Manav

Chapter 5 - Where is she?

"Manav?...Manav?" someone called me.

It was Dev. And soon I realized that I was dreaming stuff. Everyone was doing their own work. Guys played games on PlayStation, couples maintained and managed their businesses. Others were having their beers and the guy who ordered food was then on the sofa eating his Mughlai delicacy. And what I realised was there were few new faces. Music was so strong that it lit up the whole house into an imagination land. Gradually I remembered few faces who were mutual friends and had met each other someday or the other. And I also saw Shlok, who was probably discussing with someone about the efficiency of engines in cars and how one could modify few components and make it even better. But one person I couldn't find was, you know, Priyanka.

"What happened brother?" Dev asked.

It took me a little while to comprehend what was going on there. When I was comfortable and satisfied with the fact about what was happening, I answered, "Nothing, was thinking something."

"Okay." he said.

Dev introduced me to Omkar and Tanmay. I didn't know them, but they were common friends of Dev and Shlok. We had an introduction of each other and I found them interesting. We had few similar hobbies and they were pretty much open minded with respect to one's thinking, maybe that's why they accepted me as their friend.

"Manav, want to have a drink?" Omkar said.

"No thanks, I don't drink. I mean I don't have liquor." I said.

"What? Seriously?" Tanmay said astonishingly.

"Yes, yes, he doesn't even smoke. Well, he has thoughts over it, so that's what it is." Dev said.

"Honestly, I used to smoke, but left it a year ago, and then slowly slowly, I stopped drinking. Like it wasn't on purpose, but it just happened. " I said. And I thought about that time when after I ran that day, the next night, I got drunk, but I didn't get the kick which I should've got. Like I was wondering why I was able to walk straight?! It was as if, that drink couldn't make me mad in love with it.

* * * * * * * *

"Well, you guys carry on, I'll have some soft drink. " I said and left to the table where drinks and food was kept. There at the table, I met Shlok.

"Hey Manav! You came." He said and he hugged me.

"Yes yes, I had to come. Because you are going to leave us all here, so..."

He smiled and said,

"I'm so happy you are here." He hugged me once again. "Feel free here. It's just like your home. Have whatever you want to eat, drink, do stuff and all, okay? "

"Thanks, thanks." I said. "By the way, I see you have a lot of close friends, I mean a lot."

"Haha...actually, first I invited only close ones. But then while inviting them, I felt so nostalgic that I invited more than few."

"Well, others are friends of friends. I'm honestly feeling like Facebook is home." We laughed. He then went to meet someone else and I was just there at the table. I thought to isolate myself a bit, because if I could imagine a nightmare when I'm awake, then probably something was up ahead. Something was going to happen. Because the set up there, provided me with a strong intuition of a surprising possibility. When I looked around, I saw my friends with whom I used to be most of the time, hanging out with them, having fun with them, all the pleasure was with them. And it made me think that why did I really change? And did I change in the right way? Was this change for good? Because I realized that in my life at that specific point of time, my personal problems were not at all huge. I mean yes, I agree people do care about their relationships too much, but when it comes to an infection between best friends, that's what makes it very hard for the two to come back together. Simply, what I believe is,