Ok, so where were we kids? Yes, the embarrassing story of how I met your mother. Unrequited love makes a loser out of the biggest of players. It knocks you over before you know what hit you. It's like willingly choosing to go through the wrong path, it's like descending down the ladder knowing that once you hit the bottom, the ladder will be gone.
Next comes the phase I wish never comes in any of your lives. The phase of lunacy. You are confused. Do not know whether to chase or to let go; whether to wait and watch or run and leave; whether to burn and die or to put the fire off! It's when you are most confused. Romantic films take the job of misguiding you and how! The hero gets the girl in the end. She loves some other dude but our dude's love is pure. He helps her find the other dude's love. She realizes that our dude is the right dude for her. She ditches the wrong dude and picks the right dude. In all the movies, all the time without fail! Hindi films are rife with girls running from mandaps, last minute airport decisions and other stuff.
All this plays with your mind. You think it will happen to you without realizing how tight the security is in real airports and how a bride can't run away from real wedding because of the crowd of chacha-chachi, mausa-mausi, mama- mami, bhaiya- bhabhi surrounding her!
Love makes you restless. You throw the whole deck in the game thinking that at least one card will fall right but, this is where you go wrong. It's not a game, kids. You don't have to be a good player here. You just have to be the right player. So, while following the "heart" you enter a "club" where you unlearn how to call a "spade" a "spade" and start running after fake "diamonds". OK, enough of the wordplay, what I mean to say is that hope and faith are good in moderation. Too much faith in a happy ending blinds you; you can't see that what is happy ending for you would be sad ending for someone else... and vice versa.
Coming back to the story... I tell her I thought I loved her... in one of our train journeys. She has the whole night to think over it (she did say NO the very next second) and being the defensive player that I am, I myself told her not to take me seriously. The feeling of "Not wanting to come on too strong" could easily be confused with the feeling of "not caring about her yes or no". Anyway, in the morning, she sneezes. I say, "When did you catch cold?" She replies- "Abhi hua hai". I hear- "I love you too *blush* *blush*" I am about to faint. I ask again- "Beg your pardon?" (Take notes kids, in real love, you never feel the need to confirm the statements.)
And she restates what she said and I am more disappointed than Vinod Kambli after India's world cup loss in 1996. Anyway, over the next few months, I ask the question in one way or the other. I am slowly turning into a pillow-wetting, Devdas look-alike who would give an arm for a "yes". All the 80's bollywood where the hero sips poison, threatens to jump off tall buildings comes to the fore now. That's when I realize, I was exploring new horizons of lameness. Rejection finally dawns on me. Those were the days when you really didn't want to be around or near me. I was boring, dull, rejected, dejected and boring, dull, rejected, dejected and boring, dull etc etc...
I start with my phase of lunacy; start isolating myself from her partly because I think it will make her realize my value and also partly because I, deep down, knew that being away from her is the only thing that'd fetch me my sanity back! I could feel something breaking inside me. It hurt initially but, I knew I was going uphill with the pain and after reaching the peak, the only way possible would be downhill!
Meanwhile, she made new "best friends" and started a new story of how she met her kids' father etcetera. She did keep popping in now and then and I knew this thing won't end when I want it to end.
But, by then, it had dawned upon me that if you want to kill a friendship, you don't have to stab it mercilessly, just leave it alone and it will rot. The friendship that survives the "rot test", has to be taken through the test of "indifference". That is sure to murder even the closest of bonds. Yes, kids... I had to be cruel because sometimes, it is the right thing to do. Once you create a dragon which breathes fire, it is better to chop off its head once and for all; than to put it to sleep every night singing sweet lullabies.
So, this was how... I survived the wreck a.k.a. girl no. 3.
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