The task of naming this post is pending PART II

Contd....

The gayatri mantra wakes me up. A new day, fresh start, like I always tell myself. I reached office at 9:30. Not bad, Amodita. You made it on time. Ragini, the receptionist and the chatterbox of the office gives me a huge smile. She is getting married next month and she is happy. I wonder if she is also scared. I take my seat and open my mailbox. The usual mails, but wait, one name pops out and it blurs everything else. Is it real? I recheck it; yes it is a mail from him. Why? After a year, now, when I have been trying to bury his existence inside my soul. I open it; It's just a "hello, how are you?" just that. It's so typical of him, writing a hello so casually like I just had a cup of coffee or a drink with him last week. I am already fighting a battle inside me; each day is a new fight. Why does he have to make it harder? Do I reply him? I decided against it. I don't want to wake up the ghosts of the past. One mail would lead to another and things would come back to exactly what it was. I drift back to the past again. I remember the first time he mailed me.

"Hi,

Took some time to write this mail. I just saw you again today. It's strange that we have been working in the same building yet I never noticed you before and now that I have, you seem to come in front of my eyes everywhere; the lobby, the elevator, cafeteria, etc. I hope I am not sounding like someone from the soppy daily soaps. Heaven knows, that's absolutely what I am not (at least I prefer to believe so).

BTW, I mailed to ask you are you ok with the idea of having a cup of coffee with me.

Regards,

Udant.

P.S. Red looks good on you. J"

It was that simple, just like the mail today. "BTW, coffee?" I still think what made me accept his offer, but I just did and never regretted it. My life is like an intricate web where the past and the present are entwined and somewhere I fail to distinguish between the two.

I was brooding when Ragini calls me to remind me about the presentation. God bless her, I had completely forgotten that I had to make this presentation. I am currently working on an ad for a well known NGO and I am entrusted with the responsibility of creating their Independence Day campaign. I am quite happy with my work but, my dear even they need to like it. I head for the presentation. After half an hour, all I could hear was people clapping. Yes, they did like it. I deserve a treat and I shall treat myself to chicken lasagna.

Rene Descartes said " Cogito, ergo sum" (Translated: "I think, therefore I am") and Plato said "I am, therefore I think" and Amodita says "I dream, therefore I am". I was again dreaming when Rohit without any knock (not that I really expect him to do so) barged into my cabin and woke me from my reverie. Now, Rohit is someone who is the perfect "prince in a white horse" of every girl's dream and he is my best friend. And I am so proud of it. I enjoy the jealous stares of the girls when we walk together or when we go out shopping. He is handsome, intelligent, has a great sense of humor, has the best collection of books, CDs and DVDs and drives a vintage Volkswagen. I love him. And I pity him as he bears the brunt of all my excessive, strange and not-so-nice mood swings. I bully him, fight with him, make apple pies for him and help him shop (which, I think is the most tedious job on earth, even more stressing than making an ad for an underwear brand starring an actor and a sportsman). I met Rohit 5 years back and from day one I knew that he was the friend that I was looking for my entire life. He wants to take me out drinking tonight. No, he's not being generous. He wants to get drunk and only Amodita is allowed to drive his car, so when he gets drunk and cannot drive, I have to be around, so that I can safely drive him back home. Hmm, there goes my lasagna (sigh). He also advises me not to dress like a toad. As if.

Rohit and I had a great time. Fosters beer, old monk with coke and French fries and all of that in our usual place. The DJ is playing his latest collection, which is basically an assortment of the latest Bollywood, Bhangra and Hip Hop. There, I have to dance now, they are playing the Beedi song and I dance, dance like no one's watching. Rohit says that this song somehow puts me in a strange kind of trance. We drink a little more and I dance a lot more. And, Rohit is drunk and happy, happier more because I have "chosen to not look like a toad". Happy and high we decide to go for a drive. Rohit again for the nth time asks me why we can't be a couple. "Amo, we are just perfect, we know each other so well, we are so alike, and I love you, have been in love with you for ages. Why don't you at least give it a try? It may work out." I just smile. I have told him so many times that it cannot happen that now when he says it, it's like a monologue. I have stopped arguing and I have stopped explaining. Somewhere, I also feel guilty because I know that he loves me and he is a gem of a person. But, I guess being with him as his woman would just be an act and that would eventually hurt him and that's the last thing I want. But my dear friend fails to understand this and whenever he is drunk he starts it all over again. So, now my weapon is to IGNORE, and that's precisely what I am doing now.

I just dropped Rohit back and now I am home, lying on my bed. I am quite happy with myself today. I managed without marijuana though in spite of the promise to myself had liver burning drinks. And, I didn't think much about him. There, why did I have to remind myself that I didn't think about him? There he invades my thoughts again. I hate myself. Well, where is the marijuana?? Why did he mail me? Is it his way to redeem me? Or is it his way of punishing me? But, punishment for what? I never asked for anything, nor did I ask for anything other than his presence. Was it too much to ask for? I had thought that possessing his heart, soul and body yet not having him was the most painful thing, I was so wrong. Not having him at all is so much more painful. Sleep eludes me now. I walk to the terrace, the same one where we spent countless nights naming the stars and then trying to find them the next night, the same terrace where we made love under the skies in the cold December night wrapped in the warm Korean blanket that Baapi had gifted me, the same terrace where he bid me adieu. So many memories, even the air smells of him. The swing on the terrace takes me to the first night that he had been here. I remember how he described me on the swing, “like someone who wants to mate with the night and become a part of it, someone who wants to be swallowed by the night”… Tears roll down my eyes, but I do not know what is it that I am crying for. Is it you or your memories or your absence or for all of these? Gosh, I need to wipe out these thoughts. Moreover, I have to go to the airport. Adi, my Adi is coming. Adrika is my other self, my elder sister. Although we are sisters we are a world apart. Sometimes I feel that I live in dreams and she in reality and together we create a self. I like the idea of love, she likes romance. I like the quiet of the mountains she likes the hustle bustle of the beach, I like red and she likes blue. I am Baapi’s girl and she is Ma’s child. And the thought of Adi brings back my smile. I will be meeting Adi after a year; so much to tell, so much to share. Adi doesn’t know much about Udant. I mean how was I supposed to fill her with all the details when she was living in another continent. How could I tell her that when Udant touched me, I felt that I was touched by some strange force and I swayed with him to a wilderness that existed only in my dreams? Oh, Adi, I have so much to tell you.