DON'T EXPECT. JUST LOVE!

Life was way better when I loved Anushka Sharma, Nikita Singh, Deepika Padukone or even Angelina Jolie because the very instant I fell in love with them, I was well aware of the fact that I am never ever going to have them in my life, for they are like the stars the butterflies strive hard to reach, but die midway. 

And I would never expect them to love me back for they would barely know of the existence of this moronic creature. I would certainly be non-existent for them. But still, loving them would give me the kind of joy that would never diminish. 

So, you see? The formula is simple. When you love someone, never expect them to love you back, and you'd be happy loving them. But the moment you expect someone to love you back, bid a good-bye to your happiness for the sadness is going to beat the hell out of your happiness. So, don't expect. Just love. It's all about giving. And well, if you're getting it in return, then it's amazing, and if you aren't, even then what the heck? Love them not for getting love in return, but for loving them gives you the kind of happiness nothing else in this world does.

LUST THRILLS, BUT KILLS!

Rough night, it was, when I left from the beach after drinking a hot black coffee. Yes. We get coffee at the beach too, and other than being a teetotaler, I was a coffee addict. I accelerated the bike, and reached the main road soon. 

Speeding up the bike, as I set myself for a quick ride home, my eyes fell on a girl across the road, who was wearing a green sweatshirt and black jeans. And she laughed over some joke, she looked beautiful. Her eyes. I couldn't take my eyes off hers. Our gazes met each others, and well, we looked at each other for long. Quite a long time, till I realized that I was about to hit a car ahead of me when he applied his brakes. Just a second late, and I would be at a hospital. I had forgotten that I was riding, and she was walking. 

So, the basic point is think twice before doing something. Lust is always appealing, but dangerous. It can screw your life to such an extent that you'd never want to look into your eyes again. You fall in love, but in lust, you fall to such an extent that standing up on your own feet again can be not only difficult, but impossible at times. 

Lust thrills, but kills. 

JUST DO IT.

And every night, I type out her name in the search box of my Facebook, open her profile, look at her beautiful cover picture, go through some profile pictures, and shed a few tears. 

At times, I even message her to console myself that she's still alive. I end up calling her on her phone which is now deactivated by her parents. I go to her place to meet her, but then I realize she's never going to come back. She's gone forever and is certainly happy in a world which exists after death. I smile, wondering if she's looking at me from heaven, for she wouldn't ever like to see me sad. I smile. Although fake, but how would she know that it's fake? 

Confess your feelings guys. Solve the misunderstandings by keeping aside your egos. Even if you feel the urge to get back to someone after your break up, try giving it a shot. For you never know, what's written in your fate tomorrow. Life is short. Live it to the fullest. 

HE WAS HANDSOME, I WAS UGLY.

Third year in the college, and I hardly had friends. If inanimate objects could be friends, I had a lot of them. I had come to believe that books were the only friends that would never leave your side. Once you cling on to them, they too, cling on to you, forever. 

Just as I was writing something in my daily journal sitting all alone in the library, Abhiraj Sharma sat across the table. He sat, writing something on bits of papers, crushing and throwing them after every four lines. Maybe, he was writing yet another story. I looked at him, but I don’t think he has noticed me even once in the past three years. 

After all, in contrast to him, I am just a normal girl, who is good for nothing other than academics and writing. Well, writing, I think I am. But unlike him, I am no author. And for those who don’t know him, he is the bestselling author of two campus novels. So, that explains his fan following. But I’ve never seen him mingle much with people, and in the past two years, although quite a lot of girls have tried hitting on him, he never responds to their flirty compliments. Maybe, he always felt that they were just trying to flatter him. 

As he sat, crushing the papers, I felt distracted. His rough hair, which he never combed never failed to turn me on. Biting his lower lip, he cursed himself for, maybe, not getting the right words, and that pulled me towards him. He was the only guy I’d been in love with, deeply, madly and truly since past three years, but then, I wasn’t even half as good looking as him, although I thought I wrote far better than him. It’s a different thing that he was a published author and I was a ‘nobody’. He was fair, the kind of fairness you see in the models who act in the advertisements of a fairness cream. My skin colour was in contradiction to his. And that often let me down. 

Leaving the papers on the table, he disappeared from the library frustrated over something, his displeasure clearly evident on his face. I waited for him to get back, but he didn’t. Finally, it was 6pm, and before leaving, I went up to his table, where the papers he had written and crushed were lying. I picked them up, and headed for my place. 

The moment I reached home, I sat in the balcony, reading what he’d written, and I jotted down point, and wrote something from the same. I went on writing, and wrote two pages, and completed the story he’d written. 

The next morning, as he was passing through me, I called him. It was the first time I called him by his name. I was nervous, yet I handed over the paper to him, and left as he asked what it was. 

