Well guys, ITS MY BIRTHDAY!! And I wanted to gift you all this TwiNj OS. I am sorry I had to abruptly stop midway because some errands needed attending. I will post the second part soon.
Also on this occasion I wanted to thank you all for being the best people I have ever come across. Your support and love have been continuous and very greatly appreciated. I cannot stress enough, how much I love you guys.
Blue Neighbourhood
There are stories that are seem too crazy to be true, stories about people who turned out to be the exact opposite of what they seem. And usually such stories either end in murder or in a tragedy. Kunj decided Twinkle was one day going to belong in one such story.
She was Ms. Popular in their college. The girl every other girl dreamt of being and the girl every guy wanted to be with. Her life was the epitome of perfections. A lethal combination of beauty with brains. She was the daughter of business tycoon, Mrs. Leela Taneja, was crowned Ms. Amritsar and was currently dating Mr. Popular of college the ever so dashing, Yuvraj Luthra. Kunj on the other hand was the mysterious kid in class who seldom said a word, and was always buried in his books.
He particularly took little to no interest in Twinkle. She was just to black and white for him, lacking some depth, some dimension that he craved for in company. Well, that changed when he found her sitting in his favorite spot.
The spot of course wasn't his to claim, it was the college rooftop. Well the water tanker above the roof. It gave one, a spectacular view of the entire college ground and if there at the right time, you get this spectacular, almost breath taking view of the sunset.
So that's where he finds her one day, feet dangling over the edge, sketch book in one hand, charcoal stick in the other. He mentally protests her being here. This was the one place in the entire campus where he can be peacefully away from the obnoxious college crowd. He imagines yelling at her, claiming that this was his secret spot as he had discovered it first, but he decides to go with the more civil approach. "Oye, Ms. Popular. Tu yaha kya kar rahi hai?"
His voice, he notices, startles her and for a second he was scared that she could possibly fall over the edge. But she isn't the one to be scared easily, could be startled, yes but not scared. So she turns around to face her intruder. Her eyes bulge out in surprise. "Oho, toh tum bol bhi lete ho, Mr. Khadoos Sarna." She dusts her hands against her kurta, ridding the dark lead residue on the tips of her fingers. "Aur tum yaha kya kar rahe ho?"
Khadoos Sarna' he finds her insults quite challenging too. It wasn't quite an insult as much as it was a taunt but he liked it anyway. "Yeh, meri hiding spot hai. Tu yaha kya kar rahi hai?"
"Acha Khadoos Sarna? Yeh teri hiding spot hai? Yeh meri favourite jagah hai, teri nahi."
They both laugh. It's like nothing has changed and they were back to being 5 again, playing in their backyard and bantering even at that young of an age. But things had changed, and they weren't five anymore.
She shakes her head, smiles and pats the seat next to her, offering him the place. He plops down next to her and catches just the littlest of glimpse of her drawing before she slams the book shut. They don't speak for a long time and its okay. It's almost normal for them not to speak, normal for them to enjoy the other's company in silence. Words are redundant anyway.
"Aur sunao, Khadoos Sarna, kya haal chaal hai tumhare?"
"Badhiya. Tu bata."
"Mast. Life mazaye mein. Ghar pe sab kaise hai?" she asks earnestly, genuinely. She yet cares for them.
"Sab theek hai. Tere ghar pe sab kaise hai. Ma, Mama, bubbly?"
She responds positively, tells him they are doing well. Bubbly is excelling in school and that jazz.
They fall in to the arms of silence again. She hugs her drawing book to her chest, stares out to the horizon and he takes more interest in the grit under his palms on the ground. Kunj isn't sure how long they were sitting there, but Twinkle's mobile goes off and she tells him her hour is up and that she has to attend her next lecture.
An hour? He just spent an hour with Twinkle. And that too in complete and utter silence. Unbelievable. Things had indeed changed.
Over the next few days, he sees more and more of Twinkle. Never in the cafeteria or the college corridors, of course he did see her there too but that wasn't exactly seeing her. He meant he saw her more in his company on the roof. It was amazing how their class schedule coincided. She was always the first one there, head bowed down to her book, fingers races across the expanse of the paper, her tongue poking out by the corner of her mouth in concentration.
