'DARAMIYAN' - A SHRAMAN OS

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"DARAMIYAN" - A SHRAMAN OS

*"Hai Kya Yeh Jo Tere Mere Daramiyan Hain...Andheki Ansuni Koi Dastaan Hain... Lagane Lagi Aab Zindagi Khaali...Lagane Lagi Har Saans Bhi Khaali...Bin Tere..Bin Tere..Bin Tere... Koi Kalish Hain Hawao Main Bin Tere..."

Shravan looked outside the window. It was raining but he couldn't even hear the sound of the rain. He was just staring outside aimlessly lost in his thoughts. You don't see this type of rain in London. The kind you just want to soak yourself in. Suddenly his lips twisted in a smile as a memory assailed him.

"Come on Sharvan...Tum pigal nahin jaoge... Seriously you're like a girl sometimes!" Said Suman shaking her head at him. Her hands on her hips looking at him the way she did when he refused to do something.

"What's it got to do with being a girl or a boy?... Muje bheegna acha nahin lagta ok?"

"Bheegna acha nahin lagatha? Are you serious? Like are you even alive?" Said Suman in her usual gregarious and over exaggerated way, which always made him laugh.

"Yes... I'm alive!" Said Shravan in a sarcastic tone.

"Really? Then prove it!..."

"Prove it? How?"

"Mere saath bheego! Come on...let's go!"

"No way. I don't want to get soaked! Probably end up with pneumonia!"

"Stop being so dramatic! Kuch nahin hoga...Mr 'I hate the rain'!"

"Hey...I never said I hated the rain! I said I hate getting wet!"

"Same dif Einstein! Now come on...Or...don't tell me you're afraid to get your perfect suit wet?"

"Afraid? No I'm not afraid!" Said Shravan in a firm tone. He never liked to be accused of being afraid. He was a lot of things, but if he set his mind to something, he never let fear stop him.

"Toh phir aao..." said Suman and took his hand and pulled him into the pouring rain. It didn't take more than 2 minutes for them to get soaked to the skin.

As rain started to fall over his hair and then onto his glasses, Shravan blinked.

"Ab aya na asli mazaa?" Said Suman laughing. Water was pouring down her hair and face and she was laughing uncontrollably. Shravan also started to laugh. Suman looked up to the sky with her arms open wide and twirled around. He remembered just looking at her and smiling and laughing at the same time. He didn't remember how long they stood their soaking and laughing in the rain. Time didn't matter because he had been having the time of his life. The sound of their laughter still echoed in his ears. That laughter that comes from pure joy. When nothing can get you down. It had been a perfect moment, and that perfect moment he had shared with Suman.

The sound of the rain suddenly hitting hard on the window snapped him out of his memories. His expression hardened as he recalled his encounter with Suman at her house 2 days ago. How she had accused him of "Running away from problems".

"That's all you know how to do. You ran away 10 years ago, and you're doing the same now!"

"The gall of her!" Thought Shravan. After the way she had behaved, she thinks she can preach to him? She thinks he owes HER an explanation about why he does anything?

"You lost that right over me 10 years ago Suman, when you proved to me how little our friendship had really meant to you! How little I had meant to you!"

He still could not reconcile the memory of the fun loving crazy girl, his companion, his confidant, with the person that she had turned out to be. Crass, insensitive and uncaring. Yes she had always had this image that she had worried about. She had been a rock chic and she had an image of a "girl about town" at school. What they called a "Dhabaang girl". No one took panga with Suman, or "Sumo" as he had christened her. Funny how today, he himself refused to call her that, but his cousin Pushkar still did. To Pushkar she was still Sumo. But to him she stopped being that the day she decided to make a joke of his feelings in front of the whole school. That was the day he had seen her true colours. He thought she was special. But she turned out to be like every other girl. Self absorbed, selfish and uncaring. Anyway, had he not learnt in life that you can't rely on a woman? Either they abandon you, or reject you. His mistake had been in thinking that the image that Suman projected in front of everyone in school was an "image". It turned out she really was like that! Someone who just ran roughshod over anyone. Being "cool" was more important to her than anyone's feelings. More important than he had ever been.

That is why today, no matter how much he flirted with women, spent time with them, charmed them, he never let himself be charmed. He saw through them in minutes. He didn't have to spend 2 years of his life to find out what some woman was like anymore. Like the time he had wasted being Suman's friend. Even then, he had not recognized her for who she really was. So what was the point "getting to know" a woman? The result was the same. Case in point, that client of Pushkar's. He had to pay with half his earnings to get rid of a woman who didn't even respect his Mother or his family. Used him to attain a lifestyle that she now demands he pay to continue. That is what you get for trusting a woman, and that is what he never wanted in his life again. He will never be like that client, who had to give his hard earned cash to that woman just to get her out of his life. It's better never to let anyone into your life in the first place.

