If It’s Not Forever: It’s Not Love

by Datta, Durjoy

  Anyway, I flip the page over and see another short note. How can I stop? I almost died along with this guy.

  28 June 2010

  ‘Every day that I don’t see her, is a day not worth remembering. Because ever since I first saw her, she defines my life.’

  I saw her again today. Not just saw her. I followed her today. I hope she does not have a boyfriend. Even if she does, it would not matter. She is so beautiful. I see the guys who surround her all the time. They are all creepy. I hope she thinks so too. All of them tried to give her their old books. I even saw a few of them exchange numbers. I wish I were one of them. But I have already sold my books. Maybe I could get new ones for her. And scribble down short, sweet notes for her on every page. But I don’t want to be one of those creepy guys surrounding her. I will let it be.

  I wish to see her again tomorrow.

  I can read a lot faster than this, but I don’t want to. For every page that I turn I think that this person might be dead. It is a little unsettling. I have already imagined him in my head. He’s probably a geek with big spectacles and oiled hair. The kind who hide behind concrete pillars and stalk the girls they have a crush on. I don’t want the person in my head to end up dead. I flip through the diary, skimming the pages to find out whether he has written his name anywhere. No signs. No numbers. No addresses. Nothing.

  I move on to the next day. The page is a little burnt on the sides. I try not to imagine what must have happened to the hand that held that diary.

  2 July 2010

  ‘I don’t know whether my love is shallow or unfounded since we have never talked. But unrequited, untold love is the purest form of love. There is no pretence in that.’

  It has been two days and I have not seen her around. I wonder where she is. She looks like someone who studies a lot and doesn’t miss any classes. Maybe she is on a date with someone. Maybe not. I hope not. I will ask her name tomorrow. The guy at the stationery shop will say if he’ll be able to find that out for me. I don’t even know which section she is in. I have missed seeing her the last two days.

  I wish to see her tomorrow.

  Okay now this guy is creepy. He doesn’t have a life. Stalking somebody this badly? Who does that? My interest dwindles a bit. Though I feel a little sorry for him. I have been through what he went through. I was a geek once. Not that a lot has changed. I am still an ugly geek, so I know how that feels.

  Please don’t let this guy be dead, I think. But it’s a hollow thought. No one could have survived the impact of the blast after being so close to it. The diary is stark evidence of that.

  Anyway, I keep reading.

  17 July 2010

  ‘I don’t agree that if you are intrigued by a girl, you fall more in love with her. The more I know about her, the closer she comes to me. I want to know everything about the person I love.’

  Thank you, God! I saw her again today. The stationery guy had a lot of information about her. Her name is Ragini and she has left Lady Shri Ram College to come here. She is in third year too. That means I can’t give her my books. She moved in with her aunt here after her parents shifted to London this year. Maybe she is from a rich family, but I don’t care about that.

  I like the name. I am saying this name repeatedly in my head ever since I heard it. It sounds good. The stationery shop guy asked me to go and talk to her. He is a little crazy. She is pretty as a fairy. And I am … well, anyway. I know I don’t stand a chance. But some day, I will talk to her. Till that time, I will just look at her and feel happy. Happiness. Yes, that is what she looks like. I like her. She is like the warm morning sun on a cold winter morning to me.

  I wish to see her tomorrow.

  I am drawn to his story now. He might not be great with words but there is a certain honesty about him and what he writes. I can instantly feel a connection. It’s almost like I have written those words for Avantika. It is lovely and terrifying at the same time. I can’t be dead. I can’t leave Avantika behind. I feel sorry for him. Ragini would have been proud to read this, right? A guy so selfless in his love? Pure and untainted. Not a speck of lust.

  It’s not seen these days, is it? Guys don’t count days to when they would talk to a girl they like; instead, they try to guess when the girl would kiss them or make out with them. Avantika and I had kissed on our first date itself and had made out in the second, but I loved Avantika. I could have waited for an eternity for those things to happen. I was just lucky that I didn’t have to. I am so glad I did not have to stalk her like this guy.

