7 Stories

Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh

Four months later

Ganga sat at the window, staring at the water droplets that merged as they fell down. The Chennai weather today was humid and rainy. The latter she enjoyed with a hot cup of tea, some biscuits, and crunchy but spicy samosas. The background was playing one of her favorites, Ajeeb Dastan hai yeh. Memories of last year played in her head.  How he had come yelling at her, how he took it off, and how he beat her mom up. All of it. Now a year later, many things did not change. He was the same alcoholic and the same imbecile. Except, the domestic abuse reduced and his tantrums grew more tolerable. He was no other than her father.

Yet seeing all that alcohol had done to him, she still got into that very same loophole last year. She couldn't believe the outcome. Within a year, she had become 90kgs and lost two jobs. Reconsidering everything that is now her life, a tear fell parallel to the raindrop on the window. There is no use though. Every time she sits to think and change, she goes back to being who she despises. She couldn't do much, so she stopped trying to do much. 

Within a week was the wedding, and her plans to reduce weight did not happen. She was still 90kgs and she did not want to step out. It was the same her who waited for this wedding to dance, to have fun, to eat, and celebrate, who now wanted to stay in the room and skip the wedding. She did not even go shopping, which her mother and sister had.

As she walked to the mirror to see maybe something had changed, she saw a person look back. A person's physical features she wanted to change completely. She wanted to change the nose with plastic surgery as she found it too big, and the lips she wanted to thicken with botox as she found it too thin. She could go on with the list, but her main problem was her weight. 

If anyone looked at her, they would see a girl with thin, but wavy hair, pretty eyes, and a cute smile look at them, but it was her who was looking at herself. The frustration grew and her fists banged the mirror. Her legs stomped the floor as she looked for the bottle, broke the top off and gulped it down.

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In another corner of Chennai, two guys were gathering materials for tomorrow's events. Their college had a farewell for seniors, which they would be themselves, the next year. For this year though, the feeling of leaving this place within a year felt like something that would take a while to come. As the same song was played by the tallboy who chose the song on his i-pod and set it down to play from the speakers, the other noticed for second but went back to work. Trying to steal a glance at the other boy, the tall one realized that the other was suppressing a smile. Daring to look into the eye of the tallboy, the tall one and the shorter one smirked at each other. 

The room was filled with charts, pencils, rulers, banners, balloons, streamers, and other decorative items for the farewell with wooden wardrobes at either end of the room. Even the flooring was wooden which gave the room a nice feeling at this time of the hour, 5'o' clock in the evening, right after the rain. The rain had cleared the sky, and the sun was setting. The setting sun lightened the room with an orangish-yellow hue. That was the only light of the room. As the shorter boy pretended to fix something in front of the window using the sun as his only light source, little did he know that his face was brightened and he looked angelic.

The tallboy still expecting some bigger reaction sat back, folded his hands, and stretched his legs from the stairs of the room. The short one ignored him still. The tall one decided to pose a bigger challenge and walked up to the other, who dropped his object from his hands, and just stood fixed to the position he was standing at even though he really wanted to move. His legs were not listening to his wishes, but so was his heart. They were beating louder and faster. Both of them were in front of the same bright light and both of them shined. 

The tall one bent and picked up the object to give it to the other, but the latter was too focused on something else that he was not even blinking. 

"You dropped this," came a deep and raspy voice.

"Thanks", replied a soft tone.

But instead of clutching the object he clutched the hand accidentally. Panic rose in him and his hands shot feet away as he hit the edge of the wall.

"Ouch!"

Taking that hurt, hand, the tall boy rubbed it softly.

"You know right, I am not going to kill you."

"You sort of are."

He replied with a soft laugh.

Still holding the hand, he asked, "What are you going to do this summer?"

"I have a cousin's wedding in a week."

"Nice.."

"You can come too, only if you want."

"Are you sure you can invite people like that?"

"I guess not, but trust me, that wedding is going to be big and no one is going to know who is who."

"If someone asks me whose side I am from, what will I say?"

"You say that you are from the left side."

"What?"

"Uh, I mean.."

"Shankar, listen to me and enjoy the wedding. Okay?"

"It is two weeks long."

"What the?"

"I know man, rich people, so fun events basically."

"I guess, I can handle two weeks, and so can you."

"I can'.."

"Shhh.."

His hand was on the other boy's mouth, closing it from speaking.

"Enjoy yourself."

The tall one squeezed the hand and dropped it and slowing walked backwards smiling. As he turned forward, Shankar said something.

"Rosh."

"Ya?"

"I ..I will see you soon. Let us plan to meet up. You know for committee purposes and plan the coming year's events."

"Sure." and Roshan left with one of the widest smiles seen on his face for a while.

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