FF: Arshi: 101 letters(22 Dec thread2 pg158) - Page 40

just came across your story and read all the chapters at once..

just read all parts of 101 letters

and loved it

following 101, please PM me with updates

oh I m waiting to c wat Arnav wil reply!!

I feel bad for Arnav... Just waiting to read his letter to Khushi!!!

lovely concept

AWWW!!! ARNAV'LL WRITE HIS 1ST LETTER 2 KHUSHI😊

Teenage Arnav

Monsoon was a pretty special time in the school. That was the only time when the students weren't shepherded out of the classes like herds of sheep by the House Prefects on duty. Student could actually spend their lunch break indoors rather than getting soaked out in the school grounds. Thanks to the rainy season, it was faintly drizzling outside today and most of her classmates were hanging around in the corridor adjacent to her class.

However, Khushi was sitting on her seat, doodling on her notebook, completely disinterested in the rains outside. She opened a particular page in the notebook which held a special paper torn out of her diary at home which she had reserved specifically for the pen pal. She was mentally torn between her decisions of writing another letter or giving up the endeavour completely. She had tried hadn't she? She had left the onus on the other person to write. And they hadn't. And it had been close to 20 days now. All the other girls who had sent letters had received responses by now. Some had sent their third or fourth letter too! Khushi sighed and her gaze fell on the fogged windows forming the left wall of the class.

"Khushi!" The sudden exclaim snapped Khushi out of her thoughts and she looked in alarm towards the door from where she was being summoned. "KHUSHI!!!" Lavanya ran inside the classroom looking around at the startled faces of their other classmates before she found Khushi sitting on her seat, looking absolutely bewildered.

"What is it La?" Khushi wondered in concern and walked to Lavanya who had bent over by now clutching her stomach as she panted hard. "Are you okay?"

"Woman! Where the hell have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you!" Lavanya muttered annoyingly.

"Uhm, La? I have been sitting here since morning," Khushi reminded her as Lavanya continued to pant. She brushed away Khushi's response and finally straightened up, her eyes shining brightly and her lips curved in a lopsided curve. Frankly, Lavanya looked like a nutter right then. Khushi raised her eyebrows seeing her expression. "What?" Khushi asked.

For an answer, Lavanya slowly reached inside her school blazer and took out something from her inner breast pocket. In her hand lay a crumpled around the edges and slightly soggy cream envelope which read "To: 31W/ND/23". Khushi's heartbeat started racing immediately. She snatched the envelope from Lavanya's hand immediately and squealed loudly. Here it was! After all this time, somebody did write to her! Oh my God! Khushi started jumping up and down with absolute thrill.

Lavanya smiled warmly seeing Khushi's reaction. She was extremely happy that after so many torturous days of seeing her best friend down in the dumps, Khushi had finally got what she had been wanting for such a long time. "Why don't you go up to our special place and read it?" Lavanya suggested mischievously to Khushi with a wink. Khushi nodded her head excitedly and walked out of the classroom, gazing at the envelope in her hand with the biggest smile pasted on her face.

Lavanya and Khushi's "special place" was a tiny loft at the top floor of the Science Building that they had stumbled across during one of their Chemistry lab periods. From the ramshackle looks of it, no one ever went there, not even the janitor of the building. And so, Lavanya, Khushi and their band of close friends had created a nest of sorts there, rearranging the broken furniture and adding some old cushions to create an "ambience". The place was used for holding secret meetings after school hours or sneaking up to it during lunch breaks, or when they really wanted to bunk a rather boring teacher's class (always at Lavanya's insistence and Khushi's reluctance obviously).

Khushi almost sprinted up to the loft knowing that she didn't have much time as the recess was drawing to an end. Her heart was now beating near her throat, most probably both from nerves and the growing anticipation. As she sank into the battered cushion she gently eased the paper out of the sealed envelope. She shifted slightly to allow the stream of light streaming in through the glass paned ventilator close to the ceiling to fall on the letter. She noticed it was a piece of ruled paper torn roughly from possibly a full length long notebook. Her heart still hammering wildly in excitement, Khushi started reading the letter.

Have you ever sat on your window sill and looked at the rain outside? The skies are a murky grey; everything is still and dark outside; it all looks so washed-out that one wonders where all the colours have disappeared...

I've been sitting on my window sill watching the rain since the last many days thinking the same thing. I had happy memories related to the rain, memories seemingly from a different life altogether. But now I feel the raindrops pelting down my face are nothing more than a painful reminder of those happy memories... of the happier times.

