What is a Story? What sort of series of events would it have to be to qualify as a story? The way it starts? The way it ends? What if it doesn’t end? Or is it just the meaning it conveys, to a mere onlooker or an intense follower. Does it depend on how relatable the characters are for oneself? And if the story is relatable, what sense can you draw out of it? To a normal person these questions don't mean anything, but, if you are a writer or claim to be one or at least trying to be one, you know these questions decides the fate of what kind of writer you want to be, and where you are headed. Do you avoid to tell a story simply because it is too painful for you, or because it is too personal? Or maybe you subconsciously think that no one would understand it, ever? And even if they do, can they ever trace back the feelings with which those words were beaded together and penned down? It’s a stereotypical world we live in where nobody wants to be the writer, not really. Everyone settles to be a reader. A reader, who involuntarily falls for the character in the stories, in every which clichéd way. But what if, the character from the story falls in love with the reader for the first time. How would that pan out? Would it be thought of as unconventional, or would it just change the world?
I was sitting in the 1st lecture of the day soon after we placed our bet and wages. I tried to think about a way to win the bet, but, my mind sniffed in this drug called wanderlust and parked my train of thoughts down the memory lane. As soon as I was pushed off the train I saw myself sitting beside Angel with a small notebook in my hand underneath a tree. Her head resting on my shoulder as I read from the notebook:
and drew the outline
of the constellations
in my night sky,
tricked my heart into falling
like a shooting star.
Wishes were made for love
that can never come true.
Silly boy, hearts are no stars.”
She forced a smile, while her eyes disagreed with the movement of her lips. She caught me looking and instantly turned her head towards the notebook, hoping I wouldn’t notice. But instead, I asked, “What’s wrong?”
She ignored the question and turned the page asking “Read me this one.”
I insisted “No, tell me what’s wrong?”
She stole a look at me and then turned back a few pages from the notebook and read:
“Happiness is when the season's first raindrop
falls on her lips, and you get to kiss them.
Making the clouds jealous, so they pour some more.”
“See?” she pressed, expecting an answer.
“What?” I managed.
Her brows grew a little angrier as she pointed her finger to next few lines and read:
“Love stories are just stories
until you try and turn them real.”
“See, how you changed?” she paused, took a long breath and continued “Before you met me, you used to write from a happy place, a more positive place, and now, you just put words to your misery. Like you are trying to delay something inevitable. Just masking the darkness that is growing. This is what I did to you. I know you wrote this when we broke up for the 1st time. The last thing I want for you is to be writing from a sad place. These feelings that you scribble into words, means more than you think. I don’t want to take that away from you.”
It took me few seconds to process. I bit my dry lip thinking. I saw she was waiting for me to respond, but I was having a brain fart. When my silence turned awkward I joked “But, you have to admit, it’s more beautiful than..”
She cut me off in between and ranted “Of course it is, look at it, it’s a thing of absolute fucking beauty. I know you are joking just to lighten the mood, but it is more beautiful than you can ever realize. It's borderline truth, you know exactly what strings to pull. That is what makes it gorgeous and me scared. Because there will come a day when you will wake up and realize how much sense it makes for you to write while high on your misery and I am afraid that you wouldn’t want to go back. You’ll call that dark place your home. And I’d rather die than to see you become that horrible shell of a person, who can only interact with people with the wall of words he puts around.”
“That’s never going to happen” not totally believing what I said.
Her expression grew angrier. I started evaluating all the possible things she could say out loud; “Of course, that’s not going to happen, we’ll always be together” or “It will, sooner than you think” or “I hope not” or “I won’t let that happen to you” or the least of all “I will make sure this happens to you”. But she stayed quiet hoarding anger. Ironically, her silence was the loudest of them all and it felt like a part of me died when she didn’t say anything.
“Just don’t be angry” I said, picking up what was broken inside.
“I am not angry, I am sad, I don’t want you to be the person who lives in his stories, when I know you are capable of so much more.” she mumbled as calmly as she could.
Again, I was out of words to say to her. I mean claiming to be a writer and running out of words is terrifying. She saw the terror in my eyes and immediately held my hand. She started “All I am saying is no matter how our story unfolds, whatever tomorrow brings our way, promise me you will be stronger than you are now. You will accept whatever it is that becomes of our story, and you will recite it to everyone in the happiest way possible. Promise me that you’ll love again, even more passionately and fiercely than you do right now. Promise me that you’ll forgive me and more importantly yourself. Promise me when you’ll look back on our story instead of being sad that it ended, you’ll be happy that at least it happened. You’ll cherish our memories and move on. Promise me.”
“But..” I tried.
“No Buts, just promise me this.” She insisted.
“But, why are you..” I tried again.
