Avantika holds Ritam’s hand and tells him, ‘Ritam, you’re the nicest guy I have ever met. Please don’t do anything stupid like you did a few days back.’ She starts crying and Tiya joins in.
‘Oh,’ Ritam says as both of them hug him. ‘I won’t. And now that I have Ragini, I have all the will to live again. I am the happiest I could ever have been.’
‘Where are her parents?’ Tiya asks between her sobs. She is now crying like a baby, almost howling.
‘They are out to see her doctor,’ he says. ‘But why are you crying, Tiya?’
‘I am just so happy for you,’ she says and hugs him again.
‘That’s sweet.’
‘But why did the folks in London tell you that there was a death in the family?’ she asks.
‘They must have assumed it. Ragini’s parents had rushed to Delhi as soon as they got to know that Ragini was in the blast and was critically hurt. When the people in London did not hear from her parents, they assumed that she must have died … Her parents were supposed to go back to London in a month or two, but …’
‘Supposed to? Now they are not?’ I ask.
‘Nope,’ he says. ‘They have plans in Delhi now.’
‘What plans?’ Avantika asks.
Ritam smirks and says, ‘They have to get their daughter married off.’
‘What?’ Tiya almost blurts out.
‘I already have the ring,’ he says. ‘Her parents have agreed to it. I just need to ask her now.’
He gets up and fishes something out from a drawer nearby. It’s ring case. He hands it over to Tiya and Avantika, who open it and their eyes pop out as they see the ring. I don’t know much about rings, but the diamond in that one is fucking huge.
‘You’re going to ask her to marry you?’ Tiya says.
He nods.
Avantika and Tiya look at Ritam as if to say, ‘Awww.’
‘She might say no, though,’ he says, the enthusiasm in his voice dipping.
‘Why would she do that?’ Avantika asks, almost offended.
‘I don’t know. She has hinted that she would.’
‘But why would she do that? You’re the best guy anyone could ever have. I will talk to her,’ Tiya says, almost like a little kid, and looks at Ritam.
‘Doctors don’t give her more than four months to live.’
What? Suddenly, the atmosphere turns gloomy again.
‘Don’t make faces yet,’ he says and tries to smile. ‘I will make her live. Now that I have her back, she is not going anywhere.’
We try to smile too, but our eyes have only sadness and horror.
Ritam adds, ‘Ragini has to live. For me. And she will. I will make her live.’
A lone tear trickles down his cheek.
Author’s Note
Terror struck Delhi again on Wednesday morning, when a deadly bomb went off at a busy gate of the Delhi High Court. It killed 11 people and left 76 others injured. The bomb went off barely 300 metres away from the spot where a minor explosion had taken place on May 25, which was also a Wednesday. Police officials now say that it could have been a test run for this blast …
—Hindustan Times, 7 September 2011
There are certain incidents in life that shape you as a person, as a citizen and friend, and decide what course you take in life. The Delhi High Court blast in September 2011 is such an incident for me. If It’s Not Forever … is the story loosely inspired by that blast—which left several men, women and children dead or injured—and a search mounted by me and a few of my close friends to find an end to the story of one of the men who lost his life in that unfortunate blast. Names of places, landmarks and people have been changed on the request of those involved in the story in this book.
This book is a tribute to all the innocent lives we have lost to senseless acts of violence and terrorism.
Durjoy Datta
Epilogue
Three months have passed by and Ragini’s health is progressing. She still hasn’t accepted Ritam’s proposal, but it seems that she might do that soon. They look like the happiest couple I have ever seen. Only last week, Ragini started walking on her own, without a stick. She also saw the mirror for the first time since the blast. Ragini now wants to have an extensive reconstructive surgery if she manages to live. Ritam opposes it. He says that it’s a waste of money and she is still beautiful to him. And also, ‘Now I will have to fall in love with a different face all over again!’ And Ragini replies, At least I will have a face!’
Sweet couple.
Talking about sweet couples, there is, as always, Avantika and I. The only thing that has stuck in her mind out of the whole ordeal is the ring that Ritam had bought. Now, she wants it. Girls, everywhere, are the same. Vanity and materialism rules them. One wants a face, the other wants a ring. Where does it leave us? I have been looking for a ring that could show how much I love her. No headway yet. If only we had not spent that much on the road trip, maybe …
Perfect boyfriends like Ritam are such a pain in the ass.
Talking about pain in the ass think Shrey has finally gone down the love lane. Tiya and Shrey are still very much in love. After dating strippers and a lot of underage women, the time has finally come for Shrey to slow down. Tiya and Shrey are going strong and it seems like this would last. They break up once every fifteen days, but with Avantika’s and my intervention, they patch up soon enough. I like them.
