”
“Who is Pallabi?” I questioned back to back.
The next moment was silent all along. But I was pretty quick in correcting myself and told, “My friend, why?”
“Why do you write her name so many times at your rough copies?” she threw the question leaving the room.
I closed my eyes and put my head on the hands. The night guards at the road whistled and I looked at the clock, 2.10. One can almost say good morning to me. I will never mind for telling that.”
A small epilogue.
Do you still remember what Sj had said?
“I have seen dreams to be far apart,
And I have lost things that were not of my possess.
People say that flowers always smile,
But I have seen flowers weep in loneliness.”
-April, '10