As I know from what he told me later, he read it, and the moment he read it, he had fallen for me. He searched for me throughout the campus, only to find me in the library in the evening. 

“Hey Miss Writer,” he called out. 

“Lavanya. Lavanya Gupta, it is.” I replied. 

The librarian gestured us to keep quite, and he asked me if we could go for a coffee. And I was dumbstruck, standing in front of him, unable to reply, although it was a yes. Just then, he held my hand and took me along with him to the Cafeteria; it gave me heebie-jeebies. 

I ordered a black coffee. I’d know it to be his favourite drink as I’d seen him drinking the same everyday, almost ever hour since the past three years. I never really liked black coffee, but I’d gotten used to it drinking it for him since past one year.

“Make that two.” He said, as the waiter left. 

“So, you liked the story?” I asked talking to him, for the first time. 

“Liked it? I loved it, and here, I ask you if you’d want to accompany me in writing my next novel?” He questioned me leaving me speechless again. 

He asked me to be his co-author. Oh my god, I can’t believe it. 

“Why wouldn’t I?” I replied. 

He smiled. I smiled back. 

And the book titled ‘He was handsome, I was ugly’, we wrote together, turned out to be a bestseller. But what means more is in the course of writing the book, Abhiraj fell for me. And he is the best that has ever happened to me. 

So, never lose hope on something you believe in. May it be your passion, or your love. It may come true anytime. 

The Flirt.

Parking my bike outside the pub, I received Karan's call. 

"Dude. This is the 6th time I'd been calling you." said Karan, a little pissed with me for not receiving his calls. 

"I'd been riding, bro. And I don't pick the calls while riding my bike, Hope you understand. Sorry." I replied. 

"No issues. But weren't you supposed to be at Cafe 9 at 10?" he asked. 

"I'm outside Cafe 9. I'd be there in a while." I replied as he bid a bye, and disconnected the call.

I had been visiting my hometown after almost 6 months, and Karan after, three and a half year, I guess. We'd been good friends back in school, but ever since we passed out from the school, we'd never met each other. He'd been studying Architecture in Delhi, and I was pursuing my law degree from Mangalore. 

Just as I entered the pub, my eyes explored the entire pub, yet unable to find them, when I saw Karan walking towards me. His other friends were busy dancing. 

"What would you have?" he asked. 

"A Coffee, maybe?" I replied.

"You got to be kidding me?" he laughed. 

"No, actually, I don't drink." I replied smiling. 

"Respect." He said, saluting me, dramatic as he could be.

After a while, our conversation shifted to some sensitive topics. No, I ain't talking about the career. Talking about the girls. 

"So, who is your current girlfriend?" He asked, mocking me. 

"Lately, I haven't been dating anyone." I replied, having a sip of my coffee that the waiter just served. 

"Liar Liar bum on fire." He said, disbelieving me.

"Why would I even lie to you, Karan? I mean, you aren't a girl." I replied, trying to convince him. 

"True that, but then, you were a stud back in the school. Remember, the number of girls you've dated? And you can however get any girl, so why have you been single? " He inquired. 

"Ah, coming to the point, I don't want 'any' girl. I just want to find the right girl. As simple as that." I replied, and he smiled. 

Just then, a girl passing by me smiled at me. Her smile was beautiful. I smiled back. 

"You can never change" He said, smiling. 

"Well, I'll come in a while. Looks like she needs me. And yes, I said I have not been dating anyone. I never said I don't flirt. After all, flirting is good for health, and if I don't flirt when I'm single, when would I? And while flirting with them, I may find my Miss Right. You see?" I winked. 

"And yes, after I find the right one, I'd be flirting only with her. My time, my heart, and my life would be hers." I smiled as I moved to the girl at the bar counter. 

The Paranoid Rounak.

Perched on the couch outside the doctor’s cabin, I was calmly reading ‘The Fault in our stars’ when a pretty girl passed by me. I glanced at her and got back to reading my book, as I always found it interesting no matter how many times I’ve read it. She sat across me, but I was so engrossed reading the book that I didn’t even look at her.

As I read the book further, I was peeing in my pants. It was the story of Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters, both suffering from different kind of cancers. I clutched my reports tight, wondering if I should open them once. My curiosity elevated my pulse. I closed the book, and sat noticing the patients strolling around. Some patients gawked at me, astonished to see a kid waiting outside the oncologist’s cabin. I smiled at random people I found looking at me. Some of them smiled back while the rest wondered if I was at the wrong place. Thank God, they didn’t walk up to me to tell me that it wasn’t a mental hospital. 

‘Rounak Nayak’, I heard the nurse’s voice.

I contemplated the nurse for quite sometime, as I stood up. She might have thought that the poor kid is checking me out, when all I was doing was wondering if she called me or not. She called out my name again, and I barged inside the room, as she opened the door for me. 

“Good morning, Doctor.” I greeted him, smiling.