I hate the rains now.

A.

Khushi lowered the letter slowly. She realized that she her breath had been caught in her chest as she was reading it. She let out a long breath and glanced down at the letter now clutched in her hands, her eyebrows knitted together in a frown, her eyes looking down at the letter with alarm and her heart enveloped with a sudden uneasiness.

This person... this "A"... seemed to be a... tortured soul. Every word of his letter was dripping with depression. "A" sounded bereft of hope. Yes, that was it. "A" sounded so forlorn and hopeless, like all the happiness had been sucked out of life and there was nothing left to go back to.

Young Khushi looked extremely troubled as she kept the letter on her lap and folded her arms staring at it. This wasn't how she had intended her first pen pal experience would be; she had been expecting a cutesy reply like the other girls in her class had got from their pen pals. The distant ring of the bell came to her ears telling her it was time to get back to the classroom. Stuffing the letter back inside the envelope, she slowly got up from the cushion and started making her way down the winding staircase towards the lower reaches of the Science Building. Her initial excitement had now replaced with a sense of discomfort.

I hate the rains now.

She felt a cold shiver run down her spine at remembering the last line of the letter. Her gaze involuntarily lifted towards the grey skies. She could hear the gentle pitter-patter of the raindrops on the concrete pathway around the Building. The rains were so amazing! How could anyone hate the rains? Khushi wondered. The words had been simple enough, yet they suggested disdain and a hint of antagonism. Simply put, this "A" person seemed broken and disturbed.

The recess was over and most of the students had returned to the class. Their class teacher was taking the attendance post recess. "Khushi?" Lavanya enquired urgently the moment Khushi dazedly sat down on her seat. Khushi turned sideways to look at her best friend, but wasn't able to rearrange the melancholic expressions on her face. Lavanya's excited smile slowly faded as she stared at Khushi. "What's wrong?" Lavanya asked immediately.

Khushi was at a loss as to what to say to Lavanya so she merely shook her head once slipping the envelope under her desk wordlessly. Lavanya stared at the envelope once and then looked at her best friend and frowned. Something had happened obviously. Khushi had been sad that she wasn't getting any correspondence. And then she was super excited to have received something finally. But this wasn't the response that Lavanya was expecting from her now that she had read the letter. Maybe the person said he/she wasn't interested in carrying on the correspondence. Lavanya immediately felt a frission of anger course through her. Damn it! Khushi didn't even know who it was and that unknown person had caused her so much of emotional distress already!

"I hate that person!" Lavanya hissed glaring at the letter hoping it would combust then and there. Khushi looked sideways at her best friend with surprised eyes.

"Why would you say that La? You don't even know him or her," Khushi reasoned calmly.

"Yeah? Well even you don't know him or her. And yet, that person managed to make you distressed when he didn't write and sad now that he has!" Lavanya muttered angrily. Khushi lowered her gaze to the letter as well.

"I'm not sad La," Khushi lied, keeping her reservations about the letter's contents to herself. Lavanya suddenly snorted derisively - her trademark noise when she didn't buy something the other person was saying.

"Yeah sure, and I'm not the sexiest girl in this school!" Lavanya countered. That made Khushi smile for a moment. Lavanya was many things but modest she was not.

"That you are not!" Khushi retaliated playfully. Lavanya opened her mouth in a mock O of shock which made Khushi giggle. The class teacher left after taking the attendance and the next subject teacher walked in.

"But seriously, Khushi," Lavanya started seriously a few minutes later. Khushi looked at her enquiringly. And then, Lavanya said the words that would come to haunt Khushi many times in the future and which she'd repeatedly ignore only to realise later how true they were, "don't write back to that person. Anyone who makes you emotionally so distraught doesn't deserve you in his life."

Khushi looked from Lavanya to the letter with a undecided look on her face. What Lavanya said did make sense, but then, could Khushi really just ignore that letter now that she too was a part of "A"s turmoil? Could she just walk away knowing there was a person out there who had obviously gone through something very drastic to switch his entire mindset from love to hatred? Could she just wash her hands off of "A" who quite possibly wanted a friend more than anything at this point of time.

Khushi realised all these questions had a very simple answer and she already knew what she was going to do. Hang in there A, help's on it's way.

*

Arnav sat by the window at one extreme corner of his class, looking outside disinterestedly. It was drizzling outside. Why was it raining so much? Couldn't it stop already and just begone? Arnav sighed to himself. He abhorred the rains, he really did.