“I said no Buts, just promise me. Once you do I promise I’ll tell you a secret.” She gripped my hand tighter than her insisting.
I stayed quiet. I stared into her eyes blankly. Then it hit me, it was not anger, it was fear. It threw scintillations of chills down every nerve ending of my body. My skin went cold in an instant as if it was physically possible. I always thought we all are broken things of our parents, but never realized that damage could be so deep. I mean, they do break us, but it’s weird that it teaches us the way of life at the same time. It’s up to us to figure that all out. But all this raw fear inside of a person, it’s no wonder she always feels so suffocated. This was the first time I saw how afraid she was, all the times. I didn’t want to scare her more at the time by saying no to her. I wrapped my hands around her and said “I Promise.”
She pushed me away and yelled “No, not like that. Promise me the way you do. Making a mental note, and seeing it through. You can’t fool me, your actions mean more to you than your words. Promise me your action.”
I nodded yes. Not knowing at the time that unintentionally, this would be the only promise I won’t be able to keep.
She pulled me close and started talking “So, did I tell you how I fell for you?”
“Yeah, because I was so charming and handsome, you couldn’t resist.” I muttered trying to tease her.
She laughed heavily, punching my joke to the ground.
“No seriously, why do you think I started talking to you all of a sudden?
“I don’t know.”
“You remember when you gave me this?” she asked holding the notebook.
“Of course I do. It was the day I worked up the courage to ask you for your number.” I replied.
“And do you remember what you said when you handed it over?” She asked.
“Give this a try if you are in the mood for something unconventional.” I said almost smirking. I knew the story from that point on because in the notebook there were two sections, “Mine” was the section containing all of my work and “Others” section containing the stuff of other authors or songwriters. “Mine” section had a bunch of quotes, poems and a story titled “The Story (of Us)”. This story contained all the things I felt and wrote about Angel. The way she smiled, the way she carried herself, the way she talked, the way she shied away from people. Of course, I didn’t mention any names, just that there was a boy who was hopelessly in love with a girl. Everything in there was true to the bone, every single word exactly the way I felt about her. But, I never wrote it in such a way that she could figure it all out. I was curious now.
I pushed words though my smile “How did you know? I was not even sure that you’d read it.”
“Are you kidding me? The way you look at me. I felt that it was creepy in the beginning, but when I read The Story of Us, I saw how you saw me, how you loved me. From that day forward I thought of talking to you and I was surprised that I liked you, a lot.” She paused and continued “And then you said you loved me that night, I stood in front of the mirror helpless, blushing exactly the way you described in one of those pages, the story was screaming the obvious now. It became clear to me that I cannot deny it any longer, I was in love with you. ”
“Don’t tell me you figured it out all by the uncanny details of yourself blushing” I protested.
“No, I didn’t, you clued me in. Remember the other day you were telling me one of your crazy theories? The Reader-Writer deviation? How everyone is unknowingly a reader, and are bound to fall for the writers’ characters and how awesome it would be if a writer falls for a reader. When I read The Story of Us, I knew you were always the fallen writer and it was up to me to be or not to be the Reader. This was nothing less than a magic trick. You won me over by your subtle signs. I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t change my world.”
“Really?” I managed.
“Hell yeah, you are true to you emotions and feelings. I see that now, you genuinely care for people but you don’t admit it. Don’t pretend to be a jerk and push people away. I just hope one day someone will look through your funny and sarcastic comments and understand you as I do.” her shaking voice narrated.
“But why are you saying all this? I can’t live..” I started, only to be interrupted by “Please don’t, I don’t want to cry today.”
I held the choke in my throat by my tongue, arched my lips in an upward direction and waited for words to jump out of my mouth, which didn’t happen.
Slashing the silence between us she offered “I still have one question, why don’t you write in Hindi, I mean I know you don’t have a strong command on Gujarati, but you talk in Hindi all the time, why don’t you try writing?
Suddenly, I came back to my senses and heard an intense discussion about 32-bit buses and 64-bit buses among the first benchers and the lecturer. I took out a pen and started scribbling on the last page of my notebook. As soon as the lecture was over, I tore the page and I ran out of the class before the professor could. Hoping to catch Angel before she goes for her Lab class. As soon as I reached the corridor, I saw her at the top of the staircase. I ran, and in one or two swift jumps I stood right in front of her just one step below. Our forefather apes would be so proud.
“Hi” I said.
“Hi” She replied smiling.
“I wrote something for you.” my face inches away from her.
“Please don’t kiss me here, there are a lot of people here and lecturers can walk out of the lab any second.” She said, not hearing what I said.
“I WROTE THIS FOR YOU.” I said in a comparatively loud voice.