“Good morning. So, you got all the reports?” he asked. 

“Here, they are,” I handed it over to him.

My heart began to thump rapidly, depicting the anguish on my face that now looked constipated. It reminded me of one of those scenes from the Bollywood flicks where the actor goes to a doctor, where the doctor reveals to him that he’s suffering from Cancer, and he decides to keep it to himself, trying hard to make his loved ones hate him just because he doesn’t want to see them cry once he’s gone. How would he even see them crying once he’s gone? 

I had asked mom not to come with me to the hospital in spite of her consistent demands to accompany me. And now, I felt like I’d done the right thing. After I googled the symptoms last night, like I do every night, I apprehended it to be cancer, although I was a little dubious of it now. I’d asked him not to perform colonoscopy on me, as I was fine with the blood test, urine test, stool test and the sonography. Sweet, as the doctor was, he’d agreed to what I’d said. 

He looked into the reports, and as he did, his expressions freaked me out, leaving me anxious and disquiet. Maybe, he sensed my uneasiness, and asked me why I was standing. I sat facing him, my hand trembling, as I reached for the water bottle in my bag. 

“Why didn’t your mom come with you, today?” he asked.

The question made me uncomfortable. I knew that the reports had something that he wouldn’t consider revealing to me.

“She was a little pre-occupied with her kitchen work, and a ride to Vapi would be too tiring for her, so I asked her not to join me.” I replied making it sound genuine. 

“I don’t know how to say this to you…but” he started as I cut him off asking “Colo-rectal cancer isn’t it?”

“How do you know?” he asked surprised, looking straight into my eyes. 

The marble floor seemed like a puddle of mud that dragged me beneath the earth. On the verge of tears, I smiled, and looked at him as he repeated his question. 

“Well, I’ve been reading about it all day night ever since I’m being treated for the wrong ailment.” I said.

“I’m sorry, but you need to start your treatment soon. Although, I wouldn’t make fake promises of your survival,” He replied bluntly.

As I stood there, rest of his words fell on deaf ears as I was pondering too much on life and its meaning. Why me? Out of all the people? What mistake had I done? I mean, there are people who get wasted drinking and smoking. Why me, when I don’t do any of these? 

What about my dreams? I wanted to be an Advocate, and now I stand here, in front of a doctor who’d written my death sentence. For a minute, I wanted to tell my parents, cry out loud, and give it up, but then, as the line from ‘Fault in our stars’ appeared in front of my eyes like a movie clip, I recalled that there’s nothing worse than seeing your kid biting cancer. I didn’t say a word, and left his cabin, my bag, still in his cabin. Leaving the elevator, I walked down the steps, started my bike, and reached the beach in no time. 

I cried my heart out. Firstly, I decided I’d face this disease with a smile on my face. I’d live like everyday is my last day. It could be any day for me. I’d amend my mistakes and set things right. I’d apologize to people I’ve wronged to. But then, enlightenment dawned upon me that my parents have spent way too much on my education, and the moment they’d know about my disease, they’d spend all they have on my treatment. I knew what to in order to avoid them from doing so. 

As walked into the sea, the calm yet composed sea, which would turn wild and violent soon, as the time would change. I felt cold as the extremely cold water touched my feet, yet I didn’t shudder or stop. 

Grinning like an idiot, I looked at the sun, and the water was up to my chest. And in no time, I was engulfed by the water, which was about to take me to a different world. And everything went blank. 

‘Rounak…Rounak...” I heard a feeble voice. 

I felt someone pulling me out, as I resisted. 

‘Rounak...wake up, you’ve to visit the doctor in sometime,’ said the same voice.

Wait. Mom? 

And all of a sudden, the water drained away. I was sitting on my bed, breathing heavily. My mom asked me to brush my teeth and take a shower soon, as I’d to visit the oncologist. 

I was shivering. My mom always said that the dreams you get early morning often come true. 

I brushed my teeth, gaping at my own image in the mirror, as my mom chided me for wasting time in front of the mirror when I was already late to visit the doctor. 

How could I tell her that I didn’t intend to visit the doctor anymore? 

Dressing up to go to Vapi, I combed my hair, which I never did. Mom was surprised. I told myself that no matter what happens I wouldn’t put an end to my life, but I’d rather amend my mistakes and set things right. I’d stoop down to any level to seek forgiveness I’d keep people happy. I’d spend the remaining days laughing hard and making others laugh. I’d do things I always wanted to do, but I never did. And most importantly, irrespective of the results, I’d write a novel before I die. 

As I sat outside his cabin, waiting for my name to be called out, I visualized my dream, freaking out. Trust me, I didn’t want to enter his cabin. 

‘Rounak Nayak…” the nurse called out. 

I briskly walked inside the cabin, smiling at the nurse. 

After going through the reports, he smiled at me.

