A Bowl of Elusive

My dear readers, this is the fifth chapter of the Siddhant-Ishika story. Here are the links to the earlier episodes: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |  Part 4 . I would suggest that you go back, read the earlier chapter, if you haven’t already done it and then come back to find out what happened next. Siddhant, like a secure modern man (that he was pretending to be), gave Ishika her space. But inside his heart, not hearing from her was wreaking havoc. Whatever happened between them that night, was haunting Siddhant and Ishika had just withdrawn herself. He was thinking about the promise she had made to him, that she’d never leave. “What happened to that?” he asked himself? And soon, his rampant low self-esteem kicked in. “Have I managed to drive another person away from my life?” he asked himself, with a sense of dread creeping in the back of his mind. That’s when he received a text from Ishika in reply to the one he’d sent. It read, “I just have been busy. I am not going an...

Here’s the fourth part of the Siddhant-Ishika story. Here are the links to the earlier chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 . Go read those and then come back to find out what happened next. At five in the morning, Ishika left Siddhant’s apartment, wearing a red kurta and white leggings. Siddhant paced after her. He wanted to see her off to her cab, but she stopped him by the elevator. She put a hand on his chest and pushed him back. Then the elevator door closed and she was gone. He went to the balcony and just got a glimpse of her walking towards the car downstairs. When she left, the exhaustion and the hopelessness of the previous night hit him hard and he collapsed on his bed. But he couldn’t sleep. Because he’d made a deal with the Devil. And the Devil had collected his dues right away. As he lay on the bed, sleepless and disoriented, Siddhant looked back at the events of the previous night. He couldn’t help thinking about those glorious moments that made up that night,...

Dil toota aur ek aah tak na nikal paayi, Teri baaton mein aaj meri koi na zikr aayi, Tere baahon mein ek jo raat guzri nazuk si, Aisi raat thi ki phir subah savere hijr aayi. Main roya kabhi, bina ek aansu bahaye, Tu saath raha jaise bin saath nibhaye, Teri berukhi mein bhi khushi ke mauke mile aise, Ki meri mohhabbat teri rooh ko fateh kar jaaye. Kab tak khud se yeh naraazgi paal sakoge? Kab tak meri har baat isi tarah taal sakoge? Main to aashiq hoon, zehan pe ghar kar jaunga, Khud se door shaayad kar bhi lo, par dil se kaise nikaal sakoge? Dil ki baat aaj aur tumhe batayenge nahi, Tumhe iss tarah se phir satayenge nahi, Ek baar khud bhi apne dil se pooch lena tum, Chale gaye kahin hum to yaad ayenge ki nahi? Aisi bhi kya dushmani hai tumhari khushi se? Bheegi raaton ka koi sawaal ho jaise tishnagi se. Main samandar bhi aur kashti bhi ban jaunga, Tum aazma ke zara dekh lena, thodi si dillagi se. Ab na peeche hat paunga, aur na ru...

In my last post ( link here ), I introduced you to Siddhant & Ishika. Let me tell you what happened next. So Ishika and Siddhant lived in two opposite ends of the city. Thanks to the traffic and road conditions, reaching her would usually take Siddhant nearly two hours. So, this may qualify as a long distance relationship. Sorry, a long distance friendship. Because Ishika had friend-zoned Siddhant on day one. But Siddhant just couldn’t see her as ‘just a friend’. Their meeting had started something of a chain reaction in his mind, and it was taking a life of its own. They started face-timing from the very day they met, rather regularly. Every evening, she’d call and Siddhant would have to tidy up a little before receiving her call. And they’d look at each other for hours, talking, listening to music together and just smiling at each other. You see, over the past several months, Siddhant had faced numerous bad dates. Dates who weren’t serious, dates who were rude and dates wh...

