Without Closure! - Part 1
"Ye Un Dino Ki Baat Hai"
This is a story from those days when there was no Whatsapp, there was no Facebook, there were no mobile phones, there was no instant gratification, there was no email! We are talking about times of landlines. We are talking about times when if you didn't have a landline at home, you were dependent on Red Telephones set up all over the country. You could insert a 1 Rupee coin and speak for a minute. When there were 10 secs to end the call the phone would beep - you had to either insert another coin or finish your conversation! Tough times for communication when you compare it to today. But the world was a great place even then!
So, we are talking about the year 1998. The year which was changing the political framework of the country. The year which changed the image of the India as a nation - India had become a nuclear nation with the Pokhran tests. The year that established Karan Johar as a talent in Bollywood with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai! A lot was happening in the country. The whole world was at the cusp of a new Millennium. Some of the experts were talking about the threat of Y2K.
Amidst all this, the hero of our story - Amit had recently stepped out of school and started college. In India when you leave school and enter college - that's a major milestone for children and parents. Children become more carefree and Parents become more vigilant. Amit was a decent student and could have taken admission in Science - the most wanted stream at that time. But he decided to pursue commerce for the hate of science.
New College meant new life, new aspirations, new friends! Amit was outgoing and instantly made friends in college. A group of friends with boys and girls was a new thing for him. He was not used to having friends from the opposite gender while in school. College hours started getting extended just to sit and spend time with friends.
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was released in October of 1998. All college students started thinking every college is like the college that Rahul Anjali and Tina went to. Amit was no different. Amit already liked Priyanka from his group. He had started liking her beyond being friends. Priyanka also liked Amit. Both of them would spend a lot of time together.
They travelled together on the train, spend canteen breaks together, take care of each other's liking. Friendship had slowly started to bloom to first love for both of them. The feeling was great. Priyanka had a walkman. Both of them would share the earphone to listen to songs from KKHH, Dilse, Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya for hours. Picturing each other in the roles of the leads both would look at each other and smile.
Their love blossomed. The struggle to contact each other was real but everyone in those days managed. Things like - two rings calls - miss you, three rings call - call me back, blank call - desperate call - came into existence!
While Amit was all into Priyanka, Priyanka had her own set of friends. She was a total social butterfly. She had a group of college friends, a group of school friends and also a group of society friends. There was a friend from her society - Shubh who had a liking towards Priyanka but never had mentioned it to her. Priyanka had recently broken the news about her relationship with Amit to all her friends.
Shubh had not particularly liked the fact that Priyanka was going around with Amit. But he let it go and became friends with Amit as well in due course. All three of them started spending time together. They became good friends.
The first academic year post college went by and they entered year two but just before academic year began colleges get a summer break. This summer break was going to be a short one - since they were entering another milestone year in academics - 12th
In the short break Amit happened to visit his native place. He would miss Priyanka a lot but he couldn't do much about it! There was no telephone connection in his native. He would sit and write long letters to Priyanka and keep them with himself and thought he would give all of them to her when he would meet her once he was back.
After about a 20 days break Amit returned! The first thing he did - blank call to Priyanka. The call on the other side was answered by Priyanka's mom. Amit couldn't muster the courage to ask anything and disconnected. He was hoping that Priyanka would be home to guess that blank call was a desperate signal to call back. But no such luck. He didn't get any call back.
After waiting for half a day desperately - he tried another call and this time the call was answered by Priyanka's father. Again the same story. Also, he didn't receive any call from her.
The next morning he called all of their friends to figure out whether anyone had spoken to Priyanka only to know that she had been in touch with everyone. And some of them even spoke to her yesterday. That had baffled Amit.
He again made desperate attempts to talk to Priyanka without any luck. After attempting for a couple of times he got her on the phone and what he heard was something that he wasn't prepared for - "Amit, please do not try to contact me ever." Those words were like atom bombs for him. He couldn't understand what had happened.
Amit then got in touch with Anushree a common friend. Asked her to meet him. Both of them together called on Priyanka's landline from the 1 Rupee calling machine. He made Anushree dial and kept a lot of coins with him so that the call didn't disconnect after a minute. Alas, it wasn't needed. Priyanka indeed came on the call. She did speak to Anushree. The moment Anushree mentioned "Hey listen, Amit is with me and he wants to talk to you!" Bang... The call was disconnected.
He tried talking to Shubh but couldn't ever connect to him after that. In college Priyanka had changed her group of friends, she would change her way if she saw Amit.
Initially, Amit's song selection changed from Romantic to sad. The song "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" was replaced by "Jaane wafa ho k bekarar". But later on as he got busy with his own studies and with his friends, he had moved on. He was one of the first ones who realised that there were much better art forms in the country than the one KJo delivered. He has kept away from KJo movies ever since.
Days passed, months went by and he never got answer to the very important question - Why had she decided to move on! What had transpired in the 20 days that he wasn't here!
He left the question unanswered.
Today Amit is a successful high flying executive - every time he thinks of Priyanka - he still has that small soft corner - first love after all.
But eventually he remembers that famous dialogue from the movie Sholay and just smiles and let's it go - "Ek kahani adhuri reh gayi!"
To read the story as it unfolds after this. Click on the below link:
Beautiful STORY sir
ReplyDeleteThank you Rajeev
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