And lastly, I finished the book. It’s in your hands. I couldn’t do justice to what Ragini and Ritam share, but at least I finished it. They are pretty happy about it though. I had struggled with different titles for this one for quite some time until Ritam called me up one day and said, ‘Ragini and I were meant to be together. After all, if it’s not forever … it’s not love.’
True, that.
Acknowledgements
We have noticed that the pressure of writing an acknowledgement—funny how it makes authors adorable and popular amongst their friends and family—always gets to us. Plus, it’s the first thing that everyone reads, after the blurb on the back cover, which is usually exaggerated and makes the story look like it’s the best ever written, so the responsibility to make it interesting is quite unsettling, to say the least.
Since we are failing miserably in being funny or interesting, we will just go ahead and thank the people who have helped us put together what we think is a wonderful book (obviously).
We thank Maanvi Ahuja, for being a guiding light, and Sachin Garg, for being a phenomenal source of inspiration. We would like to take this opportunity to thank two of our friends who were affected by the Delhi High Court blast of 7 September 2011 and we salute them for their courage. This book would not have been possible if it were not for their support. I hope this book does justice to their story, even if in a very small way.
There are a bunch of people whom we would like to thank for a variety of reasons—good, bad and socially unacceptable—and we will just name them because we desperately want to tell them that we love them. We thank Neeti Rustagi, Orvana Ghai, Avantika Mohan, Preeti Shenoy, Arpit Khandelwal, Eeshaan Sharma, Abhishek Sachdeve, Nitin Verma, Komal Rustagi, Roma Thakur, Prashant Bajaj, Naman Kapur, Abhishek Chopra, Priyanka Chatterjee, Gunjan Suyal, Tanu Dey, Siddhi Waingankar, Chandnee Kaurani, Khushboo Balwan Rawal, Pia Balwani, Arushi Sarin, Shraddha Vyas, Sayantini Deb, Ahana Ghai, Uttara Rao, Vaaruni Dhawan, Samaneh Jawad, Pooja Raigandhi, Kruthika Sl, Rini Ghosh, Loveleen Arora, Mehak Srivastava, Ronisha Malhotra, Medha Shree, Aeshna Nigam and many others whom we are sure we have missed.
Also, a big hug goes to all our readers who have been following us on Facebook, Twitter and various other social networking websites. We thank you for all the support you have extended to us.
We would like to thank our extended families and Guruji for his blessings.
And lastly, we would thank ourselves for our limitless compassion and tolerance for the nuisance we create for each other.
Also In Penguin Metro Reads
&nbs
p; Till the Last Breath …
Durjoy Datta
To the everlasting power of love …
Two patients are admitted to room no. 509. One is a brilliant nineteen-year-old medical student, suffering from an incurable, fatal disease. She counts every extra breath as a blessing. The other is a twenty-five-year-old drug addict whose organs are slowly giving up. He can’t wait to get rid of his body. To him, the sooner the better.
Two reputed doctors, fighting their own demons from the past, are trying everything to keep these two patients alive, even putting their medical licences at risk. These last days in the hospital change the two patients, their doctors and all the other people around them in ways they had never imagined.
Till the Last Breath … is a deeply sensitive story which reminds us what it means to be alive.
You Were My Crush
Till You Said You Love Me!
Durjoy Datta • Orvana Ghai
Would you change yourself for the love of your life?
Benoy zips around in a Bentley, lives alone in a palatial house and is every girl’s dream. To everyone in college he is a stud and a heartbreaker. But is he, really? What no one sees is his struggle to come to terms with his mother’s untimely death and his very strained relationship with his father.
Then once again his world turns upside down when he sees the gorgeous Shaina. He instantly falls in love but she keeps pushing him away. What is stopping them from having their fairy-tale romance? What is Shaina hiding?
It’s time Benoy learned his lesson about love and relationships …
THE BEGINNING
Let the conversation begin...
Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@PenguinIndia
Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/PenguinIndia
Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook.com/PenguinIndia
Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at penguinbooksindia.com
PENGUIN METRO READS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Block D, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Grapevine India Publishers 2012
Published in Penguin Metro Reads by Penguin Books India 2013
www.penguinbooksindia.com
Copyright © Durjoy Datta 2013
Cover photographs © Getty Images
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-143-42156-6
This digital edition published in 2013.
e-ISBN: 978-9-351-18297-9
If It’s Not Forever: It’s Not Love Page 21
