A love story_ Any resemblences are purely coincidental

Pradeep and I were friends, close friends. There wasn’t much common between us except that both of us were losers. We were two losers in an institute of achievers. I was not good at academics, nor was he. I could never make it to any sports team, nor could he. I didn’t have a girlfriend; same was the case with Pradeep.
You don’t know (if you never have been a loser) how painful a loser’s life is if he isn’t in the company of another. Loser compatriots, the real pain-killers, give you the assurance that every grape you can’t reach is sour, that every sport you don’t have the stamina to play is boring and that you’re a loner because none of the girls in this institute is pretty enough to be honoured with your company.
Ours was a peaceful world, built on our conception that achievers were achievers because they work hard, that we were no way inferior, just a little lazy; we didn’t hang out with girls not because we didn’t get dates but because we were still waiting for that dream girl.
Alas! One evening, all of it changed. News came in that a classmate by name Sukanya had attempted suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She was taken to the hospital soon but her condition was serious even after six hours.
Now, this girl was the heartthrob of the institute. Beautiful, slim, with long dark hair, she was one of the best feminine ‘matters’ you could get in our institute. She was Pradeep’s lab partner in soil mechanics practical. Pradeep always had a crush on her but was never confident enough to ask her for a date… or at least I thought it was that way. In fact, Sukanya used to chat with him animatedly while Pradeep kept standing numb and nervous in lab classes.
I thought Pradeep never had the confidence to ask her out on a date but here I was proved wrong. News came that Sukanya had attempted suicide because Pradeep had rejected her! Let alone Pradeep’s rejection, it was tough for me to believe that she had fallen for Pradeep. He used to look dumb in her presence. However, the news was confirmed by her friends. She had tried calling Pradeep many times that day and even had some altercations with him on the mobile phone. ‘Pradeep’ was one of the few words on her lips while lying senseless in the hospital.
You never know what goes on in a beautiful girl’s mind and I kept wondering how she could fancy the noob that Pradeep was. Besides, she was always close to a guy called Anadi and we thought they were dating since a long time. I pitied Anadi. Anadi was one of those guys who was acquainted with all in the campus and had spent some quality time with most. Anadi was one of the few guys who were found in most friends circles in campus. He was a ‘stud’ but was a close friend of mine and Pradeep too.
Eager to find out what really happened, I rushed to Pradeep’s room to find him in the company of Somanchi and two other guys who don’t hold any relevance to the story. Of course, there are others in this circle of losers. Somanchi is a loser, albeit only in lack of female luck. There is a long list of girls – longer than this story is intended to last –Somanchi tried his luck with, without success. Unlike most losers who are sceptical of achievers, Somanchi acts like one. He often boasts of so-and-so girl he exploited and left after losing interest in her.
“If you are here to ask about the suicide, please don’t. As a friend, you are at least expected to understand my predicament,” Pradeep said as soon as I took a seat.
“And friends shouldn’t hide anything, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes! Even I have never hidden anything about my love life to you guys,” Somanchi blurted. Most of the tales about his love life being ‘tales’, his statement wasn’t really an expression of hurt feeling. It was evident from Pradeep’s expressions that he was serious, nervous and worried.
“Look guys, there is a girl in hospital and everyone thinks I’m the villain. It hurts me but I am not in a position to tell anything to anyone,” Pradeep said. “I didn’t think she would go that far” – this last sentence he muttered more to himself than to us.
Somanchi again blurted out, “You don’t know girls, especially the pretty ones. They can’t handle a single break-up easily. You know how Ayushka reacted when I broke up with her? I tried my best to make it easy. I explained to her that…” Once started, Somanchi wouldn’t stop unless his story was heard and appreciated. We all knew this girl Ayushka never existed, and if she did exist it must have been the other way round.
News in this institute spreads like wildfire. Overnight everyone knew that Sukanya had fallen in love with a guy called Pradeep and had attempted suicide when he rejected her. Pradeep became a star, a ‘stud’ in campus lingo. Words started floating in his praise –
“Who is Pradeep… oh that is him?”
“Lucky bastard. Must have used her a lot”
“Always maintains a low profile. Now I know why…”
“That’s why I was thinking why Sukanya wasn’t having a date for a long time”
“Must have done it with Sukanya before ditching her”
“Is she carrying or something?”
“Good for her. She thought only she could ditch guys”
Classes went on as they should but there was a marked difference this time. Pradeep had assumed heroic proportions among classmates, seniors and juniors. Those who didn’t know him just stared at him from a distance and whispered to each other; those who did came forward, exchanged a ‘hi’ and talked to him the way fast friends do. Girls tried to show anger and abhorrence but their eyes deceived them. All these years, Pradeep and I would move through the campus without being noticed by girls, without ever being greeted by any of the so-called studs. Now it was all changing, but only for Pradeep.
