LOVE YOU ZINDAGI
"Yeah abbu, for goodness sake I am fine and in one piece and have reached safely here. Will you please just stop worrying now?" I assure my father of my safe landing for 100th time, exasperated beyond belief now, only to hear him rant again.
" You sure you can manage alone there?" He asks me the same question he has been asking me since the last three months, since my job in California had been confirmed and I answered the same thing I had been since then, at the verge of pulling my hair now.
" Yes, yes I can and I will. And please now quit your tensions before I actually go crazy. I am fine."
" Well, I can't help worrying if my daughter is so clumsy. You can't even cross a road properly." And with that he was back to his all time favorite teasing line which never fails to irk me.
" I can. Give to phone to ammi now." I demand huffing. My eyes never leaving the moving space in front of me, in search of my bags to come out after checking.
" He was so unwilling to give me the phone." In less than 3 seconds it is my mother's laughing voice greeting me.
" He is just jealous." My mom laughs as an answer. I can hear him grumbling in the background, " Now you two besties will start your whispering and giggling."
" He is way too jealous." My mom seconds my observation which was certified, in this matter, since my childhood and now it is my turn to laugh.
" This man will drive me nuts with his panic attacks." My mom mutters.
" He used to get panic attacks even when I was cutting my nails." I say ,chuckling, with a roll of my eyes and am met with some more laughs from my mother and more grumbling from my mother.
" But you sure you are okay?" This time it is my mother asking.
" Yes ammi I am fine. Really." I answer with a sigh as I hear my father in the background, saying, " Now she won't get angry at you for asking." And I shook my head. I finally saw my bags coming.
" Okay ammi. I will talk you guys later. Take care. Bye."
" Bye. And you take care too. We will stay worried here." And with that we hang up. I grab my two trolley bags and dumping them in my trolley, I wheel it towards the exit. It is only seven in the morning and I see, as I am coming out of the arrival terminal, hundreds of people lining the barricades. Their faces lit up with the nervous but happy anticipation of seeing their loves ones. Placard holding different names scattered among colorful heads holding different identities, waiting for unknown relatives and known strangers. I have never gone anywhere alone. This is the first time I am travelling so far away from and I am on my own. It still feels surreal that there was no familiar face around. And as I walk through all these happy giggles, buoyant shouts and bear hugs, towards a future of countless possibilities, I feel oddly liberated. My fear and anxiety has jumped in a senseless ocean of thrill, riding waves of unknown and swimming through my veins, racing towards the line of unexpected. And I realize I have never been more excited in my whole life.
I look at the taxis patiently waiting in front of me and inhale a deep breath. I have known with my life that some things never change and one such thing is my car-sickness. I fight the sudden wave of nausea at the sight of the four-wheeler and approach it after sighing a little. To my good luck, I struck gold in my first attempt as the driver agreed to take me to my desired address and after lodging my luggage in the trunk, I slid inside to sit by the window. I could feel myself cheering up as the driver turned on the radio and Taylor Swift consumed the space around me. I opened the window at my side to let the cold morning breeze not-so-gently bite at my face. I could feel my open hair flowing around me, mostly going to my eyes, and I wondered if someone will see me like this, with gently blowing hair and soft smile in these first rays of morning, from somewhere in the road and just fall in love at first sight with me. I try to strike a more graceful pose. And exactly five minutes and two sharp blows of icy winds later, I have officially closed the window, pulled up the hood of my jacket and tightened the scarf around my neck, rubbing my arms in a bid to warm myself. One thing is for sure... I can never be the bollywood princess. Sighing, I instead rested my elbow on the window ledge and tried to lean in to the clear glass, my nose almost pressing on it. I saw the early morning scenery of Burbank flashing by, my dreams coming close to me with each passing heartbeat. This city has been my dream all my life and now I am going to live it. Closing my eyes with a idiotic smile, I sighed happily, finally resting my head on the head-rest of the seat. And I can't help but look back at my life. All my life I have this dream of creating something, which will make the world remember me for even after I have gone. I have never been someone extremely career conscious or aggressively ambitious but all my life I knew one thing for sure and that was someday I will make something huge for myself, something out of ordinary. Till college, I could practically count on my fingers the times I have talked to a boy and during my job-days, the interactions increased a little but still stayed strictly professional or polite chit-chats. I was probably the only one around me with no dating record, let alone a boyfriend and if we ignore the sudden little pangs of longing, I am happy to stay out of those stuffs, breath a little more freely. Neither has anyone ever approached me nor have I ever given anyone a chance to be able to do so in the first place. Not that I was an attitude queen but actually someone who is really very shy and nervous around people which strangely enough, come across to people as quite non-sense, tough-nut . Yup, I know species like me are kinda non-existent. I always stayed curled up in my safe haven of my family, books( novels guys relax), painting and writing and so far it has got me a job as a software engineer in one of the biggest companies of India, a New York times bestselling trilogy under my name and now a job as a story writer and character developer at my dream place, Disney. So far life has been great and I can't ask for anything more. I shouldn't actually. But will I be human if I stopped nagging God with my consistently lengthening wish-list? So, I sit here and think about finally at-least try to make a move in my personal life, try to change the picture maybe? And just with that simple thought, I reminded of the jerk'. Again. It is strange that how after so many years you can still remember some incidents so clearly as if they happened yesterday and I would like to give the credit to my sharp memory and not some sentimental value. Sometimes I wonder if I have forgotten his face, only to be proved otherwise. People say that some things can never be forgotten and first crush is the most annoying candy whose taste tops that list, something I have learnt to live with like every other person.