He looked around once towards the rest of his classroom. It was said that gossips were supposed to be like Page3 news; today here, tomorrow forgotten. But it didn't happen the same way in the school circle, especially not when Arnav had been a brat to the simpletons of his class many times. He had become a social pariah completely, a role that he had embraced now without giving a damn anymore. And it wasn't that difficult anymore to pretend to be part of the wall. Nobody sat with him anymore, nobody talked to him, nobody even looked at him.

And so, when a few minutes later, someone called his name, Arnav was surprised. He looked away from the window to look at the class monitor, an arrogant looking fellow whom Arnav had beat on the track a number of times. "You have a letter," he announced surly and placing the envelope on Arnav's desk he walked back to his gang of cronies.

Arnav had completely ignored the monitor for his attention was completely fixed to the envelope on the desk. He gingerly picked it up and stared at the writing on the front.

To 26S/NA/09.

He turned the envelope and surely enough the back address was familiar.

From: 31W/ND/23

Jalebi had replied to his letter! Arnav leaned back on his chair and regarded the envelope warily. He had written to her in a moment of desperation, because there hadn't been anyone to talk to, or to vent out to. He had written whatever was on his mind but had ensured that it sounded ominous enough for the reader to back off and feel uncomfortable enough never to write to Arnav again. But this had somehow backfired. Arnav snatched the envelope from the desk, shoved inside his trouser's pockets and walked out of the class room.

Reaching the top of the restricted staircase of the clock tower, Arnav sat down on the top most stair and eased out the letter from the envelope. Now that the initial wave of annoyance had passed, he was enveloped by a sense of stinging curiosity. Despite his intentions, not only had she not been intimidated, she had actually replied! Maybe to tell me she wasn't going to write to me anymore, Arnav thought smugly as he unfolded the letter and started reading the cursive writing.

Dear A,

Thank you for writing back to me. I actually thought I had scared you off.

Yes, I have sat on my window sill to look at the rain. It's my monsoon ritual actually. On some days I even run outside to the courtyard of my house and get soaked down to my bones. Of course afterwards my sister admonishes me and wrings my ear. And then gives me a good piece of her mind when I start sneezing afterwards. But it is an entirely different experience altogether, getting wet in the rain I mean. You should try it sometime.

Even though you feel that the rain and the murky clouds are darkening everything around you at the beginning, the colours would always shine vibrantly at the end; the green grass, the blue sky, the red roses, the orange sun... You just have to wait for the storm to pass.

Don't hate the rains just yet... For without the rains, there would be no rainbows.

Jalebi

Arnav clutched the letter tightly in his fingers, staring at the words looking back at him. He hastily started re reading the letter, to imprint parts of it in his memory. She had actually thought Arnav was scared off because she had written to him first! Arnav crooked his eyebrow in confusion. Why would he be scared off? He then read the next words. She too had a sister. Must have been an older sister seeing how she wrung her ears. Arnav didn't realise but a smile was playing on his lips as he read the words. He was visualising Anjali and his own legendary fights where they pulled each others' hairs out till one of them conceded defeat.

Then as his gaze fell on the next paragraph, he started feeling a lump growing in his throat. Blue skies. Anjali, his mother and he used to fly kites from the terrace of Sheesh Mahal during summers. Red roses. His mother had a garden of red roses back in Sheesh Mahal. It was out of bounds for everyone apart from Arnav. Just the simple description of those colours brought a surge of memories back to Arnav, memories he never knew were still preserved in the depths of his mind.

He stared at the letter again, this time feeling slightly ashamed of his initial intentions of using a dark overtone in his letter. This reply, these words were so full of... hope. Yes that was it. This letter was like a beacon of hope and optimism. And with a pang, Arnav realised that in the rigors that he had gone through in the past month, no one had comforted him even once that all this will pass, that the misery and the pain will go away some day. And yet, this unknown person who had never met Arnav nor who was aware of what kind of hell he was in had offered him reassurance.

Arnav slowly got up from the step and eased the door open leading to the balcony adjacent to the clock tower. He noticed it was still raining. Slowly, he extended his hand outwards to meet the steady drizzling. The raindrops felt cool against his skin, almost soothing.

Don't hate the rains just yet... For without the rains, there would be no rainbows.

nice update , continue soon

Originally posted by: Habfa

Nice update. Loved it! 😊