Part-Time Devdaas... by Rugved Mondkar

Raghu.”
    The floor captain came for the order and the suspense was beginning to kill me. Raghu gave him our orders.
    “Focus guys!” I yelled.
    The captain came back, “Nothing get a bottle of water,” Raghu shooed him away.
    “Why are you so worked up?” Neha asked.
    “Didn’t you guys set me up to drop her?”
    “Yeah, we did, because Hrida asked me to,” Neha said.
    “I suck!”
    “Poncho kill the drama already!” Raghu begged.
    “She was trying to say something about her boyfriend but I deliberately ridiculed her so she got pissed and left without saying anything.” the waiter came back with our order, and made our respective drinks.
    “Why would you do that?” Shashank asked.
    “Because I’m a dick,” I cursed myself. “Now please can you tell me about this boyfriend?”
    “ Aare , she was seeing this guy in school who was our senior. He shifted out of town after school. He was in touch with her, but later he just disappeared. He changed his number and stopped responding to her mails and all. It’s been two years now,” Neha paused to take a sip.
    “Continue.” I said impatiently.
    “Nothing ya… this guy is a ghost. He has just
disappeared. It’s not that she still longs for him or anything like that, she just wants to officially break-up with him before getting involved with anyone, but that hasn’t happened. Yesterday we had a night long discussion about you and the message she sent you. I asked her to simply forget him and respond to you. She just told me that she wanted to meet you alone for a while… that’s it.”
    “Shit, shit, shit,” I yelled. The waiter ran to us again.
    “Nothing, repeat the order,” Raghu said. “You continue.”
    “I’m so jinxed man. I royally fucked a potentially romantic moment with my hung up shit.” I gulped the first drink as the waiter made a second one.
    “Don’t worry yaar , hota hai , and I think she loves you too. So chill,” Neha said and got back to getting naughty with Shashank.
    Three drinks later, I messaged her, “I know you love me so why don’t you just say it.”
    It was a huge turn off, she told me years later.
    For a week after that night at Pyaasa, I called Hrida once every morning and evening to which she responded either by cancelling the call or by letting the phone ring. I messaged her a couple of times a day. Depending on my mood, the content of my messages ranged from saying sorry to telling her that she was over-reacting, from begging her to forget my stupidity to telling her that I was never going to bother her again but there was no reply from her. I would have met her outside her college but it was vacation time so the colleges were closed. I tried getting to her through Neha, but she stopped taking her calls too.
    “I’m telling you she is psycho. c an’t you see it.” Raghu said. I threw a lit cigarette at him in anger.
    Neha was perhaps right in saying that it was a matter of time. Maybe Hrida was overreacting and she would be fine in a few days. Maybe Raghu was right. What if she was really a psycho. Maybe her boyfriend had come back and she was happy with him.
    I crashed on my bed with all kinds of ‘maybes’ whirling in my mind. In the past one month, Hrida had practically turned my life upside down. I was in love, I was frustrated, I was happy, I was irritated, I was confused, I was helpless, and I was anxious. I chose the final maybe that came to my mind, “Maybe I should accept the fact that we weren’t meant to be and forget her.”
    I bade goodbye to all the thoughts and closed my eyes to sleep, hoping to clear my mind.

A fter Shashank’s party, I went into a self-imposed exile. I couldn’t accept Hrida’s absence from my life. There had not been a single attempt from her to get in touch with me and that made it impossible for me to live. The riot in my head had been replaced by endless conversations between my own voices.
    “Has she forgotten me?” Voice One said.
    “Yes looks like it.