“It’s normal. Just Amoebiasis,” he said, further adding “Start taking the medicines I’d prescribed yesterday.”

And my world felt so light. 

I rode my Pulsar 135 LS like BMW K 1200 R as I was going to watch Dhoom 3 with my friends. I reached ‘Big Cinemas’ and googled Amoebiasis while waiting for my friends, just to find that, every year, around 70,000 to 1,00,000 people die through out the world due to Amoebiasis. 

Balls, I told myself, and realized how paranoid I’ve been throughout my life. I need to live it, and not believe google for every damn thing. 

My friends turned up soon, and within no time, we were enjoying the plot-less entertainer. 

“Kar na fikar tu kal ki, lutf le aaj ka;

Zindagi hai bas do pal ki, ek ek pal chura

Jee bhar ke jee le, jee le, gham dhuein mein uda

Dhoom macha macha macha!

Dhoom machale Dhoom machaale dhoom” 

The Geeky Girl. No, The Geeky Glasses!

I know that's grammatically incorrect, but I would like to keep it like that. 

It’s been awhile I’ve been obsessed with nerdy glasses. Or the nerdy frames. Whatever you call them. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong to be bewitched by people wearing them. 

So, it just happened that I was at CCD, waiting for my friends, having my Irish coffee, when my eyes fell on a girl wearing a black nerdy glass, reading ‘A walk to remember’. Well, girl is not the appropriate word. I suppose angel would sound more appropriate and do justice to her appearance. She literally was one. And her snow-white complexion proved the fact that she was an ANGEL. And her long black silky hair, left open, looked soft and shiny. Wearing a maroon full sleeved top that had a deep neck, which exposed her cleavage, she was too engrossed in her book. Uh, cleavage wasn’t the thing I was really looking at. I was looking at her glasses. Of course, she was beautiful, but I was mesmerized by her geeky glasses. That’s what attracted me towards her the most, other that the fact that she was reading Nicholas Sparks.

She would suddenly smile while reading, and put the strands of hair falling on her face behind her ear using her index finger and middle finger. And every time she did that, she looked more gorgeous. And her eyes seemed dark, and the geeky glasses made it look darker and charming. And after certain interval of time, she would keep her book aside, sip her coffee, and lick the moustache formed by the coffee over her beguiling full lips that seemed the darkest shade of red. They were kissable. I am not being a pervert. For a person who has never kissed all his life, it’s natural to have such an urge. And then, she would again get back to her book after accomplishing her mission of seducing people with her coffee licking trick, turning them insane. And even guys sitting with their girlfriends constantly stared at her, so that justifies a Geek, who’s been single gaping at her. Or at least, I hope it does.

She hardly touched her mobile kept on the table, unlike the committed girls who constantly keep looking into the mobile screen tapping the buttons continuously. That implied she was single. Or maybe, I have this bad habit of hopping into conclusions too fast. I made a mental note of what pick up line I’d be using. I’d seen a lot of geeks do this in movies and novels. Go to the girl who’s reading a book and talk about the book she’s reading. Maybe end up blurting out to her what the climax would be like. But it didn’t seem like it would make any difference to her. She looked like a voracious reader and it certainly looked like she would have read ‘A walk to remember’ a zillion times. But then, I had to do something. I couldn’t leave such a beautiful, most certainly single girl for any random asshole. I seemed like the perfect guy for her. The Geeky girl had to be with the geeky guy. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?

I mumbled something to myself, making sure my voice wasn’t hoarse due to the sinusitis I’m suffering from. It seemed alright. I checked myself in the adjoining glass of CCD, and I looked the way I usually do. Ugly. But then, what the heck? I had to take my chances. If not for then, no girl would fall for this ugly geek who sleeps with only his books. I looked at her, and realized she was too engrossed in her book. I stood up from my couch, and walked up to her couch. Just when I was about to say something about the book, a tall, fair and handsome guy entered Coffee Day. He wore a black tee and a leather jacket over it, and his blue denims made him look like an actor from a Bollywood movie. I’m sure he’d put all the guys present there to shame. And he walked towards me, and I wondered if I knew him. He reached near her table, and she got up to hug him. And I looked uglier than I am, standing next to him. I turned to the counter, asking for another Irish coffee. I hoped they hadn’t noticed me making attempts to talk to that nerdy girl.

I felt like a loser, looking at them mush up on the couch. PDA. These moronic couples should get a life. I laughed at myself for even wondering that I could get a girl like her. I turned around to look at the book she was reading, fallen beside the table. I laughed harder. Some heads turned towards me, and I realized the blunder I’d done. And then, the right thing happened. A girl wearing an even better nerdy frame, who was sitting with a group of girls, got up from her couch, to pick this book and keep it on the table on which no one cared about the book, as they were busy tasting each other’s skins.

I smiled at the girl who picked the book. She smiled back. And thus, the story of my life began.