I hated being left behind. Before both of us were ignored but now it was only me. While walking together inside the campus or when sitting in the coffee shop, we met many others. They greeted Pradeep but not me. Those who did greet me talked to Pradeep about something or the other making me feel left out. I was filled with jealousy. I used to go to the institute on his bike but discontinued it when I felt that I was being viewed as an assistant. I started avoiding him as much as possible, both inside and outside the class.
And then news came that Sukanya was healing fast and was now ready to receive visitors. It became a big occasion for Pradeep and his new friends’ circle. There was a hot debate among Pradeep’s new-found friends and their girlfriends on whether he should pay Sukanya a visit. Finally he agreed to meet her. I had hoped that something awkward would happen there and I would get my friend back. But the visit went pretty smooth. Fresh news came in that Pradeep and Sukanya had decided to stay friends. The condition worsened. Girls, who earlier acted as if they scorned Pradeep, started talking with him. After all, he had apologized Sukanya and she had forgiven him. My distance with Pradeep further increased.
I had been introduced to Anadi by Pradeep but now Anadi and I became fast friends. Pradeep openly avoided Anadi. With me Pradeep made quite a few attempts to act as if nothing had happened and that we were still fast friends but I started avoiding him. The distance increased all the more as I was found in Anadi’s company most of the time and Pradeep was just avoiding him.
I consoled myself that I was happy. After all, Anadi was a great guy, was popular in campus and was a real stud. I avoided Somanchi also as Pradeep was still in his list of good friends. However, I couldn’t deny the fact that I was missing my old friends. Every time I faced Pradeep and gave him a cold ‘hi’ before showing him my back, I wished none of this had ever happened.
One day, after a fortnight or so, Pradeep came to my room. He was trying to be friendly but I talked to him as if he was just an acquaintance. We talked on various subjects – the electives and the summer heat – talk that seemed too formal for two guys who were best friends just weeks before. Suddenly Pradeep asked me not to be very friendly with Anadi. This infuriated me.
“Now, if you have a problem with Anadi, it is your problem not mine,” said I. “I never ditch my friends!”
“Neither do I but Anadi is a special case,” said Pradeep at perfect ease.
“As if Anadi is the only case,” I said sarcastically. I did lack the rationale then that it was I who had distanced myself from him, not he from me.
“Yes he is the only case,” Pradeep said firmly. It seemed as if he hadn’t even noticed the coldness in my tone.
“And can I know the special case? It is Sukanya, isn’t it?” I reasoned, “You stole her from him and then ditched her, so it should be Anadi who should avoid you. That guy often talks adoringly about you and is ready to reconcile, but not you!”
Pradeep started laughing and this irritated me further.
“What is the matter?” I asked.
“I could never tell you the truth about Sukanya’s suicide because of the oddity of the situation. Look, let me put some things straight. I did admire Sukanya, but who in campus didn’t? You think she could have ever fallen for a guy who didn’t exchange more than a couple of words with her even though she was his lab partner for one semester?”
“That was the first thing to come to my mind. But she did. You can never understand a girl’s choice…”
“True, you can never understand a girl’s choice. Why else would she go crazy over Anadi, a gay?”
That came as a bombshell. “A GAY?” I exclaimed.
“Yes. You remember Anadi was really close to us before Sukanya’s suicide attempt. The truth is that Sukanya was madly in love with Anadi – believe it or not – and had even proposed to him! Yeah, he really is a lucky bastard but as the saying goes ‘God never gives horns to horses but gives them to tame cows’. Anadi is gay and when he told her that, she tried to commit suicide.”
“So where do you come in?” I asked.
“That’s the most embarrassing part. Anadi considered her his best friend and told her what he hadn’t told anyone else – that he had feelings for me!” Pradeep made a grimace while saying this. “And Sukanya thought perhaps she could change him. You know, people generally don’t understand homosexuals in India. She was upset, so she got my number from somewhere and called me. I was shocked the moment she told me about it. I always sounded dumb while conversing with her. She wanted me to find a solution and, dumb that I am, I could only assure her of my being straight. That’s it. That’s where my part ends. Maybe she called Anadi and had some altercation that we don’t know of. What happened between her call to me and her suicide, I have no idea. She was mumbling my name in hospital because perhaps my name got stuck in her mind while she was taking the pills…”
There was a short pause during which I was looking at him incredulously. “Can you imagine the embarrassment I was going through when I was forced to visit her in the hospital?” he asked me.
I couldn’t control my laughter and kept laughing for a long time. Even Pradeep couldn’t control himself and we laughed our hearts out.
Pradeep was too embarrassed to tell this to anyone but eventually blurted it out to me… he didn’t mind looking like a fool in my eyes. But the episode didn’t end there. I, true to my nick ‘notice-board’, spread the message far and wide. Some believed, some rejected the real story behind Sukanya’s suicide, but we – the circle of losers – got a good topic to pull Pradeep’s legs.