“You have the most soulful eyes, you know that..wait what? LET'S HEAR IT THEN, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” her voice grew louder than me. Her smile turned contagious.
I read from the paper in Hindi:
“Meri ruh ki silvato par teri ungliyo se mera nam likh ja,
Meri sehmi sanso ki uljhi hui khamosiyo ko teri palko ki gunj de ja,
tere labo k pyalo ko mere alfajo pr chalakne de,
tham ke hath mera, sine me jeene ki vajah bhar ja.”
I looked at her, I saw her eyes go moist but were sparkling than before, she was smiling broadly now, she tried to say something, but couldn’t. Instead, she held me by my collar, pulled me close, sneaked in and placed a quick kiss on my lips, and pushed me away saying “Choke on it” and I did. It’s funny, it happened so fast, like in snap of fingers but it felt like our lips touched for eternity and a few seconds more. But actually it was not even a second, just snap, poof, stardust everywhere. It all happened so fast I was still stunned and before I know I landed on my ass when my body absorbed her push. I stood up, cupped her pretty face in my both hands, feeling the warmth of her soft skin, pulled her close and kissed her before the air between our lips condensed. It was like fire and ice, rubbing against each other, producing flames and burning both of our bodies in a sweet anguish. This was a long one, and unlike her kiss, everyone was looking now. And, just my luck, one of the professor walked out of the lab, pinched my ear and dragged me away.
Angel blushed and ran to her lab while this professor took me to his special lab.
She cut me off in between and ranted “Of course it is, look at it, it’s a thing of absolute fucking beauty. I know you are joking just to lighten the mood, but it is more beautiful than you can ever realize. It's borderline truth, you know exactly what strings to pull. That is what makes it gorgeous and me scared. Because there will come a day when you will wake up and realize how much sense it makes for you to write while high on your misery and I am afraid that you wouldn’t want to go back. You’ll call that dark place your home. And I’d rather die than to see you become that horrible shell of a person, who can only interact with people with the wall of words he puts around.”
“That’s never going to happen” not totally believing what I said.
Her expression grew angrier. I started evaluating all the possible things she could say out loud; “Of course, that’s not going to happen, we’ll always be together” or “It will, sooner than you think” or “I hope not” or “I won’t let that happen to you” or the least of all “I will make sure this happens to you”. But she stayed quiet hoarding anger. Ironically, her silence was the loudest of them all and it felt like a part of me died when she didn’t say anything.
“Just don’t be angry” I said, picking up what was broken inside.
“I am not angry, I am sad, I don’t want you to be the person who lives in his stories, when I know you are capable of so much more.” she mumbled as calmly as she could.
Again, I was out of words to say to her. I mean claiming to be a writer and running out of words is terrifying. She saw the terror in my eyes and immediately held my hand. She started “All I am saying is no matter how our story unfolds, whatever tomorrow brings our way, promise me you will be stronger than you are now. You will accept whatever it is that becomes of our story, and you will recite it to everyone in the happiest way possible. Promise me that you’ll love again, even more passionately and fiercely than you do right now. Promise me that you’ll forgive me and more importantly yourself. Promise me when you’ll look back on our story instead of being sad that it ended, you’ll be happy that at least it happened. You’ll cherish our memories and move on. Promise me.”
“But..” I tried.
“No Buts, just promise me this.” She insisted.
“But, why are you..” I tried again.
“I said no Buts, just promise me. Once you do I promise I’ll tell you a secret.” She gripped my hand tighter than her insisting.
I stayed quiet. I stared into her eyes blankly. Then it hit me, it was not anger, it was fear. It threw scintillations of chills down every nerve ending of my body. My skin went cold in an instant as if it was physically possible. I always thought we all are broken things of our parents, but never realized that damage could be so deep. I mean, they do break us, but it’s weird that it teaches us the way of life at the same time. It’s up to us to figure that all out. But all this raw fear inside of a person, it’s no wonder she always feels so suffocated. This was the first time I saw how afraid she was, all the times. I didn’t want to scare her more at the time by saying no to her. I wrapped my hands around her and said “I Promise.”
She pushed me away and yelled “No, not like that. Promise me the way you do. Making a mental note, and seeing it through. You can’t fool me, your actions mean more to you than your words. Promise me your action.”
I nodded yes. Not knowing at the time that unintentionally, this would be the only promise I won’t be able to keep.
She pulled me close and started talking “So, did I tell you how I fell for you?”
“Yeah, because I was so charming and handsome, you couldn’t resist.” I muttered trying to tease her.
She laughed heavily, punching my joke to the ground.
“No seriously, why do you think I started talking to you all of a sudden?
“I don’t know.”
“You remember when you gave me this?” she asked holding the notebook.
“Of course I do. It was the day I worked up the courage to ask you for your number.” I replied.
