Anecdote 2
Present day:
Shiva and Raavi now knew that their worlds always revolved around each other. They were no longer in denial.
Raavi and Shiva went to Prafulla’s house to grab some of Raavi’s belongings and were cleaning her old room on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Shiva found a pink diary with a lock on it. He broke the tiny lock, opened it, without a second thought, stared at what he saw and began laughing.
Raavi walked over to him with urgency as she pulled the diary from his hand, “Shiva, tu ne phir se meri dairy padi? Tu ne ab dopahar mein peena shuru kar diya?” She yelled.
She glanced at what Shiva was looking at and a memory came back to her.
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Raavi was 10 years old.
One night, she went to her friend Sneha's house for a sleepover. The girls watched some TV, had a pillow fight just like they did in the movies and ate ice cream.
After a while, Sneha told Raavi about a new game she learnt from one of the class 8 girls in their school.
Sneha explained that the game was called FLAMES. FLAMES was a game named after the acronym: Friends, Lovers, Affectionate, Marriage, Enemies and Siblings. Sneha said that the game would predict the relationship between a boy and a girl. She insisted that Raavi give her a boy’s name. Raavi mentioned Shiva’s name as that was the first name she could think of.
Sneha calculated the FLAMES score for Shiva and Raavi, in a pink diary and announced that they would be enemies.
Raavi figured that made sense as Shiva was always indifferent and aloof around her.
She then asked Sneha to calculate her FLAMES score with the next boy she knew, Dev. Sneha calculated and let Raavi know that Raavi and Dev were destined for Marriage.
It was at that instant, Raavi decided that she was going to marry Dev one day.
The next day at school during lunch break, Raavi walked up to Shiva and said that she and him would be sworn enemies for life, and that he had to maintain that status with her as that's what destiny predicted for them, leaving Shiva confused.
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Present day:
Shiva was still laughing uncontrollably.
“Shiva, woh..” Raavi began to say.
“Tu ne iss game ki wajah se mujhe apna dushman ka tag diya?” Shiva said as he was trying to stop laughing.
Raavi realized that Shiva never thought of her as an enemy. Shiva disliked Maami for her wrongdoings against his father and was aloof with Raavi. Shiva was always able to compartmentalize, he usually ignored Raavi as she was his Maami ki Behen ki Beti, he never harboured any animosity against her.
It was Raavi who gave him the tag of an enemy and declared rivalry due to a stupid game. All Raavi wanted was a reaction from an aloof Shiva. She wanted to figure out her relationship with him and since FLAMES said they were enemies she stuck with it as it fit. Shiva, stuck with it too as ‘enemies’ was a much easier tag to label their relationship.
“Shiva, main dus saal ki thi” Raavi said as she sat next to him.
“Kya hua hoga, agar tu ne mujhse dushmani na ki ho to?” Shiva asked
“Thank you Shiva, mujhse itne saal dushmani nibhane ke liye aur ab shaadi nibhane ke liye bhi.” Raavi said. “Jo bhi rishta humare beech tha, phele maine uss stupid game ki wajah se define kiya, phir woh shaadi jin haalatho mein hui…” Her voice trailed off.
“Nahi, jo bhi hua theek hi hua, tera hate to love, childhood love, unintentional shaadi, saare favourite tropes real life mein fulfil hue.” Shiva said as he placed his hand around her shoulder.
Raavi let out a small laugh.
“Chal, zyada time pass mat kar. Sab kuch samet aur nikal the hain, bhook lag rahi hai.’ Shiva said getting up.
“Haan” Raavi said, packing up her stuff.
Raavi was quiet for the rest of the day, how could she have let a game decide what real life relationships were going to look like. All she could think of was what a tubelight she had been.
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Note: I actually did FLAMES for Shiva & Raavi and Dev & Raavi. ShiVi’s outcome was Enemies and Dev & Raavi’s outcome was Marriage. LOL. No Lies.