zombie-sans human flesh devouring part. She began losing interest in everything... food, books, even movies! No company was spiriting enough and her ten-hour sleep was down to seven.
Constant binges on chocolates and ice creams became a way of life. Every sunset seen through the pollution-laden air, brought a sigh to her lips. Her heart always skipped a beat at the sudden jangle of the phone and the brief moment before the email inbox popped open.
Nandini agonised, lying prone on her bed.
‘Nandi you weirdo, where are you?’ Sneha’s voice resounded outside her door. Like a banshee, Nandini streaked across her room. The relief to her malady was here.
‘I’m so glad you’re back! What took you so long... you b#%!?’ she fired, almost lifting Sneha off her feet.
‘Hey! Get off me! I was gone for mere three weeks,’ said Sneha, glowing fresh on her return, from a family vacation to Europe.
‘Sneh, I think I’m seriously ill! Something is really off woman!’ Nandini pulled the other girl inside her room, firmly bolting the door behind them.
‘You’re pregnant!’ Sneha teased.
‘Shut up! I’m no Kunti, I have to have sex first. Something really freaky is happening!’ Nandini literally chewed her nails.
‘Freaky how?’ Sneha asked, sprawling on the love seat near the window.
‘I can’t sleep!’
sandals off.
‘I don’t feel like eating anything.’ Nandini paused and then said, ‘Just colossal amounts of ice creams and chocolate!’
Sneha sat up. ‘Hold on! What kind of music have you been listening too?’
Self-consciously, rubbing an ear, Nandini’s answered, ‘Ghazals and love songs!’
‘Not eating, not sleeping, listening to sappy songs... anything else?’ Sneha grilled, counting the symptoms off her fingers. Her face bunched as she rested on the verge of a momentous discovery.
‘I kind of feel jittery whenever the phone rings.’ ‘Oh gosh, this is serious babes!’
‘What is it? Dish ASAP!’
‘Where are the DVDs you recently bought?’ Sneha asked, abruptly changing the topic.
Bewildered, Nandini indicated the almirah on the other side.
Sneha quickly opened it. ‘Let me see! Where are you hiding?’ she murmured, running her seeking hands over the DVD covers. ‘Got it!’ she exclaimed, holding one up.
Nandini crouched forward, ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary! Are you loco (insane in Spanish)? What does that movie have to do with me?’
‘Watch and learn child, watch and learn!’ Inserting the DVD, Sneha quickly forwarded it to the part where Mark Darcy leaves for the US of A. The left behind, yearning Bridget sometime gazes miserably out of the window and at other times consumes an entire fridge, or nervously answers the doorbell. All this while, sappy songs strum in the background.
Sneha halted the movie and asked, ‘Bimbo now do you get it?’
‘What rubbish! I am not pining for Colin Firth or Mark Darcy. You are such a gadheri sometimes.’
Sneha tapped her knuckles hard on Nandini’s head. ‘You fool, of course you are not pining for Colin Firth. You are pining... period. Spill it out who are you thinking of?’
‘No one!’ Nandini chimed quickly... too quickly. ‘Don’t lie to me Nandi. Puke it out right now!’ Nandini clenched her lips and shook her head,
resolute. This secret was going with her to her grave.
‘Okay, if you don’t tell me right away, I shall go down and talk to your folks. Tell them every itty- bitty detail, and my own very astute conclusions,’ Sneha threatened. She rotated and began walking in slow motion, in the direction of the door.
Her hand had barely grasped the knob, when Nandini softly confessed. ‘Aditya.’
Sneha, flabbergasted, spun back. Nandini sat doubled over the bed, her head thrust in the pillow.
‘Aditya, Aditya Sarin?’ Sneha screeched. The head in the pillow bobbed, tentatively once and then fiercely, several times.
‘Kulta, couldn’t you fall for someone in your college, or your neighbour or even your doodhwala? Why Aditya Sarin? He’s so bloody
out of our league,’ Sneha voiced, amused and
astonished.
‘Aditya is my neighbour!’ Nandini reminded, miserably.
‘Jahaan panha, neighbours on the other side. Not the globally-most-eligible-bachelor-kinds.
Does Aditya know?’
‘Are you insane?’ came Nandini’s muffled reply.
‘Do you think he might feel the same?’
‘ARE YOU INSANE?’ Nandini repeated her words, finally getting up to face her friend. ‘He treats me like a complete idiot; “brainless wonder” was the most recent compliment.’ Nandini’s face reflected despair.
Sneha sat down next to Nandini and put her arm around her. Nandini gave her small smile.
‘I have a solution,’ Sneha said. ‘What?’
‘Get away from him. Migrate to a country with only burkha-clad women. That’s one place Adi is never coming!’ said Sneha, smiling broadly.
‘Very funny! Anyway, he is not here. He is gone for three-four months.’
‘Oh! So that is when our local laila realised her one-sided love.’
‘Shut up!’ Nandini snapped, and then poured, ‘The other day, Badi Maa mentioned that Aditya, for the past several days, has been calling
regularly to chitchat. He has asked about everyone, everyone excep—’
‘Except yours truly!’ Sneha finished.
Nandini glumly nodded. ‘What will I do Sneh?’ ‘Get married!’
‘Baqvaas! How will marriage help?’
‘Once you get some action from someone else, you’ll forget all about Aditya Sarin.’
Nandini snickered. ‘Speaking from experience, are we, Queens of Ghantaghar?’ The two best friends giggled uncontrollably.
‘So Dada Kondke! Going forward, what’s your plan then?’ Sneha questioned after a few minutes of mirth.
‘Complete and total denial. Ignore the subject at all times.’
‘That hasn’t worked for the last billion years or so.’
‘Coz it hasn’t been tried hard enough, I’ll make it work! You’ll see,’ Nandini asserted.
‘Have it your way. But all this while I thought you didn’t like the dude,’ Sneha wondered, remembering the constant bickering between
Aditya and Nandini.
‘I, too, am surprised. I always thought that on some level we were friends,’ Nandini confessed, sighing.
Right away Sneha smacked her on the arm. ‘Hey! What’s that for?’ Nandini demanded, rubbing her stinging limb.
‘How dare you forget the first tenet of love set by Maine Pyar Kiya?’
‘What?’ Nandini grumbled.
‘Ek ladka ladki kabhi doost nahi hotein. Kapkapati raatein, bhadakti aag, dhadakte jism, etc., remember?’ Sneha retorted. The two again dissolved into giggles.
‘Sh#$! Seriously Sneh, what am I going to do?’ Nandini questioned, hugging her knees thoughtfully. ‘Take up your Chacha on his invitation of living with him in Chicago and pursuing a degree there,’ Sneha at last, gravely answered.
After a few minutes of silence, Nandini asked, ‘So how was your vacation?’
‘Interesting and eventful!’ Sneha replied. ‘Give me the details!’
‘That’s another story for another day. Today let’s deal with yours,’ Sneha replied.
Once Nandini accepted her intense feelings for Aditya, she also saw the futileness of her one- sided heartache. ‘When he gets here, I’m going to stay miles away from Aditya. But when will he get here, it’s—’
‘Dil haara re! Haare re!’ jolted Nandini out of her sleep and her dreams. ‘Bloody tumhare dil ki to—’ cussed Nandini. Just then, a few loud raps sounded at the door. ‘Tullu I’m up! Stop breaking the door!’
Sitting on the potty, Nandini grumbled to the toilet roll. ‘Na life mein sex, na dream mein sex. The alarm and Tullu had to go off just as the fun was about to begin!’