  The dead guy. Every time this thought comes to my head, I am scared. What if she’d got married to the guy? 2010, right? That’s almost two years back! What if the dead guy eventually gets married to this girl, Ragini? Fuck.

  Just as I flip over to another page, a barrage of mails floods my inbox. Work. I close the diary, put it back in my drawer and get to work. The downside of running a publishing house is that you get many junk mails. And you don’t know they are junk till you’ve spent at least twenty minutes on each of them. Even today, there are a few manuscripts from new authors lying in a stack, waiting to be reviewed. Some of them are just-okay some of them are really good and some of them will take years to finish. Picking out that perfect manuscript written by a sensible author is a tough task. It’s more about luck than anything else, but I love doing that.

  I flip through some manuscripts. They are all college love stories. Yes, they are done to death, but they work! And I still like them. I lean back into my chair. This is a lot better than being at home and waiting for Avantika to get home and get out of her clothes.

  Just then, Avantika calls and it brings an instant smile to my face, like a small kid’s eyes light up outside a candy shop. Five years and nothing has changed. She still makes me the happiest I can ever be. She still makes my world go round.

  ‘Deb?’ she asks.

  ‘Hi! What’s up?’

  ‘Umm, nothing really. Are you okay? Have you eaten?’ she asks. She has reason to be concerned. I have been acting a little strange over the last fortnight.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I say.

  ‘Are you working?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay See you in the evening then,’ she says.

  ‘Wait, Avantika! Tell me something-if you find a personal diary on the road, will you read it?’

  ‘I will not,’ she says. She is almost instantly pissed off. ‘There is a reason why it is personal.’

  ‘And … what if the person is dead?’ I ask.

  ‘What?’ she says. There is some noise in the background. ‘Listen, Deb, I need to go. Can we talk about it when I get home?’ she asks sweetly.

  ‘Sure,’ I say and disconnect the call.

  I feel traumatized, disturbed. This could be the diary of a dead man. His last written words could be in my hands. It might have things that he had wanted to tell his friends, girlfriends, family … and might have never said before. That’s too much pressure. I’m a little scared now of what’s to come.

  I try and put myself in his place. If I were to write everything I feel about everyone in a diary and die, would I like my diary to be read? Yes, I would. I would like my last words to reach the people I love. They have a right to know what they meant to me. I wouldn’t miss any chance to tell Avantika that I love her. Or my parents. Even Shrey, for that matter.

  I get back to work. Shrey has not come back from his meeting with ‘somebody from the Times’ yet. I am sure the conference table is his bed and the discussions are limited to both of them saying just one word—Yes! Yes! Yes!

  Five hours have passed by and it’s already six in the evening. I leave the office and look for an auto. I have the diary with me. I cannot wait to get back to it. I sit in the auto and open the diary, even when a part of me doesn’t want to. I know it will take me just an hour to finish the full diary and I don’t want it to end so soon. But the curiosity is killing me. I open it and start reading slowly.

  25 August 2010

&n
bsp; ‘A whiff of her perfume, a tiny chirp from her sweet lips and just one look from those almond-shaped eyes make my day. I need nothing else.’

  Ragini. I tried to stand really close to her at the bus stop today. She was alone. I wanted to talk to her, but didn’t know what to say. She looked beautiful and I stood there staring at her. The sun reflected off her glazing long black hair. I followed her into her bus. People around me saw me stare at her. I didn’t care. I got down where she got down. It was pretty far away from my place, but I couldn’t care less. I walked behind her till she entered the gate of a building. Sea View Apartments. I walked back to the nearest bus stop and caught the next bus home.

  I wish to see her again tomorrow.

  I google Sea View Apartments on my phone. Nothing substantial comes out. They have apartments of that name all across the country. In at least fifty cities. I shut the diary. I still don’t know which city this guy lived in. I get restless. The auto drops me off at my place and I can’t wait for night to fall so I can read the rest of the diary. It’s too early to tell Avantika anything about it. I don’t want to come across as a freak and I am a little scared how she will react to me reading someone else’s diary.