"Yeh le, tere liye coffee laya hoon." He hands her the steaming Styrofoam cup and she gladly accepts. They don't speak at all.
It's the fifth time they are here and it has always been the same. She would be there first, he would come, he guesses five minutes later. She would be sketching; he would bring them coffee. She would offer him half of her tomato Halloumi sandwich if she was carrying them that day. And silence.
It's the sixth day. "Where do you see yourself in 5 years' time?" she asks, book clutched against her chest. He shrugs because he genuinely doesn't know. He will be out of college in four years with a degree, the fifth year is pretty much an uncharted road as of now. But in the faint dusty corners of his mind he imagines himself in London. He has no idea doing what there, but London was something that was lingered in his mind. So he tells her this. "London kyu?"
He shrugs again. "Pata nahi. Bas yaha se dhuoor jana hai. London seems like a good idea."
She sips her coffee, licks the froth of it from her upper lip. "I know the feeling. Yeh jagah-" she doesn't complete her sentence, he is fine with it. Amritsar was their home, their birth-place, their identity of sort's but- but it wasn't enough. Somethings was amiss that couldn't be balanced by their love for Amritsar. "Chal chod. Tu bata, college competition mein part le raha hai na? Kis kis mein?"
A change in topic seemed the best way to get over the previous conversation and so they talked about the upcoming college festival. Competitions and dance performances and talent shows, were all part of it. "Hmm," he turns his face towards her and raises an eyebrow immaculately. Twinkle won't admit it but she had spent embarrassing amount of hours in front of the mirror trying to mimic the notorious eyebrow raise. Girls in college went Gaga over his eyebrow raises. "Ab tak toh, I have registered for basketball and debate competition."
"Cool. Mein debate completion organize kar rahi hoon." She claps her hand in excitement just like she did when she was younger, he remembers. "Tumhe dar ne ki koi zaroorat nahi hai. Maine competitors ki list dekhi hai, you will win."
"Kuch zyada hi nahi ego boost kar rahi mera?"
"Thoda confidence acha hota, samjhe Khadoos Sarna. Aur jab koi aur tum par bharosa karta hai toh who positive wala confidence aata hai."
Her phone goes off. And off she walks away.
Her words ring in his ears for a long time. Aur jab koi aur tum par bharosa karta hai- She had indirectly told him that she trusted he would win. There is this stirring in the pit of his stomach and the cavity of his chest telling him that we will and has to win the debate competition.
He knows by the eighth meeting that she likes Caramel Latte with mini marshmallows on top. They have to be mini marshmallows. God forbid if they were the regular marshmallows! She would and did actually make him eat the regular ones he accidently bought her once. He also learns that her sketch book and she are inseparable and though he is curious about the contents of the book he respects her decision to keep that away from his eyes. It's not like they are best friends or anything who share each and every little secret they have.
They are just two childhood friends in college who stumbled across each other's hiding spot.
She learns that he likes his coffee black and sweetened. He also writes poetry. This information of course wasn't willing shared with her, it was just that they happened to talk about the English assignment that was due soon and the fact that he found poetry analysing easy sparked her interest and before he could filter himself he had spilled that he found it easy because he liked and wrote poetry himself. No further discussions were made on the topic.
"Toh, debate competition ke liye ready?" she asks him because the Festival was only 2 weeks away.
"Hann, par thoda thoda self-doubt ho raha hai."
"Haan, toh koi baat nahi, competition se pehle sab log nervous hote hai. It's normal okay?"
He merely nods his head. It wasn't entirely true, what he said about being nervous. Yes, he was nervous but not about the competition. He was nervous about letting her down. He wants to win this because he knows how happy Twinkle would be. So, yes he was downright nervous.
The general topic was about nuclear warfare and Kunj found himself researching the topic as if he was about to do this doctorate on it. All his free time was dedicated on researching the different kinds of nuclear weapons countries are developing and whether nuclear war was in fact scheduled in the near future.
