"Do you feel my heart beat?"
My room mate came running to me, holding her wrist with the other hand, her face looking shocked , going paler by the passing second. I was reading my usual FM textbook, had an exam in 10 days , but her unusual question shook me out of my rising temper, which would have exploded if it wasn't that question!
I felt for her vein, " Yes I do! Why? What happened? Why are you breathing so heavily?"
She sat on my bed looking out of the window for several seconds, those seconds had my heart beat double to an unexpected speed!
"Would you tell me what happened? Meghna!" I raised my voice.
She looked at me, tears in her eyes....there were a 1000 thoughts rushing through my brain at that point, colliding on each other like on a busy unmanaged trafficked road!
She held my hand in hers, her hands were cold!
"Dhiraj!" That's all she said for 1 whole minute! The textbook dropped out of my hands and I got this weird sinking feeling!
"What happened to him?", my other hand reached for my phone and I frantically typed his name to call him.
"Don't call that Bastard!"
"What?"
"He's having an affair with Tina!", finished Meghna!
Now, how do you react to a news like this?
The news of your boy friend of 3 years having an affair with the girl staying next door to your hostel room!
Like the typical saans bahu serials where the heroine slaps her palm to her forehead with a "Nahiiiiiiii!"???
Or our hindi films where she takes several minutes to digest the news , with tears slowly flowing down her rosy pink cheeks?
Or just walk out in a rage and straight to the boyfriend to question him?
Or answer with the old hindi melodramatic film style, "Nahi Meghna! Yeh nahi ho sakta!"
There are these certain situations in our life, where we do not know how to react and our only reference points to reactions are far from reality, and we are left to create or invent our own , unique , reactions!
And in these rare times when life gives us this special opportunity, to be different, do we show our best??
"BUUUURRRPPPP!"
As for me?
I un-intentionally showed my worst!
I burped!
And a really loud one at that!
" Yuk! What the fuck was that?", Meghna asked me with her 'Disgusted' look.
"The horrible food at our mess! As if I need to even tell you about it!"
And then we both looked at each other for a second and started laughing.
"You disgusting female!" started Meghna, " your next door girl is frisking away your cute, "Once in a lifetime catch of the century" boy friend right in front of your eyes, and all you do is mug up those stupid formulas and burp on the disgusting canteen food!"
"What do you want me to do? What can one do in this age and world Meghna? If someone bloody doesn't have the decency to break up with you before he sleeps with the next girl he finds., 'literally' the next girl he finds, what can you do? You can cry and you can blame him, and you can tell the whole world how bad he has been to you....but how does that help? If he's gone, he's gone! In fact I was wondering WHEN this 'break up' storm is going to hit us? All I've been hearing for the past 2 years is about people's break ups! I'm fed up! I've lost faith in these relationships.....you cannot trust anybody now a days.....you just can't! You cannot fall in love and expect to stay there, things change, and rather fast now a days.......If this is the scenario, I choose to not get into this whole circus right at the first instance, but if I'm already in it, what do I do? I wait........and so I waited till the storm hit me!"
"But....you love Dhiraj......don't you?", Now you have to know this, Meghna is this Drama Queen still stuck in the 1960's or 70's...I don't know which era , where women cried out their hearts, where women felt intense pain and they felt victimised...where they were only supposed to feel victimised! And whether you like it or not, she will make sure you pay homage to those by gone days by shedding at least 1 tear in the pain of finding out about a cheating boy friend!
And so it happened that an uncontrolled tear did find an escape route, out of my "tired- of- reading -textbooks" eyes, to my "moisturiser -hungry" cheeks, onto my dry and flaky palms.
"Don't hide them....let them flow...you will feel better!", This has been Meghna's favourite dialogue to a lot of hostalites!
I wished I could some day explain to her that "crying" doesn't make everyone feel good.
Some of us hate crying,
some of us hate feeling victimised,
some of us hate that whole "Oh !poor little Tarini" look that people give.
The truth is I have been madly in love with Dhiraj all these years!
The truth is I was scared to death with even the thought of a break up!
The truth is I have dreamt all these years only of him, and of our life together, and of our children and our new home....
The truth is I took up MBA for him!
