The one at the ticket counter : The heartbreak!!

Its in continuation of an ongoing fiction; so in case you missed the 1st and 2nd part, here you go :

http://unsocialgaurav.blogspot.in/2015/05/the-one-at-ticket-counter.html

http://unsocialgaurav.blogspot.in/2015/06/the-one-at-ticket-counter-2.html

or 

scroll below to find the posts. Thanks!

By this time, my sub conscious mind had started to multi task, prepared a network tree and analyzed all possible ways by I could confront/meet her yet again while portraying the incident as a mere co-incidence. I knew the shortest route to my destination was Raashi, Rahul’s wife. I immediately wrapped up my dinner, tossed the soiled plate in the dustbin and headed to the podium to greet the newly weds, as they posed with an artificial smile and tons of make up, just to look merrier and prettier in the wedding pictures.

I am not sure if it’s the bliss, boon or the other way round, but every newly married friend of yours makes a real effort to hook you up, or push you hard to settle in life(read get married). While they claim that it’s the marital bliss which every bachelor should experience, the same fades off once the reality dawns on to them a couple of years down the lane. Marriage was certainly off my charts until I met her, and even getting ‘hitched up’ by my friend who just returned from his ’6 nights 7 days’ honeymoon trip did not seem a bad idea either. 

It’s a guy thing, that the moment I spent more than 10 seconds over lunch talking about Reetika, once Rahul was back to office, that he patted my back and said, “Let me set things up you”. While this phrase would bring in a lot of ambiguity for others, both of us knew what he exactly meant. The pat on my back, a sly smile on his lips clearly told that “he would do something to get me in talking terms with her”. I was elated. I had an earnest desire to hug my brother, yeah this selfless act of his suddenly elevated his position in my life from a friend to my brother.

I week passed and nothing happened. I was getting restless and ruffled as the only source of seeing her over the past one week was her facebook page. I figured out the basic information about her, that she worked for Wipro, and her office was pretty far off from where I lived, brought up somewhere in Orissa, was a vegetarian and loved Bollywood playback singers way over Metallica or Pink Floyd. Never, I say never listen to your heart over your brain, it always lands you in trouble. My data analysis abilities clearly told me that it was an incompatible match, always destined to doom, while my heart brought in the theory of magnetism which I studied way back in higher secondary; unlike poles attract each other. I don’t know what made me believe it, as we were obviously not magnets. The only things which existed was a one sided attraction.

While Rahul was still working on his master plan, I as always being my impatient self, told about the entire attraction-which-i-thought-was-love episode to Raashi over a couple of drinks. As we were done with our office early, Rahul and I went to a closest pub. Raashi joined in a hour later. As Rahul went in for a leak, I dropped the bomb and told her how it was. “Wow”, she exclaimed with her mouth open. “That’s, that’s huge. I had no idea that you liked her and for so long”, she followed it up. I was clueless seeing her expressions. She did not jump with joy, but was not upset either. I was reminded of yet another feat which the male species had never achieved in his life, the ability to read a woman’s expression.

“He loves Reetika !!” exclaimed Raashi, the moment Rahul arrived back. Rahul gave me a what-the-fuck-you-couldn’t-wait look. The exchange of the bro code was enough for the secret to come out of the closet. “You knew about it, and never told me”, Raashi charged Rahul. I was guilt ridden for having created dents in their wall of trust. “I asked him not to tell you. I thought of handling things myself. But I need your help now.” I countered Rashi, to calm her down and take the blame on myself. She wasn’t amused. “Do you have any idea what you are getting into ?”. This statement and its ambiguity did nothing to make itself understandable, but yeah did bring a chill down my spine. A lot of thoughts started churning in my head; Is her dad a local goon or a MLA, Is she suffering from a rare disorder/disease, I confused myself further. “What do you mean ? Can you be a little elaborate, this entire suspense is not helping my anxiety”, I shot back at Rashi.
“She is in a happy relationship for the past 2 years, got officially engaged last week and is due to get married by the year end”, she spoke in bland tone and brought my world crashing down. I sat there expressionless. The lighted cigarette between my forefinger and the middle continued to be there. I looked down and I could feel the entire world around me standing still. I couldn’t feel anything and the numbness even made the loud music go silent. The alcohol finally seemed to have started to kick in. The news of Reetika being engaged amplified the effect of alcohol manifold times  and I wanted to throw up. I looked around for the signs of the nearest restroom and tissues in my table. That told me I was still in my senses but momentarily paralyzed.