Roof top time' as they have taken to call it was also spending him rehearsing his points with Twinkle. She was a formidable debate partner; too bad she hadn't participated. They would have made an excellent team.
It wasn't long before the Festival week rolled around and took away Twinkle in its preparation. Twinkle and Yuvraj being the college representative were bound to be swept away in the events. That meant Twinkle had lesser time for their Rooftop time'.
Turns out, as Twinkle had mentioned, his competitors weren't as up to standard as he had expected. They did put forward valid points but Kunj was well prepared and all but slayed them back. It wasn't really a surprise that his team were declared winners, really.
His trophy wasn't the shinning cup of gold but the arms that wrapped around his neck and the smile that could make him do anything. His team were runner ups in Basketball however. And though they received a silver cup here, there was no Twinkle present to hug him again, instead a solid and firm handshake from Yuvraj.
Kunj thought that this would be the end of a surprisingly good day. It wasn't. Twinkle had without his knowledge registered him for the poetry writing competition as well. His name being blared off the college speakers notified him of the fact.
Well there was nothing else to be done about it, Kunj Sarna never backed out of a competition and he wasn't going to start today. He put one foot in front of the other and made his way down to the venue, racking his brain for an idea, a subject, a muse of inspiration. And then it struck him like a bolt of blue lightning -Twinkle. He was going to dedicate or base his poem on Twinkle.
This poetry of his unlike his other ones was on the lighter side. It was dedicated to Twinkle so it was a no-brainer that it had to be light and bubbly, effervescent almost. It wasn't very difficult to create poetry from scratch when you had such a lovely muse.
He could have written a hundred more poetries if that meant that Twinkle hug him like that once again. He would win her the world, if he could, if that meant she wrapped her delicate arms around him again. Winning a stupid poetry competition was no big deal.
Before either of them knew it, the Festival week came to an end. They had a ball to perfectly end the week and attendance was compulsory, well that is what Twinkle told Kunj.
Thinking back now, Kunj realizes that there were indications. There were signs that something was not right with Twinkle. For one, her namesake, her eyes didn't Twinkle as much as he once remembered them too. And now, sitting on the stage with Yuvraj as the Principal was honoring them for pulling together such a well-executed Festival Week, and one without any glitches, he sensed a small degree of sadness going by the slump of her shoulders. She was smiling, yes, but it wasn't the megawatt smile he had always associated with her. Kunj shrugged it off, he was reading in between the lines too much. Twinkle had a perfect life.
Months passed by quickly. Rooftops Talks' became more frequent and lasted longer. They yet didn't speak a lot but when they did, he wishes they didn't. She was asking him questions again, questions that made him doubt about her well-being. Questions that seemed out of the blue and irrational but when he would ask her the same question her responses would chill him, they were well thought answers, proving that she had been thinking about certain things a lot.
For instance, it was close to Mid semester exams when she asked him "Kunj agar tum apne body pe sirf aur sirf ek tattoo kar pate toh kya hota aur kaha hota?"
He ponders the question for a good five minutes. "Mujhe agate k tattoo karvana hota toh mein ek arrow banvata apne forearm par, yaha." And he pushes his left arm towards her, pointing out to the exact spot where he would want it. "Aur tu?"
"Main moon ke saare phases tattoo karvati, down the lebght of my spine." She doesn't even take a second to respond. "Pata hai kyu?"
"Kyu?"
"Kyu ke it reminds me that everything in life is temporary. Humari khushi, humare gum, humare rishte, sab temporary hai. But hum me yeh sooch kar udaas nahi rehna chahiye, kyuki jo beet ko ek din, kisi aur roop mein phir lotega."
TO BE CONTINUED...
Well some errands just came up and I have to attend to it but I wanted to post this so badly so I had to abruptly stop here. Hope you all don't mind.
INDEX:
CHAP 1...PG 1
CHAP 2...PG 6
CHAP 3...PG 9
CHAP 4...PG 14
CHAP 5...PG 17
CHAP 6... PG 19
CHAP 7...PG 21
Mangal Lakshmi
Bade Achhe Lagte Hain
