The fool

“You did not expect her to prove her innocence to you! Did you?” Dinant asked Dwaipayan.

 

“A person with integrity does not cares what some one thinks about him or her. She did told you every thing once, but you did not believed her. So she decided to not share her problems with you again. I don’t see any thing wrong with that.” Dinant looked at him with a serious expression on his face.

 

“Any way, I don’t think you deserved her, which is why you lost her. I wish she was in love with me.”

 

“Can I suggest you one thing? If you have realized how dumb you are you can simply go and tell her all the truth, apologize and propose her. She may forgive you if you are sincere.”

 

“When you are dealing with a person of substance you either believe that person or forget him. Truthful people don’t mingle with people who don’t trust them. She loved you that is why she tried to bare her heart to you, and you openly showed your mistrust for her and went after Ishani.”

 

“You did not had enough brain to distinguish between a coquette like Ishani and a decent girl like Asmita.” Dinant laughed out loudly. “You should have asked our opinion before messing up the thing. Even a ten year old child would have told you to go for Asmita.”

 

“Still I will suggest you to go and apologize to Asmita and tell her that you were an idiot to act like that. She is an intelligent woman, She can forgive you. Because every intelligent woman knows men are easily fooled by coquettes.”

 

They all were college-mates. Dwaipayan and Dinant were very good friends of Asmita. She was a sober girl with a very sharp brain. Ishani was a gorgeous girl with average brain, funny but she was jealous of Asmita. Jealousy does not have much reasoning behind it, does it?

 

Asmita was quite irritated by her nature because she loved a life out of glares, she would have loved it if she could be invisible but as that was not possible all she wanted was anonymity. Ishani’s jealousy was making it impossible, she was forever dragging her in dramas, blaming all sort of things on her. Her friends blindly believed her and bothered Asmita.

 

Then Ishani got her eyes on Dwaipayan and Dinant. They were the closest friends of Asmita. Dinant shooed her off at the very beginning but Dwaipayan fell in her trap. Ishani wanted to trap him even more because she knew that Asmita had a soft spot for him. She brainwashed him and ruined that relationship and moved over.

 

Spark of love

“Love does have its time span Tapesh.” She said with a pang of sadness.  “I can’t bare my soul to show you how much I loved you then, but I know it is true and I don’t have to prove myself.”

 

“If you had held my hand once and asked me to wait for you, I would have never moved on. I would have waited for you.”

 

“But you could not decide whether you love me or not. So you walked away without telling me any thing. You just vanished one fine day. Knowing I truly loved you.”

 

“I waited for you first few months, tried to contact you but you were silent.”

 

“Then I was shattered to pieces, thinking I have lost every thing in life. Then the next stage came. I slowly gave in to God’s will.”

 

“Just like any person who has faith in God I started to believe that whatever happens happens for the very best.”

 

“I started to search for the incompatibilities in our relationships and soon they started to heap up.”

 

“Things which we would have brushed away, if we were together. But as we were not together, my love was a one sided show those incompatibilities soon took over the love, and it was gone.”

 

“Love is like fire, it needs tending, a regular dose of fuel to keep it burning. No matter how strong the flame is if it not tended properly it will die with time.”

 

“Next time when you love someone, give her some reason to keep the fire burning in her heart.”

 

After finishing her words she took her leave and left him alone in the park bench. He sat there watching her walk away. A tall, graceful figure slowly disappearing in the settling dusk.

 

The park was filled with chirping birds, settling down on branches for the night. He too got up after a while, took a cab to station and left the town forever.

The proposal

“How could you think that she will be impressed by your proposal?” he asked, barely hiding his annoyance.

“She never even tries to hide her love for principles.” He shot a glance at him then turned his eye to look at others sitting in the bar.

“I agree you were very good friends, your views matched on almost every thing. You are very rich and she is poor. Your favours might have been quite helpful for her.”

“Still people like you tend to forget that people who can have the luxury of sticking to a principle for forty years will rather stick to it for the rest of their life. If they have passed their youth in a controlled way why will they lose their dignity at this age?”

He took a sip at the glass, and looked at his friend. A girl was singing some popular numbers on the stage. Quite a pretty girl, she was eying them quite frequently. After a while she came down from the stage and headed for the tables.

“There are girls who don’t mind a fling with married men, and there are girls who do. Both of these girls are intelligent. One flirts with married men because she knows he will shower her with money. The other does not because she knows that he will ruin her life, reputation and throw her away after a while.”

“Why don’t you get one of these girls?” he looked at the bar dancer. “After all you will never divorce your wife. She is quite an alright girl. Apart from that Tina is there. “

“I don’t think you will be able to revive your friendship with Jharna, but you can keep my suggestion in mind when you look for part time lovers in future.”

“A decent man never bothers an uninterested woman, especially if she has clearly and firmly said that she is not interested.”

“I don’t like this type of girls.” Roshan said. “They are too cheap. They will first built a relationship with you and then try to blackmail you.”

