Devrishi

Warning : Heartbreak, True facts

I don’t remember anyone who wasn’t living in the slums, or getting orphaned at a young age or dealing with a congenital disease, telling me that their childhood was glum. I had none of these, I had great parents, and yet, my childhood was utterly depressing. I had no friends till I was in Class nine. I remember having a best friend when I was in Prep and Class one, but ultimately I had lost them. I barely spoke to anyone..

So I won’t waste my time narrating my childhood days. I will just begin from the day I got into class nine.

“Hi,” a message popped on my social network account.

It's not like I didn’t ever have a message popping in my inbox once in a while during the summer vacations. It was just that it was barely ever from someone I just might like. Devrishi.

He was a silent guy in school. He was talented. He was good at most of the stuff he did, but the best thing about him was… if he took an interest in you, he'd include you in his life and you would be blown away by his charm and sincerity.

I had felt this the first day I came to school in Class 9.

I was sitting alone, when our class teacher called out to Devrishi and told him to sit beside me, for that single day.

I helped him solve a math problem that day.

As a thanks, he wrote my English essay for me. It wasn’t a tit for a tat, you-gave- me- so -I -gave -you kind of a thing. He’d asked me what I liked and what I didn’t like before proceeding to write my essay.

I wasn’t bad at English. I was just not as good as him.

Anyway, for two months after that, we hadn’t spoken.

Until now.

“Hi,” I said.

I felt my heart pace up a notch when I saw him “typing…”

‘Ughh. Already, Uma?’ I thought to myself.

“How are you?” he said.

“I’m fine. What about you?” I said.

“I am good.”

“Thanks for helping me out that day,” I said.

“What day? Oh that? Never mention.”

After some more chitchat I said –

“Your dp is cool. Why are you showing all of your 32 teeth in it? Did someone propose to you?”

“Ha ha. I have not found anyone yet.”

It was my turn to be happy. So no one special in his life yet. Should I be abashed that I asked this question? What if he thought I was interested? Or should I say, know that I was interested?

After this and that, I wrote “It was good talking to you. Bye.”

“Bye,” he said and gave me a smile smiley.

I sighed.

If I could, I would heart his name beside mine. Uma heart Devrishi.

I clucked at myself disapprovingly. Just after one chat and an essay?

Soon the summer vacations were over.

He had told me his favourite books were Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, Count of Monte Cristo and Jane Eyre. All classics.

So I read them.

I loved Jane Eyre and The Count of Monte Cristo. I fell asleep while reading the first two.

But I guess I respected his choice in books.

I told him my favourites were Enid Blyton books. Quite sheepishly. But he took that really well.

Why weren’t all guys like him?

I wondered, baselessly.

On his birthday in October, I wished him.

I was out and stuck in a traffic jam with no network, so it took me a while before I wished him.

I said something like, “I am so sorry - I was stuck in a jam. I hope I am not disturbing you. Happy birthday.”

He said (as much as stupid it sounds now, it didn’t back then), “Fruit jam or traffic jam?”

And in a while, “You know you could never disturb me.”

I said, “Please don’t flirt with me.”

But my heart was pounding.

“You think I am flirting with you?”

Then :

“I have never felt like this before for anyone else. I love you.”

I. WAS. SO. HAPPY.

Because I loved him, too. His wit, his mannerisms, his heart, all of him.

“I love you.” I said.

So few months before our end of term exams, this happened.

We would sit next to each other. Hold hands beneath the desks, our knees touching each other.

Whenever I was around him, I felt… elevated. Elated. An electric tingle spread through my fingers when he touched my fingers with his. I loved him so much it hurt – you see, I was apprehensive as to how it would end.

It is said that the romantic period of love lasts for a year and a half.

I didn’t know that then.

I only knew if he ever left me, I would have nothing to do. Nothing I could do.

You see, feelings were only a part of love. To me, love was a bond that would stay inspite of all things that might be trying to wreck it. Like a good ship in a stormy ocean. It didn’t just need to have a good structure, it needed to have pairs of hands knowing how to work it.

So love was more than feelings, it was an anchor that helped two people float together towards safe land when it so required, it would stay steady even when it was not required.

When the first love’s spring faded, and winter arrived, I didn’t know what to do.

You see, he wanted a physical relationship with me.

Now as adults, emotional and physical relationship go hand in hand.

But for us Indians, our parents impress it upon our minds – anything physical was B.A.D. (bad in highlights)

I was one with few words. I told him I can’t.

It was fine the first few times he mentioned it and I said I didn’t want it.

I don’t know what happened next.

It was when we were in Class 11. He had taken Humanities and I had taken Science as the major subject.

Day by day, we barely reached out to each other. There was a communication gap.

It was then that I heard that he had been hitting on others.

It hurt.

I broke it off with him.

It hurt.

I came back together with him.

We got physical – a kiss, second base, a hug.

I heard of things of the similar kind he wanted to do with others.

It hurt.

I broke it off with him.

He wanted to sext me.

I started to do just that, well not till third base, but just…

Well, it was not enough for him.

So one day, when I texted and texted, he didn’t text me back.

