I always wondered at how fake, people can be sometimes, portraying themselves as serves their purpose. And how materialistic and sometimes shallow our generation can be. Yes we are, lets accept it. Instead of a scathing report, I decided to write a satire. Inspiration for the idea must go to Ravi Shankar's article 'The Secret History of India' in this month's India Today issue. Hilarious!!
I will not describe how he and she looked. Because they are you, they are me. Put your own and the other person's face on them if you wish. But the premise of this story basically is, Gagan knew Manasa was the one when he saw her. He didn't care what sort of person she was, where her interests lay, or even her orientation for that matter. But he decided that he loved her. She looked good, and he had to get with her. It was with this ambitious intention that he sat down next to her one lunch hour. Everyone who had noticed the stolen glances and swiftly tucked away smiles between the two in the last two weeks, were watching with bated breath. They collectively watched back and forth at every exchange of dialogue between them, as though following exciting commentary of a verbal volley.
'Hey there', an easy, confident start from Gagan!
'Oh. Its you. Hi!' and Manasa makes a fittingly hesitant return!
'You know, there's something I've been meaning to ask you something for the past few days. Its a very important question..' And immediately he goes in for the kill, this could be a short game folks!
'Yes Gagan. I say yes', and with that sweet smile, the game is sealed! Both are the winners! Have a good evening ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for attending!
And so they started going out. He couldn't get over the fact that she was the most beautiful girl he'd seen, and she couldn't get over the fact that he couldn't get over the fact that she was the most beaut-...well, you get the point.
So what if they didn't like the same music, same movies or same food? Petty things indeed. But the thing was, everyone knew Manasa was clean, and never drank, smoked or partied. She was a simple person, and Gagan knew he wasn't. But what bad would one lie do? After all, what you didn't know couldn't hurt you right? What mattered was that they enjoyed their time together. He could definitely enjoy their time apart however we wished. It was his life. At least that's what all those punk songs he listened to, said.
And thus days morphed into weeks, then months. Conversations tended to be linear, all they could do was convey their affection for each other in every way shown in all of the movies they'd watched. Thankfully they'd watched a lot of them, so lack of ways wasn't a problem, yet. Whenever talk started to veer towards inconsequentials like how their day was, or what they wanted from each other, it would soon be steered back to what was important.
'Hey you. I love you' Gagan lay down on his bed as he spoke into the phone with Manasa.
'Hey. I love you too' she gushed. Her heart never really raced when he said that, she hardly ever caught herself thinking of him, and seeing him didn't exactly make her day, but wasn't that all supposed to happen only in those mushy Pills&Noob books? You were just supposed to sound happy, and she did.
'You know, I've been thinking about you.' He wasn't. He was watching stuff on the web. But that's what she liked to hear, so there.
'You have? Oh! I'm so glad' textbook response. But hey, who are we to judge her? She liked his company, had fun with him. Who cared what love was?
'Today, after lunch I..' he had begun to say something, but she was busy twirling her hair and looking at herself in the mirror, so she never really registered the rest of his story. Zoned out, in short.
'Oh, that's great sugar. You know what I did today? I..' Now it was Gagan's turn to surf pages on the web as she spilled her story. He signaled concurrence at the right times, and it was enough. They spoke some more, him telling her how beautiful she was and her gushing over it.
Fact of the matter was, he wasn't telling her the truth. He wasn't going to be at home tonight, he was going to be at a club with some of his friends. Alcohol, dancing, and a late return time was on the cards. But, she needn't know that. The little girl was going to watch a movie with her parents tonight.
And so he left at night, in high spirits already, looking forward to a good time, some excitement.
He was going to get a measure and a half of it.
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