It was unfortunate indeed that nature had decided to paint the sky in pleasing shades of grey and black, dotted with stars lined up in beautiful patterns and the moon’s presence further intensifying the romantic nature of the night. Oh wait, why then did I term this unfortunate?
Because on top of a water tank on the terrace of a five floor residential apartment sat our hero Lucky, crying his heart out. The volume of tears coming out of his eyes gave serious competition to the Mumbai floods and he held in his hand a letter, written by a feminine hand. This particular piece of paper had the words which tugged at the heart strings – “Together forever and ever, my darling.”
And on such a romantic night, our hero was crying because his girlfriend was no longer his girlfriend. He was just another star in the sky filled with millions of stars, and his ex girl was the moon. She didn’t care about just another star in a million.
“How could you do this to me? I want to die! I am going to jump! God, this is your fault!” He pumped his fists towards the sky, accusing the almighty of negligence and unsteadily shaking back and forth on the water tank; the culprit responsible for this shaking was a beer bottle. Ah, the beer bottle – the least prescribed and most effective medicine for love failure.
At this point in time, Dr. Cupid was standing right behind Lucky and speaking to him –
“Girlfriends are like that beer. They intoxicate you, but leave you with horrid hangovers.”
Ah, the past –
It was 12.02 am. In a bedroom adorned with rather provocative posters of Madonna and Trisha lay snoring peacefully Lucky’s brother. Next to him, an entity wriggled around excitedly under a blanket, covered from head to toe. From the interiors of the blanket were emitted some strange lights and some murmuring sounds. One might’ve thought that some black magic ritual was being practiced there and yes, that was true– Love was performing black magic on Lucky! Dr. Cupid was standing there with a scorn on his face, right outside the window. But Lucky did not see him there; he was too busy talking to his darling.
Let us zoom in on the blanket and zero in on the conversation –
Girl on the other end of the line childishly chimes –
“Darling I want you here, NOW!”
Dr. Cupid mocked her – Here, I will send you your boyfriend right now – see his bare hairy chest and him in his undies and wish you were in hell!”
Lucky was sighing romantically. “Will you be there for me always?”
“Surely da chellam! Forever and ever ok? I promise!”
Dr. Cupid was tearing his hair apart in anger. “You idiot! Same lines I have heard a million times! For a guy, forever = forever! But for a fickle minded girl, the time period ‘forever’ is directly proportional to the patience of that girl. Forever may be defined as one year, two years, or till she gets sick of you! Now you are sickening me out!”
But our man Lucky was too mesmerized by his chellam to notice anything.
It was Valentine’s Day, the day when hearts throbbed faster, birds chirped, flowers bloomed, and the sun shone. Well, thought Dr. Cupid – Birds chirped even on normal days but people found it irritating. Flowers bloomed even on normal days, but people never stopped to notice. The sun shone brightly every day, but people just said it was too hot. That one factor – Love – added more beauty to everything. Was it a boon or a curse?!
In a coffee shop which was bursting with couples, Lucky and his girlfriend were holding hands and exchanging mushy lines. It was at this time that Lucky took out his gift for her and presented it – A silver bracelet which was way out of his budget; she screamed in delight but while she was putting it on exclaimed – “Oh I would have liked gold better!”
Then she took out a rather battered looking book and gave it to Lucky – “This was my favorite children’s book when I was in 5th standard… Noddy tales! See my friend and I have even drawn some cartoons on it!”
Dr. Cupid was seen banging his head against the wall and saying – “Aiyayo.. You stole from your dad, sold your brother’s DVD s, volunteered to go shopping for your mom so that you could steal the change… And finally amassed enough to buy the silver bracelet, and what does she give you? Not a paisa she spent in giving you that crappy child’s book, which you are sure to fling in some corner and hide it from your friends because if they see it, they will kill you by just making fun of it for eternity!”
“Ohhh sweetheart.. Thank you so much!” murmured Lucky.
Cut back to present –
Lucky is still crying over his loss. The reason for the breakup which she gave was so complex, Lucky thought he had to do a PhD in Integral mathematics and differential physics just to decipher the collective meaning of the reason she gave.
Suddenly, his mobile phone beeped. He took out his mobile and thought to himself – I used to expect messages with a song in my heart because I knew it would be a message from her.. But now I am sure it’s just some mokkai forward from my friends. But to his surprise, it was an SMS from HER.
His heart beating faster, his hands trembling, he opened the text message.
“Please return my Noddy tales book. Give it to my friend.”
Dr. Cupid stood there, just polishing his nails and whistling. “What did you expect you dumb ass!” He shouted.
“Love is not hanging out in coffee shops. Love is not buying expensive gifts. Love is not chatting at 2 am in the night and turning up in a zombie like state to the office the next day!” Cried Dr. Cupid.
“What the hell IS love?!?! How did it suddenly disappear!!” questioned Lucky.
“It’s what you think you had before you broke up.”
Lucky wasn’t listening. He decided something had to be done. He called his friend Bajji over the phone… Bajji picked up the call.
“Machan, so your girlfriend dumped you huh?”
“What?!?! How the hell did you know da!”
“Oh well.. You haven’t called me for a year or something, ever since you started dating her… Now that you’re calling, I just know!”
“Ya da… Bloody she dumped me da!”
“Oh well, Wait machan, I’m coming over. Is there beer over there? I’ll get some. I’m bringing Sandy along too.”
In a few years Lucky realized how amazing it was being single. No tantrums at 1 am. No “You don’t trust me anymore!” accusations. His wallet didn’t get lighter and lighter each time he went out. It was the carefree life. It was just – peace. Lucky himself didn’t know he was such an amazing story writer and in a few years, he had written about 72 stories and was working on a novel. Wow, he thought. I finally found myself, hiding behind layers and layers of “Love you forever” which never did work out.
When she messaged him again about the Noddy book, he just coolly replied, “Return the silver bracelet first!” and he had not heard from her ever since.
Dr. Cupid watched all this, a much happier person.
“Well, as I always put it, behind every successful man, there WAS a successful woman! ;-)”
In the meantime, Dr. Cupid suddenly heard another wailing sound somewhere nearby. It was another guy, Ramu, crying his heart out… “Oh, why, WHY did she break up with me? She told me she would NEVER break up with me no matter what!!”
And Dr. Cupid sighed. “You incorrigible guys! Here we go all over again….”