There are a lot of truths here....but only one that matters now, is that he cheated on me, that he's been cheating on me the whole semester....that I knew about it right from the beginning and preparing myself till other's find out, till he finds the courage to come and break up with me, or till I get some anonymous mails from a well wisher telling me about my boy friend's deeds!
How could I tell Meghna or anybody about the truth of my man? Which only I knew?
How could I tell my man, who looked without any guilt in his eyes straight at me, after I caught him in a compromising position?
What can I tell the world?
What can I tell such a man?
The only person I could speak to, was me....and thankfully I understood!
Thankfully, I did not lose my calm...
Thankfully , with time, I figured my way out of this storm!
It looked like I was the bravest of all the people who knew me and Dhiraj and who heard about Dhiraj's affair with Tina. From our professors, to classmates, to non teaching staff, everybody scorned at Dhiraj ,
Tina was the new Big Bitch of the college, and me , the sacrificial goat! Urggh!!
Everyone waited for the news of the break up next.
Some roudy over smart boys even started betting over who would break up?
Dhiraj or Tarini?
But break up news eluded us all.
Dhiraj and me did not meet for the rest of the year. being in the same college, we often crossed each other's way , but we both avoided each other's gaze. Sometimes he looked at me, but I did not look at him.
Dhiraj's friends asked him often, " So it's a break up huh?"
"Yes"
"She said so?"
"No"
"Then??? You broke up with her?"
"Naah...."
"Why not? I mean, who are you waiting for? Tina ? To do the honours?"
That Dhiraj had proposed to me by kneeling in front of our entire office where we worked together, and where we had met, wasn't a secret to anyone.
That we were often quoted as "The Best Couple" in college, whose "To-be-wife" gave up on the top MBA college of the country , to be with her beau who studied in the 20th -something ranked MBA college, wasn't a secret either!
You see ,this is the problem with these fairytale looking love stories!
The reality is far from the truth, but the people want to hope for the best , because hoping for the best is the way of life....and Dhiraj and me sticking together as a couple, was not just something everyone hoped for, but something that everyone wanted to see, so that their belief that "true love is real", is not shaken! And I did not want to shake people out of their dreamy worlds either....that is such a cruel thing to do...like telling a small child that the world you are so looking up to growing up in , is nothing but a big disaster! I did not want to be the one to break so many hearts, my heart was broken...that was okay...but I couldn't handle the thought of breaking so many hearts!
I don't know what Dhiraj thought about the whole thing at that time, but the end result was, we did not have an official break up!
That did 2 things:
A. Our relationship did not come to an official full stop.
B. Tina's insecurities over her relationship with Dhiraj kept increasing every day.
It was a pressure Test!
For me, For him, and for her!
And the college was the witness and the audience!
2 months later came the fun week , and with the fun week came the Fish Ponds, those nasty anonymous messages people send to each other!
There wasn't a single message for us last year (nobody bothers the old settled couple), but this year there did not seem to be any other love story than our's! Where did all the Romeo's fly ? I wondered!
And I know what Tina wondered as well, her face showed it all, "Who is having the affair? Me or her?"
Not a single message was directed at her and Dhiraj!
There was this one message,
" D- Dada,
What a choice!
Who thought a simple family man like you would want so much noise?
Now quit breaking more hearts, we say
go back to "T-Terrific" lady this very day!"
Like a spell,
It did work!
Not that very day, but 5 days later.
She walked to me in the library.
( My Thought: I don't understand this woman's choice of locations.....ever! For first date, she chose the hill behind the college ground! For making out, she chose 'under the stairs') And for breaking the news of her break up, she chose The Library!
"It's over between us! I hope you are happy now!" She was loud and clear.
Everyone in the Library, including the Librarian applauded for a good 3 minutes till she walked out and people walked up to me to congratulate me,"You did it! You proved to the world that the eternal love exists! Your silence, your dignity, your love, your sincerity, brought back your love! Damn! If he also did not want it, he would still be drawn towards you, that's your power lady! waah!"
I did not say anything.
I maintained my silence.
A week after that was our farewell.
After all ,we were all on this journey together only for 2 years!