“Gaurav, Gaurav, Gaurav; Are you OK”, I could hear this feeble voice and then a jolt on my shoulders. Rahul came along my side of the table and started blabbering something which I was not able to comprehend. All I could follow was “Its gonna be Ok”. I shook off my head vigorously, blinked my eyes a number of times to came back to my senses again. “The cigarette looks to be one adultered shit, gave me a sudden high”, I told Rashi who sat in a state of shock. She panicked seeing me go haywire as she broke the news to me. “Are you OK, look I didn’t mean to startle you” Rashi tried to reason herself. “No, its alright. You did what a good friend would do, bring the facts to table and I really appreciate it. At least it cleared off any air of unwanted expectations I might have had from a girl I hardly met twice?, yeah just twice”I said trying to be practical and reasonable. It wasn’t Rashi’s fault, in fact it wasn’t anybody’s fault. If anyone had to be blamed, it had to be my heart who fell in love with her hopefully without checking her relationship status. “Damn, my luck”, I said to Rahul as Rashi excused herself to the washroom.

“Lets get the heck out of here, I need some fresh air”, I told Rahul. We asked for the cheque. “Bhai, we can still make it work”, Rahul tried to comfort me. “Its over dude. I am neither Madhavan of RHTDM who could woo off an already engaged girl, nor she is Dia Mirza for whom I would take so much of troubles. Remember, what happens to Jack in Titanic when he tried to get an already engaged pretty girl. He dies. I don’t want to be that person”, it was alcohol which was speaking now, but made perfect sense. That night I decided to put a lid to this episode, once and for ever.

2 days later, clad in business formals, as I waited for the lift which would take me to my office floor, my phone rang. It was from an unknown number. As I took the call, the lift doors closed and I could not hear the person at the other end. I apologized and asked to call sometime later. 10 minutes later my phone rang again as I was trying to put my office desk in order. The same number. True caller did not work as I wasn’t connected to wifi. I took the call with a slight hesitation. “Hey Gaurav, its Reetika here, Reetika Sharma, We had met a couple of times before, Do you recognize me” said the voice at the other end. I knew exactly who she was, someone I was trying to get over from the past two days, but somehow God has a weird plans to bring back your memories haunting back to you time and again.

Ek short lived love story - I

A blip on my phone woke me up from my sleep. I sneek-peeked in my smart device from one eye. It was a facebook notification. I was momentarily excited , though wary of the fact that somebody could have dared to send me a Candy crush or Farmville request at this hour. I fumbled around to find my glasses and swiped on the screen to see the notification bar.

“X,X has accepted your friendship request, Write on X’s timeline”. OK, it was a girl who had accepted my friendship request, so that meant I would have sent her the request at some point of time. I tried hard to recollect if I knew her by name and “now visible” profile/cover pictures. No, there was no chance I could have known her. We had no mutual friends either. She did not even belong to my school/college and beyond everything, I did not know someone as pretty and photogenic, as she appeared to be in her profile pictures.

I pressed hard to recall when was the last time, I went on the spree of sending friendship request to any and every random girl I came across on facebook. It was a social thing, trying to connect to as many people as possible, the core idea how the social network came into existence (pun intended !). I nudged my friend to wake him up from his sleep, and asked him if he know anything about the damsel in question. My friend did not disappoint me. His impeccable memory impressed me to an extent that I gave him a hug. It was more than month back, when we were trying to look for my friend’s college crush, that we stumbled across her profile. High on couple of vodka shots, my ego went for a toss, and I sent her the friendship request. One more shot later, I sent it to almost every girl we found thereafter.

“You lucky dog”, my friend said, as we were still glued to her SLR shot photos which had a water mark reading “X,Y’s photography”. “Its bloody photo-shopped”, I re-iterated trying to make a point. “I believe in what I see and I trust God!”, my friend replied, still staring at the pictures and was certainly more fascinated than me. I gave a puzzled look to him and asked him to stop leching at the lady who chose me over probably many others and privileged me by accepting my request. I hopped on to my profile picture and thought “Do I really look like someone who could befriend such a hot chick ?”. I was assertive and perplexed at the same time.

I press-locked my touch phone trying to catch some sleep, which I had completely lost by this time. It really didn’t make sense. Why would a lady of this “genre” even look at my profile, something was asmiss, or worse the profile could be a fake one. Perturbed I got up, switched on my laptop to look at the larger picture, and de-mystify the issue.

The Sherlock Holmes within me came out in full force and we figured the link in a matter of 10 minutes. She happened to be my colleague’s friend’s friend’s friend. “Wow, you drilled down so many levels to find her and send her a friendship request. You would have been drunk like a pig, but hard work pays off you see”, my friend quoted trying to be profound and sarcastic at the same time. I gave him a smirk, pulled over my blanket and crashed off to sleep with a smile on my face.

(To be continued...)