Manan FF - Kaisi yeh Yaariyan season 3 - Chapter 123 & note - Page 22

Manik and Nandini settled into Ranbir's car while Navya, Alya and Dhruv got into Mukti's. It had been one hell of a week. So much had happened, especially in Nandini's life.

As the car started moving, Nandini felt a strange sadness overcome her, like she was leaving a part of her behind, as if a chapter in her life had been prematurely closed. She was leaving Panchgani, forever, because Manik's accident had cost her more than just her sleep, health and sanity. It had cost her, her job too. Five days of continued absence had been just the VALID reason, her principle needed to fire her.

Those five days, that she literally lived in the hospital, only ever going home to freshen up and bring food for Manik. Her house, on the other hand had become some sort of a camping place for Fab5. Each one of them would shuttle between Mumbai and Panchgani, turn by turn.

The developments at the hospital had woven one twisted tale on their own. When they reported to the doctors that Manik seemed to be stuck in the past, they started an endless trail of investigations, checkups and questionnaires. Together, they could locate his specialist doctor in Mumbai whom Manik was consulting before leaving for Denmark. The doctor, in turn got them in touch with the doctors in Europe.

X number of case studies, cross country calls and troubleshooting led to the following final conclusion.

Human brain is the world's most complex circuit and the first accident manik had , had badly screwed up his. So instead of having a continuous hard disk storage, his memory was now partitioned into three. The first one was till his 1st accident, the second started from that point and continued till the time in Denmark when Manik had a complete black out. The last part was from then to the moment before his second accident. This accident had brought back his earlier memories but caused his current ones to fade out." One heck of a cross connection" the doctor had said. However, going by historical data, Chances were really high for him to regain this last portion, may be as soon as within a few days or weeks. But the part in between was the trickiest. Since his brain was actively degrading then, he might never remember those intermediate 6 months.

Of course Manik had no knowledge that he was playing the accidental protagonist in the 'Memory loss' side track. He was happy in the company of his friends and his love Nandu. In fact, he was happy to have landed up in the hospital because he was thinking that his accident had actually achieved at the feat that he had miserably failed at...to bring his scattered friends back together. Little did he know that this was just the tip of the iceberg, that life had many more secrets and challenges to throw at him, that his friends had old habits, that his girlfriend could be easily tricked and scared, that Cabir was no cabir but his brother Ranbir and that there was a green eyed reptile in his paradise. In fact Manik was so happy that he didn't even think about informing his dad. As long as his credit card worked, he didn't really need to contact him, not when he had his real family around.

His friends though had had a full-on laughing session in his absence, about the doctors 'circuit comment'. No this was not the making-fun-of-their-poor-hospitalized-friend kind of laugh, it was the what-the-hell-is-God-upto kind of hysterical outburst. Ranbir promised that if they all survived this ordeal in one piece, he would script a book and market it himself. He was damn sure, it would become India's fastest selling best seller. Alya volunteered to do the cover and illustrations and Navya promised free publicity on her radio show. But beneath these lame plans were crying/aching/worried/confused hearts.

Collectively they had also decided that as soon as they reach Mumbai, they would all sit down and tell Manik the filtered version of the truth. Filtered because they couldn't tell him the part about his disappearing and whatever Nyonika did to screw them up in his absence. Nandini decided to totally cut out Neel's part because she was scared as hell after that message from the wierdo. And because no one other than Navya knew about the real Neel, no one pestered her either.

********

Ranbir pulled up his car at a dhaba on the pretext of being give-me-food-or-i-will-die level of hungry. They ordered a feast and as they comfortably settled waiting for the food to arrive, he suddenly blurted out "I am not Cabir, Manik, I am Ranbir"

What the hell was he upto? His statement literally shook Nandini out of her depressive thoughts. Wait a second. This wasn't part of the plan. Weren't they going to tell him everything together on reaching Mumbai.

"You know what Cabir, tere jokes ke standards are degrading by the day. You need a system upgrade or is it tera hunger which has gone into your head. "

Ranbir smiled, oit of sadness."For once Manik, I am not kidding. I know its Shocking, but the sooner you know the better it is. Dont freak out with what we are going to tell you next. The accident you were talking about happened three years ago." He couldn't bring himself to utter the next line but he had to "and Cabir couldn't make it through. He died in the accident and I am his twin, Ranbir." He had intentionally asked Manik and Nandini to sit in his car, intentionally halted it at the dhaba on th epretext of being hungry.

He was well aware of their plan of revealing everything in Mumbai and that's exactly what he didn't want. Because he didn't trust Dhruv and Alya to stick to the plan. For that matter, he didn't even trust Mukti's maturity at times. Nandini was the only one, he felt had both the right and the understanding to do this. Besides whatever his brother had told him about her, he had seen it all in mere five days. No-one knew Manik better , no-one could have possible loved him more. She wouldn't do anything that would harm the already injured boy.

Had Ranbir had known the truth about the last three years, he would have told Manik himself, but now he hoped Nandini wouldn't go by the original plan of telling only half the truth to Manik. He had seen enough life to know that half-truths were worse than lies, they lead you nowhere. People say that a lie told in someone's interest is better than 100 truths, but Ranbir blieved, a lie is always a lie, and when the truth comes out, it breaks more hearts than it saves.

"Sun Cabir, not now ok...yeh joke-joke game hum bad mein khelein kya? " Manik was getting irritated now.

Nandini was shocked, but more than that she was fuming with anger. The way she looked at Ranbir could give any human being 2nd degree burns. But now that he had pressed the trigger, she had no option but to follow through. She wrapped her arms around Manik and began "Ranbir is not joking Manik. There are things you need to know, things that have been washed off your memory."

Manik looked at Nandini and then at Ranbir. His bandaged head felt giddish.

"The accident really happened 3 years ago and we lost Cabir. You did made it through, but you had an injury on your head and you started forgetting things, especially me. Then you went to Denmark for treatment alone & we lost all contacts with you. 3 years passed by and one day we accidentally bumped into each other in Mumbai. I was shocked to see you, but you didn't recognize me."

Manik wasn't reacting anymore. Where they narrating a script to him, or is life truly stranger than fiction? He wasn't even listening to that part about the memory loss. His ears and mind were stuck on Cabir. People who have to lose their loved ones are unfortunate and here Manik was mourning twice over. Sometimes, it becomes difficult to justify the unfairness of life. "Continue" He spoke in a deadly calm voice.