Worse, he had found someone else for whom he had real feelings for.

You see, I could see a future in front of me even without him but I didn’t have the heart to go through with it. There was nothing I could do to bring him back. There was nothing I could do to stop myself from loving him.

I remember the last time I saw him – the last day at school, when I hugged him goodbye.

I entered Medical School.

…………………………

It was Fresher’s Day.

I wore a blue saree with a yellow border.

To new beginnings, I thought.

So as they finished calling up the guys, the first girl to be called up was me.

Trust me, I wasn’t expecting that. So as I ascended the stage, I was all jittery. By stage fright.

I forgot to mention it to you. I used to have social anxiety. Throughout the seventh and eighth classes, I could barely go beyond “Hi. My name is Uma. I live ___(here). What’s your name? Where do you live?”

I literally couldn’t find anything else to talk about.

So yeah, plenty of those silences were uncomfortable ones.

So yeah. Stage fright.

They asked me to sing the National anthem. Everyone stood up.

And I went, “Jana gana mana mangala dayaka hey,” when the the crowd (especially the interns who were judging us) howled in an uproar.

Stupid, stupid me.

One of the interns went : “You don’t know the National Anthem?”

Calming down, I remembered how it was Jana gana mana adhinayaka jaya hey, Bharata bhagya vidhata.

But the damage was done, and I was asked to step down.

It was a stupid thing. It was over.

What no one knows is, I didn’t feel traumatized. Because you know the all or none law?

All my nerve endings were in pain because of how he left me. And now, even with the right threshold, they weren’t getting strung to a new response.

A few days later, a girl in my class said someone from the Intern group wanted to apologise to me, and I gave her my number to give it to him.

Was that stupid?

It didn’t matter, because I didn’t care.

That being the worst and stupidest thing I ever did.

Because you see, he was four years older to me. I was my usual charming self in front of him. Words flowed in my texts, I was at ease, because I couldn’t hurt any further, I couldn’t embarrass any further, and certainly couldn’t care any further.

He…fell in love…with me.

But I was still in love with my ex, who simply wanted casual sex with me and that too when his mood figured.

I did this because it hurt.

I did this because I figured, what’s the worst that could happen? There’s no reason why we would break up.

Because, you see, he was a nice guy.

Much nicer than Devrishi.

But he was still him. And when he proposed, I accepted.

But soon, in six months… I couldn’t breathe.

Every morning, there would be a cheery Good morning!

Every texts were followed by a text immediately.

There was a movie where the boy and girl added their ages and said they were some forty something together. And then He said we were forty something together.

There were spoon fights while I was just trying to eat.

I realised how much worse I had turned things into.

I finally told him I couldn’t do anymore of this. That I needed freedom. He cried.

He called me once and told me he couldn’t do this anymore.

He came by my home, you know.

And I shouldn’t have done it to him.

But, to add a little hope in the mix, he later found someone he got married to at the end of some four or five years of togetherness after all…

And I wish him all the happiness in the world.

And me? The pain was dulled. But I still wasn’t okay.

……………………………

Not a day passed when I did not remember him.

His thoughts haunted the serenity of my mind.

I had seen a dream where he and his girlfriend was ragging me. Even when I had never seen his girlfriend face-to-face.

I would write these long texts to him that he would read and never reply to.

Soon, I came to my Final Year of Medical School.

So all I needed to do was study.

But I was a major procrastinator.

The few friends I had, didn’t see my real side.

The thing with Devrishi was continuing to bother me, seeing as I couldn’t forget him.

Something else went downhill.

And that was how I talked to others and talked to myself.

I started having imaginary conversations with him and with myself.

I would picture him in a situation and try to go through whatever he said to me by one argument and a counter-argument later.

In the first half of our relationship, he had called me ‘taciturn’.

Which I was.

Remember the whole social anxiety thing?

So I would try to go over and beyond myself to talk to him on the latter half of our relationship.

And I guess that is when this thing happened.

“Why do you think this happens between us?” he’d say.

“Because this is something you want and I don’t!”

He would fall silent.

“Please talk to me,” I entreated. (I was starting to get worked up.)

He said nothing.

“I don’t like you anymore,” he said at last.

“Please don’t say that,” I say.

“Tell me what you want. I'll be like a slave to you, as long as you are near me and come home to me,” I gush.

“Don’t say such stuff,” he would say.

Then he stayed quiet.

“Kiss me?” I said.

“No, I’d rather not.”

“Tell me I’m yours,” I said quietly.

“No,” and he turns away.

“Don’t try to make me do things when you know I have a problem with this,” he says.

‘What the heck?’ I think.

But at least he has talked to me, I think.

I am silent for a while.

This was just a bit of whatever happened between us, in my mind.

Devrishi was voluntarily remembered while trying to be forgotten.

I thought he wouldn't ever leave.

But I was so wrong, you see.

Because that is just what he did. He left. And left me to hurt by myself, for as long as it took for me to heal by myself.

One day, I woke up and found it didn't hurt as much.

Because, that is life. It flows, it gets wrecked, but it flows again.