“If you don’t give in to their blackmailing they will target your reputation and family.” He added, “You know all these stories of kiss and tell.”

“well my friend, in that case you should practice self restraint. One mate for a life time is enough. If you feel disgusted with your wife divorce her and marry your woman of dreams. Or else just control yourself.”

“Its easy for a bachelor like you to preach.” Roshan sniggered.

“Well, I knew I will never be content with a non committal mate, that is why I stayed single.” He laughed, “extra martial affair is common with women too.”

“Shall we leave now? He asked and beckoned the waiter for bill.

They went out to the night city leaving behind the bar and their discussions. Both had their homes in mind.

He

“I have told you once, twice and thrice that I don’t give any thing to beggars, now go away before I call the guard.” The woman snarled at him before slamming the door on his face.

“I have not nibbled a single thing in last three days.” He sobbed weakly.

He was one of those who are called “idiots” by their unkind fellow human beings and “autistic” by kinder ones. He did not had much coordination between his limbs and brain. He lived as a burden on his widow mother for the first forty five years of his life, then she was libereated from her miseries by death. Till her last day she worked in fields to feed them, if not every day then atleast once in two days.

His neighbours cremated her and then simply forgot him. They closed doors on him, he spent one month banging on those doors, hoping one will open, none did.

He left the village he has known since childhood and started to walk listlessly in the dusty roads. Begging. Sometimes he got alms or food and sometimes pebbles and stones, pelted at him by cruel children while adults looked nonchalantly.

He has reached this small town late last night and fell asleep on the first doorstep. The woman who was talking with him has opened the door to fetch newspaper and bottle of milk. He has asked for something to eat, and her rebuke was the answer he got.

He got up and started to walk, soon he reached another small home. He saw a bottle of milk and newspaper was lying on the doorstep. He did what he has never done, he picked up the bottle and pried it open and started to drink it. The ice cold milk burned its way through his parched stomach. Causing terrible pain at the end.

“Ma, ma look what that man is doing!!!!!” he heard the shrill shout of a child and looked around him, his gaze was met by the stunned gaze of a small child, hardly five or six years old. She was staring at her from the lawn.

“What happened? ….. Who are you?” a female voice asked, the door behind him has opened and a woman was standing there, staring at him.

“What happened?” this time a male voice joined in.

“He drank all the milk!!!” the child has approached him by that time. “don’t you know its stealing to take things without asking?”

“Stop preaching young miss, go inside and bring some toasts.” Her mother smirked.

“Who are you?” the woman asked, this time softly, she has realized his condition after observing him closely.

He did not answered, She did not expected him to answer either. The child has reappeared with some toasts in a plate. The woman handed him over the plate. He attacked them hungrily.

“Now what Mrs. T?” her husband asked with a soft smile.

“Will you send ramukaka, he can clean him up and give him some clean clothes. I will call up Mrs. Dastidar to ask if there is some place for a hapless creature in her home.” She softly laughed.

Blogging

“You want me to believe you.”

“Actually, if I look back I think it was all my mistake. To lay my blind faith on you, trusting you, thinking that you are my friend.” He said solemnly, in an eerily calm voice.

He, Anil, was a gangster, who has been languishing in an US jail on a life term, was released early because of his good conduct.

The person he was talking with was his white-collared friend in India. Mr. S/K. Khemka.

Anil befriended a girl on internet. They became very good friends instantly. The girl was his only contact with a pure hearted creature. He cared a lot for her. She was the youngest child of a huge family. Both her parents were aged and poor.

Anil formed a deep affection for her and wanted her to get settled in life. He requested his friend Mr. Khemka and he said he will see to it.

He appointed the girl in one of his offices, and introduced him to Anil after a year or so. Anil fulfilled all her whims, finally she married Mr. Khemka’s son and Anil showered her with gifts.

One day, while casually surfing through net he stumbled upon a blog, he saw his own name mentioned there., as the author’s greatest friend. He was surprised and befriended the authoress using a fake name.

He realized very soon that this girl was his actual friend. Who of course has worked for Mr. Khemka for two months and have left him after that because of his extreme misbehaviour. She used to surf from office and have lost the password of the account which she used then.

But, as per her Anil was her friend even now, though he has almost vanished but still he sends her a mail or two once a year.

It did not take Anil much to confirm that she was the genuine girl. He did not said a single word to Mr. Khemka and contacted one of his cousins in India. He found out the whole story within a month.

Mr. Khemka had it all planned before appointing the girl, his computer was bugged, they hacked her account, usurped it and made her leave the job. Then he appointed his son’s fiancé, who was not very averse to freebies in the office, asked her to squeeze the money out of Anil.

He befriended Anil’s actual friend using the mails of one of her friends to keep a track on her. First he tried to provoke her to become a nun, then he tried to get her killed but luck saved her. But she got so scared that she started to live a semi-anonymous life, serving Mr. Khemka’s purpose partially.

He never thought that she will start blogging…..