Authors Notes: I am posting an old story I wrote as I won't be writing anything new for at least a week. My right wrist is sprained and entire arm is bruised and have several cuts. My right hip bone is also hurt thus making anything other than laying down painful. I should be back on my feet before the end of this weekend, till then, take care and have a great weekend!
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The fourth reason
Do you know why people do the things that they do?
1. People do things because they know that it has to be done.
2. Or they do those things because someone else asks them to do or it was already decided for them.
3. Or they do things because everyone else seems to be doing that.
All my life I have done most of the things because of these three reasons. When I was eleven, I gave a greeting card with pink roses printed on it to a girl in my class because every girl seems to like it and every boy seem to be giving that. When I was eighteen, I chose to be doctor, raising a million eyebrows that belonged to family, relatives, friends and a huge bunch of nobodies. I chose this profession because in my heart I knew that it was my destiny, it was something that had to be done for obvious reasons of my past. During college, I did lots of stuff to impress my peers.
At one point of time it irked me endlessly when people simply assumed my next move when a challenge was proposed or when a prank was involved. I am not sure when, being what people thought I was, had become more important. But it never really mattered much since I could always classify my actions under three main reasons. I discovered a fourth reason for my action after I started working in this hospital. Her..
Have you ever batted against a really good leg spinner on a bouncy pitch? I have and I have to tell you that if you are not really careful and/or skilled, the googlies that are bowled will hurt and it will hurt badly. You would have settled down the pitch and be acclimatized enough to judge a ball coming your way. But then the leggie will bowl a delicious googly which you might have anticipated but all the same it will surprise the hell out of you when it just manages to bounce off your face and you will be wriggling all over the place to be inside the crease, play really safely and protect your face in parallel. At that moment you wish you wore a safety helmet. It feels as if someone is snipping your pride to shreds.
Being with her is exactly that.
There are times when I know for sure that she would give me a sarcastic comeback but she would surprise me and give me an answer that would rock my socks off. But at times, she throws that googly. For example last week, during lunch, I asked her, mind you, very sweetly - "Riddhima, will you grow old along with me?" I am sure you understand the subtext in this question. I was merely asking her to spend the rest of her life with me as my partner in every sense; with kids and grand kids and couple of dogs and a cat, well, you get the picture right? The answer that I expected, which I am sure you would too given the fact that you are aware of how close she and I are, would be something equally sweet right? Wrong.
"Sure Armaan. Let's get ourselves enrolled to same old age home."
I was gaping at her like an idiot and my mouth was opening and closing without able to make a coherent response. Just like those fishes you know. I mean I shouldn't be surprised right, since expecting the unexpected is generally expected in our relationship? Hang on; did that line even make any sense? Oh well, everything stopped making sense when she agreed to be girlfriend anyway, so its OK I guess.
Yeah, Riddhima is actually my girlfriend.
How she came to be my girlfriend, is a story worthy of epic status. Seriously, for the amount of diplomacy I have shown and the silly little games I have played to win her over, I might as well quit being a doctor and join military; I am sure they will be impressed with my tactical ability and diplomacy skills. I mean come on, I have dated before, I have had girlfriends before, but you know, most girls generally fit into a certain mold. You know, a basic character profile can be drawn after meeting a girl and you just have to do some tweaking to the mold that you have and voila! You are all set to win the girl over. At least that's what I assumed it would be the case here too. But boy was I wrong!
I always knew that women are drawn from different set of blue prints; each unique in its own way so that a man's mind could be confused ever further. God can be really sadistic when he/she wants to be. But in case of Riddhima, these blue prints were under constant revision and never really reached a stable version. So the end result? I, looking like a fool quite frequently or too stunned to respond to her or something equally lame.
Really, you might think why did I even bother right? I mean pursuing her was not deduced by any of my three reasons which I told you in the beginning. Well, to an extent it was influenced by the second reason, a bet with her sister, but you already know the story right? Right, so let's not go there. I wasn't sure why I was pursuing her. It was an attraction of the opposites in the beginning I suppose; like the whole forbidden fruit thing. Sheesh, I should stop sneaking peeks into her teen angst novels. But you get the point right? After the initial fiasco, I had decided that my tiny little crush will go away with time and she wasn't exactly the type of girl that I generally dated anyway.
Again, wrong. My so called tiny crush grew into a fixation and got promoted to hopeless infatuation and before I could further promote to an obsessive stalking freak, I confronted her. After that there was lot of drama and by some miracle we ended up being together. I still feel that I am in some kind of drug induced haze and I might wake up one morning in a hospital with my hands and limbs tied to the bed and find out that the past one year that I spent with her was my own hallucination.
Yes, she is that good to me and definitely yes, she does love me. I think that's how she ended up being my fourth reason for doing things. Our lives, fates and our happiness were so hopelessly intertwined with each other that her reaction to things had a repercussion on me and vice versa. So technically, my fourth reason for doing things is not actually her, but us.
Now, you might want to know if she still throws those googlies. On one date I told her that she was everything to me in this world. She had replied with a lecture on nihilism that day. I had kept my mouth shut for the rest of the date. On the next date, I was prepped with theories of nihilism and also existentialism and started sprouting long sentences with really large syllable words she ruffled my hair and told me that she didn't know what would happen to her if I were to leave her and contemplated between catatonic state and insanity. Even on that day, I was speechless for the rest of the date.
So, did that answer your question?
Cricket
Bade Achche Lagte Hain Naya Season
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