TALES OF MY BOREDOM

Today, at last I took the revolutionary decision to bunk office! this adds another problem to my already troubled diary , what to do at home???????, no new interesting books on shelf, no girlfriend , no theaters here ( except one mediocre theater playing  Gujju movies), after a lot of brain storming, i zeroed the option of watching television , and still repenting the decision i made.

Indian television is the stupidest thing on the planet right now. If George W Bush, Digvijay Singh, a bag of hammers and a Miss World question came together to form a giant super-robot of stupidity, it’d meet its match if it tried to out-stupid Indian television. Stupidity isn’t a crime though; not making even a basic effort to be anything else is a straight-up felony. And Indian television makes roughly as much effort as an Indian man on his 27th wedding anniversary.

In an era where television around the world is growing in scope and ambition, often surpassing cinema in its drive to be art, Indian TV is the guy in the back of the classroom with his finger in his nose. Everyone else has moved on to bath-salts and shower-gel. We’re still dealing in soaps.

Today, I caught an episode of one of those shows that comes on at 10 am and looks like all the others that come on at 10 pm. And 9 pm. And 7 am. The sort of show in which men show up once every six days, and all the women dress like they’ve just come back from Bappi Lahiri’s coming-out party. I think the name of the show was Kya Aapki Badi Acchi Kasauti Ke Baarein Mein Log Kahenge Vadhu Smriti Irani or something. And I am not making this up; in it, the bahu (Hindi for “person who is about to have a relentless stream of miserable things happen to her”) discovered a bomb while the family was praying. Except the bomb was stitched into the bandhgala of a child in the family. So she took him outside, bit the wires off with her teeth and then flung the jacket over the side of a cliff. As if Indian girls didn’t have enough pressure on them, now they’re going to have to add “defuse detonator attached to C4” to their list of “Things to learn for marriage” list.
If a writer anywhere else in the world came up with that, you would have only one course of action; call the zoo and tell them that their orangutan has escaped and come to your office again. But we put this on TV. You’re thinking “Why not just change the channel?” Because it just gets worse. Changing the channel takes you to “youth channels” that used to be music channels that now run reality programming where half the cast looks like it’s on heroin, and the other half look like they deal it. Another change takes you to sports channels, whose idea of post-match analysis is Sidhu dancing with three cheerleaders to Halkat Jawaani. A third change takes you to English channels, which you can’t watch because they’re like the Fill In The Blanks section of every school exam ever come to life. “She said _____________ to that _________, that _______ ____ ______” is what most shows sound like, because apparently, if we heard somebody say the word “gay” or “nipple”, god would drop the entire west coast into the ocean.
In pandering to what we condescendingly call “the lowest common denominator”, our own content diminishes us. It reduces us to a collection of our worst tics and stereotypes. It blows my mind that we currently have more TV channels on air than we ever did in the past, but somehow, at the same time, fewer unique ideas than we did back then. We need better TV. We deserve less stupidity. Though at this point, it’d probably be easier, less painful, and more fun, to be at Office.