At the Farewell party, everybody coaxed Dhiraj to come to me and ask me for a dance. And he did come.... The man could not look me in the eye, but this man who couldn't tell me it was over between us did ask me if we could have a dance. The whole hall waited for my yes, to see The Best Couple's Last Dance in this college that defined their relationship for the rest of their lives!
It was the moment of truth for me and Dhiraj.
Nothing was spoken between us about his new hook up or our break up, or his break up or our coming together after that.
"Won't happen again,EVER! I'm sorry!" He whispered.
"That's not what I wanted to hear.", I calmly told him.
"I love you.......and I'm sure of that now. No more doubts!"
"You sure?"
"Lock kiya jaye!", He smiled. He held my hand and I let myself be held by the man who no longer was the man of my dreams!
The truth was, I was always with him. He was the one who drifted apart.
The truth was, I would go ahead and marry him and have his kids in spite of this episode.
But the truth also was, that I would never trust him again.
That with my silence, I had not just won him back , but with my forgiveness I had forever made him my slave!
For the dance, they played a very appropriate song for us, "Save the last dance for me"....
As we swayed ,we captured everyone's imaginations and hopes and beliefs !
And I epitomised the "Image" of an Ideal woman, and the ideal wife in me!
You can dance-every dance with the guy
Who gives you the eye,let him hold you tight
You can smile-every smile for the man
Who held your hand neath the pale moon light
But don't forget who's takin' you home
And in whose arms you're gonna be
So darlin' save the last dance for me
Oh I know that the music's fine
Like sparklin' wine, go and have your fun
Laugh and sing, but while we're apart
Don't give your heart to anyone
But don't forget who's takin' you home
And in whose arms you're gonna be
So darlin' save the last dance for me
Baby don't you know I love you so
Can't you feel it when we touch
I will never, never let you go
I love you oh so much
You can dance, go and carry on
Till the night is gone
And it's time to go
If he asks if you're all alone
Can he walk you home,you must tell him no
'Cause don't forget who's taking you home
And in whose arms you're gonna be
Save the last dance for me
Oh baby won't you save the last dance for me
Oh baby won't you promise that you'll save,
The last dance for me
Save the last dance, the very last dance for me.
My room mate came running to me, holding her wrist with the other hand, her face looking shocked , going paler by the passing second. I was reading my usual FM textbook, had an exam in 10 days , but her unusual question shook me out of my rising temper, which would have exploded if it wasn't that question!
I felt for her vein, " Yes I do! Why? What happened? Why are you breathing so heavily?"
She sat on my bed looking out of the window for several seconds, those seconds had my heart beat double to an unexpected speed!
"Would you tell me what happened? Meghna!" I raised my voice.
She looked at me, tears in her eyes....there were a 1000 thoughts rushing through my brain at that point, colliding on each other like on a busy unmanaged trafficked road!
She held my hand in hers, her hands were cold!
"Dhiraj!" That's all she said for 1 whole minute! The textbook dropped out of my hands and I got this weird sinking feeling!
"What happened to him?", my other hand reached for my phone and I frantically typed his name to call him.
"Don't call that Bastard!"
"What?"
"He's having an affair with Tina!", finished Meghna!
Now, how do you react to a news like this?
The news of your boy friend of 3 years having an affair with the girl staying next door to your hostel room!
Like the typical saans bahu serials where the heroine slaps her palm to her forehead with a "Nahiiiiiiii!"???
Or our hindi films where she takes several minutes to digest the news , with tears slowly flowing down her rosy pink cheeks?
Or just walk out in a rage and straight to the boyfriend to question him?
Or answer with the old hindi melodramatic film style, "Nahi Meghna! Yeh nahi ho sakta!"
There are these certain situations in our life, where we do not know how to react and our only reference points to reactions are far from reality, and we are left to create or invent our own , unique , reactions!
And in these rare times when life gives us this special opportunity, to be different, do we show our best??
"BUUUURRRPPPP!"
As for me?
I un-intentionally showed my worst!
I burped!
And a really loud one at that!
" Yuk! What the fuck was that?", Meghna asked me with her 'Disgusted' look.
"The horrible food at our mess! As if I need to even tell you about it!"
And then we both looked at each other for a second and started laughing.
