After 2 years
February
With that, she hung up the weekly call with her therapist of
the last two tormenting years of her life. In her old pj’s and an even old
boyfriend T-shirt, she lied down on her bed. Room locked, lights out, parents
worried after every weekly call, she went back to that fateful night with
Prantik that changed the course of her life overnight. They were 28 that year.
“What if I tell you I am going away for a while? What if I
tell you this was our last kiss for some time?”
They were in his car, after a usual Saturday night at the
club. Jahnvi took a while for it to register that Prantik had been acting weird
lately. But now she was sure, they were headed towards an ugly path.
“What do you mean?” she asked him pointblank.
“I, well, maybe tomorrow morning you won’t be able to reach
me anymore” he said guardedly. “But know that you’re the love of my life. There’s
nobody before you or after you.” “Will you hold on?”
A little drunk from the club, Jahnvi just looked at him
blankly. She was about to say something but her mum called and she gently
kissed him goodnight and walked towards her building. She didn’t turn back to
wave at him. Somehow, tonight she couldn’t.
The next morning, still a little hungover, she stretched in
bed to reach her phone at the bedside table. She thought it was a Sunday and so
they’d just grab a quiet brunch at a café in Bandra. She was about to call
Prantik but then in a split second she decided to go online. He wasn’t there.
Panic rose within her. She called him with a sense of doom overcoming her. “This
number is not valid.”
She ran to her friend. Sim was quiet for a long time. Jahnvi told her she was worried. What had happened suddenly? Then Sim got up and took Jahnvi’s hand and steered her towards the kitchen. She put the coffee to boil and said, “He’s gone Jahn. Don’t wait for him. He’s gone away to the States for good. He just told me to tell you that he wants you to start a new life. I don’t know what that means Jahn. I think he’s a jerk. But he said something like- tell her to be strong and search her true self…” Sim held herself back. She couldn’t tell the whole truth right now. Not yet. Just like she’d promised Prantik the fucker.
Jahnvi fell on the floor. Too shocked to say a word. All
her dreams were shattered in a night. All that she had built with Prantik was
washed away like a sand castle. She felt going deep into shock but somehow she
held onto Sim’s hand and got up after ten minutes. Tears flowing freely down her cheeks, she hugged Sim and didn’t leave her for the rest of that Sunday.
Since then, since that Sunday, everyday for the last two years she keeps wondering why he left without intimation? Not even a break up? He just ghosted on her. Jahnvi was facing depression. She just couldn’t shake him off her. Then like a cardboard tower, her life had come tumbling down on her.
She couldn’t write anymore. Her editor knew what she was going through and
didn’t give her as many assignments. She lost all her friends because she
stopped taking their calls and after that Sunday, she’d just become a skeleton
of the woman living in her past.
Jahnvi had put on weight again, this time massively. She
chopped off her long wavy hair to a boy cut. She just read books all the time.
She spoke to her sister sometimes who always managed to abuse Prantik which brought
back Jahnvi’s past in her face. The trouble was she stopped doing everything
she loved about living. She didn’t write as much. She didn’t workout. She didn’t
dress up anymore. She stopped going out completely. She stopped talking with
anyone she knew in her past life. She was all alone. She had even begun to
fight with her parents in frustration, often lately.
She was about to drift off in one of her nightmares, which were
recurrent for the last eight months, when she heard her phone vibrate. It was Sim.
It was 1 am. What happened? She answered the call all jittery. God knew she
couldn’t take more shocks. Sim said, “Hey you, okay so look who we have here! Umm
oh shit I am sorry. I meant look what I have here!” “Sim are you okay? You
scared me.” Jahnvi said a little drowsy.
“Yea woman all’s fine. Okay so I have mint tea and bubblegum tea. Which one do
you want?” “Really Sim, this late for tea?” “ How are you feeling babe?” Sim
asked. Jahnvi thought this call a little uncanny for usual. Her friend had never
really called her this late ever. But with no aim to think positive anymore,
Jahnvi resigned to the call. She said, “I am okay. I’ll get better with time.”
She immediately heard a sigh of breath at the other end of the call. She
said, “Sim I want to cry. I don’t think I can write anymore. That’s the only
thing I know to do in my life.” Sim got a message on her whatapp – “Tell her to
start writing about anything that she wants to really put a message across in
society. That’ll be her key to break the
block. “Sim are you there?” “a a Jahn listen just write about things that
really matter to you, okay? You’ll break the block that way. Okay gotta go now.
Sleep tight baby.”
Jahnvi felt a sudden rush of energy. She didn’t know what it
was, she didn’t care. She was struck by the greatest idea of her life. She
slept peacefully, in eight months , that night.
“Jerk why have you come back? You stop fucking around with
Jahnvi I am telling you. I know how she was for a year without you.” Sim
scolded Prantik after hanging up on Jahnvi.
“She has to grow. She is growing. She has to face life
without me. She will break her writer’s block. My vibe has reached her.”
Prantik said talking to Sim and simultaneously going through Jahnvi’s Instagram
profile through a different ID.
“What do you want from her jerk? She is so vulnerable. You
flew away two years ago so that she could achieve greatness in her life without
you. Just like she’d promised you on your stupid terrace two years ago. She’s
hardly been facing even her basic life since then!” Sim said in a threatening
voice to Prantik, worried about Jahnvi.
“She will do everything I have dreamed for her. She will
become an author. A writer. She’ll scale her intellectual capabilities to
higher and greater spiritual awakening. She’ll break her bonds of sensitivity and
face life raw. Not as she used to be – Pampered and sheltered. Just stick with me Sim. I know what I am
doing.” Prantik said and hung up to ogle at Jahnvi’s picture on his phone
screen. He clutched it to his chest and continued working for the rest of the
day in Arizona.
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