Any girl who is a die-hard SRK fan tends to believe in love stories, and I was no different. For most of my life, I believed that characters like Raj of DDLJ are real and someday, love will touch me in the same way as it does in most of the SRK’s romantic movies. As you grow old and turn mature, you see around and experience things on your own to realize that Reel Life is different than Real Life, and your belief in love gets a bit shaky 🙂 Life continues and so do you, and, just when you least expect it, Love hits you and it turns into a story that you remember forever (not like in a SRK movie, but surely something special!). Here is my weird story of love.
Years ago, I was away from my hometown for a job and was living alone in a big city. Being an introvert, it was never easy for me to make new friends, and honestly it never bothered me. Everything was moving fine – 9 to 9 job, managing home and leading an independent life. Had few colleagues at work who became friends and we used to hangout together once in a while. Among these colleagues, there was a guy named Raj (I will not disclose the real name of this individual :)) and the entire office was convinced that we hate each other, because all we used to do was squabble. But what people didn’t know that while we used to fight like cats and dogs during office hours, Raj was slowly turning out to be my go-to-person and probably the only individual who was my friend cum family in that city. We used to hang-out together once in a while and had lot of things in common socially, especially dancing. And my side of the love story started from dancing.
It was my birthday and I had no elaborate plans to celebrate. However, I did casually mention to Raj that it would be nice if we could go for a Bollywood music dance party in the evening and he said- ‘Sure, Let’s do something’. That very evening, he came to my house with few of my work friends and some of his friends. We cut the cake at home and then moved to the Bollywood music dance party. After dancing for hours with the entire group, a moment came, when it was just him and I, dancing together in a synchronized manner. Don’t know what got into me, and I just held him tight, gave him a big hug and said thank you. He reciprocated. In those few seconds, something clicked in my brain and I got hit by a really strong emotion which was difficult to describe in words. Anyway, the evening got over and life continued.
Over time, our frequency of stepping out together increased, his friends became my friends (not that any of those friends connected at a personal level) and my entire life started to revolve around his social life. Like a school girl, I used to eagerly wait for his invites to hang-out together. There was a deeper connection with him. We used to understand each other without really putting it into words, and over time, this deeper connection, turned into profound fondness and eventually into deep affection. However, all these emotions were one-sided and it was only experienced solely by me. The weird thing was that I knew that the way I feel for him, he used to feel the same way for someone else (he was in a complicated relationship with a girl), and still my feelings towards him did not fade. On the contrary, when he used to confide in me about his relationship, I used to listen to him patiently. That’s a different story that each time he did that, I used to have a lump in my throat (back then, I never understood why it used to happen). I thought I could continue like this forever and eventually my feelings for him will subside. But like I said earlier, when love hits, it hits unexpectedly and it hits hard.
Over time, I became protective about Raj and his complicated relationship started to bother me implicitly. Our outings reduced significantly and quality of interactions dipped. The warmth in the conversations faded. We both became irritable for our own right reasons. Seeing and meeting Raj and his girl started to affect me emotionally. Although I never expressed myself, but it was becoming excruciating to put up a face and pretend that everything was hunky-dory. I started to feel neglected and lost. Since I was in a good job, leaving the job and the city was not an option. So I started to convince myself that I will have to live with this reality. But an evening changed it all !
It was one of the weekends. I went out with Raj, his girl, and his friends for a dance party. That evening, Raj did not bother about me. Usually, he used to be the one to get my drink, that day he did not. One of his friends handed over my drink to me. When we started to dance, he did not bother to come near me, his entire focus was on his ‘special friend’ and the entire evening I danced with his friends. I was continuously watching him in a hope that he will look towards me, but that did not happen. Eventually, I managed to move closer to him, when I saw him dancing very closely with this girl, smiling and with a look in his eye that I always wanted to see in his eyes for me. At that very moment, for the first time, I felt a deep ache in my heart, a sense of breathlessness followed by tears. Luckily no one noticed. The rest of the evening passed by somehow and that night when I hit the bed, it was all tears. I cried all night, realized that I love him and continuing like this won’t be an option anymore. And in spur of the moment, a decision was made.
The morning of next day, I walked into my boss’s cabin, told him that I want to quit and will serve my 2-Months notice period (what happened at the professional and home front is not part of this narrative).
When Raj got to know about this, he thought it to be a joke. He did not take this decision seriously. When the office gave a farewell party, he told everyone that she will come back. This is a decision that she took in a haste, she will get bored back home and will join us back. And every time he used to say this on any occasion, I used to say to myself- “Of course I will come back, if I can be with you. I will come back if you tell me, you want to be with me. Else, there is no point”. On numerous occasions, Raj asked me the reason for this sudden decision. I never gave him a clear cut answer. I used to just tell him that it is for the best. I am not enjoying my work and missing my parents. It is best to go back. And he never seemed convinced. The same drill continued until the last day.
And finally the day arrived. I was headed towards the airport and all the time I was hoping that Raj will give me a surprise and come to the airport to stop me. May be he will have a realization that we both are meant to be (I laughed at my foolishness too). But nothing like this happened. I did not have a Bollywood Happy Ending. My plane took off and I reached my hometown. And he continued with his life and I never looked back.
Anyone who knows this story of my life, tells me that I over-reacted, that I should have told Raj about how I felt and may be things would have worked out. I should have waited. To which I reply- “Yes, may be I over-reacted and may be things would have been different, but I do not want to live in this maybe. I am content to know that I finally got to experience the answer to the question – What is love?” That’s all the matters.