12 February 2011

Lauv Story Episode V

Read earlier episodes for context, even I had to read them to have a semblance of connectivity while writing this.

So here I was, waiting for the most important tweet of my life (for which I had been branded a twat by people aplenty). By the time I abandoned my pride, and somehow got her home number (from a very stubborn, possibly homosexual friend), she must have left for the airport. And in the subsequent moments of desperation, I did what I do best- make a fool of myself (in front of a large audience), and I tweeted, hoping she would read it at the airport, or in the flight, or even at the stop in Paris. And she would abandon all of it, and come back. I refreshed her twitter page a million times, but there was no update. She was gone, and gone for good.

And now beckoning me was a long summer with my dad, with the recession gloom still not gone, and a looming prospect of not landing a job. The summer was horrible as expected, and even an Anchal-less campus seemed acceptable.

One would call me an optimistic ch**, and it wouldn’t be unfair. Because on my way to Goa, and on my way to the campus, and on my way to the CC for the registration, I still harboured hopes of seeing Anchal there, waiting for me. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

But it wasn’t hope that was driving me mad, whose glimpse I caught as I entered the CC, and whom I saw clearly as I rushed over the stairs- the girl standing in the queue was Anchal, the red streaks were gone for good, and so were the gothic aspirations. Would it be inappropriate to do a ‘Pehla Nasha’? Before I could make up my mind she had gone inside. But she had come back, left the glorious future in the land of hamburgers, for a glorious future with me. I stood there, waiting for her to return, and almost bumped into her as she came out.

“So you came back!” She was staring at me blankly. “You read the tweet!” What an awesome idea that was, sirejee.

She started explaining to me, apparently she fell short of one unit to be applicable for the exchange programme, and the mighty o’ mighty ARC would have none of it, forcing her to cancel her exchange programme and return to the campus to finish her degree here itself. It was Choley she came back for! I am sure that till that moment, no student in his right mind had ever wished anything good for Choley, but I did, from the bottom and the remotest corner of my heart.

“So what tweet were you talking about?” She asked me, as I walked back (without registering my courses, to hell with it). As I was about to narrate my twat-story, her disgusted look the last time we spoke flashed in front of me, and I excused myself, to delete the blasted tweet.

You know how a man feels when he survives a near death experience? He starts appreciating small things (at least for a short while). I abandoned my Bollywood-inspired lauv antics, and even through the grinding of placements and rejections (=) and her disappointment at not being at CMU, I managed to get close to Anchal. This time, without incidences of much notice, no drama, and no action- just long conversations about random things, pulling one another’s leg and long silent walks.

The campus, though, was far from surrendering its antics, and suddenly one full hostel of junior boys was down with jaundice. Result: 15 days of unexpected leave from college right in the middle of the semester. During dinner that day, I told her that I wanted to accompany her to Dehradun (her hometown), since I didn’t want to see my Dad without a job offer, and that I had got myself a camera, and I feigned about utilizing these holidays to see if I could pursue a career in photography (since the looming prospect of not getting a job was looming large now) and after reaching I'll be able to make my own arrangements (fake cousin story).

Surprisingly, she agreed. We booked train tickets (who would want to go on a flight in such a case), and were on our way to Dehradun. The long journey by the train, the idle talk beside the side window and the evening tea on the floor of the compartment with our legs hanging out of the train- do I really need a job and be rich to be happy?

We reached her house in the morning. And there was a big lock at the main door, I was surprised but Anchal was smiling. She went and took out a key from under a flower pot.

“My family shifted to Mumbai, dad got a transfer. I had already booked my tickets for Mumbai, when you asked me in the mess about accompanying me to Dehradun… Happy Valentine’s Day”

PS: I swear this is the end.

11 comments:

Aniket Sachan said...

youusonofabitch...brilliant ending
good thing i got to read the full story in one go :)
any more of these in the pipeline?

Nishank said...

More like a bollywood ending i shud say ...after reading all your previous parts i thought there wud be some masala or some sorta heartbreak in the end....but hey....who wants to write about heartbreaks in fiction as well

Pratik Mandrekar said...

Good things happening on the eve of Valentine. Have a nice time in Dehradun :)

Anirban said...

Oscar Wilde + happy twist ending. Lauved it :)

Ankit Dua said...

haha nice one! thank god it's the last :P
waiting for the next blog! i hope it won't be fiction, your life is interesting enough i'm sure

Akhil said...

high contrast background kar de saale, too tough to read >.<

Akhil said...

lol, worked now, rendered incorrectly with BITS net pehle. nice post!

Mohit said...

Fixed the bg.

@sachan.. don't know, no source of insipiration in b'lore. :)

Phanindra Pisupati said...

Liked the ending. I had imagined a sadist ending with the narrator killing himself or killing the luaver. But that would just be my story :P

Anonymous said...

yoyo i had read this before ... ending is awesome!! :)

time for a prequel? :P

Anirban said...

Wait.. this is.. Mohit's HIMYM.