And I can't stop myself from imagining if I will bump to him here again, in this unknown place, just like have imagined every time I have travelled to some new place. My mindless musings has turned me into a writer today but bumping into him? Well, no luck with that. At the end I am just left with cursing myself for wasting my first crush on a guy who never even talked to me. though a nagging voice in my head reminds me that neither did I, but I prefer hush away that voice.
My internal conversation with myself (I am not crazy you know) doesn't let me realize when my ride stops in front of my residence. After paying the driver, I took a deep breath and started to walk towards my new home.
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It is an apartment. It is a one BHK apartment. It is an absolutely gorgeous and cozy apartment. The watchman has just left after bringing my luggage inside leaving me the keys. Now I am touring the place, gaping and awe-struck. I knew when I rented this place that I have hit a jackpot with this. The online websites actually turns out to be pretty rocking. The owners bought this place for their son but he got job outside California. So they needed to move out and they needed a tenant for this place. The rent is quite cheap compared to others and the best part is it is fully furnished. It was a done deal since the beginning. The main door opens to a living-dining area with a small open kitchen in a corner. There is a bedroom on the left and bathroom on the right. There is also a small corridor between the bedroom and the bathroom which leads to a door and the door leads to a balcony. The whole place is really simple, bathed in shades of black, grey, white and sea-green with bursts of color coming from little show-pieces and cute cushions. This place was even more beautiful in real than the pictures. But none of them was my reason of loving this place so much or why I decided to rent this place. It was a wall. It was the wall of the living area. A wall which is completely made of glass. I always had this fascination with glass walls and now that I have one of my own, I can't help the huge smile splitting across my face. I am still grinning like a fool when I notice another glass wall, my neighbor's, situated exactly opposite mine, facing mine and I realize that either one of us have to be a curtain-lover or we will be seeing a lot of each other. I stand there for a little while, trying to see inside the house or catch a glimpse of its occupant, only to be met with silence and darkness. Thinking, I walk to the balcony and surprise our balconies are also situated side by side. I look over to that empty place, laughing a little to myself thinking how absurdly romantic this whole setting is and I wonder which single mother or old couple or serial killer is going to be my new neighbor. Shaking my head, I finally notice the time. 8: 30 am. I think this calls for a breakfast and I may know just the perfect place for it.
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The wind chime jingles over my head as I enter the small caf across from my apartment. I must say I am feeling quite good about successfully crossing the road. This is a warm and cute little place filled with the aroma of coffee and a strange homey feel. It has a nice old-world feel about it and at least twenty tables. I gleefully noticed on the black board that this place serves lunch and dinner too. Though I am quite passionate about cooking, I also happen to be the laziest person in the world. So this certainly feels good to know that food is always ten feet away from me.
As soon as I sit down on a table beside a window, a waitress comes to me to take my order. By her sleepy voice and the way her hands furiously massage her pinched forehead, I am quite positive that she has a hangover. A bad one.
" What would you like to have?"
" One coffee and two chicken sandwiches. Thanks." I say quietly as I can
" Ok. Coming in five." She says, finally smiling, probably understanding my almost whispering but audible tone and skips to the kitchen.
So now I have five minutes before the food arrives. Waiting for food has never been my favorite time. That's why I look around at the caf again, hoping to kill my time. The place actually looks quite empty, probably due to the weather. There is a cute grandmother-granddaughter duo laughing, a middle-aged man reading a newspaper, a teenage girl looking out of the window and a guy talking on the phone. I can't see his face from my chair. So I am looking at the back of his head and I am sort of sure that he is of my age-group. I don't know why but I find myself looking at his head, may be catching on the weirdly familiar vibes he is emitting. I don't know what I was expecting but nothing could have prepared me for what I see next. I see him turning his face and I choke on the air I just inhaled, ending up coughing for a solid five seconds. It's Him. I can see his face now and with every growing second my confusion is turning into conclusion. I remember his eyes and I certainly haven't forgotten the smile he is giving now. Apart from that the faint traces of known voice coming in my direction point in his way too. Six years later and he is still just the same, grown-up but same. There is no mistaking the identical similarities between the two faces.
I am quite glad that no one till now has noticed me gaping at him and reported me to the nearest mental asylum because my brain has forgotten to send signals in my body to avert my widened eyes or close my mouth. I always knew that the world is round and a small one at that but this incident has left me thinking that this is nothing but a very weird dream and I am quite tempted to punch myself in the face to prove the point. My mind has officially gone in holiday the moment "How the freaking hell is this possible?" entered it. I am still reeling from the impossibility of it all, jumping into a horrible state of excited denial. I am still gawking at him like a dead fish when I see him getting up and walking out of the caf, not noticing me, leaving me as flabbergasted as some orphan, homeless girl who has just been told that she has lost her 3 million dollar her father has left her. My morning has suddenly turned out to be even more weird than lady Gaga's costume.
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Spoiler: The eighth wonder of the world😉
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Hello guys. So here is the first chapter and I am awfully nervous. I know this is probably boring as hell but I just wanted to create a base and give a little insight. So please tell me how do you find it and please leave a review. The excitement starts from the next chapter. So stay tuned and thanks for making it till the end😃
Ps. I have changed the setting from NY to California and they are meeting after six years.
p.p.s I will reply to all the comments(previous and new) tomorrow😃
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