"You disgusting female!" started Meghna, " your next door girl is frisking away your cute, "Once in a lifetime catch of the century" boy friend right in front of your eyes, and all you do is mug up those stupid formulas and burp on the disgusting canteen food!"
"What do you want me to do? What can one do in this age and world Meghna? If someone bloody doesn't have the decency to break up with you before he sleeps with the next girl he finds., 'literally' the next girl he finds, what can you do? You can cry and you can blame him, and you can tell the whole world how bad he has been to you....but how does that help? If he's gone, he's gone! In fact I was wondering WHEN this 'break up' storm is going to hit us? All I've been hearing for the past 2 years is about people's break ups! I'm fed up! I've lost faith in these relationships.....you cannot trust anybody now a days.....you just can't! You cannot fall in love and expect to stay there, things change, and rather fast now a days.......If this is the scenario, I choose to not get into this whole circus right at the first instance, but if I'm already in it, what do I do? I wait........and so I waited till the storm hit me!"
"But....you love Dhiraj......don't you?", Now you have to know this, Meghna is this Drama Queen still stuck in the 1960's or 70's...I don't know which era , where women cried out their hearts, where women felt intense pain and they felt victimised...where they were only supposed to feel victimised! And whether you like it or not, she will make sure you pay homage to those by gone days by shedding at least 1 tear in the pain of finding out about a cheating boy friend!
And so it happened that an uncontrolled tear did find an escape route, out of my "tired- of- reading -textbooks" eyes, to my "moisturiser -hungry" cheeks, onto my dry and flaky palms.
"Don't hide them....let them flow...you will feel better!", This has been Meghna's favourite dialogue to a lot of hostalites!
I wished I could some day explain to her that "crying" doesn't make everyone feel good.
Some of us hate crying,
some of us hate feeling victimised,
some of us hate that whole "Oh !poor little Tarini" look that people give.
The truth is I have been madly in love with Dhiraj all these years!
The truth is I was scared to death with even the thought of a break up!
The truth is I have dreamt all these years only of him, and of our life together, and of our children and our new home....
The truth is I took up MBA for him!
There are a lot of truths here....but only one that matters now, is that he cheated on me, that he's been cheating on me the whole semester....that I knew about it right from the beginning and preparing myself till other's find out, till he finds the courage to come and break up with me, or till I get some anonymous mails from a well wisher telling me about my boy friend's deeds!
How could I tell Meghna or anybody about the truth of my man? Which only I knew?
How could I tell my man, who looked without any guilt in his eyes straight at me, after I caught him in a compromising position?
What can I tell the world?
What can I tell such a man?
The only person I could speak to, was me....and thankfully I understood!
Thankfully, I did not lose my calm...
Thankfully , with time, I figured my way out of this storm!
It looked like I was the bravest of all the people who knew me and Dhiraj and who heard about Dhiraj's affair with Tina. From our professors, to classmates, to non teaching staff, everybody scorned at Dhiraj ,
Tina was the new Big Bitch of the college, and me , the sacrificial goat! Urggh!!
Everyone waited for the news of the break up next.
Some roudy over smart boys even started betting over who would break up?
Dhiraj or Tarini?
But break up news eluded us all.
Dhiraj and me did not meet for the rest of the year. being in the same college, we often crossed each other's way , but we both avoided each other's gaze. Sometimes he looked at me, but I did not look at him.
Dhiraj's friends asked him often, " So it's a break up huh?"
"Yes"
"She said so?"
"No"
"Then??? You broke up with her?"
"Naah...."
"Why not? I mean, who are you waiting for? Tina ? To do the honours?"
That Dhiraj had proposed to me by kneeling in front of our entire office where we worked together, and where we had met, wasn't a secret to anyone.
That we were often quoted as "The Best Couple" in college, whose "To-be-wife" gave up on the top MBA college of the country , to be with her beau who studied in the 20th -something ranked MBA college, wasn't a secret either!
You see ,this is the problem with these fairytale looking love stories!
The reality is far from the truth, but the people want to hope for the best , because hoping for the best is the way of life....and Dhiraj and me sticking together as a couple, was not just something everyone hoped for, but something that everyone wanted to see, so that their belief that "true love is real", is not shaken! And I did not want to shake people out of their dreamy worlds either....that is such a cruel thing to do...like telling a small child that the world you are so looking up to growing up in , is nothing but a big disaster! I did not want to be the one to break so many hearts, my heart was broken...that was okay...but I couldn't handle the thought of breaking so many hearts!
