Our end semester exams were finished and summer vacation had just started. Within two days of vacation, everyone had been off to their homes but i had no idea what to do in those 75 days. Definitely i wasn’t going to spend my complete vacation at home as none of my friends were there plus i didn’t want to hear daily taunts from my mom because of my unusual habits. I was seeking some adventure but my college friends are more of a nostalgic. So i had decided to stay in BBSR itself with my friends of other college for one month. They were comparatively more fun loving and i could continue my java courses too. The apartment in which they were living had three rooms. Two rooms of it were occupied by my friends and in one lived someone i didn’t know till then. That someone opened the door on my first entrance to the apartment. From his appearance he seemed to be a kind of geek. He stared so strangely at my smile as if he had seen someone smiling after decades. From his awkward beard, dress and glasses, i could bet he was going to top SAT. Later from my friends i came to know that he had just passed out from KEC College and was staying there till September. His name was Eric. My friends’ vacation had not then started so the only humans left in the apartment between 10am to 5pm were i and Eric. When i got bored from watching movies, i used to watch him. It seemed that he preferred isolation. Most of the time, i saw him sitting alone on chair and thinking hard about something by leaning his head upon the table. Sometimes i heard him talking to himself. His room contained some cute teddy bears and a lot of romantic gifts. His scientific appearance and romantic collections were beyond my scope to fathom. So i stopped watching him.
Few days later when i had returned from my java classes, i saw a small child sitting on the floor of his room and playing with his teddy bear. Eric had never talked to me so i could not ask him who that child was. The child gave a sweet smile looking at me and then i wasn’t lull anymore. I went to the child and said holding his teddy bear, “Hey, buddy. Your girlfriend has really given you very cute gift.” The child started laughing as if he had understood everything but Eric responded in a way as if i had just slapped him.
“He is Michael, son of our cook and my girlfriend has given me the teddy bear he is playing with”.
It was the eighth wonder for me. I had heard, however dumbass a man may be, he gets a wife because of his studying talents but i never knew dumbasses do have girlfriends too.
“Both of them must have been equal dumbass and instead of having romance, they would be doing scientific research together”, i thought. I had to reply something for the first time he had talked to me.
“Gift of your girlfriend is very sweet and so must have been she”.
“She was my girlfriend. Now she has married to someone else”.
There grew some emotions over there. I fell silent for a moment. Then i thought of hearing the full story from him in case i would find some roses in the desert.
“I am sorry about it. Would you mind telling everything from the beginning?”
“I have never spoken this to anyone. You are the first to hear it.”
Loneliness is the strangest thing in this world. It makes a perfect stranger our closest friend. So he commenced:
“There was a girl named Claire studying in school with me. At high school, she was just-okay type girl and not more of an attractive. I never paid any attention to her there. After eighth she went somewhere i didn’t know while i continued to be in the same school. When i was about to complete my twelfth, i went to Rourkela for taking a crash course for engineering examinations. And there i met the greatest coincidence of my life. I saw Claire in the same institute i had taken admission and this time being the most beautiful girl in this planet. An ugly duckling had grown into a most beautiful swan. I don’t know how to praise her beauty but no beautiful thing in this world was worth comparing her. Perhaps most of the beautiful girls become beautiful after the age of fourteenth. I had begun to fall in love with her which she was almost unaware of and after that day there wasn’t a single moment i didn’t think of her. Days were of no use if i didn’t see or hear her. I began to talk to her and soon we were close friends. Two months had passed and i was madly in love with her.
I could resist my feelings for her no more and on 28th Feb i expressed my love for her. Luckily that love wasn’t one sided and even she was in deep love with me. I was the happiest person in this world. But before that love could continue any further, our exams were close. I gave the exams but could make through none. She passed in Orissa JEE and was forced by her family to take admission in KEC College. The time had come for our partings. I dropped my admission that year and my only aim for the next year was to be in the same college as she was. Our separation had not stopped the love between us but grew even larger. I studied very hard the following year and passed in every exam i gave with a better rank. I was getting a lot of better colleges but i had only one aim and that was to be with her. I got admission in the same college and we were one again. The two love birds had a lot of free space to fly but the only problem was that she was my senior. Now the thing with the senior girls is that they always look down upon junior boys as a kid while senior boys are in the hunt of junior girls from the very first day of fresher’s. I simply can’t understand how much difference of this 1 or 2 year would make in the secretion of adrenalin. Well, this junior-senior thing wasn’t my problem except that the senior boys were badly irritated of fresher having a senior girlfriend. So i was badly threatened and often called in seniors’ room for such kinds of ragging which i can’t illustrate. However these things passed quickly and soon my love life was on a smooth runway. Everything was perfect. I lived as a paying guest just beside her hostel. My everyday used to begin and end with a kiss. 24/7 we used to be together. So fast did the time pass that we were little unaware that her final year had been completed.
She got a job in Bangalore with a starting salary of ten thousand per month and i reached in my final year. We were separate again. I was missing her badly every nano-second. She was missing me too but had to take care of her job too. Her initial salary was not that supportive, so she was working very hard. One year was almost about to finish when her hard work showed true colours. Her salary was suddenly incremented to 1 lac per month. This was completely unexpected and she was very happy. My final exams were one month away then and the things had started to change. Her six digit salary had started to change her behaviour. She began keeping distance from me. Every moment i felt she was getting away from me. She stopped calling me herself and talked only when i called and that too in an ignoring tone. I could find no reason why those things were happening. I was still missing her badly. Every moment i was getting mad to be with her. And one day she finally told that she had been seeing someone else and everything between us were over. That was the last thing in my life i wished to hear. The only reason i was leading my life for seemed to be over. My exam was one month away and i couldn’t read a single line from my open books. Every page of my book showed her face which i pined to see. The moments we spent were passing one by one in front of my eyes. I could do nothing but cry whole day and night. I was ruining my career by doing that but my life ended the day she broke up with me. I begged her to be with me just till exams but she refused it saying, ‘the sooner we forget our past, the better it will be for us. I can’t continue my relation with you because my parents won’t ever allow it and i don’t wanna go against them. ’ Earlier, she had promised that she would convince them and i mattered her more than her parents but i guess promises are made to be broken. I gave exams and got back in every paper. The companies came but i wasn’t placed.
My whole career was fucking ruined and i was left in a shithole. I didn’t dare to face my parents like that, so i took a job in call center in Kolkata which made me work like a dog. Six months later she called me. I couldn’t guess by her voice she was happy or sad but she said, ‘i am getting married today.’ I didn’t know why she had called. I just hung up saying, ‘why are you telling me these? You want me to dance in your marriage or cry forever in my pain?’ I wanted to know why her parents didn’t allow her to be with me, so i called her dad sometime after her marriage but there was another surprise over there. Her dad said, ‘she never told me about you. I would have given a thought if she had ever mentioned about you. But now she is married to someone else so you should stay away.’ Since then i am just alone and still love her. That’s my story, dude.” Uncontrollable tears were flowing from his eyes. I could do nothing except hugging him….