Love stories through the years have led you to believe that all connections are instant and sudden. That people just fall in love at first sight, and live happily ever after. If you're older than twenty years of age, chances are that you're already disillusioned with that notion. You know better than to believe that fairy tales exist. You have lived the "real life" where meeting new people is a tedious task, putting yourself out there feels like a real burden and liking someone, genuinely liking someone doesn't come easily.  So when Ishika and Siddhant met for the first time, neither of them was naive or inexperienced enough to believe in 'love at first sight' or anything remotely similar to it. They had both had their own share of relationships and heartbreaks and were just exploring something new. Ishika in fact had no intention for it to be anything more than an evening out with a new guy. Siddhant was cautiously optimistic. Blind dates hadn'...

You know how some people have such profound effect on your life that you associate certain things with them forever? Yeah, that was the case with this girl and Vasant Kunj. I’d forever associate Vasant Kunj with her. She calls herself Archie, her parents call her Achu, she’s Archana on the dotted line, but for me, she’ll forever be “the Gold-digger of Vasant Kunj”. See how I copied Vladimir Nabokov’s prose style? Yeah, this one deserves Lolita-level luscious language. (Also killing it with the alliteration. Ha ha.) Before I dive into the story, let me introduce myself. I stand at about five feet nine, have a very sharp nose and a lean body. I grew up in an orthodox Jaat family till about the age of twelve after which my father moved to Delhi and got me admitted into a convent school. Halleluiah for that! So understandably, I am a confused soul, sophisticated in some aspects and earthy in others. I usually speak in a faux British accent, slipping into Haryanvi when using Hindi wo...

Describing the night Shireen & Sashank had as awkward would be the understatement of the century. Their rhythm was definitely off. And it was but natural, since they hadn’t met for a while, after the last time. And the last time was tumultuous, to say the least. They had spent a couple of days in bed and then they’d freaked out in the aftermath. So obviously, when they decided to meet again, it was a little awkward where neither knew how to behave normally.  They downed a few drinks at the club and took a little walk, talking about this and that. Sashank slyly kept on inserting praises disguised as silly observations. The subtlety wasn’t lost on Shireen. Her situation had changed since the last time she met him and she felt liberated. It wasn’t like she didn’t have any apprehensions about this, but the volume on the apprehensions was turned way down. Plus Sashank had an air of confidence that drove Shireen crazy. Midnight was approaching quick and Shireen had to do t...

People in love often ask each other, "Why do you love me?". When has there ever been rhyme or reason to love? For example, Arya and Meenal weren't even supposed to meet. They came from different worlds. The only link between them was Nikita, Meenal's cousin and Arya's classmate. Those days, Arya had been seeing this girl, Noorie whom he'd met right after breaking up with a girl he'd been really in love with. So, it was just a rebound and Arya kinda knew that there weren't any great things in store for Noorie and him. But he hated being alone and Noorie was decent company, kinda goofy but decent. Then one day, while Noorie and Arya were visiting Nikita's place, they met Meenal. She wore an orange salwaar kameez, had a husky voice and spoke in a strange tone that made her sound like a fat boy bully. She was so different from the women Arya came across every day. He was smitten, and he was smitten hard. Later on the same day, Arya called Niki...

Aarav stared at his sweaty palms. Why the hell were his palms sweaty in December? He wiped his palms on the side of his denim, and adjusted the little overnight backpack over his shoulders and moved towards boarding gate number 51 at Terminal 3, IGI airport. The crisp morning breeze hit his face and ruffled his hair as he stepped out into the open airfield to board the long domestic flight. He loved the feel of cold air on his ears. Aarav was feeling nervous, for he was heading on to meet Avni. Avni was a girl Aarav knew back from his school days. They'd re-connected recently and he was now boarding a three hour long flight to the city she was in to meet her. It was a totally impromptu decision and he didn't know what to expect. Avni and Aarav always had a spark but had never managed to make it into a real flame. But in the last few months, things had changed. Things had escalated quickly when Aarav wrote about school days and mentioned Avni with nostalgia and Avni notic...