I don't know what Dhiraj thought about the whole thing at that time, but the end result was, we did not have an official break up!
That did 2 things:
A. Our relationship did not come to an official full stop.
B. Tina's insecurities over her relationship with Dhiraj kept increasing every day.
It was a pressure Test!
For me, For him, and for her!
And the college was the witness and the audience!
2 months later came the fun week , and with the fun week came the Fish Ponds, those nasty anonymous messages people send to each other!
There wasn't a single message for us last year (nobody bothers the old settled couple), but this year there did not seem to be any other love story than our's! Where did all the Romeo's fly ? I wondered!
And I know what Tina wondered as well, her face showed it all, "Who is having the affair? Me or her?"
Not a single message was directed at her and Dhiraj!
There was this one message,
" D- Dada,
What a choice!
Who thought a simple family man like you would want so much noise?
Now quit breaking more hearts, we say
go back to "T-Terrific" lady this very day!"
Like a spell,
It did work!
Not that very day, but 5 days later.
She walked to me in the library.
( My Thought: I don't understand this woman's choice of locations.....ever! For first date, she chose the hill behind the college ground! For making out, she chose 'under the stairs') And for breaking the news of her break up, she chose The Library!
"It's over between us! I hope you are happy now!" She was loud and clear.
Everyone in the Library, including the Librarian applauded for a good 3 minutes till she walked out and people walked up to me to congratulate me,"You did it! You proved to the world that the eternal love exists! Your silence, your dignity, your love, your sincerity, brought back your love! Damn! If he also did not want it, he would still be drawn towards you, that's your power lady! waah!"
I did not say anything.
I maintained my silence.
A week after that was our farewell.
After all ,we were all on this journey together only for 2 years!
At the Farewell party, everybody coaxed Dhiraj to come to me and ask me for a dance. And he did come.... The man could not look me in the eye, but this man who couldn't tell me it was over between us did ask me if we could have a dance. The whole hall waited for my yes, to see The Best Couple's Last Dance in this college that defined their relationship for the rest of their lives!
It was the moment of truth for me and Dhiraj.
Nothing was spoken between us about his new hook up or our break up, or his break up or our coming together after that.
"Won't happen again,EVER! I'm sorry!" He whispered.
"That's not what I wanted to hear.", I calmly told him.
"I love you.......and I'm sure of that now. No more doubts!"
"You sure?"
"Lock kiya jaye!", He smiled. He held my hand and I let myself be held by the man who no longer was the man of my dreams!
The truth was, I was always with him. He was the one who drifted apart.
The truth was, I would go ahead and marry him and have his kids in spite of this episode.
But the truth also was, that I would never trust him again.
That with my silence, I had not just won him back , but with my forgiveness I had forever made him my slave!
For the dance, they played a very appropriate song for us, "Save the last dance for me"....
As we swayed ,we captured everyone's imaginations and hopes and beliefs !
And I epitomised the "Image" of an Ideal woman, and the ideal wife in me!
You can dance-every dance with the guy
Who gives you the eye,let him hold you tight
You can smile-every smile for the man
Who held your hand neath the pale moon light
But don't forget who's takin' you home
And in whose arms you're gonna be
So darlin' save the last dance for me
Oh I know that the music's fine
Like sparklin' wine, go and have your fun
Laugh and sing, but while we're apart
Don't give your heart to anyone
But don't forget who's takin' you home
And in whose arms you're gonna be
So darlin' save the last dance for me
Baby don't you know I love you so
Can't you feel it when we touch
I will never, never let you go
I love you oh so much
You can dance, go and carry on
Till the night is gone
And it's time to go
If he asks if you're all alone
Can he walk you home,you must tell him no
'Cause don't forget who's taking you home
And in whose arms you're gonna be
Save the last dance for me
Oh baby won't you save the last dance for me
Oh baby won't you promise that you'll save,
The last dance for me
Save the last dance, the very last dance for me.
superlike...sinc the poet ;)
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