Broken Strings...

Chapter 9.

       "Someone like You" I said inattentively.

       "What! Me?" She asked raising her thin eyebrows again.

       "Oye, I said someone like you! Not you. I am not a fool to fall in love for a retard."

       She gave me a few blows on my stomach just like every time I would call her that.

       "Accha! So what qualities did you find that good in me?" She asked excitedly when she was over with beating me up.

       "I don’t know! Like umm.... your eyes."

       "My eyes?"

       "Yeah I mean...its like when someone looks into your eyes and you are looking back into his, he feels strong and weak at the same time." I said looking straight into her eyes, like the twinkle of her eyes had made me say it.

       We kept looking each other in the eyes for a moment. This time, her eyes were different.

       'Iss taraah un aankhon ne neehara , dosti nahi jaane kuch aur hi tha (the way we looked into each other's eyes, it was definitely something more than friendship) '

       "Ummm..So! It’s your turn. What kind of a guy do you want?" I asked her the question that I waited for days to ask but couldn’t find the courage to.

       "Like him yaar, like Raj." She said while pointing her finger at the poster of DDLJ.

       A lot of girls had gone head over heels for SRK and DDLJ during those years, but I have to admit that Radhika was the craziest of them all.

       "Oh! You mean like Shah Rukh khan."

       "No you Idiot! I said like Raj. A guy as charming, as loving and as daring as Raj was. I want my guy to sing like how he sang for Simran, I want to dance with him just like Raj and Simran did." She said frenziedly.

       Radhika was the crazy 'Raj' lover, you can say that. She had watched DDLJ like a 1000 times and still never got bored. I too had to see that film 5 times with her and had to wipe her tears off every time when Raj was slapped by Baldev singh and beaten by Kuljeet and his goons.

       "Chal, I have to go home now. I still have Fluid Mechanics on my load" I told her.

       "Haaye Allah, kitna padhega ye Ladka! (Oh God! How much is this boy gonna study?) You can’t leave so early."

       "Aah! You know how much difficult is it to get into an IIT and you know how badly I want to go there." I said.

       "You're gonna make it anyway, stop stressing out." She told me and trapped me by my hand. I decided to stay there for some more time.

       The Telephone started ringing in the living room. Radhika picked up the receiver and it was her dad on the other side.

       "But Papa...okay. I know it’s important. Aap apna dhyaan rakhna (take care) ." Radhika spoke on the phone and put down the receiver.

       "Kya hua?" I asked her.

       "Papa isn't coming. He's off to Delhi for some work." She said.

       "I hardly get to spend time with him now. He never comes home and even if he does, he has got his work to do." Radhu told me with wetness in her eyes.

       "It’s okay, he's a busy man Radhu. You know how much he loves you."

       "Yeah , I know.." . She smiled like flowers in the night.

       We were watching DDLJ again and but Radhu wasn't even half excited as what she used to be watching her favorite movie in the world and I couldn't stand watching her like this.

       The song 'Tujhe Dekha to ye Jaana Sanam' was playing on my head when I stepped down from the bed and asked her to do the same. I kneeled down and offered her my hand for a dance.

       "What are you doing?"

       "Can you dance with me until your Raj comes?" I asked her.

       She laughed and gave me her hand, it fitted mine like it was made just for me.

       I put my right hand on her waist and she put her left hand at my shoulder. I grasped her right hand with my left one and we started to slow dance back and forth. Her breaths smelt like sea breezes and my heart started racing like I had run a thousand miles.

       "Boring" she said.

       "Achaa? Here you go." I said and started hopping on my feet while holding her hand and waist and she too did the same. We laughed hard while doing that, the room filled with the echoes of our giggles. We fell at the floor with heavy breaths and laughed while looking at each other.

       The coming days at the school added to the closeness between me and Radhu. We always sat on the benches that were near to each other so that we could talk during the classes.

       Days after days and we became inseparable. Everybody in the school campus thought that we two were in a relationship. We were teased by our own friends but we brushed them off every time.

       We loved each other's company, loved our friendship - our bond and yes, we loved each other. Yes, we had become each other's soul mates.

       We were close to the point where I knew each and every dress in her wardrobe and even what color bras did she had and she knew that I had a birthmark on that one part of the body that should not be named.

       We bunked school on a number of occasions to watch horror movies together. We used to eat each other's leftovers and drank the soft drink from the same can every time and it was not out of love but because we were always short of money. We hugged each other out of panic whenever a frightening scene came on the big screen when we’re watching Anurag Basu's 'Saaya'.

       We cherished playing Basketball with each other in the school's backyard. I used to lose each game to her on purpose every time, just to see the flying high look on her face whenever she won. It was not even half the fun to play it with anybody else.

       She could call me on my landline to tell me that she would not be able to come to school the next day because she was on her periods. I could tell her how much fun I had the previous night watching that late-night adult movie without any awkwardness. She could abuse in front of me and I could cry in front of her.

       And yet we were, Just Friends.

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