“You are in love,” Anish stated in his typical flat voice. He
has brought me from ‘you are missing her’ phase to ‘you love her’ phase in just
a matter of few hours. In the interim, there have been many other phases- maybe
you like her phase, you like only her curves phase, you like only her butt
phase, you like her face phase, it is highly possible you like her intelligence
phase and then finally you like her phase just followed by the ultimate you
love her phase. He gloated at the enlightment that he had showered upon me and I
was like ‘what the shit you are talking’. Although I was thinking that, but a
part of me was applauding him for the vast knowledge about cupid’s activity
that he had mustered up from various cliché romantic novels and bollywood
classics. We were sitting in front of my desktop and I was scrolling down my
orkut profile. There was this feature in orkut which told that who visited your
profile recently. I am glad facebook doesn’t allow this. So there was this
notification-‘Chhaya Singh visited your profile’. Just as he saw this, Anish
passed on his judgement, “Dude, she loves you too.” I tried imagining us in
love- we both are facing each other, the air is warm, her bunny like teeth
nearing my mouth and in a bid to kiss she cuts my lips. Yes, it was exactly as
grotesque as this. “Are you sure?” I asked.
“Absolutely dude!! Why else on earth she would visit your profile,” he snapped.
Then he went on to explain how in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai Kajol and Shahrukh squabbled
in the beginning but ended up becoming soul mates, in Jab We Met Shahid had
apathy towards Kareena but ended up tying knots with her and a million other
anecdotes of animosity being impaled by cupid’s arrow. Somehow, I also bought
his words.
Next day, I was completely lost in reverie. When in love,
normal people think ‘she loves me, she loves me not’; I was thinking ‘I love
her, I love her not’. Next day was my mathematics unit test and there I was
brooding over love. In the evening, Anish came and told that she was suffering
from severe jaundice and was admitted in hospital. And as supposedly I was in
love, and if the hypothesis was correct, she was in love too, therefore the
great advice that he bestowed upon me was that I should bunk the school next
day and go and see her. And guess what, I did exactly the same thing; I bunked
and flunked my mathematics test and went to the hospital. Anish ushered me to
the general ward where her bed was, gave me some last minute dos and donts and
then wished me luck. I went inside. He had said that she would appear to me
like a mermaid and that I would be perplexed by her beauty and I would be so
much dumbstruck by her appearance that I wouldn’t be able to say a word and I would
feel butterflies in my stomach. I was indeed dumbstruck, not by her beauty but
her appalling figure. Her nest like hairs rested on her sallow face, the
debilitating effect of jaundice had highlighted her already limelighted chisel
shaped tooth. And I didn’t feel any butterflies either, rather there was this
retching feeling in mouth due to the pungent smell of medicine that had
bludgeoned my nostril. “You?? Here?” she grimaced. “Same question I can ask to
you also,” I blabbered without thinking. “Huh….what do you think why I am lying
on this stupid bed with needles broaching my skin,” she almost shouted. “I am
here to see my grandfather, he is admitted here,” I said and immediately
scuttled past the nurse into the main hall where Anish was waiting for me. I told
him everything. Any sane person would have thought that this whole idea of love
was bullshit but this guy was Anish. “You are madly in love,” he said. His new
hypothesis was that I was too nervous to say anything and that’s why his next
big plan was to write a love letter.