  Avantika is sleeping. This night is slightly better than the past ones. I am in the balcony again, staring at wide open spaces. I clutch the diary. I am torn. Stories excite me, but stories that end too soon sadden me. I don’t want this to end. The diary I hold in my hand has a story with a lot of value to me. The guy who wrote this diary is dead. I could have been that guy. If I had written a diary and died in that blast, someone else would be reading it. Maybe him. And it would have killed me had he not read it. My last chance of reaching out to my loved ones would have gone waste.

  So, in a twisted manner, that guy and I are connected. I am the last person to read what he last wrote. I am probably the only person who will ever read this diary. It’s a huge responsibility. I have survived and he has not. But he lives through the diary I hold. He lives through what he tells me in this diary.

  Yes, we all snatch the diaries of our friends and browse through them, but this is different. This diary has the last words of a dead man. I open it again with trembling hands.

  7 September 2010

  ‘I don’t think colours and hues make her look beautiful. It’s the other way around.’

  I think she noticed me stare at her today. I had waited for her bus to stop outside our college. She wore green and fuchsia pink. And looked resplendent. She has made quite a few guy friends and I am jealous. While they sit near her, smile and laugh with her, all I can do is sit at a distance, alone, and stare at her. Today, I sat on a bench right next to her. Her voice is sweet. Like little birds chirping on a bright Sunday morning. Her shining eyes and honey-sweet voice are like windows to her pure, clean soul. Maybe I will talk to her tomorrow. Maybe she will chirp for me. Only for me. I can’t get my mind off her. Her face, her simplicity, her voice, her slender fingers, I just can’t stop thinking about her. It’s like I am possessed. I am hers. I wonder what she is doing now. Did she really catch me staring at her? Does she know I exist?

  I wish to see her again tomorrow.

  I finish reading the diary when it’s one in the night. I am wide awake and I notice that I have put bookmarks in a million different places. I can’t put in words how I feel about it. As I read the diary, it was as if I was the dead guy and Ragini was Avantika. It seemed like my diary and my story. I am enraged that I didn’t get to tell the girl I loved the most that I loved her and now I am dead. It’s frustrating and I am exasperated. It’s like a novel with no end. Or a movie without the climax scene. And it’s just grossly unfair. It feels like my own story has come to an abrupt end.

  I have read the full diary, but still found no addresses, no numbers and no clues for me to know who the guy was. It’s infinitely irritating. I just have to know who he is and I will do anything for that. It’s my only chance at redemption, the only chance of helping one of the many people who died that morning. It’s my only chance to make those images in my head go away forever. I will not let this go. I will find an end to this diary. I have to.

  I start reading the diary again—from start to finish—with higher concentration this time round. I don’t want to miss a single thing. This time, I start taking notes to find out who the guy was. Within an hour, I have finished reading it again.

  The Diary

  16 September 2010

  ‘You’re in love when she’s around and when her voice alone is your guiding light, your only motivation in your life. I am in love.’

  I will never forget this day. I cannot forget this day. This day defines me now. I hadn’t seen her for many days before today. It was just another morning and I was a little restless. Dejected, I reached the bus stop at the time she used to and waited for her to come, hoping against hope. She came, I looked at her and she looked amazing. I don’t think she saw me. The bus came and there was a mad rush to jump into the bus. She was standing right beside me as we waited for people to board the already crowded bus.

  I went out of the line and motioned to her that she should get in first. There was way too much jostling and she couldn’t get in. The bus started moving and her eyebrows made a small frowning hill on her head. She looked adorable. She glanced at me and whispered an apology. ‘Sorry’-the first word she said to me. I thanked the bus driver in my heart and smiled at her. We waited for the bus, but I knew the next bus wouldn’t come for the next twenty minutes. I shifted in my place. I knew I wouldn’t get a better chance to talk to her. I have been in relationships before and it’s not as if I can’t talk to girls. But with her, it’s something different.