He always dealt with women the same way now. Turn on the charm, if and when needed. Smooth talking and being this cool and controlled guy. He showed them what he wanted them to see. They never saw the real him and that is how it suited him. He realized that the best way to disarm a woman was to appeal to her vanity and her need for validation. Some may call him a jerk for it, but he called it strategy. Fake praise and hollow appreciation seem to work wonders on women. Much more than heartfelt words and sincere emotions seem to. So then why not give them what they want? He dealt with all females that came his way the same way now, be it his aunt, his sister in law or anyone else. Just use his charm to disarm them, and then be on his way. Like his Vandy Babhi's friend Urvashi. What a Bimbo! Not that different from his sister in law. Maybe slightly more cunning. But of course she may have gone home thinking she got the better of him! As if! He laughed at the irony.

Shravan himself didn't realize how much of a cynic he had become. He thought that he was being a realist. But things had gone a lot further than that in the past 10 years. He had schooled himself into the man he now was. Confident, shrewd and when it came to the female sex, uncaring and sometimes even ruthless. He was no one's fool. What a contrast from the Teenage Shravan. He had been shy and sensitive. Losing his mother at age 9 in a car accident had meant that he had to learn to deal with loss at an early age. The only other woman in his life at the time had been his aunt, and he had never been close to her. So suddenly his house had become a male dominated abode. He only had male cousins, his Father and uncle.

Then Suman Tiwari had become a part of his life and they had become friends. He had always known of Suman, coz she was the granddaughter of Mr Tiwari, his Dad's old professor. But it was in High school that they had become close. It was like his friendship with her had opened a whole new door in his life. She had introduced him to a whole new world. Through her, he experienced another side to life. His quiet, almost grey male dominated world had been filled with sudden color, sudden passion. He himself had not realized when she had become so essential to him. When he had started to rely on her, her friendship, her mere presence. So much so, he had been willing to change his future plans for her, just to be close to her. "Bewakoof!" He thought to himself. His younger self had been a fool. A trusting, blind fool!

So when that trusting and blind Shravan had realized he could not trust Suman, that to her he was just another nerd she was having fun with, he had taken it as badly as anyone could. That day had been like the day his Mum died all over again. He had felt abandoned. Rejected. He knew his Mother had not rejected him, but by dying she had abandoned him and that had been akin to a rejection. That day Suman had made him feel the same way. This time it was even worse, because this rejection had been a choice. His Mother didn't choose to leave him. But Suman had chosen to betray him. To show him how little his feelings mattered to her, in front of preserving her so called Cool Image!

"Woh ithani bhi badi baath nahin thi!" Suman's voice resonated in his head when she had apologized to him the day he visited her grandfather. What a useless apology that had been, when she had not even acknowledged the gravity of her actions?

"Ha Suman...woh ithani bhi badi baath nahin thi...tumhare liye...because it didn't happen to you. Let's see if you feel the same way, if you are on the receiving end!" Said Sharvan, his face contorting with a disgusted expression.

"I will show you how it feels to be rejected. How it feels to be betrayed, that too by someone you trusted. Someone you thought valued you as a person. Someone you thought was a friend!" "The truth is, you don't deserve my time or even my hatred. But you deserve to be taught a lesson. Maybe then, you will think twice about what you did. Maybe THEN you will realize it was a "Badi baath" after all!"

Yes there was still something between them. Some unfinished business. He had not really known how he would feel seeing her again. Maybe he himself had not been prepared for the surge of emotions her mere presence evoked in him.

"It's just anger, resentment!" He told himself. "Nothing else, and it will never be anything else again!". Shravan Malhotra may be a lot of things, but he's was not a fool. Definitely not fool enough to repeat his mistakes! No this time. It will be different this time.

"Jo baath dus saal pehele thum neh shuru ki thi...aab woh main katham karunga! Then once and for all this story will be over. Kissa katham!" Shravan told himself with resolve.

"Time for thinking is over. It's time for action!" Thought Shravan as he picked up his mobile and walked out of his room. He knew what Pushkar said. That Suman was refusing to come to the reunion. "We'll see about that!". Shravan told himself with a sarcastic twist to his mouth.

He had told his assistant Eric that he had an Important case to handle here in Delhi, more important than the cases pending in London. Maybe this was the most important case of his life. It seemed that no matter how much he had tried, this ghost of Suman was still haunting him. He had to exorcise this ghost out of his life once and for all. Whatever this feeling is, whatever that was between them still, had to end this time. He didn't want to live in it's shadow anymore. Maybe 10 years had built it up to such an extent that even he hadn't realized how strong a hold she still had on him. But this time, it had to end. Time for this empty space to be filled. That hollow place that had been left in him, that once had been filled with Suman's friendship. This time it will be filled with the triumph of the Shravan he was now, over the Shravan he was then! That Sharvan could never hurt his Sumo. But this Sharvan was going to hurt Suman, who was not his in any way. In that hurt will be his freedom from the shackles of the past. This trip to India after 10 years had to amount to something. He can't go back the same Shravan. No this time he had to go back without any unfinished business. She called him a "run away". No he would not run away this time.

"This time I will walk away Suman...and this time I won't ever look back!"

When he boarded that flight to London again, there will be nothing "between" him and Suman.

"Kuch bhi toh nahin hoga...teri meri daramiyan!"

* Lyrics derived from the song "Bin Tere" - Movie - I Hate Luv Storys (2010)

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