Abandoned.....My foot!

"And when you go I will remember to send a thank you note to that girl, I see she's holding you so tender...Well I just wanna say...I never really loved you anyway....No I didn't love you anyway..I never really loved you anyway...I'm so glad you're moving away".... i could hear myself half mumbling and half singing this song and repeatedly playing it on my mp3. This was one of my desperate attempts to convince myself that i was too good for him, i didnot love him and hence didnot have to make an issue out of the whole dumping thing. FUCK! Did this have to happen now? My hostel was beaming with happy faces all around; it was end of the semester and as usual it was party time,i could see girls in their skimpiest clothes with burly guys holding them by waist walking out of the campus gates. And I, in my lousy pajamas and a dheela dhala tee which looked liked it had passed on to me from my dad, was standing at the window of my hostel, sulking and listing out all the reasons why my life had turned topsy- turvy on that bloody day. I thought maybe God was punishing me because i had turned down so many other guys in the past or maybe he wasn't meant to be with me, he was just a phase of my life...a very bad phase or maybe we weren't the rab ne bana di jodi types... It had to be something! I had never imagined that it would all crumble down like this and I out of all people would be left in the midst of nowhere waiting to be rescued. I was unnecessarily getting senti. I had to understand that it was all over and nothing could be done about it now. It was high time that I stopped behaving like a zombie and started living a normal life. Easier said than done.



I tried to bring in all possible changes in my schedule so that i could focus on other things. I woke up at five in the morning (my mom tried convincing me to do this for the last 21 years...sadly i let that cheat ex of mine win!). I changed into my tracks and went for jogging everyday, this , I had read somewhere could bring down my stress levels. Don't know about the stress levels but the cramps in my legs because of the over enthusiastic run for one and half hour around the campus playground on the very first day left me brooding for the whole day. Sad.. I had to find something worthwhile to do! I tried immersing myself into books which was very stupid beacuse the exams were over and i was opening them after the exams. Shit! i had wasted so much of time on that guy and ruined my exams too. I tried watching movies but my over filmy room-mate had stored all romantic movies in the hard disk and watching those things in the break-up period was suicide and to top it all my best friend Ved was out of station. He was my crying-shoulder when i had fights with him but he too had to leave me and go and attend some stupid marriage of his cousin 1700 km away from the city.

Frooti was looking at me with menacing eyes. I knew the next thing that she would do was take that cigarette from me and fling it out of the window. I had turned into a near chain smoker and she didnot want me to get "spoilt".Ha! I wasnt an angel anyway; she was unaware of the fact that half of my nights were spent out of the hostel and I already was puffing my lungs out long before she found out. Frooti and I were among few others in the final year who had to stay back for a few more days before going back home to make arrangements for some conference in the college. Good i thought, lots of time to revive before showing my haggard face to mom.Lots of time meaning just one more week. Frooti's drama (she was better than my mom at this) to convince me to stop smoking didnot end for days. On one hand I never wanted that one week to end and on the other hand Frooti was making it increasingly difficult for me to live, she constantly spied on me,followed me to the loo too! Finally i had to relent and promised her that i would never touch the cigarettes and would throw them right away. Well promises are made to be broken. Whoelse knew this better than me?

The crappy programme scheduling and anchoring was handed over to me, Frooti was taking care of the interiors and "guest management" i still don't know what that means, perhaps Frooti does. The programme started with the usual vandana and continued into a slumber with boring bald-headed speakers talking about their school days,kids, trying to crack stupid jokes and making the audience feel even more fed up. I had atleast twenty minutes before introducing the last speaker and then the show would be wrapped up. I handed over the script and schedule to Frooti on the pretext of going to the waiting room and adjusting my saree (yes..we were supposed to put on maroon sarees on boring events like this) and escaped to a secluded place near the auditorium to take a few puffs.



As i lighted my cigarette i could hear something moving between bushes i thought it was a dog or a cat or a snake or maybe some other animal a tiger maybe, considering that our college was near a zoo. Ok i was imagining too much but i was scared! I turned to run away from that place,my saree and high heels werent of much help. As i started moving away from the bushes i could hear someone speak but i couldnot hear much so i went nearer. There were two voices and both, familiar. I regretted going further because after what i saw there i thought I had passed out for a second. Two bodies entangled under the moonlight,sweet talking and kissing each other unabashed. This could have made a very good gossip story for the next few days if the two unbeleivably shameless people were not my ex and ved's present girlfriend. She was two-timing! My ex was better he atleast had the guts to tell me. fck! why the hell was I supporting him? I did not have the slightest idea that he was going around with my best friend's girl-friend damn it!

I hadnot spoken to him after the break up but now I had to gather all the courage in me and ask them for an explanation. My friend's life was getting ruined. My life was getting ruined.

They were shell-shocked to find me( me out of all people) staring at them when they were too busy thinking of a place to make out. Before confronting them i had thought of a thousand things to yell at them but when i faced them i thought it was useless. Here were two people who didnot even think once before cheating on us so why should i even bother to talk to them, anything i said would fall on deaf ears anyway. I stepped forward called-up ved infront of them and told him about the whole thing. That bitch had the guts to try to stop me from doing so! She was sorry she didnot mean to hurt us.Bull-shit. Ved was heart-broken and so was I. Talk about crying shoulders. And I finally had to take one single step to get over that guy ...i stepped forward and slapped him tight. I felt something very heavy lifting off my body. I felt releived and finally i knew that i was over him. He deserved it. He deserved it for ruining all those years of my life,ruining my friend's life....and ....ruining my programme! Shit I left it half-way. How could i? This conference was 'important' for the coffers of the college and i had to leave it for this non-sense?

I rushed back to the hall and found people standing in attention for the national anthem which meant that the programme had come to an end. I looked at Frooti from the corner of my eye; she was looking at me menacingly, yet again! She always gives me that look...nothing new...maybe she picked this from my mom . Well,after the anthem she rushed towards me and i started searching for places to hide because she would now start with her hour long lecture. "Fuck you! where were you? I had to cover that section for you. Thank god i left the script for her .She had anchored in my place and forgotten things here and there like 'thanking' the chief guest..huh! big deal. I got rebuked for this later though. Well i guess all is well that ends well and it did end really well with me getting over this guy within days ;) Plain lucky.