  I looked at her and waited for her to look at me. When she looked at me, I said a feeble ‘Hi’ and she replied. The pressure of starting a conversation was on me and I was getting very nervous. I asked her if she was in my college and she nodded. She added that she had seen me around. I wondered if she knew that I was stalking her, but she told me that she knew me from a students’ council meeting. She sweetly complained about the buses and how far she lived from college. I nodded and added in. Her sweet, chirpy voice made me forget all about whatever was going on around us. We introduced ourselves. She asked me where I lived and I remembered an apartment near hers and lied.

  The next bus came a little too early. We both got in. She got a seat and I stood. She offered to hold my bag and I gave it to her. We smiled. It seemed like one of those daydream sequences I had had about her and me, but it was actually happening. We didn’t talk much as the bus was jerking too much. We reached our bus stop and got down. She looked at me and asked me if I took this bus every day. I nodded and her smile seemed to say-will see you around. She walked away. I wish I had taken her number. But I have no complaints. I got to talk to her today.

  I wish I could see her tomorrow.

  ‘Deb?’ A voice calls out from behind. It is Avantika. I always like her best when she is half-sleepy and all messed up. That’s when I feel the luckiest. Even when she is not at her best, she is still the best-looking girl I have ever come across. I feel like the guy from the diary, looking at someone I love like a cowardly geek.

  It’s three in the night. I’d slept while reading the diary for the third time that night. The pages are now creased from where I had folded them. I have made some notes on my cell phone and some on little scraps of paper. They make no sense at all. I am very anxious and I cannot get what I have read out of my head. It is very disturbing yet enamouring. All I know is I have to find Ragini. The mysterious girl from the book, the girl who screwed up, the girl who has to know about this guy, RD, and his undying love for her.

  ‘Why did you get up?’ I ask. I slip the diary behind me to prevent her from spotting it.

  ‘Won’t you sleep?’

  ‘I guess I will,’ I say and hug her. For the first time in the past fortnight, I feel sleepy. The images are still there in my head but they are blurring a little. Suddenly, my head is fille
d with images from the notes in that diary. The guy. His best friend. The pretty girl. The unfortunate sister. The inconsiderate guy. There are no faces in the pictures in my head, there are no places, but there is a story. The story of a person who is now dead. The dead guy left a story behind. A story that I have to make sense of. It is incomplete and I cannot let it be that way. The girl has to know.

  I write for a living and every time I write a book, the only thing I look forward to is the ending. A book without an ending makes no sense. It is the same with this diary. It is incomplete. The first and the last few pages are burnt beyond recognition. Maybe they were all blank, but I want to know and I will find out. Even if they were blank, Ragini, the girl from the diary, needs to know about this guys love for her! I hug Avantika that night and sleep like a baby.

  The next morning, I wake up with a start. I am clutching and groping around on the bed for it. The diary.

  ‘What happened?’ Avantika asks as she dusts her face with make-up. Not that she needs any. She looks better without it.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say not wanting to sound like a creep.

  She tells me she has served the breakfast on the table and that she needs to rush. She is working very hard and I don’t like her working her ass off. She should work her ass off for me … if you know what I mean. Anyway, she leaves and I get the diary from where I had hidden it. It almost draws me towards it. I turn over the pages I have already read thrice.

  I finish breakfast and rush to the office. I take an auto and it takes the same route it had taken that day. For a second, I feel like getting down and walking around the place where I found the diary, but I decide against it. I have horrendous images in my head of this guy burning to death. I don’t want them to get more vivid. I can almost feel him around me, asking me, ‘So, now that you’ve read my diary, what will you do about it?’

  There is a lot of pending work in office and Shrey is going to meet that ‘someone from the Times’ again. It’s strange to see him go for a second date. Maybe he’s taking his work very seriously. He is working too hard this time. He leaves me with a few manuscripts to go through. But none of them interests me.