HOME, LIFE AND LONLINESS

It's already four months since i came to Dahod, and I’m proud to announce that , I, for the first time ever, am living in my own house. King of the castle. Master of the domain. Walker in the nude. You get the idea.
I’m lucky because I got a big Government bungalow  in Dahod. My office is just down the road, which means I no longer have to spend hours in a local like those of metro cities, my nose buried in some stranger’s armpit (I prefer the armpits of people I know).

Certainly being in a remote rural place have its own advantages, metro lifestyle is not conducive to pursue any hobby. Well, duh. That’s like saying the Vatican isn’t conducive to abortions. A typical day in Metro involves braving a swarm of armpits in train compartments that even the Gestapo would’ve considered inhumane, with the rest of your time spent at a job that you hate from the bottom of your cholesterol-laden heart, but you dare not quit, because you need to pay the rent for an apartment the size of my friend's handbag. 

Apart from that i don't know anybody in Dahod, so i have to develop ‘My Network’. This is a common Bachelor thing, wherein you have a bunch of guys to do everything you’re too busy to do – finish the laundry, buy groceries, repair stuff, please your dog – everything. As of now, I know a guy who knows a guy who knows other guys, so it’s all going to be good.

This sudden availability of free time is most welcome, because as it turns out, living on your own involves a lot of work. Contrary to expectation, life is not like an episode of Friends. Or wait… it is like Friends, except that I’m Monica and I have to cook, clean, scrub, decorate, host and to make things worse, my domestic help looks nothing like Jennifer Aniston (although it would be creepy if he did)

Now there are many things in life that I’m good at, like writing, dancing,  performing, and having serious conversations with women about haircare. But cooking has never been my forte. However, I braved it out    (after being tormented by tasteless Gujarati cuisine) in the kitchen recently, learning to whip up tasty and healthy South Indian meals. Hah no, I’m kidding. My body composition is now 80% Chicken and 20% MTR Chicken Masala.

And there is a very good reason for my lack of real-world skills; it’s called The Indian Mother.
That’s right, because we Indian boys are the most mollycoddled and dependent species on the planet, possibly ahead of Norman Bates. In all my time at home, I never lifted a finger – not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t have to. Indian mothers will pamper their sons all the way into adulthood, resting only once they’ve made them Prime Minister.

On the upside, things like storage and decoration become a lot easier if you’re a man. For example, I don’t have a cupboard, but using only my masculine skills and bare hands, I’ve managed to create a fantastic garment-storage structure, technically known as ‘a pile of clothes’. Over time, this pile has evolved into an entire ecosystem and although I cannot be sure, I think some Bangladeshis have sneaked in and set up home there.
As far as decor goes, i’ve used a minimalistic theme for the drawing room, because I have no money  to buy extravagant furniture. It’s nearly bare, like a dinner table at the Hazare house. This emptiness inspires two very different reactions, described below.

Female Friends: Ooh, big empty room. We can decorate it with fairy lights, and new cushions and curtains and carpets and sofas and fabric – OHMYGOD I AM SO TURNED ON RIGHT NOW!

Guy Friends: Ooh, big empty room. We can play underarm cricket here. And this floor will be great for that spin thing I learnt in the 3^rd standard – OHMYGOD I AM SO TURNED ON RIGHT NOW!
. And if things get a bit too overwhelming, I’m calling Mommy.