“And do you remember what you said when you handed it over?” She asked.
“Give this a try if you are in the mood for something unconventional.” I said almost smirking. I knew the story from that point on because in the notebook there were two sections, “Mine” was the section containing all of my work and “Others” section containing the stuff of other authors or songwriters. “Mine” section had a bunch of quotes, poems and a story titled “The Story (of Us)”. This story contained all the things I felt and wrote about Angel. The way she smiled, the way she carried herself, the way she talked, the way she shied away from people. Of course, I didn’t mention any names, just that there was a boy who was hopelessly in love with a girl. Everything in there was true to the bone, every single word exactly the way I felt about her. But, I never wrote it in such a way that she could figure it all out. I was curious now.
I pushed words though my smile “How did you know? I was not even sure that you’d read it.”
“Are you kidding me? The way you look at me. I felt that it was creepy in the beginning, but when I read The Story of Us, I saw how you saw me, how you loved me. From that day forward I thought of talking to you and I was surprised that I liked you, a lot.” She paused and continued “And then you said you loved me that night, I stood in front of the mirror helpless, blushing exactly the way you described in one of those pages, the story was screaming the obvious now. It became clear to me that I cannot deny it any longer, I was in love with you. ”
“Don’t tell me you figured it out all by the uncanny details of yourself blushing” I protested.
“No, I didn’t, you clued me in. Remember the other day you were telling me one of your crazy theories? The Reader-Writer deviation? How everyone is unknowingly a reader, and are bound to fall for the writers’ characters and how awesome it would be if a writer falls for a reader. When I read The Story of Us, I knew you were always the fallen writer and it was up to me to be or not to be the Reader. This was nothing less than a magic trick. You won me over by your subtle signs. I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t change my world.”
“Really?” I managed.
“Hell yeah, you are true to you emotions and feelings. I see that now, you genuinely care for people but you don’t admit it. Don’t pretend to be a jerk and push people away. I just hope one day someone will look through your funny and sarcastic comments and understand you as I do.” her shaking voice narrated.
“But why are you saying all this? I can’t live..” I started, only to be interrupted by “Please don’t, I don’t want to cry today.”
I held the choke in my throat by my tongue, arched my lips in an upward direction and waited for words to jump out of my mouth, which didn’t happen.
Slashing the silence between us she offered “I still have one question, why don’t you write in Hindi, I mean I know you don’t have a strong command on Gujarati, but you talk in Hindi all the time, why don’t you try writing?
Suddenly, I came back to my senses and heard an intense discussion about 32-bit buses and 64-bit buses among the first benchers and the lecturer. I took out a pen and started scribbling on the last page of my notebook. As soon as the lecture was over, I tore the page and I ran out of the class before the professor could. Hoping to catch Angel before she goes for her Lab class. As soon as I reached the corridor, I saw her at the top of the staircase. I ran, and in one or two swift jumps I stood right in front of her just one step below. Our forefather apes would be so proud.
“Hi” I said.
“Hi” She replied smiling.
“I wrote something for you.” my face inches away from her.
“Please don’t kiss me here, there are a lot of people here and lecturers can walk out of the lab any second.” She said, not hearing what I said.
“I WROTE THIS FOR YOU.” I said in a comparatively loud voice.
“You have the most soulful eyes, you know that..wait what? LET'S HEAR IT THEN, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” her voice grew louder than me. Her smile turned contagious.
I read from the paper in Hindi:
“Meri ruh ki silvato par teri ungliyo se mera nam likh ja,
Meri sehmi sanso ki uljhi hui khamosiyo ko teri palko ki gunj de ja,
tere labo k pyalo ko mere alfajo pr chalakne de,
tham ke hath mera, sine me jeene ki vajah bhar ja.”
I looked at her, I saw her eyes go moist but were sparkling than before, she was smiling broadly now, she tried to say something, but couldn’t. Instead, she held me by my collar, pulled me close, sneaked in and placed a quick kiss on my lips, and pushed me away saying “Choke on it” and I did. It’s funny, it happened so fast, like in snap of fingers but it felt like our lips touched for eternity and a few seconds more. But actually it was not even a second, just snap, poof, stardust everywhere. It all happened so fast I was still stunned and before I know I landed on my ass when my body absorbed her push. I stood up, cupped her pretty face in my both hands, feeling the warmth of her soft skin, pulled her close and kissed her before the air between our lips condensed. It was like fire and ice, rubbing against each other, producing flames and burning both of our bodies in a sweet anguish. This was a long one, and unlike her kiss, everyone was looking now. And, just my luck, one of the professor walked out of the lab, pinched my ear and dragged me away.
Angel blushed and ran to her lab while this professor took me to his special lab.
