ᴀ ᴛᴡɪsᴛ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴀʟᴇ

7. || Reflections of Life ||

Raghav was waiting at the park, thinking about what to say to a man who was about to give his dreams up. Would he even be able to change his mind? He had to!

"Earth to Raghav!"

Raghav was drawn back to the present by his friend's voice. He smiled at him, praying that he would listen to his pleas.

"Hey, Shravan! I was waiting. Didn't think you'd come"

"Oh, I'm sorry about that. I kind of zoned out in the bus and forgot to stop it. Had to take another one to get here"

Raghav let out a chuckle and pat him on his back.

"Only you Shravan, only you."

"Well, you said you wanted to talk, what is it?"

Raghav closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Here goes nothing...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Radhika had been sick for two days now. The cold wasn't letting her sleep and the fever was exhausting her. It was pure torture. Even though her parents were doing everything they could for her, the only thing they couldn't give her was time. Having working parents, Radhika had pretty much grown all by herself. It wasn't that her parents didn't love her but they were unable to give her proper time. Even as she was suffering from illness, her mother had prepared food for her and left and she couldn't remember the last time her father had spent any time with her. Sighing, she got up and went to the kitchen to eat something. Finding the same old khichdi and vegetable soup, she lost her appetite and decided to watch TV instead. Channel after channel, there was nothing that interested her so she decided to draw something. But all her paintbrushes were in ruins and she had to give up on that too.

Tired of everything, she decided to call her only friend, Aditya.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Niyati and Aditya were having a good time together, studying and making fun of the old-fashioned poems.

"You see, he calls his beloved the 'unending brightness of the moon'! who's gonna tell him that moon doesn't even have its light!"

"Maybe he intended to do so! Imagine it's just him making fun of his beloved!"

And with that, they fell into an uncontrollable frenzy of laughter again. The ring of Adi's phone rang through the room.

"I better pick the phone up," Adi said, laughing.

"Who is it?"

"It's Radhika. From our class"

"The one you sit with?"

"Yeah"

As Adi was talking to Radhika, Niyati felt a weird emotion in her. She so badly wanted to rip the phone from him and throw it out the window. But why? She had never had such violent thoughts before. Maybe it was because she was having fun and it got ruined...

Or maybe it was jealousy.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raghav and Shravan were sitting in a restaurant, eating pizza. Raghav had somehow managed to change the topic from Shravan's future to pizza.

"Hey Raghav, how long are you going to keep changing the topic?"

"Oh, don't worry. I am going to talk about it. Let's eat in peace first"

Raghav had no idea why he was being so nervous. He had always been good at explaining things. Then why was he being so hesitant? Maybe it was the fear of Shravan getting offended by Raghav talking about his personal life...