(This might seem a bit filmy and dramatic but its a real incident from my life.)
You missed your bus yet again, but how does it matters you are in the last semester of your engineering. It will not matter even if you don’t attend your classes. This was exactly what you were doing since last week. Today is a different day you are experiencing a strong urge to go to the college. You can take the second trip bus, which comes in after an hour or so. However, you decide to go by public transport. Immediately you take a city van to reach Rajendra nagar, from where you would get the bus for your college. You are waiting there and as usual, there is a lot of crowd. It is almost crunch time here. You realize you will have to go hanging and balancing in several poses all along the way.
The first bus that arrives is overfilled so much so that it seems to spill. You have a theory about busses: – the bus that follows an overcrowded one would be less crowded than the first. Therefore, you decide to wait for the second bus. Soon it arrives and stops exactly where you were standing. As you look into the bus, your heart misses a beat then a second and a third. You feel like having a stroke. No signal from your brain. No it’s not the crowd that is bothering you. It is the girl sitting in the front seat. She someone you know from your school. Both of you were in same class. Now even the college is same but the streams are different. You are in love with her since high school. She was a good friend but now she ignores you as if you do not exist, as if you are invisible. You still love her. People say she has a boyfriend, you still love her. She has acted many times as if she hates you. You still love her. As you see her, she also sees you. She immediately looks away, into a book she is reading. Soon you realize you have to hop onto the bus else, you would miss it too.
It is January, pretty cold. You are wearing a pair of jeans teamed with a white cotton shirt along with your college blazer, which you are wearing just to recover the money you have (over)paid for it. You get inside and you see that although this bus is less crowded but still there is no room inside so you have to stand at the gate, right in front of her. Fortunately or unfortunately.
The two of you are not on talking terms since second year of your college. You start thinking that it is so unusual that you took the public transport first time in the semester and you banged into her. You remember how you were in engineering college in Hyderabad and you quit there and came back to Indore for counseling. The moment you entered the counseling hall the name being announced was hers. You were totally unaware of the fact that she was also having counseling the same day as you. And unknowingly you two took the same college. You thought, at that time, that this was your destiny and your belief in your love towards her became stronger. Like it happens all the time in movies, only in movies. Now your misconceptions are corrected.
The radio is on in the bus. They start playing a song from the movie ‘Jab we met’ it is “Naa hai yeh paana …” (Romantic Hindi song – ‘Neither this is losing, nor winning it is’)now your emotional turmoil starts to heat up. You remember how good friends you two stated to be in the school. You remember the first day of your college. When due to some incident you were apprehensive about talking to her and you remember how she came to you and relaxed you. You start thinking why you to have stopped talking? But you don’t find an answer. She is still reading the book. It is Ayn rynd’s ‘fountainhead’. She is not looking up at all. You know why, because if she looks up she would have to see you. She does it all the time, ignores you.
Bus is moving on the full swing. Conductor-cum-cleaner-cum-usher-cum-ticket clerk comes at you “Where to?” he asks. But you don’t answer. “Hey where to?” he asks again, you still don’t answer. “Have you consumed bhang?” he snaps his fingers at you. Your trance finally breaks. “Oh Medicaps” you give him five rupees. You realize that lots of noise and ruckus is going around you and even after that, you got lost in your thoughts. “Bheed me khamoshi hai thodi si behoshi hai…”(There is a silence even in the crowd, a bit of intoxication lingers) the song goes on.
She ignores you. She doesn’t want to talk to you or even see you but you still love her. You are obsessed with her she is on your mind almost every time and this has been so since last 5 years. You need to forget her, for that, you must ignore her as she does. You have tried it but you know ignoring is not going to do the trick. You are not able to ignore her. You need something more drastic, more severe, and more effective. Hate her, you must try to hate her, after all what she does to you isn’t right. You try to do that but not unlike ignoring hating is also unyielding. You can’t hate her no matter how bad she treats you. You realize your feeling you start thinking what went wrong? You weren’t that bad a choice. You almost cry, but you cannot. This is the irony of being a guy, you have to act strong and even if a tear rolls down your cheek you have to blame it on the strong wind blowing in or something that struck in your eye.
You decide to try hating her once again, for the last time. “Medicaps” shouts somebody. Both of you get out of the bus. She starts towards the college walking on the uphill road. You stay back and walk behind her, even if you can go ahead. Just because you can see her for few minutes more. You know you can’t hate her. Now you understand this is what they call love, actually.
Hey Daily Promt